A local builder with a thirty-foot-wide lot in a rapidly gentrifying Chicago neighborhood requested a contemporary brick home for his own family. A unique requirement was a full-roof deck for three-season use.

Avatar designed a 4,000 square foot home on four levels, orienting the home?s principal spaces to exploit unusual site advantages. The resulting masonry-on-frame design features four principal façades clad in altenating color bands of modular brick with limestone accents, unified with a masonry and stone parapet. Other features include metal-clad principal stair tower and side bay facing an open landscaped corner. The design achieves its harmony through carefully controlled brick articulation and rhythmic window placement. A limestone surround defines the front entryway and stairs.

Large windows sunken just below grade in the front, as well as a walk-out terrace at the rear of the lower level provide ample light and air to rooms in the finished basement. A three-story open interior stair tower capped with a large skylight disperses south light to all floors and provides access to a full-roof deck.

Completion is expected in mid-2006.