Building affordable rental housing in Chicago can be so tough — not to mention expensive — you’d almost be willing to overlook that much of what’s being created these days is pretty bland.
Travel around the city, or walk around the corner, and you’ll see yet another semi-featureless four- to six-story horizontal box.
All of this makes Jigzibik, a $34 million, 45-unit affordable rental building that broke ground last week, worth watching.
Marketed to the city’s Native American renters, the building’s design incorporates the indigenous populace’s history, customs — even the colors of their historic dress — to create affordable housing that promises to be fresh, new and unique.
And that goes right down to the building’s name: Jigzibik. It’s a Potawatomi word meaning “at the river’s edge,” a term picked by the project’s Native American Advisory Council that is a nod to the indigenous people’s historic tie to the Chicago River.
Indeed, Jigzibik would be located about a half mile west of the river’s North Branch, at 2909 W. Irving Park Road.
“I think they wanted … a building that feels contemporary, but is also still very culturally expressive,” said Jaime Torres Carmona, founder and principal of Canopy, the Chicago architecture firm that designed Jigzibik.
“These are people that want to see themselves as still present and, if anything, more vibrant than before,” Torres Carmona said. “I think all those things kind of came together.”
A first for Chicago
Once built, Jigzibik (pronounced JEEG-zee-beek) will be the city’s first affordable housing project with a Native American focus.
“We put together a Native American advisory council so that we could be very strategic on doing culturally-relevant design and putting community involvement in the design,” said one of the project’s leaders, Shelly Tucciarelli, founder of Visionary Ventures, a nonprofit advocating for affordable housing and economic improvement for Native Americans in Chicago.
Tucciarelli’s point marks an important distinction. This country — this region, especially — has had an ugly habit of swiping Native American symbols and names and tacking them on to places that weren’t even remotely built for indigenous people.
Indeed, the names and designs have purposely come long after the Native American populations were either run off or killed.
Jigzibik’s aim, on the other hand, is to house and uplift the Native American community.
Renderings and an architectural model show Jigzibik as a good-looking, seven-story building with a rooftop community space and garden.
The building presents a visually striking, serrated, five bay facade that allows apartments to have east-facing balconies that capture the morning light.
“Very relevant because it’s the beginning of the new day, and it’s to be celebrated,” said Tucciarelli, a member of Wisconsin’s Oneida nation.
Tucciarelli also said the open balconies would provide each renter with an outdoor space to burn sage.
“One of the things that we brought up [during the community input portion of the design phase] is that we burn our sage — that’s part of our culture,” she said.
The balconies will also carry the vibrant colors of the ceremonial jingle dress, worn by women in many Native American cultures.
“Yellow, blue — organic hues,” Torres Carmona said.
Another planned eye-catching feature is a large graphic — rendered in reflective blue glazed brick — shaped like the Chicago River and running across the face of the building.
Torres Carmona said the graphic is designed as a way-finding tool that points out the building’s entrance “then carries up and wraps to the western end of the building where the two points emulate the north and the south branches of the Chicago River.”
But Jigzibik’s Native American design influences are more than facade-deep.
The top and bottom floors, planned for community and gallery use, are inspired by the long open horizontal spaces of Iroquois longhouses.
“The longhouse is this kind of beautiful place where people get together, and it’s this kind of man-made structure that becomes the place for a gathering, socializing,” Torres Carmona said.
‘Thinking seven generations ahead’
A land blessing ceremony last Friday marked the start of construction.
The building will have 10 studio apartments, 15 one-bedrooms units, 10 two-bedrooms and 10 three-bedroom units, according to the city. There also will be three units for those “transitioning out of homelessness,” the city said.
Tucciarelli said about 165 families have expressed interest in living in Jigzibik.
While the project is designed to ease the affordable housing shortage in the Native American community, potential tenants of all ethnicities can apply, Tucciarelli said.
Public subsidies helped cover a chunk of Jigzibik’s $34 million price tag, including $6 million from the Chicago Department of Housing and $2.5 million in low-income housing tax credits.
“It’s expensive,” said Tucciarelli, who added that it has taken seven years to get the project planned, designed and funded. “But we weren’t gonna stop until it was completed and until we got to the closing table.”
What’s next? Tucciarelli said the coalition of Native American leaders and community members behind Jigzibik now want to build other types of residences, including senior housing.
“We’re doing a homeless needs assessment and a housing needs assessment also to see exactly what our priorities will be moving forward,” she said.
Tucciarelli said community members have expressed the need for intergenerational housing.
“We’re storytellers,” she said. “So to be able to continue to tell the stories and bring it onto the next generation and the next generation. Because we’re always thinking seven generations ahead.”