New Barnes Foundation

my personal favorite

Izzo Here: I was feeling inspired last week, and I wanted to get to the Barnes before the year was over.  If you've never been, you should make it a point to go.  I would say this is the best piece of architecture our city has gotten in a long time (our projects excluded of course).  Tod Williams and Billie Tsien have been some of my favorite architects since I first saw them give a lecture my junior year of college.  I am sure this is their highest profile building, and they did not disappoint.  Check out the snaps.  Not bad for a pretty cloudy day.  Oh and the images looked good even before the instagramming.

wow

It's not officially the holidays until you get a gigantic Whitman Sampler.  20 minutes later... no more Whitman Sampler.

aaaaaaaaaand Action! (or any other movie pun)

The piece containing "ERFRONT" is on the way

Zach reporting:  It's hard to believe that only 6 months ago Penn Cinema Riverfront broke ground in Wilmington, DE.  It's been a whirlwind effort, but the new 14 screen + IMAX is just about ready for its ribbon-cutting and grand opening on 12/13.  Just about all of the auditoriums will be open for business, with only a few loose ends to tie up.  The last pieces of signage were being hoisted into place on Tuesday and cleaning crews have been busy tidying up the building inside and out.  My apologies to you, faithful reader (and our blogmaster, Mike), for not blogging this building's weekly leaps and bounds.  I'm compiling some photos to show the progress and I'll be sure to post them as soon as I can.  Until then, Wilmington receives its first multiplex and Philadelphians now have another IMAX offering.

Nugent Senior Apartments Ground breaking

old meets new

All the big wigs at Thursday's ground breaking

Nugent Senior Apartments on West Johnson Street in the Mt. Airy section of the city is a new project we're working on for Nolen Properties.  We're converting this beautiful building back to it's original luster creating 25 units in the old building and adding 32 rental units in a new addition in the rear.  It was originally built in 1895 for the care of elderly Baptist ministers and their wives, and in 2006 was placed on the National Register of Historic Places.  Last year we did a similar successful conversion like this for Nolen with our Presser Senior Apartments. 

Revolutions Saucon Valley

walk down bowling lane. 

sweet stairs to get you up to the gaming area

the satellite bar

Greg here: Construction at the Revolutions Saucon Valley project continues to barrel forward as Speedwell Construction hopes to hit the December 21 target completion date. Can they do it? Judge for yourself from the following photos. If you have ever wondered what the inner workings of a bowling lane looked like, or if you are a pinsetter enthusiast, then this is the blog for you.  More to come in January!

Graphic Design at JKR

Natalya: Graphics department at JKR had dared architectural hegemony by taking on a packaging label project. The firm’s client had solicited our help to brand his decades-long family tradition of wine making. The time-honoring design is a tribute to the founding father of the tradition, who presides solemnly on the label thus eternalizing his legacy. We are pleased with the result. 

Building is Back!

Lawrence Street.  4 units.  Sam and Jose worked on this one. It's all done.

North 5th Street.  22 units. Should be done in a few months.

1247 Crease Street. Greg and Jose worked on this bad boy.  7 houses. Should be done in 6 months.

Manayunk Hills.  12 units, Jason and Steve slam dunked this one. Maybe 3 months out.

Manayunk Hills.  Getting there. 

we've done a lot right? This one is at 8th and Christian. All done. 18 units.

Queens Walk.  16 units. I'm going to go out on a limb and say that it's pretty nice inside.

More Queens Walk in Queens Village.

This one is the latest.  412 N. Front Street.  32 units.  Should be done in a few months.

 Building is Back.  Don't let anyone tell you otherwise.  We've been cranking out townhouses this past year like it's our job.  Mostly because it IS our job. Jose and his crew have been hard at work developing a ton of new housing stock in the Northern Liberties and Fishtown areas of the city.  We've got a few in the pipeline and a few in various stages of construction.  Check'em out

Spooktacular 2012

Batman eagerly awaits his guests, atop his pumpkin castle.

Nichole here!  A few weeks ago Katie and I participated in the 2012 Spooktacular charette.  We volunteered at the wee hours on a Saturday morning to create props for a Halloween "street-scape" for young children.  The Spooktacular charette gets volunteers from firms and local universities and pairs them with CHAD students to create these props for the young children at the Children's Crisis Center in Philadelphia.  The props get used to create a safe Halloween environment for the kids to treat-or-treat in.

Katie, busy making magic!

We put our heads together and came up with a very detailed scheme for our boards.  We created a spooky night scene background with a winding path that lead to a pumpkin castle.  We even added some marvel super heroes to our design, including Batman, Iron-man, and the Incredible Hulk.  All of the materials were donated wall coverings, upholstery samples, etc. from local firms.  At the end of the charette, our boards were a colorful collage of patch work backgrounds, trick-or-treating super heroes, and towering pumpkins.

Presenting our final boards with our CHAD students.

Jose has a baby!

We've been missing Jose in the office for a few days, but he's been popping in here and there.  So, we're a little late on this one, but Jose and his wife Amy are the proud parents of Garrett Jose Hernandez.  Garrett was born on October 16th weighing in at 5lbs 10oz and he was a foot and a half long! Jose has vowed to the office not to alter his happy hour schedule now that he has a baby, and he now plans on using his Union season tickets instead of always trying to give them away!

Pumpkin Carving!

Jen and Kathleen hate keeping their eyes open

Greg hates people sneaking up on him

Dee Dee making a Keurig pumpkin

Rick and Jason...Jason likes the Yankees

Farinella and Laura making a ninja pumpkin

Steve and Laurens JKR ghost

Jon and Bobs macabre pumpkin

Natalya and Marissa's winner!

It wouldn't officially be Halloween without a JKR Partners pumpkin carving contest; and with Halloween being a moving target this year, we felt we could post our pictures from last Friday today!

Schmooze Deli

^  shell                                                                  under construction  ^

sketchup!

happy customers!!!

 Marissa here:  Recently, Nichole and I were given the task to turn an empty shell into a deli in Jenkintown.  I have watched enough food network and top chef to get really excited about this project.  Our goal was to dazzle the client and their future diners with a warm inviting space where families and friends can schmooze.  We won the client over by walking them through our sketchup model featuring rough sawn wood, exposed structure, large pendant fixtures, and a pop of color - a personal favorite.  It was actually loved so much that they made sure that it was built that way!  Looking at the happy customers, the owners are succeeding in winning over bellies in the Jenkintown area with giant loaves of  challah and matzo ball soup.

Interface Carpet is the Bomb

empty yarn creels

the customization area

yarn getting ready for the creels

the loom in action

Izzo Here: I'm not really choosing sides here but I was lucky enough that our great carpet reps from Interface, Melissa Tully and Lisa Conway, schmoozed me into a trip to Georgia to see their production facilities. Granted, they have cool carpets, but so do a lot of other companies.  But I really was convinced with their whole spiel.  Interface has some really cool stuff, and they really are as environmentally friendly as they say they are, the facilities they had ran like a well oiled machine, and they had great presentations on how all the cool stuff we use gets made.  No offense to the other carpet reps, but it's going to be hard to convince me to specify anyone else after this trip.  The Interface peeps know what they are doing.