Featured Projects
An arrangement of shadows and pattern
Laird Bell Quadrangle, The University of Chicago
The landscape layout employs architect Eero Saarinen’s underlying gridded geometry of the Law School Library. A series of ramped lawns crisply defined by tapering steel curbing provides a pure visual arrangement of planes, shadows and pattern. A specimen weeping beech anchors one corner of the garden as a companion to English sculptor Kenneth Armitage’s abstract bronze. A seemingly random distribution of multi-stem birch trees establishes a swathe of year-round interest and acts as a counterpoint to the strict geometry of the underlying grid. Artistic lighting of monumental limestone garden walls shapes a further sense of place for the space to be experienced year-round during the evening hours.
IL-ASLA Honor Award, 2017
Laird Bell Quadrangle The University of Chicago Law School
Blurred lines between indoors and outdoors
A Wooded Retreat, Highland Park
This project is the harmony of the architect’s glass-enclosed home and the natural landscape which allows a feeling of openness and blurs the lines between indoor living and nature. By taking clues from the prairie landscape, Kettelkamp and Kettelkamp seamlessly incorporated a new home into a mature wooded lot. The homeowners wanted a semi-wild landscape that would contain native plants and fruit bushes that did not feel overly designed. Drawing inspiration from the sweeping curve of the adjacent ravine, the design is a counter to the straight lines of the house and includes a gravel terrace and walkways, an outdoor fire pit and gambion baskets filled with the rubble of a burned-down home which previously stood on the property.
AIA Chicago Citation of Merit, 2019
A Wooded Retreat Highland Park, Illinois