Meet Fast Forward Presenters >> Dana Rice & Chris Mulford

What is your Big Idea for Philadelphia?

Sharswood Thrash! A Manifesto for Equitable Preservation Development

Given the current development climate in city and the new Historic Preservation Task Force, Philadelphia is ripe for a new approach to tackling this in the 21st century. We believe that our project working with the Dox Thrash house in North Philadelphia can serve as a model and testing ground for this. Like many neighborhoods in this area it has been in a state of decline since the 1960's, and is often written off as "blighted". But by looking past the decay and seeing the rich history and people that make up the community we were able to see a much different Sharswood. The Dox Thrash House is one of the many historic assets the neighborhood has to offer, but the only locally protected site. The goal of this project is to revive Dox Thrash's legacy of creative entrepreneurship and activism by promoting equitable development practices at the block level through the reuse of his house and associated sites as a community assets. As future preservationists, we see the possibilities and opportunities in investing in what's already there, and want to encourage this as not only as an approach to development but also to historic preservation.

Facebook: doxthrash.house
Instagram: DOX.THRASH

The Dox Thrash team began this project over a year ago as a group of students at PennDesign, interested in applying their in class experiences to improving real communities in the city of Philadelphia. As graduates they have continued this project in addition to beginning careers in diverse fields ranging throughout the city of Philadelphia from development, architecture and historic preservation. The team includes: Andrea Haley who has studied at Temple University and the University of Pennsylvania and is now working and continuing to explore urbanism in Philadelphia; Chris Mulford who as a designer combines interests of multidisciplinary problem solving along with a criticism of current architectural and planning cannons; Dana Rice who is an aspiring architect in Philadelphia interested in community development through preservation; and Maya Thomas who is a Los Angeles native interested in history and art and their intersections in the built environment.