Lipton Thayer Brick House

Evanston, Ill., can be a sober place: It took the college town just north of Chicago four decades after the repeal of Prohibition to permit liquor sales within its borders. But when an investment banker with an interest in art and architecture hired Lawrence Scarpa, FAIA, of Hawthorne, Calif.–based Brooks + Scarpa to design his new Evanston house, it was far from clear how the architect would respond to the locale. The client was drawn to a steel house Scarpa had designed in Venice, Calif., and expected something similar. But Scarpa, who partnered with Chicago-based Studio Dwell Architects on the project, had other ideas: “We’re in Chicago; we need to do brick,” he said.

That decision led to a taut 21-foot-tall brick box that lines a 2,800-square-foot single-family residence. The house’s defining feature is its moiré-patterned façade. “It’s a simple screen that you can almost pass by without noticing,” Scarpa says. “In some ways, it’s featureless unless you really look at it.”

The screen is made from a series of torqued columns, each formed by stacked Chicago common brick. “It’s the throwaway brick,” Scarpa says of the locally produced salmon and buff masonry units that owe their unique colors to the region’s clay. “People always put it on a building’s side, where you never see it.” But Scarpa is known for taking materials often seen as junk and transforming them: “Just because it’s not perfect, doesn’t mean it can’t be beautiful,” he says.

Unlike the house’s more prosaic neighbors—which have front doors that directly face a straight path from the sidewalk—Scarpa choreographed an elaborate entry sequence: A diagonal walk across the front yard ensures that visitors experience the changing natural light across the rippled façade as they approach the front door. “You get that whole sense of movement,” he says. “It’s a bit like a journey coming in.”

Unexpectedly, the solid steel door doesn’t lead into the house—instead, it’s the entrance to an open courtyard that forms the heart of the structure. Glazed walls line the living spaces beyond: “You can see right through the house from the alley behind to the street in front,” Scarpa says.

The structure’s open floor plan is quite simple, with a double-height great room that accommodates living and dining areas immediately adjacent to the courtyard. The kitchen shares the same space, with its appliances tucked into white millwork along the west wall of the house. An office occupies a small pavilion on the western edge of the courtyard, and it is linked to the living spaces via a glassy corridor. Upstairs, a large master suite anchors the rear of the house, and a small guest suite is located above the office.

The interior is designed to be neutral, as expressed by its minimal materials palette: Concrete floors on the ground level, wood floors on the second, gypsum board walls, and built-in MDF and oak cabinets. The house employs conventional wood framing and mechanical systems; radiant heating and cooling make the space comfortable during both the cold Midwestern winters and warm summers. While impeccably detailed throughout, the house’s greatest visual and technical interest lies with its masonry façade. “They’re basically vertical columns,” Scarpa says of the layered bricks. “Think of it like a stack bond and they are twisting as you go up.” Lateral stability is provided by typical mortar ties that are anchored via welded connections to 2-inch-tall by 6-inch-wide horizontal steel sections, mounted at 32-inches-on-center behind the bricks, in lieu of a backup wall.

The idea of the brick screen was informed by Paul Rudolph, for whom Scarpa worked early in his career. “He used to always talk about light,” Scarpa says. “He would describe light coming in while space is escaping, and the balanced tension between the two.” With the Lipton Thayer House, Scarpa has created a remarkably open, yet still very private house with a signature move that attains the spatial poetics of his mentor.

Project Credits
Project: Lipton Thayer Brick House, Evanston, Ill.
Client: Robert Lipton
Architect: Brooks + Scarpa, Hawthorne, Calif., with Studio Dwell Architects, Chicago . Lawrence Scarpa, FAIA (Brooks + Scarpa, lead designer/principal-in-charge); Angela Brooks, FAIA, Jeff Huber, AIA, Arty Vartanyan, Assoc. AIA, Chinh Nhan Nguyen, Cesar Delgado, Eleftheria Stavridi, Fui Srivikorn, Matt Barnett, AIA (Brooks + Scarpa project design team); Mark Peters, AIA (Studio Dwell Architects principal-in-charge); Jonathan Heckert (Studio Dwell Architects project manager)
Landscape Design: Brooks + Scarpa
Structural Engineer: Louis Shell Structures
Electrical/Lighting/Civil Engineer: Studio Dwell Architects
Lighting Design: Brooks + Scarpa
Specifications: Studio Dwell Architects
General Contractor: Studio Dwell Architects Size: 2,800 square feet Cost: $1.2 million
Size: 2,800 square feet
Cost: $1.2 million