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Designed to Sit In: The Furniture & Objects That Shape Optima’s Spaces

Posted on by Carly

At Optima, design doesn’t stop at the building’s exterior. It runs all the way through, into every lobby, every residents’ club, every lounge and business center and sky deck where people arrive, pause, gather, or simply choose to stay a little longer. The furniture and objects that furnish our shared spaces are chosen with the same deliberateness as every architectural decision: for their form, their quality, their relationship to the architecture around them, and their ability to make a common area feel genuinely worth spending time in.

This is what the Forever Modern philosophy looks like in practice, not as a tagline, but as a daily commitment to placing objects of genuine design merit in the places where people actually live.

A Shared Design Lineage

Optima’s furniture curation begins with a conviction inherited from the same tradition that shaped its architecture: that the best furniture, like the best buildings, should be honest about its materials, resolved in its form, and designed to serve the person using it rather than merely impress them. That conviction leads, naturally and repeatedly, to the great names of modernist furniture design, the designers who worked at the same intersection of art, architecture, and craft that has always defined Optima’s own practice.

It’s worth understanding the historical thread. Many of the designers whose work appears in Optima communities knew each other, they taught at the same schools, competed for the same commissions, and pushed each other toward increasingly refined solutions to the same fundamental questions about how designed objects should behave in space. Florence Knoll, Charles and Ray Eames, Eero Saarinen, and Harry Bertoia all crossed paths at Cranbrook Academy of Art. Ludwig Mies van der Rohe shaped the IIT program that shaped Optima’s own founder. The furniture in our communities isn’t assembled from a catalog of prestigious names. It is an expression of a specific design lineage, one that runs from the Bauhaus through Mies, through IIT, and through every building Optima has ever built.

Pieces That Define Our Communities

The Barcelona Chair, designed by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and Lilly Reich for the 1929 International Exposition in Barcelona, can be found at every Optima community without exception. Initially conceived as seating for Spanish royalty overseeing the opening ceremony, it was built from two chrome-plated flat steel bars on each side and leather cushion planes held together by hidden stainless buttons: a structure that is simultaneously a feat of engineering and an object of great calm beauty. Mies designed it to sit in the lobbies of his own buildings, to accent the architecture and belong to the space. At Optima Sonoran Village it holds its place in the residents’ club against the backdrop of the lushly landscaped courtyards. Optima Kierland it anchors the residents’ clubs across all five towers. At Optima Signature it occupies a building that draws its design language directly from the modernist tradition Mies built, making its presence not a gesture toward history but a genuine expression of it. That a piece designed nearly a century ago remains the right choice for a 21st-century residential community tells you something important about genuine design: it doesn’t date, it deepens.

The Eames Lounge Chair and Ottoman, first produced in 1956 and still manufactured by Herman Miller to almost the same specification, appears at every Optima community with its characteristic warmth and authority. Charles and Ray Eames spent years developing the three-dimensional molding process that would give the chair its curved plywood shell, building their Kazam! machine from bicycle parts and spare timber, pressing veneer against plaster molds with a hand-inflated membrane. The resulting chair, supple leather over molded wood, set on a six-legged base, tilted at an optimal angle, debuted on national television in 1956 and entered MoMA’s permanent collection almost immediately. The Eameses described it as having the warm, redemptive look of a well-used first baseman’s mitt. At Optima Verdana it sits in the library lounge as an invitation to the unhurried North Shore Saturday the building was designed around. Optima McDowell Mountain it offers the natural counterpoint to a community built around movement, the rooftop run finished, the cold plunge done, the chair waiting. At Optima Sonoran Village, Optima Kierland, and Optima Signature it is a daily presence in residents’ clubs and lounges: a special refuge, as the Eameses intended, from the strains of modern living.

Eames Lounge Chair and Ottoman

The lobby of Optima Lakeview is anchored by one of the most distinctive pieces in the entire Optima collection: the Cloverleaf Sofa by Verner Panton, designed in 1969/1970 for his Visiona 2 exhibition, a commission from Bayer AG to imagine the interior environments of the future. A snake-like configuration of four connected circular seats, its ergonomic form encourages spontaneous, multi-directional, face-to-face conversation. It is simultaneously a piece of design history, a work of art, and an extraordinarily welcoming place to sit. Against the backdrop of Optima Lakeview’s seven-story skylit atrium, with its hanging gardens and vibrant red beams, it transforms a lobby into a space worthy of a design museum, one that residents walk through every single day.

The Cloverleaf Sofa

The Womb Chair by Eero Saarinen, commissioned by Florence Knoll in 1946 with the instruction that she wanted a chair she could sit in sideways, any way she liked, like a basket of pillows, appears at Optima Lakeview and across almost all Optima communities as an invitation to exactly that kind of unhurried freedom. Saarinen’s solution was a molded fiberglass shell upholstered in fabric, set on thin steel legs, wrapping around the body from every direction. It became a cultural icon upon release, appearing in a 1958 Coca-Cola campaign and on the cover of the Saturday Evening Post, and at Optima communities from Scottsdale to the North Shore it fulfills a quieter purpose: it is simply the most comfortable chair in the room.

The Tulip Table by Eero Saarinen, designed after Saarinen approached Florence Knoll in 1955 with his desire to clear what he called the slum of legs beneath every table ever made, appears in Optima Lakeview residences and throughout our communities as an elegant, weightless presence: a single white pedestal supporting a round top, the clutter of structure resolved into a single serene form. The Opera Chair by Busk+Herzog brings a contemporary voice to Optima Lakeview’s business center, high-backed and enveloping, designed for the resident who needs concentration without isolation. At Optima Kierland, the Planet and Pierce configurations serve the same purpose across the business centers of all five towers: chairs for the way people actually use common areas today, sometimes sociably, often in quiet concentration, needing just enough shelter to think.

The Tulip Table

Knoll’s curated collection, whose 40-plus designs belong to MoMA’s permanent collection, provides the seating, tables, and additional pieces that ground the shared spaces at Optima Signature, Optima Verdana, Optima McDowell Mountain, and across our broader portfolio in the design tradition they deserve. The Noomi Chair appears at Optima Lakeview, Optima Verdana, Optima Signature, and other communities as a contemporary expression of the same ergonomic intelligence and material refinement that defines the classics alongside it. Together these pieces give every Optima community’s shared spaces a consistent design vocabulary, not a uniform look, but a shared quality of intention and craft that residents feel without always being able to name.

The Noomi Chair

Why It Matters

A common area furnished with great design is not the same as one furnished with expensive furniture. The difference lies in intention, whether pieces were chosen to impress or to serve, to fill space or to shape it. At Optima, the furniture in every shared space is part of a considered design conversation that begins with the architecture and doesn’t end until the last object is placed and the light falls across it for the first time.

The result, from Optima Sonoran Village and Optima Kierland in Old Town and North Scottsdale to Optima McDowell Mountain at the edge of the Sonoran Preserve; from Optima Lakeview and Optima Signature in Chicago to Optima Verdana on the North Shore, is shared spaces that feel genuinely alive. That have character, warmth, and a quality of attention that residents experience differently over time: the Cloverleaf Sofa in Optima Lakeview’s lobby on a grey November afternoon, the Eames Lounge Chair at Optima Verdana after a long week, the Barcelona Chair at Optima Kierland in the particular quality of a North Scottsdale morning. Great furniture, like great architecture, rewards sustained attention. At Optima, both are present in the same building, and both belong to the residents who come home to them every day.

Come experience the spaces for yourself. Schedule a tour at an Optima community today.

From the Rooftop: Why Optima’s Sky Decks Are Unlike Any Other in the City

Posted on by Carly

There is a moment that happens to almost every new resident of an Optima community. They take the elevator to the top for the first time, step out onto the sky deck, and stop. Not because they weren’t expecting something good, they were. But because what’s actually there exceeds what they imagined was possible from the roof of a residential building.

That reaction isn’t accidental. It’s the result of a design philosophy that has treated the sky deck not as a finishing touch, but as one of the most important spaces in the entire community.

A Design Decision, Not an Amenity Package

At Optima, the rooftop is designed with the same intentionality as any residence. Every sky deck begins with a fundamental question: what does the specific setting of this building demand, and how do we build something that honors it? The answer at each community is different, shaped by the landscape, the climate, the views, and the particular character of the neighborhood below. The result is that no two Optima sky decks are alike. They share a standard, but not a template.

David Hovey Jr. has described how the sky decks have evolved over time in direct response to how residents live, with bigger pools, more shaded gathering areas, yoga studios with open sliding glass walls, saunas and cold plunges, outdoor theaters, and the quarter-mile running track that made its debut at Optima Kierland. Each iteration built on the last. Each one asked: what would make this better?

Optima Kierland: A Sky Deck for Every Tower

At Optima Kierland, the sky deck isn’t a shared amenity, it’s a private one. Each of the five towers has its own dedicated sky deck, exclusive to that tower’s residents. It’s a design decision that transforms a rooftop from a communal convenience into something that genuinely feels like yours.

The 7190 tower’s sky deck is the most recent evolution: an Olympic-length heated pool, a quarter-mile running track that follows the perimeter of the roof, a spa and cold plunge, lounge seating, fire pits, an outdoor bar and kitchen with TVs, and the most breathtaking unobstructed views of the McDowell Mountains in North Scottsdale. In the earlier towers, glass-enclosed saunas, heated lap pools, yoga studios, outdoor theaters, and rooftop gardens round out sky decks that have set the standard for what rooftop living in the desert can be. Arizona’s first rooftop running track was born here, because the architects who designed the buildings also designed the life that happens on top of them.

Optima McDowell Mountain: Six Decks, Six Panoramas

At Optima McDowell Mountain, every one of the six buildings will have its own rooftop sky deck, each one will offer a 50-meter Olympic-length pool, a running track that follows the building’s perimeter, outdoor fire pits, lounge seating, arbors covered in vines, and outdoor kitchens with barbecues and dining spaces. The views rotate with the desert compass: the McDowell Mountains to the east, Camelback Mountain to the south, Pinnacle Peak to the north, and sunsets to the west that light the sky in every shade of amber, rose, and gold. No seat on any of these rooftops offers the same view twice.

Rooftop Deck at Optima McDowell Mountain

Optima Lakeview: Chicago, Unobstructed

In Chicago, the sky deck takes on an entirely different character. At Optima Lakeview, the rooftop sky deck places residents above the Lakeview neighborhood with panoramic views that sweep from the lakefront to Wrigley Field, a cityscape that is one of the most extraordinary in the country. The heated pool is designed for year-round use, a deliberate choice that ensures the deck never closes regardless of what a Chicago winter decides to do. Fire pits, lounge seating, a glass-enclosed party room, an outdoor theater, and barbecue areas ensure that whether the evening calls for a quiet drink above the city or a gathering of neighbors, the space is ready.

Optima Lakeview Sky Deck

Optima Signature: Elevated Living Across Four Amenity Levels

At Optima Signature, the experience is different, and intentionally so. Rather than a single rooftop sky deck, Optima Signature distributes its amenity spaces across four floors, giving residents multiple ways to engage with the city depending on the hour and the occasion. The heated indoor and outdoor pools sit within an amenity experience that spans 1.5 acres and includes a 40-yard indoor running track, multiple spas, indoor and outdoor saunas, and men’s and women’s locker rooms with steam rooms, as well as a Level 20 library and residents’ lounge with views of the lake and the skyline, and the exclusive Club 52 sky terrace for Apex residents. From 57 stories above Streeterville, Lake Michigan stretches unbroken to the east, the Chicago River winds through the city to the south, and the skyline fills every other direction. The result is not one elevated moment but a building-wide experience of height and light and city, one that changes with every season, every floor, and every time of day.

Optima Verdana: The North Shore, Elevated

At Optima Verdana, the sky deck takes its cue from the particular quality of North Shore light and the intimate scale of Wilmette’s village character. The glass-enclosed heated lap pool with retractable walls opens to fresh outdoor air when the season allows, year-round swimming in a setting that frames sweeping views of the Wilmette treetop canopy and the Bahá’í Temple to the north. A sun deck, barbecues, herb gardens, a bocce court, fire pits, and a party room with a chef’s kitchen make the rooftop at Verdana a space that reflects both the ambition and the quieter, more considered pace of North Shore living.

Optima Verdana

Optima Sonoran Village: A Desert Oasis, Ground to Rooftop

At Optima Sonoran Village, the elevated outdoor experience is distributed across the community rather than concentrated at a single point. Tower 15, the community’s most recent tower, offers its residents an exclusive rooftop sky deck with views of Camelback Mountain, an outdoor kitchen, fire pits, a spa, and a sun deck scaled for intimacy rather than spectacle.

For the broader community, the outdoor life unfolds across 6.1 acres of lushly landscaped grounds: two resort-style pool areas with spas, saunas, outdoor kitchens, fire pits, and lounge seating under the Scottsdale sky. The glass-enclosed 19,000-square-foot fitness center overlooks the lap pool, dissolving the boundary between inside and out even in the middle of a workout. A sculpture garden of five original David Hovey Sr. works in natural Cor-Ten steel, a putting green, and courtyard walking paths complete an outdoor experience designed to make the desert feel like an amenity, one that rewards every hour of the day differently, from the blue cool of early morning to the amber light of an Arizona evening.

Why the Sky Deck Becomes the Heart

A building can have extraordinary residences and still feel anonymous. What turns a building into a community is the shared space, the place where neighbors become familiar, where a Sunday afternoon becomes something worth looking forward to, where the city or the desert or the lake reminds you why you chose to live here. At Optima, the sky deck is designed to be that place.

It works because it’s never designed generically. It works because the pool is the right size, in the right place, oriented to the right view. Because the fire pit is close enough to the lounge seating to make a conversation easy, and far enough from the pool to give the space room to breathe. Because the running track goes where the best views are. Because every detail, from the shade structure to the bar placement to the choice of materials underfoot, was considered by the same people who designed the building below.

At Optima, the sky deck isn’t the amenity at the top. It’s part of the design from the very beginning.

Come see the view for yourself. Schedule a tour at an Optima community today.

From Canvas to Courtyard: The Artists Shaping Optima Spaces

Posted on by Carly

At Optima, art has never been an afterthought. From the founding conviction that architecture should engage the whole person, the mind as much as the body, the eye as much as the foot, the inclusion of original art in our communities has been a design principle, not a decoration strategy. The artists whose work lives in Optima spaces were chosen, commissioned, and collaborated with for the same reason every other decision at Optima is made: because the quality of daily life depends on it.

David Hovey Sr., FAIA — Sculptor

The artistic identity of every Optima community begins with its founder. David Hovey Sr., FAIA, architect, developer, and sculptor, has expanded the design reach of Optima to encompass both the buildings and the art that inhabits them. His love of contemporary art was ignited during his time as a student assistant to the curator of contemporary art at the Art Institute of Chicago, and his practice as a sculptor grew from the same fascination with materials that drives his architecture: a deep curiosity about what steel can express beyond structure.

Hovey’s sculptures, each one an original work appearing across Optima communities in different colors, sizes, and orientations, are conceived in direct dialogue with the buildings they inhabit. Kiwi, born from freehand drawings and named after the native New Zealand bird from the country of his birth, commands the sweeping entry plaza at Optima Signature with a bold color and distinctive form that gives the building an identity all its own. Curves and Voids anchors the entry plaza at Optima Verdana, grand sweeping steel curves interrupted by laser-cut voids that catch the North Shore light differently in every season. The sculpture garden at Optima Sonoran Village houses five original Hovey works in natural Cor-Ten steel, Silver Fern, Duo, Triangles, Intersecting Arches, and Curves and Voids, distributed through the courtyards so that art is encountered on the way to the pool, not in a gallery setting reserved for special occasions.

As Hovey himself has said: architecture is about function as well as aesthetics. Sculpture is really just about aesthetics. You don’t have that functional component. At Optima, that freedom, to make something purely for the sake of beauty, is taken as seriously as any structural decision.

Kiwi Sculpture

The Painters Behind Our Walls

The art that fills Optima communities doesn’t exist in isolation. It belongs to a longer conversation, one that spans generations of artists and movements, and that Optima has been actively building for decades.

Alexander Calder’s bold, graphic works greet residents throughout Optima Signature, their bright tones and distinct forms carrying the playful rigor that made him one of the most influential artists of the 20th century. A multimedia artist whose output spanned sculpture, stage sets, paintings, prints, and jewelry, Calder brought a sense of movement and wit to everything he made, qualities that feel just as alive in an Optima lobby as they did in the Parisian avant-garde circles where he first made his name.

Pablo Picasso’s brightly colored work adorns the walls of Optima buildings across the portfolio. His range was extraordinary, Cubism, Surrealism, Neoclassicism, the Blue Period, the Rose Period, and his lifelong refusal to settle into a single style is part of what makes his work so enduring. A Picasso on the wall isn’t just a piece of art history. It’s a reminder that the most interesting spaces, like the most interesting artists, are always evolving.

At Optima Sonoran Village, the surrealist works of Joan Miró bring their own vivid energy. Born in Barcelona and shaped by the color and culture of the city, Miró moved through Cubism before finding his own language of organic shapes, bold lines, and pure color. Works like Figure in Front of the Sun and The Red Sun hang in units at Optima Sonoran Village, playing off the lively interiors and lush desert landscape outside. Miró once described his use of color as being like words that shape poems, and in these spaces, that intention is felt.

Paul Klee is another presence felt throughout Optima Signature. Trained in music before turning to visual art, Klee brought an almost compositional sensibility to his canvases, geometric forms layered with humor, color theory pushed into something deeply personal. His work touched Expressionism, Cubism, Surrealism, and Absurdism without being fully claimed by any of them, and his tenure teaching at the Bauhaus gave his ideas an influence that spread far beyond his own hand. His work Garden View, on display at Optima Signature, is structured yet alive, precise yet full of feeling.

These are just a few of the artists whose work lives in Optima communities, each one chosen with the same deliberateness as every architectural decision, and each one adding something that no floor plan ever could.

Paul Klee’s Garden View at Optima Signature

Contemporary Art and Furniture — The Curated Environment

Beyond the commissioned works, Optima communities are shaped by a broader program of contemporary art and furniture selected with the same deliberateness as every architectural decision. At Optima Lakeview, the Cloverleaf Sofa by Verner Panton, one of the most influential furniture designers of the 20th century, occupies the lobby as both seating and sculpture, a piece that embodies the same innovative spirit as the building around it. Throughout our communities, art and furniture are chosen to complement the architecture, set off the spaces, and bring shape, color, and texture to the experience of daily life, ensuring that every common area, every corridor, every amenity floor feels considered and alive.

Why It Matters

The environments we inhabit shape who we become, what we notice, what we value, how carefully we pay attention. A home filled with great art doesn’t just look extraordinary. It asks something of the people who live inside it: to slow down, to look more carefully, to be surprised. At Optima, that invitation is extended every day, in every sculpture encountered on the way to the pool, every painting noticed differently on a Tuesday than it was on a Sunday, every piece of furniture that makes a common space feel genuinely worth spending time in. Art isn’t applied to our communities. It belongs to them.

Come see the art that lives here. Schedule a tour at an Optima community today.

Living Alongside Art: How Sculpture Transforms a Community

Posted on by Carly

Most people experience great art on a schedule, a museum visit, a gallery afternoon, a curated occasion. At Optima, we’ve always believed that great art shouldn’t require an appointment. It should be part of the texture of daily life, as present and as natural as the light that fills our buildings each morning.

Art as Architecture, Not Addition

At Optima, the relationship between art and architecture isn’t decorative, it’s structural. From the earliest stages of design, public art and sculpture are considered alongside the placement of walls, windows, and open space. The result is that art in Optima communities doesn’t feel installed or displayed. It feels native, as though the building and the artwork emerged from the same intention, which in many cases they did. This is a direct expression of Optima’s founding design philosophy: that the built environment should engage the whole person. The mind, not just the body. The eye, not just the foot.

The Encounter You Didn’t Plan

There is a particular quality to discovering art when you’re not looking for it. A sculpture anchoring the courtyard at Optima Sonoran Village seen differently in the morning than at dusk. A commissioned work in the lobby of Optima Lakeview that stops you on the way to the elevator on a Wednesday. A large-scale piece on the terrace at Optima Kierland that you’ve passed a hundred times but only truly noticed today, in this light, at this angle. At Optima Verdana, David Hovey Sr., FAIA’s sculpture Curves and Voids stands at the building’s entry, present every morning on the way out, every evening on the way in, always offering something new to those who look.

These unplanned encounters accumulate. Quietly, persistently, they enrich the daily experience of a place and remind residents that they live somewhere that considers beauty not a luxury but a necessity.

Optima Sonoran Village

Sculpture and the Identity of a Place

Every sculpture in an Optima community is an original work by David Hovey Sr., FAIA, the architect, artist, and founder whose creative vision is the foundation of everything Optima builds. Just as Hovey’s architecture is designed in direct response to each community’s setting, light, and landscape, his sculptures are conceived with the same specificity. These are not works selected from a catalog or acquired after the fact. They are created as part of the community itself, expressions of the same design intelligence that shaped the building they live alongside.

That connection between sculptor and architect being one and the same produces something rare: a seamless relationship between the built environment and the art within it. At Optima Signature, Kiwi, born from Hovey’s freehand drawings, commands the sweeping entry plaza with a boldness of color and form that gives one of Chicago’s most significant residential towers an identity that is unmistakably its own. At Optima Verdana, Curves and Voids anchors the building’s entry with grand sweeping steel and laser-cut voids that catch the North Shore light differently in every season. Each work is singular. Each belongs entirely to the place it calls home.

Optima Signature

The Everyday Experience of Living With Art

At Optima, art extends beyond the sculptures in our plazas and courtyards. Throughout every community, contemporary art and furniture are chosen with the same deliberateness as every architectural decision, selected to complement the building’s design, set off our spaces, and bring shape, color, and texture to the experience of daily life. A carefully curated piece in a lobby. Furniture in a common area that is as considered as it is comfortable. Works that give a corridor a sense of destination. These choices are part of the same design language that runs through every Optima community, and they are what make the difference between a beautiful building and a place that genuinely feels like home.

Residents who live alongside meaningful art tend to describe something difficult to quantify but easy to feel: a sense that their home takes them seriously. That beauty here is a foundation, not an afterthought. Over time, the art woven through an Optima community, from David Hovey Sr., FAIA’s original sculptures to the contemporary works and furniture throughout the shared spaces, becomes part of each resident’s relationship with home. A shared reference point between neighbors. A source of daily pleasure as light changes across seasons. A quiet reminder that this place rewards attention.

An Invitation to Look More Carefully

In a world that rewards speed, an artwork that asks for your full attention for a moment is a quiet shift in pace. A home that offers those moments, day after day, around every corner and across every season, is something genuinely rare. That is what Optima’s commitment to public art is built to provide. Not spectacle, but depth. Not decoration, but meaning that grows.

Come see the art that lives here. Schedule a tour at an Optima community and experience a home worth looking at.

How Green Building Design Protects Your Health — Not Just the Planet 

Posted on by Carly

Sustainable architecture gets a lot of attention for what it does for the environment. But there’s a quieter, more personal story worth telling, about what it does for the people living inside it. At Optima, green building design has always been both things at once: responsible to the planet, and deeply beneficial to the resident. 

Nature Built into the Building Itself 

One of the most visible expressions of Optima’s sustainable philosophy is our living architecture. The lushly planted vertical gardens at Optima Sonoran Village, Optima Kierland and Optima McDowell Mountain aren’t decorative, they regulate building temperature, filter air, and create a buffer from the desert heat. The soaring skylit atrium at Optima Lakeview fills the heart of the building with natural light and greenery year-round. At Optima Verdana, landscaped terraces maintained year-round with Optima’s signature vertical gardening system ensure that living greenery is present at every level of the building, from the ground floor to the rooftop sky deck. These systems aren’t added on. They’re woven into the architecture itself, which is precisely what makes them work. 

Optima Lakeview Atrium

The Air You Breathe at Home 

At Optima, we select eco-friendly materials, prioritize advanced ventilation, and choose finishes that don’t compromise the environment residents breathe every day. The result is that the air inside an Optima residence is often cleaner than the air outside, a quiet, invisible benefit that residents feel without always being able to name. 

Comfort, Quiet, and Better Sleep 

A sustainably designed building maintains a more consistent internal temperature, reducing the swings that make a home feel like it’s fighting the climate rather than coexisting with it. Thoughtfully engineered walls, windows, and rooflines keep Optima interiors regulated and calm, whether facing an Arizona summer or a Chicago winter. And the denser, higher-quality materials used in sustainable construction also happen to be excellent acoustic insulators. Less noise means lower cortisol, better sleep, and a nervous system that gets to rest. 

Optima Kierland’s Patio

Sustainability and Luxury Are the Same Value 

At Optima, we’ve never seen sustainability and luxury as competing ideas. The most responsible home to build, one that breathes cleanly, connects residents to nature, and endures beautifully over time, is also, by design, one of the finest homes to live in. Across every Optima community, every green choice is equally a choice in favor of the quality of resident life. 

The planet benefits. But so does everyone who comes home here each evening. 

Experience it for yourself. Schedule a tour at an Optima community today. 

Why Walkability Is the New Luxury

Posted on by Carly

At Optima, we’ve always believed that a great home extends far beyond its walls. Every community we build is positioned with the same intentionality as the architecture itself, placed where culture, dining, parks, and daily life come together.

Location Is a Design Decision

At Optima Sonoran Village, residents step directly into the heart of Old Town Scottsdale, world-class dining, galleries, and the energy of one of Arizona’s most vibrant neighborhoods, all on foot. At Optima Kierland, the Kierland Commons and Scottsdale Quarter are steps away. Optima Lakeview, the lakefront path, Lincoln Park, and the best of Chicago’s North Side are part of the daily rhythm. These aren’t coincidences. They’re the result of decades of intentional site selection.

Optima Sonoran Village Retail

The 15-Minute Life

Urban planners call it the 15-minute city, a place where everything you need is within a comfortable walk. For most people it’s an aspiration. For Optima residents, it’s the lifestyle. When the coffee shop, the farmers market, the dinner reservation are all reachable on foot, something shifts. Life expands. You become a regular. You feel less like someone who lives near a city and more like someone who genuinely inhabits it.

Optima Signature

Walkability and Well-Being

The benefits run deeper than convenience. Research consistently links walkable neighborhoods to lower stress, better cardiovascular health, and stronger social connection. At Optima McDowell Mountain, residents are minutes from the McDowell Sonoran Preserve trail network. At Optima Verdana, downtown Wilmette and the lakefront are steps away. Movement, nature, and community, built into the address itself.

Why It Matters

The most walkable address isn’t just the most convenient one. It’s the one that makes daily life richer, healthier, and more connected. At Optima, that’s not an afterthought. It’s part of the design.

Discover the neighborhood at your doorstep. Schedule a tour at an Optima community today.

Morning Rituals That Actually Stick and the Spaces That Help

Posted on by Carly

A great morning doesn’t happen by accident; it’s built from small habits that feel good enough to return to. The secret most people overlook? Your environment matters as much as your willpower. At Optima, we design for both.

Start with Light

Natural light within the first hour of waking regulates the circadian rhythm and produces the alert, energized feeling that coffee tries to replicate. At Optima, light is never something residents have to seek out. Floor-to-ceiling windows fill Optima Sonoran Village and Optima McDowell Mountain residences with warm desert morning light, while the soaring atrium at Optima Lakeview makes the transition from night to day feel effortless. For those who want to take it outside, the rooftop sky decks at Optima Kierland Apartments offer open-air sunrise views that make early rising feel like a reward.

Signature Rooftop Deck at Optima McDowell Mountain®
Optima McDowell Mountain® Sky Deck

Move First

Even 20 minutes of morning movement improves mood, focus, and reduces anxiety for hours after. The challenge is never the movement; it’s the energy to get there. When world-class fitness amenities are steps from your front door, that barrier disappears. Residents across Optima communities wake up adjacent to state-of-the-art fitness centers, resort pools, and indoor basketball & pickleball courts.

Basketball Court at Optima Kierland®
Optima Kierland® Basketball Court

Find the Stillness

The most grounding morning habits are sometimes the quietest, a few minutes of journaling, meditation, or simply sitting somewhere beautiful before the day takes over. The key is a space that makes slowing down feel natural. At Optima Sonoran Village, the lushly landscaped courtyards offer a serene desert morning that’s hard to rush through. Optima Lakeview, a quiet corner of the atrium with light filtering through the greenery above, is all it takes. At Optima Signature, the views make pausing effortless.

Life at Optima

The most important insight from habit science is simple: we don’t rise to our intentions; we fall to our environment. At Optima, every design decision, from building orientation to courtyard placement to window quality, is made with the lived experience of morning in mind. Because a day that starts well, in a space designed to support it, tends to stay that way.

Start your day in a space designed to elevate everyday living. Schedule a tour at an Optima community today.

The Art of Biophilic Design: How Nature in Your Home Changes Everything

Posted on by Carly

At Optima, we’ve always believed that the best architecture doesn’t just shelter you from the natural world, it draws nature in. That belief has a name: biophilic design. And it’s quietly transforming the way people feel in the spaces they call home.

What Is Biophilic Design?

Biophilic design is the intentional integration of natural elements, light, greenery, water, organic materials, and open air into built environments. Rooted in the idea that humans have an innate need to connect with nature, it’s not simply a trend. It’s a philosophy that shapes how people experience their surroundings on a deeply physical and emotional level.

Research consistently links biophilic environments to reduced stress, improved focus, faster recovery, and a greater sense of calm. When the spaces around us echo the patterns of the natural world, something in us settles.

Living Green — Literally

One of the most striking expressions of biophilic design at Optima is our living architecture. Lush vertical gardens cascade across building facades and bloom within our interior courtyards, softening the geometry of modern design with the organic rhythm of growing things. These aren’t decorative flourishes, they’re purposeful choices that improve air quality, regulate temperature, and bring a sense of vitality to every day.

Lushly Landscaped Courtyards

Light as a Design Element

Natural light is perhaps the most powerful biophilic tool of all. At Optima, our architects design floor plans and communal spaces to maximize sun exposure throughout the day, creating interiors that feel alive, warm, and energizing in the morning, and softly golden in the evening. Large windows, and thoughtfully oriented residences ensure that light moves through a home the way it moves through a forest: dynamically, beautifully, and with purpose.

Optima Lakeview’s Atrium

Organic Materials, Timeless Feel

Beyond greenery and light, biophilic design lives in the materials we choose. Natural stone, warm wood tones, textured surfaces that echo the landscape, these choices ground a space and give it a sense of permanence that sleek synthetics simply can’t replicate. At Optima, our residences are designed to feel like a natural extension of their surroundings, not a departure from them.

Why It Matters for How You Live

Where you live shapes how you feel, every single day. A home that connects you to nature, that lets in the light, that surrounds you with living things, is a home that actively supports your well-being. That’s what biophilic design delivers. And it’s what makes Optima communities more than just beautiful places to live, they’re environments designed to help you thrive.

Experience biophilic living for yourself. Explore our communities and learn more about living the Optima lifestyle today.

Finding Balance: Indoor & Outdoor Yoga at Optima McDowell Mountain

Posted on by Amanda Johnson

At  Optima McDowell Mountain , wellness is more than an amenity—it’s a way of life. With thoughtfully designed yoga amenities located both at grade level and on the rooftop sky deck, plus weekly morning yoga classes guided by experienced instructors, residents enjoy an environment that supports movement, mindfulness, and community. Whether you’re flowing indoors in a calm, temperature controlled studio or practicing outside with sweeping views of the McDowell Mountains, Optima offers a uniquely flexible and inspiring yoga experience.

A Calm Retreat Indoors: Climate Controlled Yoga Studios

Optima’s indoor yoga spaces—available on both the ground level and integrated within the rooftop sky deck—offer residents tranquil environments perfect for year round practice. These studios feature:

  • Soft natural light filtering through expansive windows
  • Premium mats, blocks, straps, and bolsters
  • Acoustically calm ambiance
  • Consistent climate control for comfort in all seasons

Residents often pair indoor practice with the community’s weekly morning yoga classes, which use these serene interior spaces during warmer months. Early sessions help set the tone for a grounded, focused day—right at home.

Yoga Elevated: The Rooftop Sky Deck Studio

One of the most breathtaking wellness features at Optima McDowell Mountain is the rooftop sky deck yoga studio. Overlooking the valley, this elevated open air studio offers:

  • Panoramic views of the McDowell Mountains
  • Fresh airflow and abundant natural light
  • Beautifully designed, ideal for energizing vinyasa or quiet sunrise flows

There’s something magical about practicing at sunrise—the colors shifting across the desert sky, the quiet hum of the morning, and the sense of expansion that comes from being elevated above it all.

Outdoor Yoga Experiences: At Grade & Elevated Above the Desert

For residents who enjoy connecting their practice with the natural environment, Optima McDowell Mountain offers two distinct outdoor yoga areas—each thoughtfully designed to bring the calm and beauty of the desert landscape into every session.

  • At grade level, residents can unwind in peaceful, shaded yoga areas nestled within Optima’s lush, landscaped courtyards. These grade level spaces feature:
  • Shaded platforms surrounded by greenery, ideal for slow flows or stretching
  • Thoughtful desert plantings that create a soothing, nature immersed atmosphere

Above it all, the rooftop sky deck outdoor yoga area provides a breathtaking elevated alternative. Here, residents practice with:

  • A serene, expansive rooftop sky deck area designed for group and solo flows alike
  • Panoramic views of the McDowell Mountains
  • Open air fresh breezes and warm desert sunlight

Weekly Morning Yoga: A Wellness Ritual

To support a consistent wellness routine, Optima McDowell Mountain offers weekly morning yoga classes led by trained instructors. These classes are designed for all levels—from beginners to seasoned practitioners.

This helps residents build regular practice supported by professional guidance and a sense of community.

Weekly morning yoga provides a number of benefits:

  • Helps establish a steady, energizing wellness ritual
  • Encourages social connection among neighbors
  • Supports physical strength, mobility, and flexibility
  • Enhances mental clarity and stress relief at the start of the day

For many residents, these classes become a foundational part of their weekly rhythm.

The Benefits of a Multi Level Yoga Experience

Having access to such a range of yoga environments gives residents unmatched flexibility and inspiration. This variety supports:

  • Year-round, weather proof practice
  • Mind body balance through changing environments
  • Connection with nature and community
  • Consistency supported by weekly classes
  • Enhanced mental clarity, mood, and sense of belonging

Where Wellness and Design Align

Optima McDowell Mountain takes a holistic approach to wellness, ensuring residents have spaces that uplift the mind, body, and spirit. With indoor and outdoor yoga studios, a breathtaking rooftop sky deck, and weekly morning yoga classes that bring neighbors together, Optima has created an environment where yoga becomes more than a fitness activity—it becomes a lifestyle.

Contact us today  to schedule a tour and discover why Optima McDowell Mountain is the perfect place to call home.

Click here to view our floor plans & current availability .

Features That Define Luxury Apartment Living in 2026

Posted on by Amanda Johnson

Luxury apartment living in 2026 is not the same as that of the past, which was defined by surface-level upgrades or status symbols. Today, the question of what makes an apartment luxury is answered through how seamlessly it supports daily life.

Design, wellness, technology, and community now work together to create homes that feel intuitive, restorative, and distinctly personal. At Optima Verdana, these ideas come together to reflect how people truly want to live now and in the years ahead.

Unrivaled Living Spaces Designed for Modern Life

One of the clearest indicators of what constitutes a luxury apartment is the quality of the living space. In 2026, luxury begins with openness and light. Floor-to-ceiling windows aren’t a novelty anymore; they’re essential for bringing in natural light and framing views that change with the seasons. Additionally, open-plan layouts allow residents to move easily between living, dining, and working areas without feeling confined.

Of course, premium finishes still come into play to elevate everyday moments, while thoughtful details ensure comfort never competes with style. Plus, flexible spaces make it easy to adapt a residence for remote work, entertaining, or quiet retreat. Garden landscaping woven throughout the building adds a natural rhythm to daily life and creates a sense of calm year-round. These residences are designed to function equally well as a primary home or a second or third residence, offering consistency and ease regardless of how often residents come and go.

Curated Amenities for Wellness and Leisure

The amenities included at Optima Verdana are what turn an ordinary one into a luxury living space. Those amenities begin and end with wellness, including high-end fitness centers and yoga studios, indoor pickleball courts, and spa-style environments for relaxation and recovery. Having these amenities on-site eliminates the need for an external membership and acts as a natural extension of the home.

In addition, pools and rooftop lounges offer space to unwind, socialize, or simply enjoy fresh air and views. These amenities are designed to support healthy routines, whether that means an early morning workout, an afternoon reset, or an evening spent outdoors. They all combine to create a space where wellness feels like a natural part of daily life rather than another obligation to manage and schedule.

Seamless Integration of Technology and Smart Living

Technology has become a defining factor in what makes an apartment luxury, especially as daily life continues to blend work, leisure, and home. Luxury apartments feature smart living amenities such as keyless entry, and automated lighting, enabling residents to personalize their environment with minimal effort.

High-speed internet and connected spaces support productivity, streaming, and communication without interruption. In 2026, smart technology is not about adding complexity; it is about removing friction. The most forward-looking residences use technology to make everyday tasks easier, quieter, and more responsive to individual preferences.

A Connected, Vibrant Community Experience

Modern luxury extends beyond the front door. Optima Verdana residents increasingly value connection and belonging as part of their living experience. Curated social programming and shared spaces create natural opportunities to connect with neighbors while still respecting privacy and independence.

At Optima Verdana, we pair this sense of community with an authentic connection to Wilmette and the broader North Shore. We encourage our residents to engage locally by supporting nearby businesses, cultural offerings, and community events. Through this approach, the building becomes an approachable, integrated part of the neighborhood where everyone belongs, rather than a standalone destination.

Experience Optima Verdana Firsthand

Luxury apartment living in 2026 is defined by how a space feels to live in day after day. From unrivaled living spaces and wellness-focused amenities to smart technology and genuine community connection, Optima Verdana reflects what modern luxury has become.

Explore available residences or schedule a tour to experience how these features come together in one thoughtfully designed place to call home.

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