Last night, Studio Modh took home a AIA Brooklyn Award for the University of Pennsylvania Office of Diversity Equity and Inclusion in Philadelphia, PA. We are proud to serve the University and the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences in their efforts to create spaces for dialogue among their diverse student and alumni populations.
Studio Modh selected to design new medical archives and forum for Thomas Jefferson University
Studio Modh has kicked off programming, analysis, and design for a space to house more than two centuries of medical archives at Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The new space will be located in the University’s central building, Scott Memorial Library, and will expand the existing archive storage, provide needed upgrades to handling and management of the Collection, and create a series of new spaces that will enhance access and connection of the Collection to students and scholars alike. Studio Modh will begin by understanding opportunities within the existing building, built in 1968, to create a space that balances visibility with the necessary care for the remarkable array of objects within the Collection.
Studio Modh completes the new Center for the Office of Diversity Equity and Inclusion at Penn Engineering
The University of Pennsylvania School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) hired Studio Modh Architecture in February of 2021 to convert a series of former study rooms into a new Center for the Office of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (ODEI). While the UPENN SEAS ODEI had been supporting current and students in these efforts for more than forty years, the new space represents the School’s commitment to create safe and engaging spaces for students while they attend PENN and after they leave. Key to the programming efforts was to create a space that would foster engagement by alumni and students through mentorship, lecture, and events.
Studio Modh wins Brooklyn AIA Chapter and Pro-bono Award for Design Advocates Work for local Brooklyn eateries
We are incredibly honored to receive the 2020 Brooklyn AIA Excellence Award for Pro-bono work as well as the 2020 Brooklyn AIA Chapter Award, given to one project each year for the entire chapter, for our Pandemic Prototypes work. We are grateful to our clients Cafe Cotton Bean and Le Paris Dakar for trusting us to assist them during unprecedented times for all of us and in particular businesses that rely on hospitality and engagement. Giant shout out of appreciation also to Sciame Homes who provided the labor and material designed in collaboration with our clients. The work was produced under the vision and goals set out by Design Advocates, a critically important organization shaping the future of our city.
University of Pennsylvania highlights the work of Studio Modh and its efforts providing pro-bono services during COVID
As part of our ongoing efforts to assist small, local businesses in our community, The University of Pennsylvania online publication, PennToday, highlighted some of our strategies and impacts.
Studio Modh completes new Writing Center for the University of Pennsylvania
Studio Modh completed our largest project to date, a combined 30,000 square foot gut renovation of two buildings: a 1960’s era brutalist building and a late 19th century row house. The two renovations shape the new home for the Center for Programs in Contemporary Writing, previously housed in an under-sized and inaccessible Victorian home west of the Philadelphia campus. The Center includes two components with similar but distinct missions: Critical Writing and Creative Writing. The project enabled the University, faculty, students, and design team to explore how the programs have and will change in the coming decades in order to create a space that is flexible and responsive to student learning. The spaces include large scale classrooms, seminar rooms, a cafe, tutoring areas of a variety of scales, informal event spaces, and faculty offices. In the first semester, the Center saw visitor ship increase 20%, program development increase to reflect the new capabilities of the spaces, and students satisfaction achieve a Center high 98% approval in post-visit surveys.
Thomas Jefferson University : Stay Class-y Philadelphia
The new photos of the recently completed suite of classrooms for Thomas Jefferson University depict our studio’s response to finding nearly 8’ of additional ceiling space above old acoustic ceiling tiles in this historic medical school in Center City Philadelphia. Many thanks to Devon Banks Photography for her keen eye as always!
Motivate: Get Going
A Short film about Motivate, the parent company of City bike, featuring their headquarters . . . designed by Studio Modh! Our architectural work with Motivate was a refection of how this unique company operates, embracing fluid movement and flexible boundaries.
This video is a wonderful way to see how the company space of Motivate operates.
Thank you City Bike for creating it!
Broadway Duplex honored as a Finalist for 2018 NYCxDesign Design Award
The Award, which will be announced at the Gala celebrating the Annual ICFF fair, is given by ICFF and Interior Design Magazine. Good luck to all Finalists and thank you to NYCxDesign for the honor. See the Broadway Duplex here.
Motivate + Citi Bike Offices honored as a finalist for 2018 NYCxDesign Award
The Award, which will be announced at the Gala celebrating the Annual ICFF fair, is given by ICFF and Interior Design Magazine. Good luck to all Finalists and thank you to NYCxDesign for the honor. See the Motivate + Citi Bike Offices project here.
Motivate and Citi Bike Offices win 2018 Brooklyn / Queens Design Award
Studio Modh is honored to be the recipient of a 2018 Merit Award for the Motivate + Citi Bike Offices. We are so fortunate to have great clients who push us to produce great work that reflects the ethos of their companies. https://aia-bqda.weebly.com/2018-bqda-recipients.html
John W. Hallahan Catholic Girls High School completed
Recently completed photos of the John W Hallahan Catholic Girls High School have been posted. The chapel, located in the oldest girls Catholic High School in the U.S., breathes new life into the previously dark, classroom revealing a thirteen foot concrete coffered ceiling that has enabled the existing stained glass windows to finally be seen in their full dimension.
Studio Modh recipient of two AIA Brooklyn/Queens Design Awards
The Forman Active Learning Classroom and Warehouse Loft each received AIA awards at yesterday evening's Brooklyn / Queens Design Awards. See Studio Modh and the other winners at the Brooklyn/Queens Design Awards website.
Studio Modh Recipient of 2017 Brooklyn AIA Merit Award for Warehouse Loft Project
Studio Modh is honored to have received the 2017 AIA Brooklyn Merit Award for our Warehouse Loft located in the Eagle Warehouse in Brooklyn Heights. The project unified two apartments, which enabled the creation of a generous central room for living, cooking, eating, and working for a young family. The project is detailed with a series of large scale millwork pieces fabricated from one hundred year old white cedar wood harvested from dismantled water towers in Sunset Park, Brooklyn. One face of the wood displays the purplish gray color from decades of water saturation while the other face exhibits the bleached, dry character of the sun side of the wood.
Studio Modh Featured on Archinect.com
In a recent feature about the studio on archinect.com, Philip Ryan discusses the aspirations for the firm and the similarities between "farming" and fostering relationships that will lead to new and exciting projects.
Knoll International features case study of Forman Active Learning Classroom
Knoll International has posted a case study on the recently completed Forman Active Learning Classroom. It's a great analysis of the design process involved in finding the "unobserved artifact" of the space that drove much of the design of the classroom. The room has been so successful that Penn Egnineering is undergoing further renovations of under-utilized spaces and plans to expand the model to as many as five additional spaces in the Engineering complex. A great client, a fascinating problem, and a tailored solution for 21st century engineering education.
A historic facade is restored and a historic lobby is modernized.
After two and a half years of painstaking scrubbing, sanding, and cleaning - a beautiful sandstone facade in Tribeca, smothered under layers of paint for nearly fifty years, has been returned to it's historic glory. Beyond a new pair of ten foot tall solid oak and glass entry doors is a new lobby that slips through the narrow gap between the double-building residential combination. With a palette of blackened steel, walnut, and exposed brick it is a tough, modern echo of Tribeca's industrial past.
Renovation of chapel for oldest girls' catholic high school in the US nears completion
After a slow process of excavating and editing, a new chapel is close to being unveiled at the John W. Hallahan Catholic Girls' High School in Philadelphia for the Catholic Archdiocese of Philadelphia. The original room, buried under old wood paneling, a dropped ceiling, and wall to wall carpet, has been scrubbed clean and re-planned to highlight beautiful stained glass windows that had been partially obscured by the low dropped ceiling. The new design revealed a perfectly intact one hundred year old maple floor, released the space vertically to the structural slab, and introduced a restrained palette of white oak and alternating shades of blue fabric that reflects the school's colors.
Warehouse Loft Completed
Just uploaded some beautiful images by Devon Banks Photography to the the Warehouse Loft portfolio page. The project combined two apartments to create a unified, luminous three bedroom apartment that carefully reveals hints of the muscular, cast iron life of the old warehouse while creating a bright, modern living space for our client. New millwork is carefully constructed from the old 3" thick boards of white cedar water towers.
Studio Modh selected as Finalist in Center for Architecture, Design, and Education Competition
The Center for Architecture, Design, and Education Design Competition was sponsored by the Chicago Architecture Foundation as part of the 2015 Chicago Architecture Biennial. Studio Modh's project, titled "Windows on the Creative Education" , created two distinct buildings - one brick and one glass to reflect the strong legacy of these construction types in Chicago - that used the concept of the "window" to frame educational exchanges between the city and the building. Large openings in the masonry tower, a design high school, highlight studio-based educational strategy, large scale instruction in an auditorium with stunning views of Lake Michigan, and a grand rooftop for exercise and social activity.
In the transparent, glass base, paradoxically supporting the heavy masonry building above, the windows are a vertical exhibition gallery capturing exhibit content displayed within and reflecting an open-ness and sustainability that should guide every building inhabitants ambitions for their own built environment.
Our project was selected as a Finalist.