Solar Salutation

- Zach Mortice

Solstice on the Park, the new Studio Gang–designed rental apartment tower in Chicago’s Hyde Park neighborhood, doesn’t want for inspiration. The building is within spitting distance of Lake Michigan and Frederick Law Olmsted’s Jackson Park, where the Obama Presidential Center may soon rise (pending the outcome of a lawsuit). The interior decor goes out of its way to accentuate these links: The elevators are lined with panoramas of Lake Michigan by the photographer Tom Harris, and in the lobby’s “Olmsted Library,” stacks of books on shelves (all green) have a notable landscape bent. Less literal are the exterior zinc and fiber cement panels (affixed to a post-tensioned concrete slab structure), whose tones evoke the buff brick characteristic of the area.

Then there’s the form of the building itself, striking for its serrated south facade. Windows tilt in from the top floor plates at a 72-degree angle, which matches that of the summer solstice at Chicago’s latitude. In doing so, they shield a portion of the total 250 apartments—ranging from studios to three-bedroom units—from the sun as much as possible in peak summer, when it’s highest in the sky. At the winter solstice, conversely, sunbeams have unimpeded access when lighting up the shortest day of the year. This play of shadow and light has ecological consequences: lower cooling and heating bills, and a diminished carbon footprint.