# Tiny Tower in North Philadelphia

By [Brandon Donnelly](https://paragraph.com/@brandondonnelly), 2019-03-17

alley, architecture, compact-house, housing, isa-architects, laneway, laneway-housing, north-philadelphia, north-philly, philadelphia, philly, secondary-street, tiny-tower, urbanism

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![](https://storage.googleapis.com/papyrus_images/034be3601841797a743d43fd696f0e69.jpg)

[ISA Architects](http://www.is-architects.com/tiny-tower/op7gxqnf8zypje36ef72y2pckzdcz9) recently completed a project in North Philadelphia called Tiny Tower.

It is a 6-level, 1,250 square foot single family home built on a small 12' x 29' lot. That's about the footprint of two parking spaces. It feels like [a house you might find in Japan](https://brandondonnelly.com/2018/07/25/firm-profile-apollo-architects-associates/).

Its siting is on a secondary street, akin to a laneway here in Toronto. As you can tell from the above picture, the adjacent parcels are largely undeveloped and/or used for parking.

The height of the house is 38 feet and the section looks like this:

![](https://storage.googleapis.com/papyrus_images/6d48ddfa7f99ce263477b5d03ca77e13.jpg)

The kitchen is in the basement (along with a light well). The living room is on the main floor (entrance to the house shown below). The third level is a workspace. And the rest of the floors are bedrooms. There's also a rooftop patio. All of the circulation happens on one side of the house.

![](https://storage.googleapis.com/papyrus_images/64b286614b366a77c3316a440fb17b02.jpg)

I don't consider 1,250 square feet to be a small house and so this post is not about that. "Tiny Tower" does, however, feel like an accurate name.

I like these kinds of projects because they are about taking something with little perceived value -- in this case a small parcel of land -- and creating something cool.

That's how you create the most value. You have to discover and do things that most other people are overlooking.

_Images:_ [_ISA Architects_](http://www.is-architects.com/tiny-tower/op7gxqnf8zypje36ef72y2pckzdcz9)

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*Originally published on [Brandon Donnelly](https://paragraph.com/@brandondonnelly/tiny-tower-in-north-philadelphia)*