Goettsch Partners Wins Two AIA Chicago Design Awards

At the annual AIA Chicago Designight event, held Thursday, October 1, at the Harris Theater, Goettsch Partners was honored with two awards, including a Citation of Merit in the Architecture Large category and the Lerch Bates People’s Choice Award in the Cultural and Museum category.

Citation of Merit, Architecture Large
Alcove
Nashville, Tennessee

Positioned on a prime site in downtown Nashville, adjacent to the 17-acre, Amazon-anchored Nashville Yards development, this 34-story, 419-foot-tall apartment tower includes 356 units. GP designed the building as well as the interiors, incorporating a series of stacked, shifted cubes organized in pairs on four levels. The unique arrangement opens up inner sections of the building, creating distinctive views and communal alcoves.

The building’s façade uses an intricate window wall featuring two varying shades of glazed metal panels that frame floor-to-ceiling glass for each unit. Signature amenity spaces are creatively placed within four warm-toned cutouts, or alcoves, that feature intimate, communal outdoor terraces. Two of the 75-foot-tall terraces face east toward the Nashville skyline, while two others face west with unobstructed sunset views. Rooftop amenities include a fitness room, business center, private dining room, game room, lounge, and outdoor pool deck.

Learn more about Alcove.

Lerch Bates People’s Choice Award, Cultural and Museum
Brookfield Zoo Chicago
James & Elizabeth Bramsen Tropical Forests
Brookfield, Illinois

Bramsen Tropical Forests at Brookfield Zoo Chicago represents a significant evolution in primate habitat design, uniting animal welfare, immersive visitor experience and custom architecture within a three-acre campus expansion. Designed by GP in collaboration with zoo staff and exhibit design consultant Stantec, the project reimagines how primates are housed, cared for and encountered in a modern zoo setting.

The new habitat provides guests with an immersive experience across four lush rainforest environments inspired by Africa, Asia and South America, with five viewing shelters offering encounters with western lowland gorillas, Bornean orangutans, white-cheeked gibbons and South American monkeys. The project expands and reinvents the existing Tropic World footprint, creating four dynamic outdoor habitats with mesh, aviary-style enclosures, while the new Gorilla Conservation Center provides dedicated space for conservation and education, behind-the-scenes habitats, and an additional indoor habitat.

Designing a rainforest habitat in Chicago required a careful balance of immersive naturalism and technical resilience. Outdoor enclosures incorporate terrain variation, water features, selected existing trees, and climate-adaptive plantings, supported by mesh and cable systems engineered for snow and ice loads. Viewing shelters and framed sightlines prioritize animal comfort by allowing primates to retreat while still enabling meaningful encounters. Bramsen Tropical Forests is the largest and most ambitious project in the zoo’s history and marks the first phase of the Next Century Plan, a long-term vision for the zoo’s continuing evolution.

Learn more about James & Elizabeth Bramsen Tropical Forests.