Philadelphia Magazine: Legendary Roots

An architect pays homage to his idol with a new twist on modern design in Chestnut Hill.

Legendary Roots: An Architect Pays Homage to an Icon in Chestnut Hill

Elie-Antoine Attallah designs a breathtakingly modern home overlooking the Wissahickon Valley.

by JAMES JENNINGS· 7/19/2015, 5:52

Atallah built an elaborate stormwater management system beneath the gravel garden in the front of the home, allowing for clean water to be slowly released into the Wissahickon watershed below. Photos by Jeffrey Totaro

Talk with Elie-Antoine Atallah—the principal of Studio of Metropolitan Design Architects—for any amount of time and it’s clear the man appreciates the history of his profession, especially the work of his “hero,” Louis Kahn. So when it came to designing a home for his own family, it’s no wonder he envisioned a dwelling steeped in the many design principles of his idol.

After a decade of searching for the ideal spot, Atallah finally landed on an undeveloped, sun-drenched plot of land on St. Andrews Road in Chestnut Hill. The site was perfect, but, Atallah says, full of challenges—namely, a steep drop-off. Atallah ended up using the slope to his advantage, building upward and creating a floating effect by cantilevering the entire “cedar box” that houses the bedrooms, their balconies and a separate smaller terrace off the living room.

Kahn’s influences are evident in Atallah’s careful consideration of form and light throughout the design. The front of the home, a mass of manganite bricks “sliced” by a vertical wooden entryway, is private and subdued. The back opens up to a wall of windows overlooking a beautiful gully full of mature trees and vegetation.“The simplicity of the house is amazing,” notes Atallah. “I worked really hard to get it that simple.

The rear of the home overlooks a steep slope into the Wissahickon Creek watershed. The cantilevered terraces off the bedrooms give the illusion that you’re among the trees.

This article originally appeared in the July 2015 issue of Philadelphia magazine.

Starting from Scratch: Designing the Organized Lab

What if you have the resources to design new laboratory space? Designing the ideal lab is trying to hit a moving target, as construction can take as many as three years for an entirely new building, and needs will almost certainly have evolved by that point.

Back Up and Observe First

If you really are starting from scratch, then invest the time to watch how students, scientists and lab techs use the space available to them now. This time spent in observation gives principal architect John Kapusnick, of Studio of Metropolitan Design Architects (Philadelphia, PA) a better sense of how the proposed space needs to function.

How the space lends itself to safe and efficient workflows is key. In other words, no one wants to spend all day bumping into equipment that is too big for the allotted space, for example, or notice that the eyewash is in an odd spot only when they need it. “I prefer to sit down with end users or managers and talk about their science,” John Kapusnick says. “If you begin by asking about their preferences for physical layout, they’ll go back to what they’ve always had. Instead, I ask about a typical workday or experiment, and how they would set it up.”

For example, he notes that observation often reveals that the operating footprint of an instrument can be much bigger than its physical size. He also plans placement of utilities, racks, benches and desks based on the functions people perform in their present space. He likes adjustable casework as a means to preserve flexibility when workflows change or storage needs evolve.

The Inquirer, Home & Design: Livable Art

Modernism in Philadelphia: Studio of Metropolitan Design Published in ArchitectureLab