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Archive for July 2011
There are a lot of terms that we have to describe various kinds of exterior domestic spaces. As “outdoor living” is becoming increasing popular in Colorado if not around the county, I find that my clients are often using different terms for same space. Is that place where the picnic table is going to go [...]
In the US, a hallmark of colonial architecture was the Palladian window: This is basically a larger, arched center window with flanking rectangular windows separated by pilasters or at least trim. In Europe this is most commonly known as a serliana, a name derived from Sebastiano Serlio whose architectural treatise describes its origins from ancient [...]
About a week ago I moved from far south Boulder to far north Boulder. Not a great distance, but a big change. Most mornings I walk or run with my dog for about 3 miles. In south Boulder that meant a meandering course through a never-ending succession of suburban tract houses on winding streets to [...]
The beginning of every construction project starts with destruction. We demolish or excavate before we build. The first signs of progress are large piles of deconstructed lumber or mountains of dirt that have to get trucked off or re-used in some way. Foundations are poured and drilled, some framing is done, but nothing really strikes [...]
I’m not really sure what to make of these things. You may have seen them in the popular press or doting the landscape northwest of Taos, NM. Started in the early 1970′s by Michael Reynolds, these experiments in radical sustainability are called Earthships and though centered in the high desert in New Mexico, their prototypes [...]
A number of months ago a wrote a series of posts about Colorado’s vernacular architecture. I attempted to categorize the vernacular buildings by the dominant material – log, stone or frame. Sadly missing from that collection was the base building material used by the Spanish colonial settlers in southern Colorado – adobe. As most folks [...]