THE ZORN RESIDENCE
CHICAGO, ILLINOIS

Project Type
Single-Family Residential
Project Architect
John Lockwood Carhart
Architect of Record
Krueck & Sexton, Chicago

   The house is located on the last open lot in a residential planned unit development on the north side of Chicago. It is positioned on the 100’ x 88’ lot to maintain open views to the south and to break from the rythm of townhouse facades immediately adjacent. The owners, a couple with two young children, were dissatisfied with the narrow rooms and limited light of their existing residence and desired an open composition where the whole interior space could be perceived. The house is designed as a simple masonry and glass volume where the interior is carved out to create a central two story living space. The living area is amplified by having the primary glass wall slide behind a secondary glass curtain wall. The secondary wall projects beyond the volume and has a glass pattern that expresses the overlap of the primary and secondary systems and the two story space that it encloses. A slot window on the west elevation provides views to the street and extends as a continuous skylight across the roof, washing diffused natural light into the center of the second floor. Initially conceived as a pure rectangle, the house form is broken, shifted, and overlapped, allowing an expression of multiple volumes that are re-integrated and balanced into one composition.

   John served as the project architect for this house which involved collaborating directly with the building’s lead designer, Ronald Krueck.  John produced and coordinated all the necessary drawings for construction and was intimately involved with every aspect of the building’s successful execution.