As an architect trained in the modernist tradition, I believe in the tenet, “be true to the material.” But a recent trip to Mexico broadened my understanding of what it means to be “true”. It also changed my thinking about paint – in particular, painted exterior masonry and concrete. Kahn, Ando, and my current fave, Rick Joy, embrace the purity…
Some of America’s first urban workers lived in a unique type of Philadelphia home called a Trinity. Examples date from 1720. Trinities were built to house the artisan classes flocking to a burgeoning city; but while these workers moved on to populate America, the Trinity House didn’t follow them. But the Trinity and the narrow streets that contain them warrant a…
“Patchwork”, Living City Challenge Entry The sustainability rating systems—Passive House, Living Building Challenge, and Net Zero (a subset of the Challenge)—appear in isolated new construction projects. The promise and perversity of trying to pick out sustainability targets, building by building, within a tightly woven urban fabric can be examined in Philadelphia. Here, the architecture/development dynamo Onion Flats proposes to build…
