WKA Apartments

Wheeler Kearns Architects

Contents

Wheeler Kearns Architects - Mission Lakeview Penthouse Ambassador Residence Montgomery Residence Goethe Lakeview Apartment Skybridge Mayfair Residence for Two Collectors

When a space we design resonates with your deepest intention, it has a lasting and powerful impact. As we work with you, we devote all our energies to understanding your core purpose, the transformation you seek, your mission.

We want to see your challenge through your eyes. Doing this guides us to what we call the “emotional center,” the heart around which your entire project revolves. We return to that central idea as we craft concepts, help you make decisions, and refine our responses to those choices. Everything from the big-picture view to the design of a door handle evolves from that emotional center.

The result is a space that responds uniquely to your life. When a client contacts us years after a project is complete to let us know they’re “just sitting here experiencing beyondexpectations contentment,” we know we’ve gotten it right.

Wheeler Kearns is a collective practice of architects.

We work with people who seek to enrich their lives in spaces that embody their purpose, energy and vision.

Lakeview Penthouse

Year Completed 2018 Location Chicago, IL

Photography Steve Hall - Hall + Merrick Photography

Situated within a two-story mansard penthouse with stunning 270-degree views, this duplex apartment establishes a series of material layers that unfold around a J-shaped plan and create spaces between them.

Connecting the two floors is a sculptural stair fabricated from oxidized steel and glass, up-lit from an illuminated glass platform below. The stair, along with primary living and sleeping areas, resides between a polished plaster perimeter and a warm, millwork paneled core. Curved exterior walls acknowledge the traditional mansard geometry of the ornamental building but re-interpret it. The plaster walls, detailed as a 3” thick shell, are revealed away from the structural concrete columns and are pulled inboard from the windows to lighten its appearance visually.

The reflective qualities of the polished surface indirectly illuminate the spaces and provide an everchanging relationship between the occupants and their immediate surroundings. A strategic lighting strategy helps manage glare from the windows during the day, and at night, radiates the curved walls with soft, warm light.

On the inboard side, gray lacquered panels and a millwork core define the kitchen, bathrooms, and other service rooms. At openings and penetrations through it, such as the entry, the kitchen, and thresholds along the corridor, additional layers are unveiled including flat-cut walnut oxidized steel, painted plaster, and decorative tile.

Ambassador Residence

Year Completed 2012 Location Chicago, IL

Photography Toni Soluri

Publications

“Balanced Equation”Luxe Magazine

Located in Chicago’s historic Gold Coast neighborhood in a former hotel, the project entails the renovation of a 12th floor mechanical penthouse into a two-story apartment for a young suburban family seeking a more “metropolitan life” in the city.

A sculptural staircase in the art-clad foyer connects the main floor common spaces (kitchen, dining room, living room and study) and bedrooms to the new 13th floor penthouse, where a large exterior terrace acts as an extension of the family/guest room.

The 5,400 square-foot former mechanical space benefited from 12-13 foot high ceilings and sweeping views towards downtown to the south, and Lake Michigan to the east. The homeowner— an interior designer and art collector—desired a balance of private and social spaces, allowing for the ability to entertain guests without disturbing the private spaces. The owner’s vast contemporary art collection also required art to be displayed in a museum type setting.

The curved vertical connection is designed to be compact and tucked away, but also allow for an unobstructed visual connection from the entry hall through the living room window to views of the city. The circular stair had to revolve on itself while providing code required head clearances, and also conceal the landing from view when outside of the stair. Wrapped in white venetian plaster, the rift-oak treads and risers continue the warmth from the wood floors that extend throughout the entire apartment.

Year Completed 2006 Location Chicago, IL Photography Christopher Barrett - Hedrich Blessing Awards 2008 - Prix Interieurs, Ferdie Award

Montgomery Apartment

Located in the former Montgomery Ward Headquarters, this residence for an art gallery owner and family was designed to function as private space as well as public art gallery. The residence occupies the southeast corner of the original penthouse floor with extensive views south towards the city skyline and east towards the John Hancock Center.

The L-shaped plan contains public spaces that vary in scale and transformable levels of intimacy. One side is articulated with the smaller scale kitchen, dining room and sitting/media room; these spaces share an axis and connecting views.

The other side is occupied by a contrasting larger scale open living room. The spaces can be further enclosed/separated by a series of full-height draperies. The scale of spaces is not immediately revealed upon entering the residence; ebony wall shelves in the entry turn the corner and lead one into the living room. At the far end of the living room, a site specific sculpture of red glass block and stainless steel by Jaume Plensa, anchors the corner of the living room.

Goethe

Year Completed 2009 Location Chicago, IL Photography Steve Hall - Hedrich Blessing

A long sycamore wall establishes a datum along the southern edge of the north wing that the primary spaces register to. A portal within that wall, at the entry, frames a bronze fireplace volume and stone server that directs people to the northeast corner, where primary views exist.

Within the north wing, prismatic volumes enclose smaller rooms that are captured by stone floors. Each floor reflects two opposing ceiling conditions; a raised up-lit ceiling for entertaining and a lowered, more intimate, millwork ceiling for sleeping.

The building’s traditional radial corner was stripped of ornament, but used to rotate the space 90 degrees south to the formal dining room, terminating in an insular millwork wine room. The project presents a dialogue between a modern interior language and a very traditional shell. Formal axis, symmetry and balance are used as principals to transcend style and allow the two vocabularies to comfortably co-exist.

Year Completed 2013 Location Chicago, IL Photography Steve Hall - Hedrich Blessing

Lakeview Apartment

Located in a high-rise overlooking Lake Michigan, the Lakeview Apartment transforms an existing three bedroom apartment into a spacious, multifunctional home for two empty-nesters.

This adaptability, therefore, eliminates typical hallway functions on the inward side of the building and opens up the entire length of the window wall to free-flowing circulation. Daylight and lake views, maximized.

Rather than traditional opaque walls, millwork and operable panels allow the apartment to adapt; defining different rooms or completely opening the space to maximize panoramic views. Sliding walls and a murphy-bed can quickly convert a reading room into a cozy guest bedroom; drapery can enclose a sunlit living room, transforming it into a tuned home theatre, and drop down panels can conceal the utility of cooking.

Complimentary warm tones in the oak floor and chestnut millwork enhance the owner’s collection of artwork and foster intimate gathering spaces.

Skybridge

Year Completed 2006 Location Chicago, IL Photography Steve Hall - Hedrich Blessing

This two-story residential unit on the 35th floor of a high rise in Chicago’s near-west side has unique views of the skyline and horizon line. Due East, foreground views of Chicago’s skyline. Due North and West, unobstructed views extending beyond the city limits to the horizon line.

A single four-foot diameter concrete column supporting the building’s most prominent feature, the rooftop canopy, bisects the interior into two double-height volumes. Two different ceiling elements, an additive wood plane and a subtractive volume, reinforce the two zones delineated by the building column.

A two-story millwork wall along the east edge of the residence conceals existing equipment on the building’s perimeter. Portals within the millwork wall provide selective views of the skyline, and the illusion that the skyline is present in the foreground as artwork within the interior spaces.

Mayfair

Year Completed 2001 Location Chicago, IL

Photography Steve Hall - Hedrich Blessing

Located in the penthouse restaurant of the former Mayfair Hotel, high above Lake Shore Drive, this residence for collectors is a collaboration of art, architecture and interior design.

On one axis, the entry door opens onto a central hall that is flanked on either side by the library and kitchen, and leads into the main salon and dining room that has sweeping views over Lake Michigan.

The duplex penthouse has an open tee-shaped plan with distinct spaces that can transform and adapt to changing needs for privacy or openness, providing spaces both expansive and intimate.

The second axis of the tee, houses the private spaces in a more densely programmed bar. The roof terraces above are also scaled for both intimate and large gatherings, enjoying the unobstructed views of the city and lake shore.

Year Completed 2016 Location Chicago, IL Photography Tom Rossiter

Residence for Two Collectors

After a lengthy property search, a full penthouse floor of a Chicago high-rise was discovered that afforded 360-degree views, 11-foot high ceilings, and a double height space looking south to the city. The space was gutted to a shell condition, awaiting the new interventions.

The process was truly collaborative, with the owners intimately knowledgeable and fascinated by the way things are made. Discussions led often to Jean Prouve and Pierre Chareau, who offered the precedent of machined elements that could operate, transforming spaces of long views and openness to ones contained and in-between.

The owners brief was “a home we love, have pride in, are comfortable in; with an ability to entertain graciously with simple elegance”. It was to feel comfortable for the couple and their dog, their immediate family, and for hosting philanthropic events for up to 75 people. Lifelong collectors, the brief also included finding homes for numerous pieces of mid-century (to present-day) furniture, sculpture, and art.

The first essential material decision was the non-directional end-grain walnut floor, which provides a visual weight and durable surface for the large gatherings that take place. Plastered perimeter walls for art; perforated metal, slatted wood, and floating planes of fabric provide acoustic absorption. Machined, patinaed steel fabrications were subsequently “inserted” as operative/ functional elements: barn/pocketing doors, shelving/storage/mezzanine loft and stair.