Orchard Residence

Location
2202 N. Orchard Map

Owner
Private Residence

Architect
Dirk Denison Architects

The Orchard Residence is a 9,700 sf, 3-story plus basement single-family home currently under construction (6,600 sf with basement and garage). This is the largest home we've covered yet and is certain to raise some eyebrows because of the materials and energy consumption associated with such size, although it is worth noting it will be home to a large family. Most customer luxury projects include advanced features such as renewable energy equipment or ground-source heat pumps, but the green features on this home are mostly the basics.

The most advance energy feature here is the use of spray foam insulation (still unusual although increasing in popularity). There are also automatically controlled shades - something only affordable in high-end homes, but allowing shades to automatically lower and reduce heat gain as the sun moves around the building. Water is stored and reused for irrigation - normally rain barrels are used on a home, but here a concrete tank is incorporated in the basement design. There is also a green roof on top of the (four-car) garage. Beyond these, there's the usual low-VOC finishes, low-flow plumbing fixtures, and FSC-certified wood. A note on FSC wood: I recently learned that Home Depot will soon begin training sales staff and clearly labeling FSC wood - the product has been available at Home Depot for a while but no one could tell you what was certified and what wasn't!

Finally, although I avoid playing architecture critic, I must point out the context of this project - it is a few blocks north of the area experiencing controversial development of even larger homes on much larger lots (more here and here). Given that context, this project is almost modest!

Other project team members include MEP engineer BES, structural engineer Thornton Tomasetti, landscape designer Douglas Hoerr, lighting designer Filament 33, and fish tank consultant Bryan Schuetze (there is an extensive aquatic collection and a basement room dedicated to equipment for the fish tanks!).

Comments

[Kevin Pierce]

Nice that the spray foam text links is to the federal Path Technologies site. It would be nice to know the specific manufacturer and installer also.

[John Joyce]

A manufacturer that I am calling for is BioBased Systems, LLC, www.biobased.net. They offer two products, 501 (r-4 per inch) and 1702 (r-7) per inch. A local installer that I was referred to by the company is SOTO Insulation in Chicago on Ashland; 773.890.0356.

[mike]

this house is way too big to be considered green--get real!

[Licoln Parker]

"this project is almost modest"

What a load of crap. This project is out of context with everything in its neghborhood. Yes, the Sears Tower & Hancock Building are bigger, but what difference does that make?

[elsa]

Depressing. The character of this neighborhood has been destroyed for decades now. Urban renewal ripped up so many historic buildings in the 1960s and 1970s, and gentrification made it worse.

I grew up a block from this house, across the street from subsidized housing that my parents voted for. When I was little, the neighborhood was racially mixed. By the time I hit high school, it was pretty much black on one side of the street, mostly white on the other.

When my parents moved to Orchard St. in 1977, we had the "best" looking house on the block. They applied for at least 30 loans and were declined by all but the last bank, Aetna, because the area was redlined.

By the time we sold the building nearly 10 years ago, it was looking a bit sad around the edges. We couldn't afford the taxes and the upkeep. The people who sold the building a few years later doubled their money.

This neighborhood was wonderful growing up. There were some gangs, but the neighbors looked out for each other from their front stoops. I felt like a badass city kid running through the empty lots full of wildflowers and, yeah, broken glass. Little old German ladies wheeled their grocery carts around, little kids rode their banana seat bikes to the corner store a few blocks away, teens in shower caps blasted Curtis Blow on their boomboxes while in protest, my mom blasted Beethoven out of the window of her 8x10 bedroom.

The site of the YMCA where "Tarzan" actor Johnny Weismuller trained as a kid nearly 100 years ago was razed in the 80s to make way for a gated condo community that doesn't even allow space for a firetruck to drive in.

In the 80s people got excited about downtown again and tore down the historic buildings to make their vanity palaces. I went to school with some of these people who thought it was fabulous to rip down classic 19th century frame 2-flats to build a sprawling, domestic replica of a French art museum to showcase their personal art collection.

Howe Street was even worse. Some of the city's wealthiest people took a beautiful street with an assortment of wonderfully-built old barns, a church, and turned it into a showcase of masturbatory modern design. Couldn't they have picked an empty block that didn't already have nice buildings to destroy?

As our neighborhood friend O'Ray (R.I.P) had painted on the doorway of his home, it had become "Howe $treet." How sustainable is that?

I hate to see "greening" the neighborhood as something that would continue to destroy the architectural integrity...too late for that. Maybe greening the area can at least erase some of the architectural abuses that have blighted it. I especially hope that people will tear down the walls in their front yards and bring some porches back.

And how about helping to green Neighborhood Commons on the 1600 block of Orchard? They at least have BBQs and get to know their neighbors.

Where did all the renegades go? They couldn't afford the area anymore. Someone should look up the true history of how Oz Park came to be named.