The building is a turn of the century brick “Spanish Revival” style building.  It’s certainly an architecturally beautiful and unusual building and very much stands out from the other buildings in the neighborhood, but it’s footprint, and situation on the lot are very much typical of the thousands of brick two flats which line the streets of Chicago. It’s history is a bit sketchy. We’ve researched using city and Chicago Historical Society resources and found out very little.  We purchased it from another photographer and we know that at some point before that it was a restaurant and from notes we found in the basement, a taylor shop. It was probably a store in the front of the ground floor and living quarters in the back-- again, like many Chicago store fronts from the first half of the 20th century.

Our plan involves a considerable modernization of the building while being constantly vigilant to maintaining it’s historical beauty. That may sound strange but John Joyce Architects have done an unbelievable job of keeping us focused on the possibility that the building could look like a 100 year old building while still serving our modern sensibilities.  In the elevation above, you can see that the addition to the 3rd story is set back to minimize it visually. This is not to say that we want to hide the addition but that it should take a role secondary to the original structure.  We have no interest in attempting to simulate the old with our new construction but to compliment it and create real synergy.

The new construction will be incredibly energy efficient with an R value of as much as 30 in much of the structure and high efficiency windows. The older part of the building will be mostly stripped down to brick and as while thats happening, significant tightening of the air pocket inside of the building will occur using blown in, soy-based insulation. It’s interesting to note that while we are limited in some things we can do which might be “traditionally” considered green, the choices we are making are by far the most impactful choices which you can make in building green. One large limitation for us is light. Our building is already situated facing directly east which limits what we can do to utilize radiant energy while still maintaining the historical beauty of the building. We have used light where we can and our choices in the new construction have very much been colored by the patterns of the sun throughout the year and the greenest choices have been made. Another huge limitation is budget. It is not possible for us to consider geothermal, wind turbines, or solar electric. We know that many of the less expensive choices make up the greatest impact in energy savings and environmental impact.

The studio will be a very modern and a much more intimate space than my current studio. The usable studio space will be less than 1000 square feet while my current studio is more than 3500.  It will be a blend of very functional space for our photography and very beautiful, comfortable space for clients and visitors. A staircase will climb from the back of the studio space up through the second and third floors with a skylight above which will pour light all the way down through the building. This staircase will connect both the offices on the second floor and the home on second and third floor. We think this physical connection will bring together our home and work lives.

The classic, historic store front facade of the building will open very logically onto our more modern gallery and studio space. There will be delineation of space using dividers with glass and transparent photos.  In a struggle to maintain clean, open space in a working photography studio, we have tried to pare down storage space while accommodating all the needs to store and have easy access to photo equipment.  It’s been tough but I think we will have a great space which will be clean, usable and a great first look at our home and studio. As part of our commitment to marrying home and work, we have very consciously chosen that anyone who enters our home will enter through the studio. 

We’ve made a bunch of green choices in the “studio” space. The space has a flyash concrete floor with radiant heating in the floor. This floor, the concrete pad for our metal stairway, and some footings in our yard for the porch are the only cement work in our project.  We will be pulling down all wall board and blowing in soy based insulation against the bricks and sealing the building envelop. Compromises have been made as to the available historic profiles in the highest efficiency windows and doors for our store front.  We think we’ve done well at creating a tight, high performance store front that looks really good in historical context with the building on a tight budget. You can be the judge when you see the finished product!  I’ve pushed a bit for all of our studio “gallery” lighting to be either florescent or energy smart.  It turns out that this isn’t so easy.  When you need very spot focused lighting, the  approach is usually incandescent and that isn’t green.  We think we’ve found the solution.