KWK Promes, a Polish firm known for its austere and modern residential work, has demonstrated a capacity for humor and kitsch with its latest project. Tasked with designing a new facility for a pipe distribution company in Gliwice, Poland, the firm’s approach evokes the postmodern principles of Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown’s Learning from Las Vegas.

In a dense city like Philadelphia, residential architecture maintains a precarious relationship with privacy, which is often difficult to achieve. On a site in Center City, local office Moto Designshop faced this challenge head on, designing a new row house across the street from a busy and unsightly gas station. To conceal the home and obscure the eyesore