Half Dose #6: Old Orchard Woods
Last night, David Hovey of Optima spoke at IIT, a lecture timed to the recently-published book on his work, The Nature of Dwellings. As both developer and architect, Optima is able to create suburban residential developments of daring design that might be impossible otherwise. Old Orchard Woods is no exception.
Old Orchard Woods is located right off the Edens Expressway north of Chicago in Skokie, between the Old Orchard Shopping Center and Harms Woods Forest Preserve. The immediate area contains many unexceptional commercial structures, so the glassy Modernism of the development should stand out.
The asymmetrical massing and linking of future phases are unique aspects of the development that features from one to four bedroom apartments, a pool, spa, sundeck, a party room, and tennis courth. Of the planned Oak, Elm, and Maple Towers, the first is now under construction.
Links:
Links:
- Optima's Old Orchard Woods page.
- MoCo Loco's page on The Nature of Dwelling.
- Listen to Edward Lifson and Ned Cramer talk about Hovey, from Sunday's Hello Beautiful!
- A Sun-Times article on Hovey and his new book.
The Biosclveae House II was finished last fall after it was stopped by the client who ran out of money, and patience. She tried for 1 1/2 years to sell it, nobody would buy it, so she decided to tear it down totally; it was sscheduled for dem c Dec 12th, 2007; but I offered to A/Gins to find a fast buyer to save it; the client said om you have 2 weeks, she had paid a deposit to the Demo Contractor and determined to blitz it; I found a buyer, but A/Gins decided to buy it wtih a "Professor's Group" of investors from Chicago and with what I think was their money too; the Demo was stopped, the hosue sold, and A/Gins finished it over a year of work in 2007; it was done by December 1, 2007; now threy are trying to sell it, but the market has crashed and gone flat, so it sits empty and unused.
ReplyDeleteby Andrew MacNair, NY NY, 2/22/2009
See the following post for the above comment's proper place.
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