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 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.”

By Lee Bey

July 18, 2025