This Project Claremont House located in Chicago,has designed by Brininstool + Lynch Illinois. Due to its long lot site, the house was designed with the full width of window walls at both front and back sides of the house to maximize the penetration of the natural daylighting into the interior spaces, and also to create a stronger visual relationship between living spaces and courtyard.

Claremont House, image courtesy of Brininstool + Lynch

Traditional materials of brick, concrete, limestone, steel, and zinc are used to form a non-traditional house on a typical lot on the north side of Chicago.The house further resists city conventions by uniting the front yard with the back through visual transparency, where sheets of glass more than ten feet high and fourteen feet wide terminate an open plan of sixty-three feet in length on the first floor. A three-story volume of millwork separates the floors from the vertical circulation of the stairway and contains storage and equipment, neatly separating functional performance from open space.

Claremont House, image courtesy of Brininstool + Lynch

Claremont House,Home  Library image courtesy of Brininstool + Lynch

Claremont House, image courtesy of Brininstool + Lynch

Claremont House, Dining Room and Kitchen Design image courtesy of Brininstool + Lynch

An island of stainless steel for kitchen use and dining is the only object built within the open space of the first floor. This area overlooks a courtyard, as well as the green roof of the garage.

Claremont House, Living Room Design image courtesy of Brininstool + Lynch

The ground floor houses the guest room and family room, and is also framed by a large sheet of glass that brings the outdoor courtyard visually into the interior, flooding this area with ambient natural light. An outdoor stairway from the kitchen to the courtyard is wrapped with perforated zinc panels that shade southern light into the courtyard. Private rooms for the family of four are located on the third floor.

Claremont House, image courtesy of Brininstool + Lynch

Of the home’s many green and sustainable features, the thermal mass of the concrete on the lower level provides natural cooling in warm weather, and is distributed by operable windows in alignment with the stairs. The open risers of the stair allow for continuous air movement, and with the strategic placement of windows, the stairway acts as a natural turbine for moving cool air from the lower level, and displacing warm air on the upper levels. In cool weather, the open risers of the stair allow warm air generated from the radiant floor system of the lower level to circulate upwards by the strategic placement of return-air ducts.

Claremont House, Stair Design  image courtesy of Brininstool + Lynch

Claremont House, Wall Design image courtesy of Brininstool + Lynch

This entry was posted on Sunday, November 15th, 2009 at 1:53 pm and is filed under House Design. Tags: Architecture, Brininstool + Lynch, Courtyard architecture, House, Interior, USA architecture. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.