We have been blessed with a handful of rewarding and challenging projects over the last year and frankly, these have take priority rather than frequent blog posting. There are a number of projects in various stages of the process - initial design, permitting, and construction

some thoughts on building design in wildfire prone areas and ignition resistant construction and wildfire mitigation efforts

some thoughts on building design in wildfire prone areas and ignition resistant construction and wildfire mitigation efforts

I have often written about my interest in regionally specific architecture, especially vernacular forms that derive from local climatic conditions or materials availability. I recently spent some time in the Florida Keys and in my typically geeky architecture fashion, spent almost as much time looking at the local historic buildings as I did relaxing on the beach.

all architects are intimately aware of the difference between drawing a building in elevation and seeing it in perspective. The mechanistic elevation drawing renders all the three dimensional aspects of the drawing into a flat, single plane. Perspective is much more closely how we actually see real buildings in space - the structure diminishes as it recedes into space, both horizontally and vertically.

“TRUTH” AND ITS CONSEQUENCES

Of the many things that stand between architects and clients, none is so fraught as the architect's quest for architectural integrity which often masquerades as Truth. Please don't get me wrong, I am not asserting that all architects are questing for Truth while our clients really were only looking for a building. I have rarely experienced that.

on the dominant role of functionalism and an alternative approach to design that neither favors formalism nor eschews function

a brief look at mobile homes and manufactured housing, its impact, versatility, and ubiquitousness across rural America

One of the sure-fire ways of designing a cool looking building in graduate school was to be infected with the Hyper-Attenuated Building Syndrome (HABS). Any project can be made absurdly long and skinny and by violating any notion of “pleasant” golden-section-type proportions, it instantly propels a project from everyday to extraordinary. Mind you, this was simply grad school students messing around. However, the Hyper-Attenuated Building Syndrome is no laughing matter:

On a narrow spit of land, at the confluence of two mighty rivers, lies ancient Cairo. Not the one in Africa, with pyramids and camels, rather the one along the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers: Cairo, Illinois.

Cairo has seen better days, the 1920 population of 15,000 having dropped below 3,000 souls. Once a shipping center strategically located at the two rivers, the city later developed as a rail center, consolidating its status as a bustling nexus of commerce

Threeness

With apologies to Schoolhouse Rock and De La Soul, what exactly is it about the number three, at least in the world of architecture and design, that makes it so ubiquitous and appealing? I’m not going to dive into the Holy Trinity or discourse about mind, body and soul, but it is so often true that a grouping of three is so often more compatible, more satisfying than two or four.

In all of our projects we go through an extensive process of trying to choose materials for interior finishes. There are an almost infinite number of choices available for tile, wall and ceiling colors, flooring, etc. The final selection should reinforce the ideas of the design as well as meet the budget, technical and practical uses of each location.

One of the most satisfying aspects of my job is the opportunity we often have to design a house amongst Colorado’s more rural landscapes. Sometimes that is out on the plains, with the building sitting out on that immense expanse, looking back at the Flatirons or snow-capped mountains beyond. Occassionally it is up in the high alpine terrain of the Continental Divide, creating a house that can nestle down in the stunning but often harsh landscape. And quite often if is in the foothills of the Front Range, framing a panoramic view that stretches from the plains to the highest mountain tops.

Of the many things that stand between architects and clients, none is so fraught as the architect's quest for architectural integrity which often masquerades as Truth. Please don't get me wrong, I am not asserting that all architects are questing for Truth while our clients really were only looking for a building. I have rarely experienced that. But my more recent experience as a member of the local Landmarks Board has highlighted this difference between how architects and normal people view buildings. Most all architects educated in the last 50 years have been instilled with this idea of Truth in architecture.

The Hidden Trials of Boulder County’s Site Plan Review

In the past 20 years, we have had a number of Site Plan Review submissions to the Boulder County Land Use Department. And while the codified standards for approval have changed little over this time, the interpretation of those same standards have signficantly shifted.

In my further study of Charles Haertling’s work in and around Boulder, I have looked into his background and tried to understand the architectural and historical context within which he was working. A number of years ago, Marcy Cameron and I put together a talk that attempted to describe the social landscape in Boulder in the post-WWII era and what made it such furtile ground for the blossoming of innovative residential architecture that was built in the late 1950s through the early 1970s.

This is the first post highlighting the residential work of Boulder architect Charles Haertling.

As I mentioned in a previous post, I have broken the houses down into three gross categories - Usonian, Organic, and Regional Modernist. These are of course just broad labels and no architect’s work can be so easily organized. These categories are certainly not meant to be reductionist but rather my way of thinking about Haertling’s intentions as much as his completed works.

I’ve written quite a bit about Boulder architect Charles Haertling over the nearly 20 years that I have lived in Boulder. His work has been a revelation and inspiration, a gentle reminder from the past to always seek out invention and never fall back to simplistic solutions. This Fall, I have been engaged by a property owner to actually do some work on one of Haertling’s houses, the Matheson House, high atop Marshall Mesa in South Boulder.

Tician Papachristou

Another in a series of posts of some of the remarkable architects that were working in Boulder, Colorado in the 1960s.  This was a particularly fruitful time for questioning the received notions of residential design and Boulder's building boom allowed some of the more talented local architects to experiment with new forms, materials and most notably, new sets of relationships between the house and landscape.

I recently took a short trip to a series of amazing Native American settlement sites in south Colorado and Utah. Mesa Verde National Park is the more established, better known, site, located just outside of Cortez, Colorado. This is the location of the iconic cliff dwellings, dramatic masonry construction tucked under massive sandstone overhaning cliffs

I was recently at two Shaker sites, the Lebanon Village in New York and the adjacent Hancock Village in Massachusets. Growing up in Kentucky, I visited the Pleasant Hill Shaker village a number of times and it was fascinating to tour these two northeastern sites that was its origin.