Patchwork Brewerytown earned the Cities that Learn Award from the International Living Future Institute and the National Trust for Historic Preservation. The project was to develop a more sustainable living environment for Brewerytown.
Philadelphia architects Richard Roark and Skip Graffam, who work for OLIN architecture, created a plan that within the next 25 years, Brewerytown would have enough energy saved to be able to support everyone living in the neighborhood.
“We thought Brewerytown because it already has a lot of the things the competition called for. It has historical value since it is in Philadelphia, and it has enough public transportation that we can build on and a renewable water system that is nearly in place,” Graffam said.
The architects showed off their plan to Brewerytown residents Thursday night after being contacted by MM Partners.
“My biggest concern with all of this renewable talk is that it will be to expensive. We aren’t the wealthiest area and while the plan sounds like a really good idea, I just don’t see it ever coming to fruition,” said Amy Watson, a Brewerytown resident for 25 years.
MM Partners, a Brewerytown real estate company, were happy to have sponsored the event at one of their renovated buildings located at 33rd and Girard Avenue. Co-owner of MM Partners David Waxman was interested in the project when he first heard about it.
“I stumbled upon it one day and I was like wow, this is already something we are trying to do. We always want the residents here to have the opportunity to hear about good things going on in the neighborhood and this was a great time for that,” Waxman said.
The plan that won Graffam and Roark is not actually going to happen since it was just for a competition, but they wanted the people in Brewerytown to know this plan can happen.
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