Inspiration Kitchens

Location
Chicago, Illinois

Owner
Inspiration Corporation

Team
Acoustics - Threshold
Architect - Wheeler Kearns

Size
1,000,000 square feet Renovation
28,300 square feet of New Construction

Schedule
Architectural Rejuvenation Completed 2017
Production Renewal Completed 2019
Southam AV Integration Ongoing

Awards
2013 - Rudy Bruner Award, Gold Medal Winner
2013 - AIA San Francisco Social Impact Design Honor Award
2012 - Urban Land Institute (ULI) Chicago Vision Award, Non-Profit Winner
2013 - AIA Illinois Honor Award, Citation of Merit
2012 - USGBC Illinois Chapter Emerald Award, Building Renovations
2012 - AIA Chicago SustainABILITY Award, Citation of Merit
2012 - Chicago Architecture Foundation, Patron of the Year
2011 - SEED's Structures for Inclusion Award
2011 - Richard H Driehaus Foundation Award for Architectural Excellence in Community Design, Second Place
2011 - Good Neighbor Award, Chicago Association of Realtors

The Inspiration Kitchens project involved the renovation and adaptive reuse of a 1906 single story building and the improvement of three vacant lots in the City’s East Garfield Park neighborhood. This 7,800 sq. ft. facility has an 80 seat restaurant, a combination service, catering and training kitchen, and a meeting room/classroom and administrative/social service offices to support Inspiration Corporation’s community outreach programs.

The dining room itself was approached as a place of serenity and respite from its urban surroundings, a challenge complicated by the CTA’s elevated Green Line just a few feet from the front façade. Secondary glazing for the windows and additional mass in the roof system provide just enough protection from the trains without having pressured the budget. To avoid restaurant clatter economically, absorption and diffusion are concentrated on just two key walls that are treated as decorative, building upon the acoustic character of the building’s brick and timber structure to yield a disarmingly elegant environment of respite, no matter what rumbles past on the El.