The Jax

The Surprising Cladding Alternative to Standard Brick

It proved to be the ideal substitute for three tricky conditions on a Chicago mid-rise.

In the great cladding debate between glass, brick, and fiber cement that unfolded at 1220 West Jackson, a year-old mid-rise development in Chicago, the West Loop community association rendered the final verdict.

Brick won.

Welcome to The Jax, a 166-unit transit-oriented development that honors the neighborhood’s aesthetic wishes. The property’s surging 90% occupancy rate may be one way the neighbors return the favor.

“My developer friends may wince a bit, but I’m thankful the community wanted a masonry building,” explains George Sorich, AIA, the project architect and principal of NORR, a fully-integrated A&E firm with offices worldwide. Sorich heads the Chicago office, which specializes in multifamily development and design. “We ended up with a beautiful product.”

Symbiotic Relationship

The 10-story, 128,603-square-foot structure is mixed-use, with a 7,600-square-foot ground floor retail component.

“It’s a symbiotic relationship between residents and retailers. Plus, it fits the West Loop’s guidelines. They want great street-front retail,” Sorich says. “We knew from zoning what the density was going to be and the aesthetics from local guidelines. That filled in the project narrative.”

One interesting twist to that narrative is a comparatively new tool in the NORR design arsenal. It’s thin brick, the lightweight tile-like twin to standard brick. Sorich doesn’t recommend thin brick for all applications, but it certainly proved indispensable in solving the following conditions:

Condition #1 — Aesthetics

With brick, Sorich and team achieved a modern aesthetic by incorporating it with other materials. “We use full brick at the base of the building, partly because we had some really deep recesses there,” Sorich says. “We mixed brick elements with metal and glass panels, like treating the brick as a panel itself. We wanted the warmth and texture from the brick. By contrast, we used brick at the base of the building as the mass.”

Condition #2 — Accessibility

In the spirit of TOD and density, the property line runs tight to an adjacent building. So tight, in fact, that conventional scaffolding wasn’t an option. Thin brick “tiling” was, which proved to be “a great solution,” Sorich says. “It’s quite authentic and looks beautiful.”

Condition #3 – Interior Inches

The studio units in The Jax measure just over 400 square feet—micro units by most standards. Constructing streamlined wall assemblies that maximized interior space was a big deal. Thin brick fits right in with a TOD sensibility. “When you’re trying to pump up density, every inch counts,” says Sorich.

One More Condition

There’s at least one other condition for which thin brick can be a great answer, but it applies to another NORR project, now in progress: A cantilevered projection to a multifamily mid-rise. “It’s about structural loading. We want to have masonry on the element, but standard brick is too heavy. We’re using thin brick for that reason and full masonry elsewhere. Thin brick offers constructability advantages,” the architect says.

For Sorich and his team at NORR, thin brick is welcome tool. “When full brick doesn’t work, thin brick is the answer.”

Learn more how thin brick can enhance the aesthetics and constructability of your next project.

• Manufacturer: Endicott Clay Products Company
• Distributor: Illinois Brick Company
• Wall System Manufacturer: TABS Wall Systems
• Architect: NORR