Intersections: Fair Play

The Philadelphia Center for Architecture and the Ed Bacon Foundation have launched their Fifth Annual Ed Bacon Student Competition. This year’s theme—“Designing for the Fair of the Future”—asks local and international college students to transport themselves to the year 2026, designing a venue for the World’s Fair celebration, held on the occasion of America’s 250th

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Cover Story: House Rules

A Philly startup is out to prove that eco-friendly architecture can be affordablestory by Natalie Hope McDonald / photo by Shawn Corrigan
It happened over beers. Childhood friends Chad Ludeman and Nic Darling were in the process of making a huge change—leaving their jobs to launch a development company. Neither one had any work experience in

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A Trip Down Girard Avenue

In a city as old and strange as Philly, there’s some history in every 100-plus-year-old brick rowhome and tiny colonial alley. While it’s fun to make up stories about what happened where (I like to think that my block was where Ben Franklin invented freedom soda), it’s also great to know the actual history and

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Ask Mark

Philadelphia's Director of Sustainability, Mark Alan Hughes, answers our readersQ: I’ve heard rumors that all new construction in the city will be required to be LEED certified or Energy Star rated. I’m sure these are just rumors, but what measures are being taken towards making new construction, including residential, more sustainable? The sustainable strategies include,

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Gimme Shelter

Unlike the rock ‘n’ roll documentary of the same name that marked the end of the innocent ’60s, this Schuylkill Center for Environmental Education (SCEE) design experiment is all about hope for the future. SCEE challenged local artists and designers to come up with innovative and sustainable shelter designs that connect the abstract ideas of

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