Come Home is a design competition and wealth building initiative that will support “missing middle density” infill housing in Auburn Gresham, Bronzeville, East Garfield Park, Englewood, Humboldt Park and Woodlawn. Our juried Request for Qualifications invites architects to reimagine Chicago’s single family home, two- and three-flat, rowhouse and six-flat typologies to better meet 21st century lifestyles.

Ultimately, Come Home seeks to create a community development model that will attract and welcome current and former Chicago residents “back home.” The initiative is based around three key areas:

1. The City’s identification and packaging of vacant lots and land management for redevelopment
2. The identification of new designs for infill housing, with an emphasis on “missing middle density" (through a juried competition)
3. Strengthening pride of place in key neighborhoods

These housing investments will build on the more than $750 million corralled in taxpayer money and private investment for the rebuilding of Chicago’s historically underserved South and West Side neighborhoods. What’s more, it provides the opportunities the professional design community has long sought to leverage design as a tool for building local wealth and improving quality of life. Through it all, the reinvestment work will continue to prioritize local talent, particularly from BIPOC communities and embrace proven tenets of design excellence.

As part of Come Home, the City is committing to the delivery of 30-100 housing units across the six focus communities.

March 2023 Progress Report

We wish to thank the scores of design firms across Chicago and far beyond who responded to the Come Home RFQ. A shortlist of 42 teams were invited to present their design solutions in a pop-up poster exhibition at the Chicago Architecture Center March 3-26, 2023.

See more about the competition exhibition here, or provide your feedback on the designs here. A selection of winning design teams from the exhibition will move on to Phase 3 in the Come Home competition.

Shortlist:

ACDF Architecture (Montreal); Architecture for Public Benefit and Peter Rose + Partners (Boston); CAMESgibson; Canopy Architecture and Design; Chicago Design Office; Civic Projects Architecture + Marlon Blackwell Architects (Fayetteville, AR); DAAM; David Baker Architects (San Francisco); Dirk Denison Architects; DMAC Architecture & Interiors; DNA Architecture & Design, Inc. (Los Angeles); Frida Escobedo Studio (Mexico City); Future Firm; Höweler + Yoon (Boston); Hufft (Kansas City, MO); Jahn/; kevin daly Architects (Los Angeles); Krueck Sexton Partners; Kwong Von Glinow; Lamar Johnson Collaborative; Latent; Lorcan O'Herlihy Architects [LOHA] (Los Angeles); Merge Architects (Boston); MOS (New York); NADAAA (Boston); nARCHITECTS (New York); New Office; Nia Architects + Yu & Associates Collaborative; OJT (New Orleans); ParkFowler Plus; PRODUCTORA (Los Angeles, New York and Mexico City); Range Design & Architecture; Ross Barney Architects; Sheehan Nagle Hartray Architects; Studio Becker Xu; Studio Sean Canty, LLC + Office III (Boston); Tatiana Bilbao ESTUDIO (Mexico City); TBDA + Blacks in Green; UrbanLab + The Available City; Valerio Dewalt Train; Vladimir Radutny Architects; von Weise Associates