North Center has an abundance of great architecture built in the early part of the last century. We were fortunate to bring this orange brick building back to her former glory in addition to extensively renovating the interior. 34-TEN was commissioned to deconvert an early 1900s 2-flat to a single family home and design the new interior along with a new rear addition. Through design iterations explored with the owner, we developed a floor plan composition which provided all the client’s program requirements within the existing building envelope, omitting the need for an addition. Among modernizing the building interior and finishing the basement, we focused on maximizing natural light by taking advantage of the building’s adjacency to a public alley and though the use of an expansive operable window wall facing the rear yard. The result is a light-filled single family home which is rare on a standard 25’ wide Chicago lot.