When people think of award-winning Architecture, they might envision towering city structures or technology-laden plans. At Murphy & Dittenhafer Architects, the smaller, lesser-known projects get just as much love and attention.
Among a list of academic innovation centers, library renovations, and historic restorations, a unique project title jumped from the page listing recent Murphy & Dittenhafer Architect Design Awards. It left the audience to wonder, “What exactly is a ‘Fashion Garage?’”
While projects like the Northwest Triangle Innovation District in York County and the Shenandoah Innovation and Event Center in Schuylkill County are what most people think of when it comes to award-winning Architecture, the smaller, lesser-known projects get just as much love and attention.
That’s why Frank E. Dittenhafer II, FAIA, LEED AP, and President at Murphy and Dittenhafer Architects, is proud to point to the Fashion Garage on the list of projects that received 2020 Design Awards from the American Institute of Architects Central Pennsylvania chapter.
Exploring potential
With just 380 square feet, the Fashion Garage is a small but inspiring project. It was commissioned by Hilary Arthur, a fashion designer and owner of Arthur & Daughters based in downtown York, Pennsylvania. Working mostly out of her home, Arthur wanted a space where she could find some separation between her work and personal life, allowing for a space strictly dedicated to her business.
The idea struck her: What about putting something above their garage?
“This project really allowed us to imagine character in a place where there was none,” says Blake Gifford, Associate at Murphy & Dittenhafer Architects. Arthur’s garage, about 100 feet from her home, was built 30 or 40 years ago with simple construction and vinyl-wood siding. It was not an inspiring structure, Gifford admits.
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The design required a “shipping container-like” vertical addition that would be placed on top of the existing garage, but the beauty of the utilitarian design is what would bring it to life under Arthur’s own sense of creativity. The interior allowed for piles of fabrics, a workstation, an area for clients to try on garments, and the option for guests to either be immersed in the workshop experience or to have a sense of privacy apart from it.
Even though small in size, the project pushed its designers to consider the right look to match the brick home, the history of that part of the city, and the inspiration that both Arthur and her clients would draw from the space.
“There’s an experiential quality that the Fashion Garage brings to the user,” Gifford says. “All of the work we do for our clients is to help them explore the potential of what that site could host. Now, Hilary and her family have a good picture of what could be.”
Continuing to imagine
When Architect Jonathan Taube talks about Harbor Reef, he’s quick to mention that the project is not small in scale. In fact, it covers several square miles. Like other Murphy & Dittenhafer Architects vision plan projects, it pushed its designers to find inspiration in what others could see as a simple, check-the-boxes commission.
Harbor Reef is a speculative architecture/planning project, meaning it was created at the request of AIA Baltimore to be used in an annual lecture series called “The Edge.” For an Architect, the edge often refers to where a plot of land meets the water and is a regular design challenge for the Inner Harbor.
“When we look at Baltimore’s edge and its relationship to the harbor, many people take for granted its existing condition,” Taube says. The defunct commercial space known as Harbor Place was recently taken over by the city and there have been talks of demolishing it. But what would things look like if Inner Harbor could be rebooted?
It’s a question Murphy & Dittenhafer Architects was asked to answer in its competition design and presentation on Harbor Reef.
Beyond the commerce that existed most recently, the Architects took several possibilities into consideration. They considered that if the harbor was swimmable and fishable, that it might make deeper connections with the residents nearby.
“It’s not just putting in new commercial and residential but looking at how the surrounding neighborhoods can engage in this space,” Taube says.
That meant including more equitable transportation with pedestrian and bike areas that lead to neighborhoods, as well as commercial areas in Baltimore. The design also included a new marina and looked at oyster culture, aqua culture, and reefs that could become wildlife habitats, attracting people for bird watching and kayaking in an artificial marsh that reduces storm surge.
“It’s always good to expand our horizons and perspectives in our field, and to ask how we can impact society or the urban fabric in profound, visionary ways,” Taube says. “Doing this type of design work goes beyond looking at the nuts and bolts of an actual project. It gives our office an opportunity to create a collaborative environment that’s different than working on a traditional project.”
Creating projects that make an impact
Patrick Ness feels a special connection to the Reid Menzer Memorial Skatepark. He’s happy that Murphy & Dittenhafer Architects was able to play a role in creating the skate park so that York County skateboarders could have a safe place to ride. It’s something that didn’t exist for Ness when he was a teenager.
The skatepark was created in memory of Reid Menzer, a 14-year-old York County skater who died in 2006. M&D created the design for the park but was asked to revisit it to make one more addition. It might seem simple at first, but the shade canopy that Ness helped design provides a place for skaters to hang their backpacks or take a break from the hot sun.
It also honors a longtime user of the park. Created in memory of Dan Glorioso, who died at 26 after a skateboarding accident in 2017, it holds a lot of meaning for the people who use it.
“There’s inspiration in designing something that people will interact with almost daily,” Ness says. “Inherently, a skatepark lends itself to expression. There’s something simple in creating a bench that sits 18 inches from the ground, but then there’s an art in creating the radius of a quarter pipe and the functionality of that.”
Even in the small projects, it’s about exceeding people’s expectations. From the tight spaces to the simple projects and the designs that may never come to be, Murphy & Dittenhafer Architects is putting its all into the work.
“These aren’t our projects,” Dittenhafer says. “It belongs to the people who will be impacted by it. We take ownership of everything we’re doing, but it’s about them.”
Murphy & Dittenhafer Architects took on the Architecture, Interior Design, & Overall Project Management for the new Bedford Elementary School, and the outcome is impactful.