Markoe Competition Completed

PHA Markoe Street Collaboration

a “superteam” of young talent in the city assembles to take on the design problem of sustainable affordable housing

Markoe Street Housing: winning submission by Jibe Design, Philadelphia, 2008

The Philadelphia Housing Authority with the support of the Mayor’s office has launched an effort to involve young architecture firms in the creation of affordable sustainable homes.  The Housing Authority’s design competition challenged four rookie firms to create their own urban housing strategy. PHA pledges to build the winning scheme to LEED platinum standards.

The Philly Housing Authority is poised to embrace the rewards and demands of sustainable design.  As the biggest landlord in Philadelphia, the impact of going green could be resounding.

from the ashes of the Lex Street Massacre, the dust of Louis Kahn, and the devouring muck of a buried creek

The site chosen for the design competition, the 800 blocks of Markoe Street, belongs to Mill Creek or “The Bottom,” a West Philadelphia neighborhood which has undergone severe exploratory and reconstructive surgery several times over in the last century.  The latest operations began with the 2002 demolition of the venerated architect, Louis Kahn’s Mill Creek Housing Complex, a grouping of high rises, low rises, and a community center, largely acknowledged to follow poor public housing design practices. “The Bottom” bears many scars of the well-intentioned developer’s scalpel.

modesty rewarded

The winning scheme, by Jibe Design in collaboration with Naquib Hossain, chooses to maintain and renovate the existing buildings while carefully knitting new homes into the empty lots to complete the gapped street edge.  Jibe’s quietly elegant scheme avoids the temptation to tear down acceptable infrastructure in order to make a grand architectural statement.  The proposed new buildings show a sensitivity to the urban context as well as to the energy demands of the Philadelphia climate.

image left:
Markoe Street Housing, corner unit, Jibe Design

Markoe Street Housing, stair, clerestory (left), living, dining (right), Jibe Design

Philly box set

KBAS took honorable mention with their ingenious ‘kit-of-parts’ scheme. The thorough proposal describes a catalog of components which can be assembled in various ways to customize a house while maintaining a stylistic consistency among houses and an openness to the street which encourages a lively urban experience.

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PHA took a risk by letting the rookies on the field and has been well rewarded for their fearlessness.  Mayor Nutter’s commitment to making Philadelphia the “Greenest City in America” has begun to take form.

Markoe Street Housing, site plan and section, Jibe Design

Participant Design Firms:

A team of architects who work together at KSS Architects (Adrienne McKinney, Petar Mattioni, Mayva Marshall-Moreno)
Moto DesignShop (Adam Montalbano, Roman Torres)
Jibe Design (Juliet Whelan, Naquib Hossain, consultants: William Craig of ReVision Architects, Martin Johnston of Johnston Duffy Graphic Design)
KBAS (Keith Kaseman, Julie Beckman)
Project Support from DIE Creative ( Adrienne Yanconne, she is not producing her own design)

Project Jurors:

Mark Alan Hughes - Sustainability Director for Mayor Nutter
Councilwoman Blackwell – councilwoman of the Mill Creek Neighborhood
Harris Steinberg – Director of Penn Praxis
Bill Braham - Sustainability Professor at the University of Pennsylvania
Carl R. Greene - Director of the Philadelphia Housing Authority
Michael Johns - Director of Architecture for the Philadelphia Housing Authority