Brochure - Mastro Skylar Architects

Mastro & Skylar Architects1615 West North AvenueChicago Illinois 60622773.489.4883www.mastroskylararchitects.com

This is our cover letter.Just because the work of Mastro & Skylar Architects is published frequentlydoesn’t necessarily mean that we are great architects--it could just imply that wehave great clients, interesting jobs, and photogenic situations. But it must meansomething that more than 68 articles, books, and TV shows have showcased ourprojects, and sometimes even put our work on the cover. We believe our work isboth timeless and timely, accounting for its appeal to so many different people.

The most important decision you’ll ever make about yourhouse will be the selection of your architect.Some architects are dreamers. Their clients often end up with double-the-budget masterpiecesthat don’t function well, and express the architect’s--not the clients’--dreams. Somearchitects are more technically inclined or approach the design of a house as a builder.Their clients can end up with a practical and economical house devoid of any personality.Some architects are intellectuals. Their clients end up with an expensively published monographon a house that will never be built.We combine aesthetics and function in our work. Our combined years of teaching andbuilding merge the pragmatic with the theoretical. Our approach is very holistic, incorporatinginterior and landscape design. Mastro & Skylar Architects’ clients end up with specialhouses that function well, come in on budget, make a design statement, and fit our clients’lifestyle like a glove.

Seventy years of experience.Designing a new home with an architect can be an intense project. When you hireMastro & Skylar Architects to design your home, you work only with James Mastroand Claudia Skylar. We work directly with our clients to assure continuity, qualitycontrol and a consistent product, bringing our many years of experience to theprocess. No “middleman”, no employees that may come and go over the life of theproject. You put your heart and soul into your new home, and so do we.

Thinking outside the box.The phrase, “thinking outside of the box”--although a cliché-- is especiallyappropriate in architecture, in a world where there are more and morecookie-cutter builder homes. (Remember the song “Little boxes, littleboxes, and they’re all made out of ticky-tacky and they’re all made out oftickey-tacky and they all look just the same”?) Our creative process isdesigned to analyze your visions, dissect your desires, define your functionalneeds, and guide you in the process of making the visions in all of ourheads into built reality. We put a lot of thought into the early design phasesand explore many different options with you on paper, so that the finalproduct is exactly what you want.

Really thinking outside the box.The phrase, “thinking outside of the box” could also explain how wethink about the area outside the walls of your home. We consider theintegration of the interior and the exterior one of the most importantconsiderations in residential design. In addition to winning the ChicagoTribune Garden Contest and being named Mayor Daley’s Gardener ofthe Year, Claudia Skylar has taught classes on the relationship of thehouse and its site at the Art Institute and the Chicago Botanic Garden,and was chair of the Lincoln Park Conservatory Council. From initial siteplanning to the door and window details, we are constantly aware thatthe exterior is not just leftover space, but a room or a series of rooms inyour overall house plan.

Been there, done that.James Mastro is the sort of architect who understands thebuilding process and isn’t afraid to get his hands dirty. Hestarted out building forts in the prairie at age five, andhasn’t stopped building since. In addition to his designtalents, he has built six homes for his family and numerousothers for clients. James’ knowledge of constructionmethods and costs is invaluable to our clients. We takeour clients’ budgets seriously, without sacrificing gooddesign.We know how hard the construction process can be, andconsider it our job to make it as easy for you as possible.Many of our clients find that it can actually be enjoyable!

Sometimes it takes a LOT of imagination.A Condo Kitchen Before AfterA Ranch House Before AfterA Landmark House Before AfterEach client and each home is unique. You won’t see your future home as you look through our body ofwork. It’s not like going to a builder and telling him that you want “Model B” in a different color. Instead you’llsee how we solved the problems that other clients, buildings or sites posed, and realize that we can do thesame for you.Whether remodeling or building from scratch, we approach the design process as an exercise in problemsolving.When we have the wonderfully clean slate of a vacant lot, or are able to design additions or totallygut an existing structure, we apply the same lessons that we have learned in more restrictive situations. Themore difficult the problem, the more exciting it is to come up with a solution.We’ve seen it all. So far we’ve always been able to totally transform the homes that we’ve worked on. We’vemade small places feel bigger, narrow houses feel wider, low ceilings appear higher. We’ve filled dark houseswith light. We’ve taken nondescript places and given them personality. A good architect must be a magicianwith space.

The Inside StoryEast Lakeshore Drive Co-opNorth Shore ResidenceDePaul ResidenceUrban HouseWest Side LoftSanta Fe ResidenceIt’s a fine line between the outside and inside of a house. Wemay be architects, but we consider the interiors of your homejust as important as the exteriors. Claudia Skylar taught interiorarchitecture at the Art Institute of Chicago for ten years, andbrings this experience to our projects.Throughout the design process, we are aware of functionalneeds and furniture placement. Whether or not our clients alsohave an interior designer, Mastro & Skylar Architects is oftenasked to design the kitchen, baths, built-ins, color and materialselections, and lighting. The success of our work is a result ofthis integration.River North Condo

Details. Details. Details.It all eventually comes down to the details, those parts of your house that you see, touch,and use on a daily basis. Mastro & Skylar Architects believe that the essence of your homeis expressed in the details, both exterior and interior. We believe that the overall conceptshould be evident in the smallest element--that the philosophy behind the house can bediscerned in a cabinet knob or a piece of trim.

Kitchen ArchitectureWe love to design kitchens! Not only do we personally cook and entertain a lot, but kitchens areone of the main places that the style of the house and the personality of the client is defined.There is more thought per cubic inch in a kitchen than in any other room in the house.As architects we tend to look at kitchens differently than kitchen designers because we areconsidering the whole space. We are also free to design cabinetry and other details to customfit to our clients’ functional and aesthetic needs. As in all levels of our design process, thedesign of a kitchen is extremely interactive. We explore every option possible with our clientsbefore committing to a concept.

Beyond the basic bath.We never imagined we would be designing bathrooms whenwe were in architecture school. But just like kitchens, bathsoffer a chance for us to create special compositions ofmaterials and space. As problem-solving artists, we enjoysolving functional issues in special and creative ways.

Our HousePeople always ask if it is difficult for us to design our own places. Absolutely not! We have done a number ofhouses for ourselves over twenty years: a restored Greek Revival farmhouse, a modern-on-the-inside workman’scottage, a renovated and enlarged Victorian mansion, a casual new beach house. Like the mother who tells eachof her children that she loves him the most, we have adored each house that we have created for our family.We have chosen to integrate our life and our work because we believe that in order to create homes for others, itis important that one knows how to live. We use our houses to the max: working, playing, gardening, cooking,building, lounging, exercising, entertaining, learning. Our houses have always been a place for us to experiment(we don’t like to use our clients as guinea pigs), whether it be with a new way of ordering space, a formula formixing a concrete floor, playing with tile or paint. The process of building or remodeling a house may be horrifyingto most people, but we would rather “play house” than do just about anything.This is our house: filled with light and space and our favorite stuff. Airy but cozy. Colorful but neutral. Sometimesplayful, sometimes elegant. Radical ways of organizing space that make perfect sense. Understand our houseand you’ll know everything there is to know about us.

After all, it’s your home.Our clients come to us with pretty strong ideas. We enjoy the challenge of integrating ourdesign philosophy and expertise with their requests. The clients of the above home collectedcountry antiques, loved to garden, and needed another bedroom. We suggested creating thecottage pictured above, complete with a cottage garden, on the roof of their brownstone situatedamong high rises. The home on the right was created for a couple who collected modern art andwanted a zen garden. We suggested removing part of the building to create a private courtyard.We’ve had clients who wanted to live in a church, and have mixed old ceiling frescos withmodern steel handrails and jagged forms. Another asked us to turn a large factory into hishome, giving us the movie “Blade Runner” to inspire us. The stair details in that job relate to theEl that zooms by a few feet outside his living room windows. We’ve designed spaces thatremind a family of a wonderful Caribbean vacation. We’ve created cabinetry to house a cookiejar collection in the context of the remodeling of the entire suburban home, reorienting it on adifficult lot. We’ve designed a number of homes for clients who collect Art and Craft Pottery orMission furniture. We’ve done a home that recalls a house in Charleston for a Southern family,while solving circulation problems and enlarging a small dining area.All of the above projects, as different as they may seem, do have something in common:Mastro & Skylar Architects. Those familiar with our work know it when they see it. We aremodernists at heart, constantly striving for simplicity, rationality, and consistency in our work.We respect the existing context, but never blantantly imitate it. It is your house, but for a shorttime we share the creation of it with you.