Capital Flats / Onion Flats
In 1999 Capital Meats, the former meat-packing plant which operated on this site for 80 years, was a sprawling mass of ravaged, collapsing, and abandoned buildings situated in the middle of a predominantly residential neighborhood. Onion Flats change all that. This once dilapidated site is now home to 8 dwellings that are rich in both history and innovative design.
Architect: Onion Flats
Location: 114-150 W. Laurel St., Northern Liberties, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Developer/Builder: Onion Flats
Photographs: Tim McDonald
National Museum of American Jewish History / Ennead Architects
Architects: Ennead Architects
Location: Philadelphia, PA, USA
Design Principal: James Polshek
Management Partner: Joseph Fleischer
Senior Designer: Robert Young
Project Manager: Joshua Frankel
Project Architect for Construction: John Lowery
Project Team: Aran Coakley, Matthew Dionne, Erkan Emre, Mazie Huh, Aileen Iverson, Dean Kim, John Lowery, Craig McIlhenny, Maura Rogers and Jordan Yamada
Owners Representative: Becker & Frondorf
Project area: 100,000 sqf
Project year: 2010
Photographs: Halkin Photography LLC
Thin Flats / Onion Flats
This eight unit residential project explores the highly efficient and architecturally latent potentials hidden within the traditional form of the Philadelphia “Row” home. The vertical rhythm, regularity yet diversity of this most prevalent residential urban typology was the primary source of inspiration for this experiment. Thin faces fronting both Laurel and Pollard Streets mask and blur conventional lines of demarcation between all eight duplex dwellings both vertically and horizontally. In the process, a degree of density yet expansiveness uncommon to the thin space of the urban duplex emerges. The Philadelphia “Row” is by nature a long, thin slice of dense, sustainable, urban space, typically ‘light-deficient’ and insular at its core. Thin Flats questions this traditional ‘deficiency’ by spatially reconfiguring the relationship between the interior and it’s skin such that its ‘core’ is flooded with light and air. This skin also affords each room on the ‘periphery’ of the dwelling the ability to step outside, and yet remain within the skin. This project also is unique by being the first LEED-H Platinum duplex residences in the USA.
Architect: Onion Flats (Plumbob Llc)
Location: 145-151 Laurel St. Northern Liberties, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA
Project Team: Tim McDonald, Howard Steinberg, Jim Sanderson
Owner / Developer: Onion Flats
Structural Engineer: Associated Engineering Consultants Inc.
Green Roof & Rainwater Harvesting: G.R.A.S.S. (Green Roots And Solar Systems)
General Contractor: JIG Inc (Project Manager Kurt Schlenbaker)
LEED Rater: Magrann Associates (Sam Klein)
Project Year: 2009
Photographs: Mariko Reed, Sam Oberter, Tim McDonald
Rag Flats / Onion Flats
We were first introduced to Onion Flats by you, our readers. After posting our Architecture City Guide to Philadelphia we received numerous comments suggesting that Onion Flats’s work should be among the cannot miss list if you visit Philadelphia. We certainly agree. We chose to showcase their project Rag Flats first, but we will bring you more of their work in the coming days. Rag Flats is an experiment in and a critique of sustainable forms of urban dwelling. The former industrial rag factory has been re-conceptualized as a residential garden community created by prototypical forms of dwellings commonly found in Philadelphia: the row house, the trinity, the loft, and the pavilion. Rag Flats intentionally explores the necessary relationships between density, intimacy, and privacy in any urban community. Rag Flats was a collaborative design/build project.
More on this project after the break!
Architect: Onion Flats
Location: 1338-52 E. Berks St., Fishtown, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA
Developer/Builder: Onion Flats
Project Year: 2006
Photographs: Courtesy of Onion Flats
Cherry Hill Mall Renovation and Expansion / JPRA Architects
The complete renaissance of Cherry Hill Mall has repositioned the center as an elegant, contemporary classic shopping/dining experience. Prior to the renovation, the Owner, Pennsylvania Real Estate Investment Trust (PREIT) recognized that while strong customer demographics existed, many were driving by the center to shop at competing developments. With the potential addition of a Nordstrom department store, the need for a major repositioning of the center was appropriate. As a result, the comprehensive renovation of the development included the addition of a 138,000 sqf Nordstrom, an additional 62,000 sqf of two-level mall GLA, a new multi-level parking structure, and the complete renewal of the interior mall, all while the center remained in full operation.
More after the break.
Architect: JPRA Architects
Location: 200 South Broad Street, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA
Contractor: Torcon Inc.
Structural Engineer: Shenberger & Associates
Mechanical and Plumbing Engineer: E&S Construction Engineers, Inc.
Electrical Engineer: Stern & Associates, Inc.
Lighting Design: Grenald Waldron Associates
Landscape Architect: Mesa Design Group
Code & Life Safety Consultants: Code Consultants, Inc
Parking Deck Consultant: Walker Parking Consultants
Civil Engineer: CMX
Project Area: 200,000 sqf
Photographs: Matt Wargo Photography, Jay Rosenblatt Photography & Visual Communications, Inc.
Pennsylvania Convention Center / tvsdesign
This project by tvsdesign is an addition to and rehabilitation of Philadelphia’s historic 1893 Reading Train Shed. As the centerpiece of the Pennsylvania Convention Center, the terminal building, Grand Hall, meeting rooms, ballroom and farmer’s market will be joined by a new modern convention center that weaves the style, scale and rhythm of the historic Philadelphia architecture with the new addition.
More on this project after the break.
University of Pennsylvania School of Design 2011 Spring Lecture Series
University of Pennsylvania School of Design boasts one of the Top 10 Graduate Architecture Schools in the United States. This month their Spring Lecture Series, More and More, is hosting Qingyun Ma (M.Arch), dean of the USC School of Architecture. This event is free and open to the public and PennDesign is a registered provider of continuing education programming for the American Institute of Architects.
Qingyun Ma has been called one of “the 27 most influential designers making an impact on business today.” Ma is considered to be among the most exciting contemporary Chinese architects, first receiving international attention as coordinator of Rem Koolhaas’ first Harvard Project on Cities and subsequent book, The Great Leap Forward.
His work has been exhibited around the world, earning him honors including a Design Vanguard award from Architectural Record, Phaidon’s Emerging Design Talents designation and a New Trends of Architecture designation by the Euro-Asia Foundation.
Wednesday, March 16
Qingyun Ma
MORE AND MORE – 2011 Spring Lecture Series
6:00pm – 7:30pm, Meyerson Hall, B3
Other events this month for the Architecture Department:
Tuesday, March 22
Urbanism II
6pm, Meyerson Lower Gallery
Thursday, March 24
Armand Grüntuch & Almut Ernst, Grüntuch Ernst
6:30pm, Meyerson B3
Monday, March 28
Karim Rashid
IPD, sponsored by the IPD Lecture Fund and Lisa Roberts and David Seltzer
6pm, Meyerson B1
The Modules / Interface Studio Architects
Architects: Interface Studio Architects
Location: Philadelphia, PA, USA
Client: Templetown Realty (Jonathan Weiss)
Major Funding: Private development
Concept/Lead Architect(s)/Designer(s): Interface Studio Architects
Structural Engineers: Larsen and Landis
Electrical/Mechanical Engineers: n/a
Additional Consultants: MaGrann Associates – LEED
Project area: 80,000 sq. ft.
Project year: 2009 – 2010
Photographs: Interface Studio Architects, Sam Oberter
100K House / Interface Studio Architects
Architects: Interface Studio Architects
Location: Philadelphia, PA, USA
Client: Postgreen Homes
Major Funding: Private development
Concept/Lead Architect(s)/Designer(s): Interface Studio Architects
Structural Engineers: Larsen and Landis
Contractor/Manufacturer: Manor Hill Construction / Hybrid Construction
Additional Consultants: MaGrann Associates – LEED
Project area: 1,150 sq. ft.
Project year: 2008-2010
Photographs: Interface Studio Architects, Sam Oberter
Surface Deposit: New Work by Lead Pencil Studio
Surface Deposit is the first Philadelphia exhibition of Lead Pencil Studio, a Seattle-based collaboration between Annie Han and Daniel Mihalyo. Extending from a traditional training in architecture, Lead Pencil Studio works across multiple disciplines to explore spatial conditions, material, and form through large-scale installations.
Surface Deposit is an exhibition of fragmented sculptural assemblages based on the analysis and research of digital data collected by a 3-dimensional laser over several months during the summer of 2010. Incorporating various materials, including remnants from Tyler School of Art’s former campus in Elkins Park, PA, Lead Pencil Studio will explore notions of accumulation through elements of architecture that are not inherent to a structure’s original design. Their practice is self-described as “architecture in reverse…our projects are everything about architecture with none of its function…spaces with no greater purpose than to be perceived and question the certainty posited by the man-made world.”
The exhibition will be open until February 26. More information can be found here.
Morris Arboretum Tree Adventure / Metcalfe Architecture & Design
Morris Arboretum’s Tree Adventure exhibit Out on a Limb, designed by Metcalfe Architecture & Design, was the 2010 AIA Philadelphia Design Excellence Gold Medal Winner, 2010 AIA Pennsylvania Architectural Excellence Award, 2010 “Best of Philly” Award, and the 2010 American Association of Museums Excellence in Exhibition Design Award. Suspended 50 feet above the forest floor this network of walkways (450-feet in length) provides a bird’s eye view of the forest, complete with a giant Bird’s Nest, Squirrel Scramble rope, and many vista platforms.
Follow the break for photographs, drawings, and renderings of Out on a Limb.
Architects: Metcalfe Architecture & Design
Location: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA
Consultant: Forever Young Treehouse, Inc
Structural Engineers: CVM Engineering
Construction Managers: CVM Construction
Civil Engineers: Hunt Engineering Company
Lighting Designers: Grenald Waldron Associates
Exhibit Designers: Sparks Exhibits and Environments
Photographs: Paul Warchol
Urban Outfitters Corporate Campus / Meyer, Scherer & Rockcastle
Urban Outfitters Corporate Campus, designed by Meyer Scherer & Rockcastle transformed four dilapidated historic buildings in Philadelphia’s Navy Yard, into an award winning adaptive reuse headquarters. The Anthropologie, Free People, and Urban Outfitters retail brands’ design studios and offices are housed within each building. A campus commons and services’ offices are efficiently shared among the different divisions of the company. This project received a 2010 AIA Honor Award for Architecture.
Follow the break for a video discussing the site and design featuring Urban Outfitters, Inc company founder Dick Hayne. More photographs, drawings, and project description after the break as well.
Architects: Meyer, Scherer & Rockcastle, Ltd.
Location: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA
Principal-in-Charge: Jeffrey Scherer, FAIA
Project Manager: Josh Stowers, AIA, LEED AP
Interior Designer: Leanne Larson, CID, IIDA, LEED AP
Client: Urban Outfitters, Inc
Total construction cost: $100 million
Project Area: 285,000 sqf
Project Year: 2006
Photographer: Lara Swimmer Photography
The Breakaway / We Are You
Swedish architects We Are You received third prize for an international competition for the new Bicycling Center in Philadelphia.
More images and architect’s description after the break.
Parametric Design to Fabrication Workshop
This workshop will introduce participants to the cultural, technological, and tectonic domain of parametric design and digital fabrication in a fast-paced and hands-on learning environment. Over the course of two days, the workshop will involve iterative prototyping and associative design strategies capable of incorporating and embracing an array of material and fabrication constraints. Participants will explore and construct highly articulated material assemblies through computer-aided manufacturing, mold making, and casting.
This workshop is the result of a collaborative effort between Studio Mode and Point.B Design and will provide participants with direct access to a full suite of manual tools for wood, metal, and plastics fabrication in addition to a 3-Axis CNC Mill. Instruction will be provided in the construction of molds, the proper handling of materials and casting, file preparation for working with the mill, as well as a series of parametric design strategies with supporting content.
For more details on the workshop, please click here.
Split Level House / Qb Design
Architects: Qb Design
Location: Philadelphia, USA
General Contractor: McCoubrey Overholser, Inc.
Stair Fabrication: Bill Curran Design
Cabinetry: James Van Etten
Green Roof: David Brothers
Structural Engineer: The Kachele Group
Project Area: 279 sqm
Project Year: 2009
Photographs: Todd Mason / Barry Halkin Photography
