In a former pipe shop transformed into the national headquarters for Urban Outfitters, the Infill Philadelphia: Industrial Sites design challenge got off to a rousing start with a program that highlighted the possibilities for industrial reuse and announced the sites and teams engaged in the design challenge.

Presenters Bill Struever, President and CEO of Baltimore based Struever Bros. Eccles & Rouse, and John Grady, Executive Vice President of the Philadelphia Industrial Development Corporation, saw  industry as a key to sustaining Philadelphia’s diversified, resilient economy and former industrial buildings as valuable assets.  In his keynote address, Struever shared examples of his award-winning industrial reuse projects, which have transformed empty factories into offices, distribution centers and housing.  Pointing to the ability of refurbished urban industrial buildings to attract business, stimulate job growth, and create a strong sense of place, Struever said, “Old industrial buildings make terrific places to live, work, and have fun.”

Read Full Story

The Center for Architecture was bursting at the seams for the February 5 opening of Retooling Industrial Sites despite the impending snowstorm of the century. Over 300 people attended the opening of the exhibit and came out to see the work of over 30 design firms transforming older industrial sites.

Stop by and check out the exhibit, which runs until March 26 at the Center for Architecture. For more info, click here.

The Community Design Collaborative has teamed up with the Philadelphia Industrial Development Corporation (PIDC) to support a design challenge that will tackle some of the common issues surrounding retooling older industrial sites in urban neighborhoods through an original approach—innovative design.

The Infill Philadelphia: Industrial Sites Design Challenge will officially kick off on Tuesday, February 16 at the Urban Outfitters Headquarters at the Philadelphia Navy Yard, Building 543 from 4 – 6:30 p.m.

Read Full Story

A sneak peak at the Retooling Industrial Sites exhibit.

The Philadelphia City Paper article Lofty Aspirations profiles the Collaborative’s upcoming Retooling Industrial Sites exhibit. Beth Miller, Executive Director of the Collaborative, and exhibitors from KSS Architects discuss the possibilities of repurposing former industrial areas.

Read the article

The exhibit opens Friday Feb. 5 with a reception from 5:30-7:30.

Images courtesy of exhibit participants C&G Partners, Cho Benn Holdback+Associates, Inc., Allen + Killcoyne Architects and Lynch/Eisinger/Design.

The Community Design Collaborative has been busy putting together Retooling Industrial Sites, an exhibit that will showcase the work of over 50 design firms in transforming old industrial sites back to productive use.  Leading examples of industrial reuse in Philadelphia and inspiring projects from cities across the country will be on display at the Center for Architecture, 1218 Arch Street, Philadelphia, PA from February 5 through March 26.

The exhibit will serve as a forum for the growing interest in industrial sites and urban manufacturing. It will also highlight the important role of design in making industry a new and positive part of urban neighborhoods.  The featured projects pay homage to the industrial past and provide a vision for a new industrial and urban renaissance.

Read Full Story

The 4^th Annual Ed Bacon Foundation Student Design Competition turned its focus to urban brownfields in 2009 with Brown to Green, challenging participants to create designs for transforming the Grays Ferry Crescent at the elbow of the Schuykill River in South Philadelphia, opposite UPenn’s campus.  The winning submission, by a team of six Cornell University students, would turn the area into a new sustainable neighborhood.

Read Full Story

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