Best Little Rowhouses in Philly

There are times when your eyes start to glaze over at the sight of yet another pseudo-historic, boxy brick rowhouse going up on the streets of Philadelphia. But the latest offering from the Onion Flats collective guarantees the reverse effect. Your eyes should pop when you get a look of its new eight-unit Thin Flats on Laurel Street in Northern Liberties.

I reviewed the project in my column on Friday, and took the liberty of calling it the best new rowhouse project in the city. The way that architect Tim McDonald creates a sense of movement in the facade of Thin Flats struck me as an updated version of the strategy that Baroque church architects once employed. That undulating, textured facade "dances with the exuberant boogie-woogie rhythms of a Mondrian painting," I wrote.


But this isn't just another pretty, edgy face for Northern Liberties. Thin Flats is on track to receive the highest rating (platinum) from the U.S. Green Building Council for its package of energy saving materials and low carbon footprint.
In the photo below, you can glimpse the roof deck, with its water-draining plantings. You can't see them here, but there is also an array of solar thermal panels which McDonald says are capable of providing all the heat for hot water and the underfloor radiant heating system.