This Chicago Architect’s Vision for a Buzzy Live/Work Space Started With a Café
The rest of Mike Shively’s Brutalist-inspired plan includes his firm’s office, an Airbnb rental, and he and his partner’s luminous residence on the top floor.
Architect Mike Shively doesn’t have to travel far for his first cup of coffee; the buzz of an espresso grinder and convivial coffee-shop atmosphere are mere steps away from where he sleeps.
The founder of Chicago architecture firm En Masse wakes around 7 a.m. in his glass-wrapped apartment, enjoys breakfast on its west-facing roof deck, gets dressed, and descends three floors. He heads past his Airbnb rental on the third level and his firm’s office on the second to arrive at the ground-floor café, where he whips up his morning cortado with equal parts espresso and steamed milk.
On the ground floor of Mike Shively’s office and residence in Chicago is a café outfitted with polished concrete floors, quartzite counters, and a ribbed walnut bar. A polished-chrome espresso machine, La Marrazzo’s Linea Mini, sits poised for use on the leathered stone surface. Custom glass and iron doors, made locally, conceal a conference area.
Photo credit: Ryan McDonald / Stylist: Kimberly Swedlius
After it’s poured, he takes a seat on the café’s custom banquette and drinks it all in. Initially designed for the public, the sleek space ended up serving only the firm and its clients during Covid and never officially opened. "It’s wonderful that it didn’t," Mike says resoundingly. "Now I get my own little toy coffee shop to play with."
That the space is private panned out, but Mike, a self-proclaimed coffee addict, had been craving something similar long before the pandemic set in: a live/work solution to better support his busy day-to-day.
"It’s something that’s been rolling around forever, this concept of everything I’m interested in under one roof," he says. "There came a point in my life, especially as I started the firm, that running around all the time just wasn’t making sense." The firm’s formerly downtown offices were cramped and didn’t get much natural light; it just wasn’t optimal for growth. To fully realize the "en masse" lifestyle, as Mike calls it, he started reviewing properties, envisioning a multistory building with space for his offices and a residence.
"Clients come in and we make them coffee," Mike says. "We use it as an opportunity to slow the pace, to chit chat, and catch up on how their day has been. It takes the formality out of meetings and makes it social." Instead of a stuffy office atmosphere, "we're just in a coffee shop catching up," he says.
Photo credit: Ryan McDonald / Stylist: Kimberly Swedlius
After an exhaustive search, his interest was piqued by an overlooked slice of encroached land (a slim 21 feet wide) nestled between three-story buildings along California Avenue in Chicago’s Logan Square neighborhood. The property was close to home for many En Masse team members and the area was welcoming with a slow-paced feel. Another draw, the lot’s width allowed Mike to build a fourth level. "It’s unique to find a property like this in Chicago, where you have the opportunity to create a glass box without being blocked by someone else."
From inside, the Brutalist-inspired facade’s fins create an elegant display of light. "The fins don’t necessarily bounce the light into the building, but they themselves glow in the afternoon as the sun comes around that way," Mike says. "It’s a really interesting sculptural thing to appreciate from inside the space."
Photo credit: Ryan McDonald / Stylist: Kimberly Swedlius
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