David Belt is full of surprises. I first heard about him last summer, when the New York Times ran a story about pools in dumpsters, somewhere on the Gowanus Canal in Brooklyn, NY. The Collaborative tracked him down and asked him to give the opening talk at our recent Infill Philadelphia: Industrial Sites Interim Use Charrette. In the process, we discovered that David is a Philly native and a developer by trade. Huh? The man who created an urban swim club out of a riverside lot full of dumpsters is a commercial developer, not some architect gone rogue?

When this cheerful bearded man strolled into our office to give the “charge” for the design charrette, it just kept getting better. About the pools, those “intimate aqua living rooms,” David said offhand, “You know we all feel a little like garbage anyway, so swimming in a dumpster is kind of appealing.” Read Full Story

Miquon School has a 10-acre partially wooded campus cut by a creek. Charles and Chariss, along with team members, provided an analysis of water flows and suggestions for managing stormwater.

Charles Loomis and Chariss McAfee, principals of Charles Loomis Chariss McAfee Architecture and 2009 recipients of a Collaborative Outstanding Firm Award, look forward to new design challenges.

Charles and Chariss have worked on two projects with the Collaborative, a master plan for the renovation of Legal Aid of Southeastern Pennsylvania and a conceptual design for creek stabilization for the Miquon School in Conshohocken, Pennsylvania.  Volunteering with the Collaborative allows them to take on a wider range of projects.  “We are attracted by the complexities of the issues and to working with diverse groups of people,” remarks Charles.

They see providing their architecture skills pro bono as a way to support community organizations. “It is helpful to nonprofit groups to have this assistance in the early difficult-to-fund stages of their projects,” says Chariss.

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New Kensington CDC converted this yarn mill into affordable live/work space for artists.

Deadline for submissions extended to December 18

Do you know a great project that has brought an industrial site back to life? We want to hear from you!

Architecture, planning, and engineering firms in the Mid-Atlantic region are invited to submit projects for inclusion in Retooling Industrial Sites, an upcoming exhibition highlighting  industrial sites that have been (or will be) retooled for modern manufacturing or transformed into housing, commercial, and other new uses.

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Macro Sea's David Belt sets the bar for the interim use charrette. Photo by Mark Garvin.

Check out Plan Philly’s post on the Collaborative’s  interim use charrette, Infill Philadelphia: Boldness redefines ‘community center’ .

Thomas J. Walsh writes:  “Planners, designers and architects attending a day-long design charrette last Friday did not need to be told to be creative, and adapt, when it comes to the short-term re-use of vacant, urban industrial sites – of which Philadelphia has more than its share.

They probably didn’t need any nudges in the direction of going green with their approaches, or to be bold.

From an inspiring guest speaker and critic, though, they just might have gotten a new take on an old saw for a valuable take-away lesson: ‘It’s a lot easier to ask for forgiveness than it is to ask for permission.’

That was the advice of David Belt, president of the New York-based design firm Macro Sea and one of the guys behind Brooklyn’s celebrated dumpster swimming pools.”

According to Steve Culbertson of Impact Services, working with a diverse team helped the "design go outside of the box."

Impact Services Corporation, a social services agency that offers job training and supportive housing, has been headquartered in a former carpet mill in Kensington since the late ‘70’s. Last year, Impact Services approached the Community Design Collaborative for advice on how to refresh the exterior of its two “vintage” factory buildings and make them stand out along busy Allegheny Avenue.

The Collaborative redefined the project scope to address several overarching issues: how to reorganize the facility to function more effectively, how best could it introduce a new element to the site—affordable rental housing for some of Philadelphia’s neediest families reunited after homelessness, and how to add green space without sacrificing off-street parking.

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Last Friday’s Industrial Sites: An Interim Use Charrette provided a forum for discussing issues surrounding vacant industrial sites in Philadelphia. Charrette participants produced an exciting and diverse array of concepts for enlivening overlooked and neglected industrial lots, buildings, and infrastructure. The charrette was held as part of the annual Design on the Delaware and was a partnership between the Community Design Collaborative, the AIA Urban Design Committee and the Philadelphia Association of Community Development Corporations.

Four multidisciplinary teams of designers, including architects, landscape architects, planners and public artists, were charged with designing temporary uses for four vacant industrial sites selected with help from the Philadelphia Chinatown Development Corporation and The New Kensington Community Development Corporation. Volunteers from KSK Architects Planners Historians, Inc. provided the base materials, including site photos and precedents, and led the charrette teams.

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