They’re skinny. They have tattoos. They’re invading Fishtown.

They are homes.

We were checking out the Postgreen blog and saw that the final exterior images for the Skinny Project in Fishtown had been posted. The finishing touch? The house tattoos by local artist Candy Depew.

Tattoos aren’t for everybody. But for houses? We think we love it. It gives a modern home some distinction from all of the other new construction projects that are going up. It’s not enough to just be sleek these days, you’ve got to accessorize well.

We spoke with Nic Darling of Postgreen to see what inspired the inkage:

“The house tattoos came out of discussions with Brian Phillips of ISA, our architect. We demand a fairly simple structure for cost and efficiency reasons. This often means, among other things, no unnecessary corners and a single material on the facade. In other words, we give our architects a fairly limited palette to work with. So, we often end up in discussions about how to add depth and texture to a simple flat facade. Printing on or applying graphics to the exterior came out of these discussions. The name “house tattoo” followed soon after, and we all got very excited about the potential.”

Have you seen house tattoos elsewhere?

“After we started working on the idea we noticed house tattoos elsewhere (though under different names). There was a particular home in Australia (I think) that had some trees printed on part of its facade material. We also began to think of Philly as literally covered with a form of building tattoos. They are, of course, better known as murals, but the concept is similar. In creating the house tattoos for the Skinny Project, we didn’t feel that far from a tradition with which Philly is already somewhat comfortable. That said, the application technique and design was still intended to be bold and different.”

Is this something we will see in further projects from Postgreen?

“We definitely hope to use the tattoo concept again. In fact, we would like to see it migrate inside the house. We have concepts for custom wall graphics that could be available in our home customization tool and a line of cabinet doors that uses the work of local artists to create interesting textures and designs. I think, while one has to be careful of the design, that graphics are an affordable way to add interest and differentiate an otherwise simple moment in a home.”

What do you think? Would you ever get a tattoo on your home?

[image by Sam Oberter for Postgreen]

Originally posted on The Philadelphia Real Estate Voice