About Design

Center City Trinity: Small Space Expert Design Solutions

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pied-a-terre_small spacesWith the advent of the tiny house and sustainability movements, and the popularity of books like Marie Kondo’s “The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing” and Sarah Susanka’s Not So Big series, many folks are looking to reduce their footprint and renovate smaller spaces. Here in Philadelphia, we have lots of modestly sized older homes and among them is no greater example than the original “trinity” — a small townhouse built in the 1700s or early 1800s with one room on each of three floors, typically configured with a first-floor kitchen/family room, a second-floor bedroom/bath, and a small third-floor living space. Sometimes referred to as a “Father, Son, and Holy Ghost house,” these modest but charming homes usually feature a fireplace with a pocket staircase tucked behind the chimney and overall square footage of well under 1,000 sq ft. Many of the city’s original trinities, especially those found in neighborhoods like Washington Square and Society Hill, have been modernized, expanded and sometimes combined into larger dwellings that accommodate families with larger kitchens, bathrooms, and additional bedrooms on upper levels. However, you can still find many authentic trinities in the city, commonly as rental properties in areas like Fishtown, Chinatown, and Northern Liberties.

We have been working with our clients on a genuine trinity in the historic Pine Street section of town, on what used to be Antiques Row. For our trinity, we have been asked to develop creative and efficient small-space solutions to make it comfortable by modern standards without expanding its footprint, because it’s bound on three sides by other houses. This takes strong design skills, discipline, and experience. While many features have to be specified to perform double- and triple-duty functions, any built-ins and furnishings must be scaled appropriately for the proportions of the home. But one needs to be careful to not treat the house as a miniature, as the finished space needs to serve real-sized humans! Each system needs to be specified to bring efficiency while only occupying a small piece of the overall footprint, and understanding how to use some of the options that were popularized by the sustainability movement, such as on-demand hot water heaters, has served us well. Looking for multi-function solutions can bring great value and sometimes, contrary to what some might think, we sometimes specify larger fixtures that offer multiple functions, which can net a higher functioning space.

In the end, the best design is always design that you don’t notice, but this is especially true when working with very small spaces.

With demolition starting this week, we’ll keep you in the loop on updates to this project!

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Smaller Spaces

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Tamara Myers measures a spaceAs a design to build remodeling company, our job is to transform our clients’ space to improve their life — and that transformation can go in a variety of different directions. Some clients have moved into larger space as their family grows, while others stay in their current home with a plan to expand or upgrade. More and more, we are seeing folks moving into smaller spaces to simplify their lives. With goals like reducing upkeep responsibilities and minimizing carbon footprint, downsizing can be very appealing. That’s exciting for us because it is an area in which we have lots of experience and love to work.

Less Can Be More: Designing for Downsizing

The shift to a smaller space requires us to create balance through understanding the homeowners’ primary needs and weaving in some specialness. We’ve had a chance to work on a number of recent downsizing projects in which we brought a fresh look, upgraded the functions, and tweaked the space planning. Below are a few examples from among the many ideas and signature design principles we bring to each project.

Old City Condo — Myers Constructs’ Small Space Design Principle #1: Know When to Go Bigger

A complete refresh with all new flooring, lighting, painting, and updated bathrooms. Like most condo owners, our clients had no control over the choice of windows, but we were able to provide solutions that increase energy efficiency and sound dampening by adding solar shades and interior storm windows. In this case, after studying the space and laying it out to scale with furnishings, we recommended a slight increase in the kitchen footprint while working with the fixed locations for the plumbing. These changes added a significant amount of overall storage and counter space, and opened up the living space overall. Here, knowing when to go bigger even in a smaller space was critical.

Small Center City Row Home — Myers Constructs’ Small Space Design Principle #2: Be generous With Alternate Storage Solutions

A whole-house upgrade with a fresh new aesthetic that honored what the clients loved about the house, along with essential fixes and additions. We added a first-floor powder room and utilized a number of design tools to make the room feel more spacious. Even though it may seem that using a vanity to the floor would provide more storage here, we used a floating counter top with a valance leaving the visual space underneath the vanity that will make the bathroom feel another foot or so deeper. We found opportunities for storage in some custom built-in wall shelving and tall broom closet tucked in a corner, and added a floating toilet, keeping the floor more open.

Small Trinity Renovation — Myers Constructs’ Small Space Design Principle #3: Our Clients Are Full-Size Humans; Don’t Give Them Miniature Solutions

Another whole-house upgrade featuring a new overall look, fresh finishes, and a bathroom. Included utility upgrades, including a new smaller on-demand water heater, electrical service, and correction of a newer HVAC system. We also created a small but robust fully functional kitchen in the basement with all principal functions and storage below the counter! Using a downdraft system for the range allowed us to avoid having an overhead hood, and pulling out the counter to add extra depth allowed for increased work space. We used no wall cabinets, allowing the client to enjoy a more curated look with shelving above the counter. The addition of a wet bar in an adjacent room provided adequate room for cool and frozen storage.

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Adaptive Reuse and the Legacy of Zaha Hadid

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It was with great sadness that we learned last week of the passing of Dame Zaha Hadid, the Iraqi-born British architect and the first woman to win the Pritzker Prize, the Nobel of the architectural community. Her elegant work and uncompromising spirit inspired so many in the art, design, architecture, engineering, and creative spheres, and she served as a fine example of overcoming the glass ceiling for women in architecture and design. The underlining parabolic curved design that Hadid came to be known for was innovative and groundbreaking, and her legacy includes new approaches to the world of the built environment. Hadid’s groundbreaking work was introduced to many outside of the architectural community with her curvilinear Aquatic Centre built for the recent London Olympics.

While visiting London in 2013, I had the chance to visit one of the smaller but important projects that her firm did — the renovation and addition for the Serpentine Sackler Gallery in Kensington Gardens — and took the picture above. In my presentations on adaptive reuse, I always use this building as an example of a wonderful blend of the old and the new. For an adaptive reuse project to be successful, both the old and the new elements need to serve the overall program. In this case, the older building was built in 1805 to be used for gunpowder storage. Zaha Hadid Architects restored the original building with the utmost respect, and the brick vaulted spaces are now perfectly suited to their new function of displaying art. The connected but distinct new building houses a cafe in the woods, feeling like a contemporary tent with its tensile curved roof and full visibility with floor-to-roof glass, creating the feeling of being in a ground-level tree house. This addition is perfectly sited to create a protected view of the gardens. How wonderful to provide the opportunity to honor an old building, see a wonderful exhibition, and have time to contemplate art and the garden over a meal at the Magazine Cafe.

I celebrate this wonderful example of honoring the past and the future and the new life Serpentine Sackler Gallery has been given. And I thank Zaha Hadid for her unwavering vision for architecture and design and her role as a visionary for us all.

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Basement Theater Remodel Wins NARI Award!

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Most of you will remember the Mt. Airy basement renovation we recently completed for clients who wanted to transform a previously underutilized space into a beautiful theater and entertainment room. We’re thrilled to announce that this project just won a NARI 2016 Regional Contractor of the Year (CotY) Award in the category of Basement $50,000 to $100,000 — Region 1/Northeast! In this national competition, regional awards are presented first, with national winners announced in April at the National Business Meeting of NARI in Austin, TX. We’re really proud to be honored in this way by The National Association of the Remodeling Industry, which sets the standards for quality and professionalism in our industry.

Project recap: Previously an unfinished basement, this space now has lots of different areas to relax, think, be entertained, and play music and games with family and friends — including a library with reading nook and a movie-viewing area that seats 10 in reclining leather seats with cupholders. The viewing room is framed by custom theater curtains, and the lobby features a gallery of large-format photos of our clients’ travels to libraries and theaters around the world. The walls in the new space are painted in deep, rich colors, and we worked with our homeowners to select new carpet, draperies, and light fixtures to pull the entire room together. We called in our A/V pros to set up the TV and audio and tweak the home’s wireless router system to ensure that all of the elements work together seamlessly.

Adaptive Reuse: A Space Fit for a Diva

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Part II in a Series on Adaptive Reuse, the basis of an upcoming presentation by Tamara Myers at the 2016 Las Vegas NKBA Kitchen and Bath Industry Show and NAHB International Builders’ Show.

In moving towards a more sustainable future, we already have a head start with claiming some adaptive reuse successes. Already integrated into our everyday thinking about what type of building can be turned into a home: the loft and the barn. Indeed, some of these transformations are so woven into our current vocabulary of building stock that ironically you will see elements of the form affecting new home design, including “barn-like” great rooms with exposed trusses, and new “loft” apartments with large windows and polished concrete floors.

Like all buildings that were originally built for another purpose, barns and lofts often come with some missing elements that need to be remedied for a successful transformation. Of course, each space is different, but it’s fairly typical to see limited sources of light and air. Understandably, buildings that were built to contain animals or farm equipment, or serve as a warehouse or manufacturing facility typically focused more on being a protective shell with limited openings to the outdoors. Letting light and air into an old building typically requires some creative infrastructure reorganization, enlarging existing openings, adding interior wells and courtyards, and so on. Those critical evaluations make all the difference when determining whether a warehouse or barn can successfully become a comfortable home for the long-term.

I recently was thinking through some of the lofts that I’ve seen in films or have visited over the years — some primitive, some quite lovely and inviting. And I asked myself what made the inviting ones successful. I laugh when I remember the loft space I romanticized from Diva, a French film from the early 1980s. Set in Paris, it had a full cast of wonderful characters, including an opera singer who didn’t believe art could be captured in a recording, and a Vespa-riding mailman named Jules that was obsessed with her. There were bootleg recordings, good guys and bad guys, lots of suspense, and, of course, wonderful arias. What I remember as much as the people are the buildings, the deteriorating opera house, and especially the loft space where the artist lived. The loft was dark with minimal appointments, and the space was open enough that one of the characters regularly roller-skated around, circling the bathtub that sat in the middle of the space. Truth is, taking a bath in middle of a cold loft is not all that fun, having had the chance to give that concept a test run on more than one occasion. Like many young art students, I coveted a space like that, but I came to understand over time that if there isn’t an intervention into these spaces to bring the vital elements of intimacy, some privacy, and essential light and air, that the building will only provide shelter and not sustenance.

We want folks to thrive in their spaces; we want their buildings to thrive. Therefore, we aren’t afraid to take on some strong design work and make the critical changes that will carry those spaces into a sustainable future.

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Sustainable Choices: Critical to Our Collective Futures

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Part I in a Series on Adaptive Reuse, the basis of an upcoming presentation by Tamara Myers at the 2016 Las Vegas NKBA Kitchen and Bath Industry Show and NAHB International Builders’ Show.

Earlier today, I stopped by one of our job sites to admire this stack of reclaimed lumber peacefully acclimating itself to its new home, waiting to be installed as our new finish flooring. How exciting that this lumber is gaining a new life and that we can bring an older material into the renovation of this older home. Great choices that will give both the material and space a new, long life.

Many of you already know about our passion for reuse and sustainable choices. We have built our business on bringing our brain trust of collective creativity and years of experience and relationships to make solutions that really create a difference in our clients’ lives. Woven into our our approach to renovation is the belief that sustainability issues are vital to our collective futures. It’s exciting stuff! The opportunity to transform our clients’ spaces continually shows us that renovation is a great choice, whether it’s on an older or newer home or a building that was originally built for another purpose. Long-lasting design and material choices are critical to our approach, which nets designs and spaces that our clients retain and enjoy for many years to come.

We can look at the sustainability issue on many levels. I often talk about the larger view of how it is critical to renovate and maintain existing buildings to support our blocks, our neighborhoods, and our communities. We all have seen urban blocks that have what we call a “missing tooth,” that blank space within a block where a building has been torn down. Once torn down, the missing building tooth affects the fabric of the whole block and greater neighborhood, and it typically takes much longer to bring that block back up to wholeness. Paying attention earlier and supporting ongoing renovation can help retain strong communities.

On a smaller scale, we can look at the individual components that make up a building. Essentially, we examine a material’s life from beginning to end, including what it takes to create and transform it into useable form. Analysis of life cycle starts by looking at what resources are needed in order to mine, mill, smelt, or use other processes to turn raw materials into a form that can then be used for manufacturing. Then, you add the manufacturing typically on multiple levels, and between all of these steps, you add in the impact of transporting and final installation of these materials. At the end of its use, we can choose to reuse a material or send it off to the landfill. Ideally, we look to extend the life cycle whenever possible.

There are lots of resources out there showing the impact of keeping an existing building vs. building new, and one of my favorites provides a good blend of research presented in both text and graphics compiled by the Preservation Green Lab and National Trust for Historic Preservation with some other partners. Within the report is a study that compares an existing building to a new building that is 30% more efficient, and it found that it takes between 10 to 80 years for a new construction building to catch up and meet that 30% more efficient metric and counteract the negative climate change impact created by erecting the new building. The 10- to 80-year spread came from the wide range of areas and building types. Specific case studies show that a single family residence in Chicago will take 38 years, and one in Portland will take 50 years to reach the equalizing point. A pretty important picture for us all to keep in mind.

Happy New Year,

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What’s Old Is New Again — and Better Than Ever

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We have spent decades becoming experts at breathing new life into old structures throughout the Greater Philadelphia region. And now Tamara is busy preparing a presentation on this topic — adaptive reuse — that she will make at The 2016 Kitchen & Bath Industry Show (KBIS) at the Las Vegas Convention Center on January 21. While this presentation is geared towards industry insiders who will earn continuing education credits for their participation, we are eager to share with you our insights on some exciting and effective approaches to sustainable adaptive reuse that can be applied not only to adaptive reuse projects but also to renovations in your own home. In the coming weeks, we’ll cover the following topics:

  • Why the choice to renovate existing structures is vital to a sustainable future;
  • Examples of buildings and spaces already integrated into our community that illustrate adaptive re-use and what makes some of these successful and others not;
  • Key principles for successful adaptive reuse of buildings, such as former sacred spaces, barns, lofts, warehouses — even gas stations — and how those principles should be applied universally to our renovation projects.

Built-In Storage: A Place for Your Stuff

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1509290611_bench_“That’s all you need in life, a little place for your stuff. That’s all your house is — a place to keep your stuff. If you didn’t have so much stuff, you wouldn’t need a house. You could just walk around all the time. A house is just a pile of stuff with a cover on it.” —George Carlin

This quote always makes us laugh, but let’s face it … George was right. Our houses are filled with “stuff”; some of us are just better at organizing it than others.

We often find that the houses we come across don’t have enough storage to accommodate the homeowners’ belongings. People need places to stow books, coats, off-season clothing, shoes, toys, cleaning supplies, camping and sports gear, and more. To combat potential clutter issues, we like to learn about how our clients need to live, and how their homes can better serve those needs. Designing and building custom built-ins allows us to match the house’s style and color, and make the unit fit into a particular space as if it was always there.

For example, we built the nice window seat with drawers shown here for a whole-home renovation we are working on in Philadelphia’s Fairmount neighborhood. We’ve built many window seats like this for both kids and adults, and we often incorporate other types of creative storage solutions in common rooms, bathrooms, and bedrooms. If you need help organizing your “stuff,” don’t hesitate to give us a call.