CREDITS:
Design and canopy mock-ups: Charles Loomis, Chariss McAfee
Metal fabrication and installation, canopy conversations: Moore Design, Steven Moore
Structural base fabrication: Frank B Clayton Sons Inc
Construction: Tom Beilman

To effectively implement its recently EPA-approved Green City Clean WatersCombined Sewer Overflow Long Term Control Plan, PWD needs to develop reliable means of achieving significant GI adoption in neighborhoods. It also needs new tools with which to evaluate design considerations, incorporate public input, and compare alternative programs that, for example, provide various kinds of economic incentives to private property owners who choose to adopt GI, or leverage funds earmarked for GI in the public right-of-way with other ongoing projects. Because of the physical, social, legal, economic and institutional complexities associated with such efforts, conventional site assessment, design approaches, community outreach, hydrologic and hydraulic modeling, are not sufficient for addressing this problem.CREDITS:
Charles Loomis Chariss McAfee Architects: Charles Loomis, Chariss McAfee
North Street Design: Juliet Geldi, Gavin Riggall
Drexel University: Dr. Franco Montalto, Alex Waldman, Katherine Travaline
Tetra Tech Clancy Environmental: Timothy Bartrand
Smyler & Gentile Attorneys at Law
——————–
Breaking News: Green City, Clean Waters Gets The Green Light
On June 1st, the PA Department of Environmental Protection and the Philadelphia Water Department (PWD) will sign a groundbreaking agreement that will allow PWD to officially implement its Green City, Clean Waters plan.

PWD plans to spend approximately $2 billion over the next 25 years to use primarily green stormwater infrastructure (stormwater tree trenches, porous pavement, rain gardens, sidewalk planters) to transform man-made surfaces that repel the rain into Greened Acres that capture, infiltrate and manage rainwater runoff—just like Mother Nature.

For more information on the historic agreement to officially launch Green City, Clean Waters, please view the attached press release and visit: http://www.phillywatersheds.org.

Once identified, those factors created an opportunity to design an aesthetically distinctive, highly functional structure to provide year-round access to the chlorine-free lap pool, to address and enhance the clients’ appreciation of the natural environment, and to give a sense of intention to the placement of the existing house on the property.

Consequently, the addition was placed adjacent to the existing sun room, with its long dimension running north-south. A highly penetrable steel, stone and glass enclosure offers a view of mature copper beech trees, flowering shrubs, and the sky. The new north courtyard and south terrace of the addition anchor the house definitively. The existing sun room was renovated to function as a tiled vestibule that now serves as a separate entrance to the pool and terrace, as a moisture control room between the pool and adjacent living areas, and as a small deck from the master bedroom on the second floor.

The interior, with shifting ceiling planes of wood and glass, site-fabricated fiber-optic lighting, has a narrow palette of natural materials. The contrast between the solid stone and the light reflecting on the glass and water is especially remarkable at dawn and dusk.

CREDITS:
Architectural and lighting design: CLCMA, Charles Loomis, Chariss McAfee
Lighting Consultant: BEAM, Adam Carangi
Lighting installation:
Charles Loomis, Chariss McAfee, Juliet Geldi, Lisa Hoover, Todd Hoover
Mechanical design and specifications: Dietmar Kohler
Construction and coordination: McCoubrey Overholser Building Construction, John McCoubrey
Pool installation: Armond Aqua-Tech, Jeff Ciarrochi:
Stone (exterior): Otto Construction, Otto Honyak
Stone (interior): Michael Addesso Marble and Granite World, John Addesso
Metal roofing: Walton Roofing and Siding, Michael Walton
Custom woodwork: Furniture by Design, James van Etten
Mosaic floor assembly: Souli Tile and Stone Shop, Ali Souli
Light fixture metal fabrication: Moore Design, Steven Moore
Mechanical installation: WB Scott, Wayne Bunting, Scott Herbine

Infill Philadelphia — hosted by the Community Design Collaborative, included a charrette, an exhibition, and a design challenge — demonstrated the link between industrial reuse and a sustainable city and identified some key design and development guidelines for the next generation of neighborhood-based manufacturing.

Philadelphia was once known as the “Workshop of the World.” Today, abandoned industrial sites provide only a narrative sketch of the industrial boom that significantly shaped the growth and structure of many urban neighborhoods throughout the 1920s. Underutilized space, architectural remnants and unproductive vacant land characterize much of what remains. How can the city restore the competitive edge of underused industrial spaces and improve job capacity, opportunity and employment for neighborhood residents?

We are left with fragments of that past — impacted soil (primarily by petrochemicals), ground water and river water contaminated by seepage, topography altered by the necessity of access and storage, the river’s edge reconfigured. Yet still there is a sense of place — of subtle elevation change, of “river-presence,” of city. The variety and broad spatial vocabulary of existing structures is surprising. Size, scale, rawness, bare-bones-necessity-ness of materials, of light, of need for a particular use give rise to quietly amazing constructions.

The terrain is clear and suggests the following:

Maintain and use topography
Maintain and re-purpose selected remnants of the industrial past
Recognize and augment remediation already in progress
Integrate stormwater treatment for run-off
Create bioretention systems that maximize the natural capabilities of the site
Strategically layer the site to naturally separate and intentionally integrate co-existing functions

An abandoned railway right-of-way bisects the site, threading through existing oil storage containment walls and dropping thirty feet from the northern bridges to water level at the south, creating an upper plateau and a lower shore zone. These containment walls are used for both stormwater retention and for in site remediation of contaminated soils. Once an infiltration barrier and soil have been placed, these walls are then capped to serve as a plinth for new structures. Buildings are located near the edge of the upper “plateau” allowing for water and city views and primary entry. Parking is in small, discreet lots. Service vehicles have access to railway sidings and to building loading docks on the interior of the site, out of view of the public path. The railway right-of-way is re-used for the Schuylkill River Trail, bringing residents from Center City through the site to a new public launch, a plaza at Botanic Avenue, and Bartram’s Garden to the south. The existing City parcel at the end of 49th Street is re-purposed for public vehicular river access on the lower Schuylkill.

A stair tower and ramp at the Gray’s Ferry Bridge provides immediate access to the trail, river and proposed facilities for the West Philadelphia community and the Institutions which are a short walk away.

Our response to this project is a request to weigh more fairly what we consider important, what we should keep and re-use and what we should open up for new things and new ideas.

Philadelphia Industrial Development Corporation (PIDC) PROGRAM
With its close proximity to the University of Pennsylvania, the University of the Sciences in Philadelphia, Drexel University, Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, and The Wistar Institute, this site may be particularly attractive to entrepreneurial biotechnology and life science firms where manufacturing is a knowledge-generating activity integral to product innovation. This type of advanced manufacturing (i.e. clinical trial and medical equipment development and fabrication) allows for the custom tailoring of devices to specific individuals (i.e. doctors and patients) and/or applications very quickly. Over time this regional specialization in technical applications and product development can provide a source of regional advantage. This site, with its excellent access to road, rail, and air travel, allows additional training, observation, development and further specialization to regional, national and international doctors and patients. Additionally, this site is seen as an attractive home to these life science incubator enterprises for as they become established, they will have the ability to expand in place.

The development of this site is not meant to replicate the suburban campuses that many medical incubators have aspired to, but rather it has a bias to urban living and working. It is meant to keep employers and employees in the city who want to capitalize on the infrastructure of an urban environment.

CLIENT:
Philadelphia Industrial Development Corporation (PIDC), Thomas Dalfo
CREDITS:
CLCMA, Charles Loomis, Chariss McAfee, Caitlin Martin
with Gavin Riggall
Consultants:
TRC Engineering Services, Mitchell Bormack
Viridian Landscape Studios, Tavis Dockwiller
and assistance from Jonathan Alderson Landscape Architects
Jonathan Alderson, Jesse Forrester, Kwatee Stamm

Please contact the Schulykill River Development Corporation (SRDC) for the current plans for the Schuylkill River Trail extension to Bartram’s Garden.

CREDITS:
Architectural and fabrication design and coordination: CLCMA, Charles Loomis, Chariss McAfee
Construction: Tom Beilman, Dan Neff
Stone fabrication and installation: Michael Addesso Marble and Granite World, John Addesso
Electrical: CA Finn Electric LLC, Chris Finn
Special Consultant: JMB