Office: Wheeler Kearns Architects | ArchDaily

Meadow Lane Retreat / Wheeler Kearns Architects

Hadir Al Koshta — Fri, 10 Jan 2025 16:00:00 +0000

A place to breathe. Meadow Lane is a weekend retreat set in an idyllic landscape along the shores of Lake Michigan that fosters respite, connection, and harmony with the surrounding landscape. The empty-nester clients desired "an escape from the city for the family to gather. A place for sunlight. A place to breathe." The design and orientation of the home optimize the site's unique attributes on a two-acre wooded bluff overlooking the lake. To the south, a woodland preserve abuts the property, allowing panoramic views that merge the blue lake horizon with a deep woodland understory.

Granor Greenhouse / Wheeler Kearns Architects

Pilar Caballero — Wed, 11 Jan 2023 12:00:00 +0000

Established in 2006, Granor Farm, the first certified organic vegetable farm in Southwest Michigan has once again expanded its site and offerings to its local community. The newly constructed Granor Greenhouse achieves the farm’s goals of creating an inventively programmed and conditioned space for food education, production, and citizenry under one roof. With agrarian economy and utility in mind, the prefabricated 7,336-sf glass structure immerses farm staff, chefs, Farmcamp youth, visitors, and diners into a working vegetable farm while delightfully engaging all of their five senses.

Mansueto High School / Wheeler Kearns Architects

Andreas Luco — Fri, 21 Aug 2020 18:00:00 +0000

With the Mansueto High School, Noble Network of Charter Schools has transformed 5.5 acres of industrial brownfield in Chicago’s largest “park desert” into a place of great opportunity for its students (comprising 98% minority and over 91% low-income.) The school’s mission starts with creating a culture for students where the only option is a success, both short and long-term. The design of the school supports this goal, organized around a central green space that emulates a college quadrangle and allows high-schoolers to envision a college future.

Ravine House / Wheeler Kearns Architects

Andreas Luco — Tue, 12 Nov 2019 21:00:00 +0000

The project is a synthesis of the couple’s past and future, interests, and passions. The house is conceptualized as a single, dark, rectangular volume. One corner, the garage, is broken off to create an entry courtyard. A singular, smooth column of Black Locust supports an inviting entry canopy. The house and garage are intentionally pulled apart to infuse a bit of the wild into daily routines. While the exterior volume is wrapped in black square-edged vertical metal siding, the courtyard is lined with a vertical rain screen of American Black Locust. Local stones, clustered plantings and swaying birch flow through this courtyard: in essence, nature wins.

St. Joseph Residence I / Wheeler Kearns Architects

Pilar Caballero — Wed, 30 Jan 2019 19:00:00 +0000

“In Search of Balance”

Sited upon a coastal dune landscape, this residence seeks proportional balance. Balance between elemental exposure and domestic intimacy.
Balance between the natural and the manmade (in landscape, form, material, to color, texture, furnishings).

Wicker Park Residence / Wheeler Kearns Architects

Daniel Tapia — Thu, 19 Jul 2018 13:00:00 +0000

The owners desired to create a new a standalone residence that incorporates DNA of the historic Landmark District to preserve the street experience and acts as an expression of their style and personality. The Wicker Park Residence resides among and shares its street front with historic homes that represent some of Chicago’s largest and best examples of Victorian-era architecture. The landmark designation, which placed prescriptive rules for any new construction in the neighborhood, inspired a reinterpretation of traditional materials and detailing.

UChicago Child Development Center Stony Island / Wheeler Kearns Architects

Daniel Tapia — Tue, 17 Jul 2018 16:00:00 +0000

Inspired by an adjacent historic landscape, the University of Chicago Childcare Development Center - Stony Island integrates the natural environment with its architecture and child-centered curriculum. Instead of creating a place dominated by synthetic play equipment and primary colors, the design allows children to be immersed in the natural world to discover first principles first-hand.

Richard Gray Gallery Warehouse / Wheeler Kearns Architects

Pilar Caballero — Sat, 14 Jul 2018 12:00:00 +0000

An old machine shop was found, off the beaten path, up against the tracks.
A gallery owner asked us to look at it.
Messed up façade. Tired, listing trusses, rotting roof/drain-heads, cracked/heaved slab over slab.
But the span, the height, the monitor light was right. Finding the rear courtyard sealed the deal.
We said to ourselves, “Don’t screw it up”

Upper Jeptha Lake Retreat / Wheeler Kearns Architects

Pilar Caballero — Tue, 03 Jul 2018 13:00:00 +0000

The Upper Lake Jeptha Guest House is the latest addition among the cluster of small buildings that comprise an ever-evolving, beloved family compound on a lake in rural SW Michigan.

Marwen’s Expansion / Wheeler Kearns Architects

Karen Valenzuela — Thu, 11 Feb 2016 17:00:00 +0000

Marwen was founded 28 years ago to educate and inspire underserved young people through the visual arts. The organization has been fueled by two simple but powerful ideas throughout its history—that making art can transform lives, and that every young person should have opportunities to do so. Despite clear evidence that the skills and dispositions acquired through arts learning are essential to a student’s preparation for success in college, work, and life, inequities in access to the arts have only grown more acute since Marwen’s founding in 1987.

Intrinsic School / Wheeler Kearns Architects

Karen Valenzuela — Thu, 12 Feb 2015 01:00:00 +0000

Rethinks Classroom to Integrate Technology

Orchard East / Wheeler Kearns Architects

Nico Saieh — Sat, 02 May 2009 00:00:00 +0000

A broad, introverted, opaque volume of private spaces floats above a fully transparent, extroverted space at grade that extends, below the canopy of the volume above, into the garden. This urban residence is a warm, intimate home for a family of four that can transform into a place of assembly as needed and has an integral connection between interior and exterior experiences.