For over one hundred and fifty years, League Island developed as one of the nation’s first Navy Yards, where hundreds of men and women toiled to build entire fleets of huge ships. Remaining true to the industrious scale of adjacent active ship building operations and to the patina of past production, the Historic Core of the Yard has been refashioned for the retail enterprise, Urban Outfitters (URBN).
An industrial strength landscape armature structures the retrofit of massive manufacturing buildings into design studios and corporate offices, forming URBN’s campus, and community, of creativity. Rebranded demolition debris is lovingly converted into patterns of porous pavement. Tapestries of hedgerows and drifts of wild + wooly grasses and wildflowers emulate URBN’s sensibility for the next evolution of this productive landscape.
Urban Outfitters (URBN Inc.); Meyer Scherer & Rockcastle, architects; Advanced GeoServices, Corp., engineers
Preservation Achievement Award, Preservation Alliance of Greater Philadelphia, 2007
Urban Land Institute Award, Finalist, 2007
AXIS OF CREATIVITY: Urban Outfitters relocates where the civic axis of Broad Street meets the Delaware River at the Historic Core of the Navy Yard.
EMBODIED ENERGY: The legacy of hard work gives depth to the industrial palette for refashioning the new campus.
FOUND FRAMEWORK: Historic traces structure a landscape armature at the large scale of the Yard and the River.
NICE DERTIUS: A salvaging strategy versus a demolition plan harvested precious debris for reuse.
FLINTSTONES REPEAT: Busted chunks of concrete reappear as porous paving nicknamed “Barney Rubble.”
RAIL CURVES: Sweeping train tracks become paths to guide URBNites along former lines of production.
URBN COMMON: The central green framed by the Rubble terrace plays hosts to the pet-friendly company.
TRUCK LOADS: Tons of concrete, asphalt and brick never made it to the landfill.
SHADY NATIVES: Hedgerows of native trees, hundreds of feet long, shade the west side of the buildings.
BARNEY + ME: A future designer tip-toes on concrete where shipbuilders stood.
RUNNING WILD: Wild and wooly grasses and forbs drift below an industrial strength grove of black locusts.
STILL THERE: A faded yellow traffic stripe on old concrete sits amongst bright colors of wildflowers.