June 2- 8, 2005

cityspace

Wholly Trinity

Rags to Riches: Echoes of Dutch modernism in Fishtown.

Updating an old Philadelphia architectural form in Fishtown.

by Trey Popp

On a peaceful one-way street in Fishtown, Tim McDonald puts the finishing touches on an 11-unit residential development called Rag Flats. Rising behind the brick shell of a former rag factory on Berks Street are the colorful, geometric forms of an uncommonly progressive architectural endeavor, hatched from the gathered minds at Onion Flats, McDonald's design/development collaborative. McDonald and Rag Flats co-designer Kurt Schlenbaker have put their heads together with two other Philly-based design firms, Minus Studios and Cover, to bring a new form of housing to this old neighborhood.

Around an interior courtyard planted with grass and bamboo, five freestanding but closely packed homes offer a novel reinterpretation of the classic Philly trinity, with boxy extrusions popping out from the standard square core in a manner that recalls Dutch modernism. Two "reconsidered" row houses, constructed by John Gwin and Jeremy Avellino of Minus Studios and designed by them and Onion Flats, face the street with deconstructed facades that hint at the radical reorganization of space within. The former factory space has been converted to lofts. A glass-and-steel neighbor is on the way. And McDonald doesn't mind telling you that he sees the project as more than a real estate deal. He considers it a line in the sand.

"This is an experiment in urban dwelling," he says. "At one level it's a critical response to the way the Philadelphia Housing Authority (PHA) and like agencies are taking these massive, vacant pieces of land and basically building really bad suburban developments. This is about looking at what is an urban way to live. It has to do with density, intimacy, privacy, community and sustainability."

While the city's Neighborhood Transformation Initiative goes on demolishing eyesores and cleaning up vacant lots, Onion Flats is busy buying properties and using them to advance a particular idea of city living. Since the firm doesn't have to cater to clients on the front end, it has broad latitude to do what it pleases — with the hope that potential buyers will appreciate the finished result.

"We're somewhere between a school and a development/design/build firm," McDonald says. "We hire young kids, mostly architects or recent graduates of architecture who really don't know much about building, and we teach them. Basically, every project is our sandbox, because we really get to play and dream and explore."

The spirit of exploration in the Fishtown development is most evident in the firm's commitment to environmental sustainability. McDonald expects a photovoltaic array on the former factory roof to supply between 80 and 100 percent of the development's electrical needs. Since state law requires utility companies to buy electricity from individual producers, residents will have the pleasure of watching their meters run backwards on sunny days. Rain will be collected and stored underground in a 6,000-gallon tank that will water the courtyard gardens. The interior parking lot is open to the sky and surfaced with honeycomb-patterned paving blocks with grass poking through the holes. "One problem in Philly, and most cities, is runoff. So rather than water going off into the storm system, the earth will soak it up," McDonald explains.

Although Onion Flats has imbued their most recent project with an ultramodern syntax, the new construction blends into the fabric of the street surprisingly well. By preserving most of the factory's original brick facade, McDonald has retained the historical texture of the building's public front while pushing design boundaries in the inward-facing courtyard and in the interior spaces.

The new-style trinities are outfitted with bright metal staircases (crafted by Dan Magno and Ken Roscioli of Cover) that filter natural light through two stories. Windows whose primary purpose is to illuminate public spaces also face translucent panels that fill private nooks and bathrooms with soft ambient light. Cantilevered balconies create access to the outdoors at every floor level. In a clever play on one old trope of urban living, two of the master bedroom suites face blank walls — but for a good reason: McDonald hopes the residents will project movies onto their neighbors' houses.

"The space between buildings is captured and used as private community space and working space," McDonald explains. "It's a blend of privacy and community."

With three of the units already sold at prices ranging between $350,000 and $440,000, the Rag Flats project appears to be a vindication of McDonald's self-consciously urban approach. But he says he's got bigger fish to fry. He wants the PHA to look closely at what he's doing and take notes. "The cost is the same as what every other developer who builds crappy stuff builds it for," he insists. "One of the premises of what we do is that good design doesn't have to cost more than mediocre design."