GRAPHĒ: This Live-Work Home in Philadelphia Gets its Layout From the Renaissance

A blackened cube makes for a striking addition to a historic Philadelphia neighborhood.

Leather sling chairs from CB2 surround a dining table by Joel Duprass.

The neighborhood is quintessential South Philadelphia. East of the city’s Italian Market along the Delaware River, Pennsport’s streets are lined with weathered brick row houses and anchored by 19th-century school buildings and grand churches. The clubs that participate in the Mummers Parade, the colorful folk festival held on New Year’s Day every year since 1901, have their workshops along 2nd Street.

Charred cypress and stained cedar wrap a three-story home in South Philadelphia. Owners Orna and Reid Willis worked with local firm Qb3 to create an open, light- filled space in an area better known for row houses. — Charred cypress and stained cedar wrap a three-story home in South Philadelphia. Owners Orna and Reid Willis worked with local firm Qb3 to create an open, light-filled space in an area better known for row houses. "People stare at our home and then Reid proceeds to invite them in," says Orna. The windows are by Jeld-Wen.

Photo by Halkin Mason

The area provided the perfect canvas for artist Orna Willis and her husband, Reid, an attorney. They wanted to live in one of the city’s older neighborhoods, but they also needed an open, live-work space with a significant amount of natural light—which is not easy to find when many of the homes are more than a century old and no more than 12 to 16 feet wide. They hit upon a solution when they acquired three adjacent vacant lots and hired local architecture firm Qb3 to make the most of their combined footprint.

Qb3 created a near-perfect 38-foot cube, with living and work spaces divided across three floors. Partners Kevin Angstadt, Patrycja Doniewski, and Stephen Mileto looked to a concept with Renaissance roots for inspiration: the piano nobile, or "noble floor," in which the main living and entertaining areas of a home are on the second story, up and away from the noise of the street.