Housing is about home and belonging. It is about shelter and expression and generational legacy, and as the interest in human-scaled, community-oriented, and pedestrian-friendly multi-family housing development continues, the residential unit as the home is taking on new meaning in the market. Though it poses its own set of challenges, multi-family housing offers an equally unique set of opportunities in which towers absorb density without dominating, shared amenities and local greenspaces offer dynamic social connection, and the integration of a built envelope scaled down to the streetscape engages both pedestrian and surrounding neighborhoods, transforming overall experience.
In Chicago’s West Loop, a historic neighborhood once home to industrial spaces and wholesale food markets that has become a destination of top-tier restaurants, modern high rises, and commercial spaces, the recent 16-story, 58-unit residential development known as Embry is looking to adapt the beloved notion of home to the urban landscape in a dynamic way. Envisioned by Sulo Development, a luxury real estate developer, and the collaborative work of Lamar Johnson Collaborative, KARA MANN, James McHugh Construction Co., Compass Development Marketing Group, and Otherwise Incorporated, the Chicago-based team has challenged the traditional luxury condominium tower concept by centering the owner-experience, designing the forward-looking building from the inside out.
Embry is about the details, the nuance and scale often inherent to single-family homes, in which sequence and procession, elevated interiors and carefully considered organization, visual statement and structural handshake leaves a lasting impression. From the curvature of interior arches, column-free units, and fully functional linen closets to the intentional rhythm and texture of its exterior façade, expansive terraces and engagement to the city landscape, Embry is positioned as a new standard of residential living that is meant to fit within the vibrant neighborhood of the West Loop.
“We spend so much time in our home, and the challenge with multi-family residential is giving that same sense of place and ownership in a building where there are 50 or 100 other occupants,” said Alan Barker, AIA, LEED AP, Residential Market Leader at Lamar Johnson Collaborative and lead architect on the project. “With single-family homes, you have ownership, the house is yours and you can customize it both outside and inside. The challenge for us was to make a building, where so many other people live, feel like home with identity. That is where the human-scale details come in, and where attention to detail at the streetscape as you approach the building is important.”
Lamar Johnson Collaborative, or LJC, is a full-service, integrated architecture and design firm dedicated to collaboration, innovation, and elevation of the art and science of architecture. LJC is a subsidiary of Clayco, a national design-build construction firm, with offices in Chicago, Denver, Kansas City, Los Angeles, Phoenix, and St. Louis. The firm works across commercial, healthcare, higher education, hospitality, industrial, life sciences, and residential markets, among others, and when Sulo Development looked to bring their luxury residential project to life in the heart of the West Loop, Dominic Sulo and Derek Sulo turned to Barker, principal and practiced architect, at LJC.
“Embry is the second phase of a two-building project that Sulo Development has completed on this block. My relationship with Sulo began at my previous firm while designing phase one, the first building, Hayden West Loop, and we had been talking about phase two for several years while designing Hayden,” Barker said. “We started initial visioning on Embry, but the market changed, and we knew there was an opportunity to redesign it as a taller building and rethink the way some of the units were positioned.”
Hayden, a nine-story, 28-unit condominium development, features 3,300-square-foot units and four, 5,000-square-foot duplex penthouses located on W. Washington Blvd. on the block bordered by N. May St. and N. Aberdeen St. in the West Loop. Built in 2019, Hayden strove to embrace the factory, market, and warehouse legacy of its historic neighborhood with the privacy and comfort of single family living within a multi-family residential experience. For Barker, Hayden offered valuable insights to bring into the redesign and build of Embry, such as diversifying the unit mix and prioritizing clarity of floorplans.
“The vision was to build upon the success of Hayden while continuing to push the product forward, leading the condominium market in Chicago, specifically in the West Loop,” Barker said. “We understood that clarity of floorplans—clean, elegant floorplans and views—really drive buyers. We built a full-scale unit as part of the sales center that they could walk into and feel the elegance of plan and the flow between public and private spaces. Because Embry is twice as tall as Hayden, we had the opportunity to capture downtown views that we didn’t have at Hayden.”
Sulo Development also looked to bring in a multidisciplinary interior design firm known for their luxury residential work early in the process, trusting their vision for integrating some of the more traditional elements of single-family living into the building units, leading to small design changes along the way. Laura Lee McAllister, Director of Architecture at KARA MANN in Chicago, said she believes the developers really bought into the design and the design philosophy behind the project and leaned into some of their thoughts on floorplans, finishes, and architectural interior elements.
“I had actually worked with Alan [Barker] in the past from LJC and they had a really nice footprint of the building to begin with. We worked with him and his team to fine tune the interior layouts, select finishes, and incorporate details that made the units feel really lovely from an interior planning perspective,” McAllister said. “Our bread and butter is high-end, single-family residential, and I think that was a big part of why the Sulos were interested in working with our team. It was the number one thing we worked out right at kick off, was how do we make these layouts feel so good and feel like a single-family home in the city?”
Annika Bartz, Director of Interior Design at KARA MANN, also noted from an interiors perspective, it was really special for the team to be involved so early on in the project, because it gave them the opportunity to think through how someone might want to live in the space before the project was physically built. The ability to think through the owner experience as they move through the space, whether they are families, empty nesters, or young professionals, helped inform the programming and details like the integration of storage and the distinction between public and private spaces within the units themselves.
“I think that we were really successful at offering that broad spectrum of optionality for buyers,” Bartz said. “Our strong suit is high-end, luxury, single-family residential, and I think what makes our team and our process so unique is that we, as a collective team, have an architecture department and an interiors and furniture department, and we work together to look at everything from the interior side of the exterior walls in. When we put all of those pieces together—the architecture, the furniture, the human experience—you get a much more holistic design, and we are able to filter in a lot of the thought process early on when things are still malleable.”
KARA MANN is a multidisciplinary interior design firm founded by Kara Mann in 2005 with offices in Chicago and Los Angeles. The firm works across residential, commercial, and hospitality, and over the years has developed a portfolio of furniture, lighting, and home product designs. Led by Kara Mann, renowned for bringing an embodied, lived-in elegance to spaces, KARA MANN unearths the magic in juxtapositions, sparks conversation between classic architectural detailing and the unexpected moments, and strives to imbue spaces with a casual, enduring beauty.
“Kara generally describes it as a bit of a push and pull, so it may be this classic shelf with a little bit of edge, or it may be a modern space with an added element of classicism in it. There is always this push and pull in everything we design, whether that is through contrast or fabrics or the way the layout works, it is finding that really nice balance at all times,” McAllister said.
For Embry, that balance was about imbuing a structure with the familiarity, identity, and comfort of home while still supporting a diverse clientele lifestyle. It was about integrating certain elements that would push the boundaries on traditional solutions in real estate development, while mirroring how its residents live. It was about creating a dialogue between the exterior façade and interior design that was warm and inviting, embraced curated details and artistry, while remaining dynamic and responsive to the urban landscape—and for the team, it truly was built around the hearth, or in this case, the floorplans themselves.
Embry’s 16 stories comprise a lobby and parking level—the latter of which is tucked behind custom, textural metal screening that features letters overlaid in an offset repetitive pattern in reference to its street name—second-floor duplex residences, and a third-floor program featuring three-bedroom plus den units. There are additional two- and three-bedroom units complete with a den on the floors above it, transitioning into three- and four-bedroom units with dens as the building ascends, culminating in a top floor featuring two penthouse units. Barker noted the design was intentional about facilitating a sense of processional, both from an overall experience as owners walk up to the building and have their first interaction with it through the door handle—or its “handshake”—and as owners move from public spaces in the lobby to the elevator and up to their personal units. There is direct elevator access to units on levels seven and above—an element the team wanted to include for those on the second through sixth levels but couldn’t due to restrictions based on the number of units per floor—that was important in the buildings ability to quickly move people to their front door and into their home.
“We wanted them to be able to step from the elevator into the foyer very quickly for a respite, then be able to make their way into the great room or public space of the unit. There is the idea of this processional from foyer to public space and so the visual impact was important, but at the same time, we were intentional about separating the public space—this great room, kitchen, dining room—from private space,” Barker said. “The bedrooms are always accessed through a private bedroom hallway, so the separation of public and private was really a driving factor.”
For Barker, the floorplans are what he loves most about the project, and the team spent an enormous amount of time ensuring that there aren’t any columns interrupting the spatial experience of the units themselves.
“We knew that was a really important distinction, especially for units at this price-point where every square foot is valuable, that the columns were not taking up that square footage,” Barker said.
McAllister noted the team also really thought through the different experiences owners might have from a day-to-day perspective, whether they have kids or dogs and how that might impact entry rugs, having space and storage for groceries with full linen closets and walk-in pantries, or how large coat closets at the front entry can support those with an affinity for entertaining or those post-workout, and how the units could support them.
“Functionally, it has to work and then we make the aesthetic happen on top of that, and the challenge of this was not knowing who the end user was and how we had so many scenarios of who that could be, having to make this universal plan work for everyone. It is the little things you are used to having in the suburbs that you can’t find in the city,” McAllister said.
“The units get bigger as you go up and sometimes bigger is not always easier to work with. You’re fitting more program within those larger floorplans, but I think we kept these core elements for every plan. We wanted each one to have a kitchen that would feel a little more tucked away, so not as open concept as what we are seeing in most of the market—true pantries, true closets at your front entry, having a really lovely powder room, and then also just getting into the detailing, like the window treatment in every unit and how we planned for that and the thickness of walls to make sure things could be concealed through roller shades,” McAllister added.
Those key elements in some ways directly informed the building’s massing and footprint on its site, flexing and adapting to an extra few feet in certain areas or how interior arching was carved into the structure to support that intimate, residential experience. Barker said Embry also built and expanded upon the focus and importance given to exterior spaces at Hayden, which had been very successful.
“The exterior terraces at Embry are even larger and placed prominently throughout the building. On levels two through six, they face west onto May St., and residents look right into the trees as you go up the building,” Barker said. “While the east facing units are inherently positioned to take advantage of the downtown views, the northwest and southwest units have terraces that extend out like wings, providing eastern views just as stunning.”
The terraces were designed as intentional, functional outdoor spaces, an extension of the units themselves, with a footprint large enough to fit an entire living room set and complete with gas and electric integration. Residences also feature oversized low-E glass windows and multi-zoned HVAC VRF systems, solid wood doors and 10-foot ceiling heights in the main living areas and bedrooms, and herringbone wood flooring and decorative ceiling pendants in the entry foyers.
Kitchens feature quartzite countertops and full height backsplashes, Kohler®, Sub-Zero®, and Wolf® appliances, custom cabinetry with soft-close hardware, and kitchen island with custom metal legs designed by Palmer Industries®. There are stone mosaics and tiled, radiant flooring in the bathrooms; laundry rooms with front-load washers and dryers, and custom, built-in storage solutions, ceramic and nickel finishes; and architectural lighting sconces and pendants. And elements found in the units themselves are intentionally repeated in some of the more public spaces of the building, like in the lobby where architectural curved walls and ceiling soffits, a ventless gas fireplace with stone mantle create first impression.
“That philosophy of this push and pull, adding some contrast, is really celebrated here, because the exterior of the building is modern, but it also has these touches of warmth and softness and reflectivity,” Bartz said. “We took a lot of modern elements and things we knew people are looking for when they move into the city and tried to preserve that while bringing the softness and the definition of single-family homes with a little bit more classic detailing and materiality. It makes the experience of moving from the exterior to the interior of the building feel like its engaging and really activating your experience as you move through the building.”
Barker said that the building’s massing was a direct result of the interior unit planning, and the moves on the exterior façade leveraged opportunities to heighten the interior experience; visual interest and connection to the residential, tree-lined N. May St., for example, and the larger city skyline.
“We decided early in the process that the exterior should have some opacity and texture, and you can’t get that from an all-glass building. Glass buildings result in flat, boring facades, so we paired transparent glass with opaque textured metal panels. Even the exterior façade and the fenestration were driven by interior planning because opaque walls allow for areas to place furniture, rooms to be divided, and artwork to be hung,” Barker said.
“It set the rhythm of opacity and transparency for the exterior. We broke it down further and gave texture to the façade, drawing from the richness of the West Loop and Fulton Market District,” Barker added.
The pleated and textured metal catches and reflects sunlight and weather patterns across its façade in a dynamic way that is more temporal, seasonal, and ephemeral than shape and form, It transforms the building with rich bronzes and honeyed hues of reds and oranges depending upon the moment one happens to glance at the building.
Embry, which had already reached an 80 percent presold rate before it was officially completed and welcomed its first residents at the end of 2023, has since reached 85 percent capacity—and the chance to meet with the interiors team to navigate three palette choices undoubtedly has added to that success rate.
“We got to talk them through all of the palette choices, they got to hear the passion and verbiage directly from us, and we helped them make decisions about their final choices. I’ve never seen that done before, that was a special perk, and we learned so much from the wonderful conversations we had with them in that process, too. But in the long run, they make those spaces their own. It’s been fascinating, we’ve got to peek in some of the units to see how different every unit is and it’s a place that let’s someone express themselves,” McAllister said.
“Home is such a piece of our identity. It’s where you are most vulnerable and therefore a place where you feel like you want to express yourself. There is a lot of interior space that affects our health, it’s the place where we feel safe, and it’s where life happens. One thing that is lovely about Embry is not only are the interior spaces well done, but most of the units have access to the exterior as well. Those are all things that are so important to the human experience. It’s giving people the opportunity to be active, get fresh air, get sunlight, and also have the shelter and all that interior space have to offer for your wellbeing,” Bartz added.
First published in Great Lakes By Design: Architectonics, Volume 8, Issue 6
Photography: Lamar Johnson Collaborative, Jon Shaft
Text: R.J. Weick
