Chicago studio Kwong Von Glinow has built Ardmore House to prove it's possible to design a high-quality home for a standard city lot.
Studio founders Lap Chi Kwong and Alison Von Glinow acted as both architects and developers for this project, their first built work since founding their studio in 2017.
Wooden trusses divide up living space on the first floor
Located on a standard residential plot in Edgewater, north Chicago, the house has a simple, vernacular form, with a rectangular footprint and a standard pitched roof.
However, inside the building feels modern and spacious thanks to a curved, double-height atrium and light-filled, open-plan living spaces.
Open-plan living spaces and large windows make spaces feel generous
Kwong and Von Glinow, who were awarded the New York Architectural League Prize for Young Architects in 2018, wanted to offer an alternative to the standard houses being built by developers in the city. "Chicago is saturated with many standard developer-driven housing projects that are fuelled by real-estate market demand, profit, and little else," the pair told Dezeen.

"In Ardmore House, we designed the home with values rather than checklist criteria," they continued. "We considered what the future of housing could be, and what kind of values the architecture of the home could bring to how the future residents would live."
A curved, double-height atrium provides access to bedrooms on the ground floor
Key to the design i...