NorthCenter Senior Campus, Chicago
Developer: The Lakota Group
This senior living campus on the north side of Chicago provides much-needed affordable housing within walking distance of shops, restaurants, a medical center, and two bus stops. Located on an infill site formerly occupied by a hospital, it’s also less than one mile from rapid transit. The site plan clusters two apartment buildings and one condo building (which collectively house 282 units) to form lovely shared green spaces with gardens and walking paths. Parking is relegated to the perimeter, minimizing pedestrian crossings near driveways. Although a senior center on campus offers a computer room, libraries, a gym and other amenities for an active lifestyle, connections to the outdoors were an equal priority in the planning effort, with ample attention paid to parks, fountains, landscaping, and readable outdoor signage. Architectural elements salvaged from the old hospital now stand as memory points, such as twin columns that form a portal to one of the parks.
Born out of a public-private partnership involving a long list of stakeholders–including the city of Chicago, multiple nonprofits, HUD, and the city’s departments of housing and aging–it’s a project that John LaMotte, a city planner and principal with Lakota Group, hopes will serve as a prototype. “We’re going to need a lot more of these in the future,” LaMotte said. “Sustainable green building has entered the mainstream, and universal design is going the same way. There are lots of communities out there that have people aging in place, and they are going to lose them from their homes if they don’t begin to offer universal design.”
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For more on this year’s winning projects, visit www.aarp.org/homedesign.
Jenny Sullivan is a senior editor covering architecture, design and community planning for BUILDER.