Emerging Voices winner profile
ISA
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The Architectural League’s Emerging Voices program annually spotlights North American architects, landscape architects, and urban designers who have significant bodies of realized work and the potential to influence their field.
Brian Phillips of ISA is a 2015 winner of the award.
Brian Phillips founded Philadelphia-based ISA in 2004. ISA is committed to “bringing innovative design with a strong environmental agenda to urban environments.” Although a particular focus is housing, the firm works in a wide range of scales and typologies in Philadelphia, Boston, and Chicago, as well as speculative projects for cities nationwide. Recent projects include the Roxbury E+ homes, net-zero energy housing prototypes; Mass Logic, a supportive housing project in Syracuse; and The Modules, a 72-unit student apartment building assembled out of more than 80 prefabricated boxes. Current projects include FLEX 2, a 31-unit townhouse development in Chicago, and the 100K Houses, an ongoing collaboration with developer Postgreen Homes, a production housing line for the modest, green, urban infill market.
ISA’s awards include an AIA National Housing Award in 2011, the U.S. Green Building Council LEED Homes Project of the Year in 2010, the Treehugger.com Residential Architect of the Year in 2010, and the Philadelphia Emerging Architecture Prize in 2008. Phillips has been published in The New York Times, 306090, Architectural Record, The Architect’s Newspaper, DWELL, Metropolis, The Philadelphia Inquirer, and has spoken on NPR.
Phillips received his M.Arch from the University of Pennsylvania. He is currently a lecturer at University of Pennsylvania School of Design, and Visiting Professor at Instituto Tecnológico de Monterrey and has taught previously at Parsons The New School for Design and University of Miami.