clock menu more-arrow no yes mobile

Filed under:

Inside the Beta 2.5 House on Controversial Amber Street

New, 6 comments

This week we're featuring the interiors of the homes that were on this weekend's Philadelphia Modern Home Tours. It was the first time Philly was a featured Modern Home Tours city, and Curbed staff photographer Laura Kicey zoomed from North Philly to Chadds Ford to Mt. Airy to get pictures.

Photos by Laura Kicey

Kensington's Amber Street has been the subject of debate since architects with Modern tastes began to design homes that are radically different from existing housing stock. A couple of posts on Naked Philly got tongues wagging about the house at 2200 Amber, which goes boldly where Kenzo architecture has never gone before. Then G8, the architecture and development firm behind 2200, asked us to solicit comments about the house from our readers, which resulted in opinions ranging from "the best looking house in Philadelphia" to "a brutalist fucking eyesore."

The house featured here, a couple blocks away, is also Modern in design but it's less obtrusive. It's one of Interface Studio Architects' eight 100K Houses, which are LEED Platinum certified single-family homes. The first of these won a 2011 AIA Housing Award; it was the first-ever such certified home in Pennsylvania. The Beta 2.5 house, however, is larger than the other 100K homes: It's got 2 bedrooms, 2 baths, and 1,826 square feet (and that's not including the basement). Eco-friendly features include: double-stud construction, Passive House grade windows, Certainteed fiber cement cladding and a large terrace.

As for the interior design, it's minimalist where our two prior Modern Home Tour galleries were maximalist. We love the painting of the toilet chair, though we can't say why, and the colors of the chairs—inside and outside—brighten the interior. The soft curtains on the bedroom wall are a nice touch—those walls would look pretty harsh without the contrast.

· Mind-Boggling Interior Behind a Strict Modernist Facade [CPHI]
· Eye-Popping LEGO Colors Inside a Mt. Airy Stone Colonial [CPHI]
· G8 Wants to Know What You Think of 2200 Amber St. [CPHI]
· G8-Life's 2200 Amber Residence in New Kensington [Naked Philly]