A design firm's own office is its most honest project - there's no client to defer to, no brief to interpret. Just a clear-eyed answer to the question of how a studio wants to work and what it wants to say about itself. Eastlake's answer was the 26th floor of 333 North Michigan, a 1928 Holabird & Root landmark with views of the river, the lake, Tribune Tower, and the Wrigley Building in every direction.

The plan divides naturally into two modes. The north wing, formally composed, serves presentations, client meetings, and moments of reflection - a space that earns the building's pedigree. The south wing is where the work happens: open studio, phone rooms, a resource library, height-adjustable tables sized to bring the full staff together. The two sides share a floor but operate on different frequencies, each calibrated to what it needs to be.

Beneath it all, a layered history that the design didn't ignore. The building sits over the footprint of Fort Dearborn. The suite itself once housed the Tavern Club, where Carl Sandburg and Frank Lloyd Wright came to think and drink. For a design firm serious about context and place, that kind of provenance isn't incidental, it's instructive. The office that followed tried to be worthy of it.