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.
architecture and truth and miscommunication
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.
Boulder County's Site Plan Review Process
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.
Charles Haertling's influences and local context
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.
South Boulder transformations - creating order
Charles Haertling, the Regional Modernist houses
In this last post on Charles Haertling’s residential work, I have used the term Regional Modernist to describe a collection of houses that is a bit more difficult to define than his more assertively formal Usonian or Organic houses. In thinking about these houses, I am reminded of Kenneth Frampton’s essay “Critical Regionalism” that attempted to draw some boundaries on aspects of late Modernist architecture that incorporated local references, cultural and climatic, alongside more codified tenets of International Modernism