SmithGroup • 8th April 2020

Square 560

New developments in quickly growing and transforming cities cannot be built as islands in a spanning sea, but rather as intrinsically connected components of a dynamic community. The nine-story Square 560 designed by SmithGroup represents not just a more contemporary design language, but one that speaks to its surroundings through smart design, planning, and programming. It will not only help to push DC’s residential aesthetic in a newer direction, but Square 560 will also become a future icon a

SmithGroup • 8th April 2020

Tianjin Memory Care (Friendship House)

With well over 1.3 billion residents, China is not only the world’s most populated country, but it’s one that is facing the daunting challenge of providing medical and assisted living care to millions of aging citizens. Helping to set a new precedent and standard for best practices in senior care, the Tianjin Memory Care Center, or Friendship House as it is often referred to, brings high design and a truly communal atmosphere to one of China’s largest cities.

SmithGroup • 8th April 2020

Arthur A. Dugoni School of Dentistry

Consistently top ranked nationwide, the Arthur A. Dugoni School of Dentistry designed an award-winning curriculum that is focused on an active, immersive, vertically-integrated pedagogy in small clinical environments. This client needed a major interior renovation coupled with a complete renovation of the building cladding.

Within the building there are many different types of spaces that facilitate the learning process for students, including clinics, research labs, classrooms, informal collab

SmithGroup • 8th April 2020

Olive View-UCLA Medical Center Master Plan

Short-sighted infrastructure and planning is one of the most common themes in the revitalization of major cities, as congestion and aging roads inflict real disruption to residents and workers. Located in car-centric Los Angeles, at the edge of the San Gabriel foothills, Olive View-UCLA Medical Center had become burdened by too many parking lots and poor planning, affecting the campus’ functionality, but also eroding its aesthetic appeal and patient perceptions.

Seeking to completely transform

SmithGroup • 8th April 2020

Rancho Los Amigos National Rehabilitation Center

The entire campus is now an indoor-outdoor recovery zone, taking advantage of the Southern California climate and extending rehabilitation far beyond the walls of the hospital for patients who may spend months or years in recovery. Expansive, dual-purpose outdoor rooms double as rehabilitation spaces, with healing gardens and terraces, large plazas, and amphitheaters where there used to be old buildings and concrete parking lots. The project also includes a new community wellness center, an expa

@home • 28th January 2020

Questions to Ask When Choosing a Real Estate Agent

Looking to buy or sell a home? While there’s no shortage of online resources these days, there are plenty of reasons why most buyers and sellers enlist the services of a real estate agent to guide them through the process. At the same time, there are thousands of agents out there, so where do you start?

While you may have someone in the family who is licensed to sell real estate, they may not have a good handle on what it takes to beat out the competition in your particular market. Or perhaps y

@home • 21st October 2019

10 Things We Love About Glencoe

The relaxing and restorative power of the north suburban lakeshore has a magnetic pull for residents and tourists alike. It’s no wonder why Ferris Bueller and friends stopped at Glencoe Beach to recharge after a “day off” in Chicago, in what would become a classic Windy City movie scene. It’s also why towns like Glencoe have long drawn affluent Chicago area residents. After all, lakefront land on the North Shore is in short supply, and they ain’t making any more of it.

But beyond the lakeshore,

@home • 9th November 2019

10 Things We Love About Lincoln Park

With roots tracing back to Chicago’s earliest years, Lincoln Park has always played a leading role in the city’s entertainment, higher education, and civic institutions. Its stretch of lakefront, which prominently features its namesake park, includes many attractions such as the Lincoln Park Zoo and Lincoln Park Conservatory, among many others, and is as bustling as the busy retail and commercial corridors that cross through the neighborhood.

But there’s also a balance, with an emphasis placed

@home • 16th November 2019

10 Things We Love About Park Ridge

One of the special things about Chicago’s inner ring suburbs is how these communities effortlessly blend and balance the best attributes of busy city life with the slower pace and residential streets of a small town. A true standout in this category, Park Ridge boasts not one, but two central downtown districts, top public schools, and a housing inventory that’s equally diverse in aesthetics and price points.

Only 15 miles from downtown Chicago and six miles from O’Hare, Park Ridge is also loca

@home • 22nd November 2019

The Emergence of West Loop Luxury

Perhaps no other Chicago neighborhood has seen such an explosion in new development in the last decade as the West Loop. The neighborhood’s transition from a warehousing and meat packing district to a luxury live-work-play destination has produced Michelin-starred restaurants, multi-million-dollar home sales, and the arrival of Fortune 500 companies, including Google, McDonald’s, and many others.

But what is it like to actually live in the area? And what should buyers look out for when consider

@home • 3rd December 2019

Five Reasons Chicago is a Great Investment for Home Buyers

Legendary American author Mark Twain once famously quipped to a reporter that news of his death had been greatly exaggerated. Similarly, we Chicagoans frequently find ourselves in the position, these days, of having to remind others that our city is not only still alive, but is thriving in many ways.

While major cities throughout the greater Midwest struggle to reinvent themselves, Chicago has remained economically viable and vibrant despite a flurry of negative headlines. Tourism figures conti

@home • 14th December 2019

10 Things We Love About Downers Grove

It may be unfair to describe Downers Grove as simply a suburb. With a location just about 20 miles due west of downtown Chicago, this village of 50,000 residents boasts a thriving local economy, highly ranked schools, and some of the top natural attractions in the metro area. And it’s certainly not flyover country, being the corporate headquarters to some massive publicly traded companies while also having direct access into Chicago via the expressway system and commuter rail.

There’s a delicat

@home • 18th December 2019

The Best Midwest Winter Getaways

Coastal lifestyle magazines often get the Midwest wrong. There’s almost always a portrait of farmers and hectares upon hectares of corn fields and images of a frozen Chicago. And sure, the sweet yellow crop may be Iowa’s single largest export, and yes, Chicago can and does get incredibly cold in the winter, but throughout the Great Lakes region, there is history to explore and an infinite number of outdoor recreation opportunities.

It’s a theme that Chicago-area residents are well versed in — a