The Naked Architect

THE COLUMN COLUMN

2008-04-06T22:16:00.000-07:00

Many of you know of my fascination with etymology, the study of the origins of words. My musings (some would say ramblings) have infested many a social conversation, and even so stalwart a fellow as my brother-in-law once rose from the dinner table after a particularly long tale of the origins of Elizabethan English phrases with a definitive "that's a stupid, stupid story!" His compliment notwithstanding, I have pushed forward.

I was therefore recently reminded of another origin by a new client couple who have taken a keen interest in columns, the architectural kind. We have worked hard in collaboration to create a house that includes columns as architectural elements, columns as definers of a central Concourse, an Entry, and an approach to the house. So this column is inspired by those columns, sitting even now in sketch form on my design table, worked and re-worked to an as yet uncompleted design.

The most famous columns in history are those of the Parthenon in Athens, the classic Doric columns of simplicity and strength, named after Dorus the mythic son of Greek goddess Hellen. Every design student since ancient time has had to learn the difference between Doric, Ionic and Corinthian columns, each more flowery than their predecessors.

This word origin tale is NOT however about the word "column", but has its roots in columns - specifically the Latin columns of ancient Rome.

In Roman high society, the villas of the well-to-do were adorned with columns and colonnades, heavy solid marble statements of opulence (see photo of the Roman villa of Fishbourne). While impressive, these solid marble columns were heavy - very heavy - and had the bad habit of falling over and killing people in earthquakes and other disasters. Architects and craftsmen of the day ultimately hit upon a lighter and safer solution. If one hollowed out the center of the column, it would remain structurally sound but much lighter, and could be capped off with its appropriate tops called the capital and entablature. These lighter columns could be braced more easily. As an added benefit, the smaller stone-like pieces of marble left over from hollowing out of the columns could be combined with cements and glues to make an ancient floor - which they called terrazzo. That made the columns and the flooring ultimately cheaper to produce.

Still, society being society, visitors to the villas of Rome and beyond took to knocking on the columns when entering, creating the natural hollow sound in these safer columns which became a kind of embarrassment as these things go. There was after all still that last, snootiest group of patricians who looked down on those who would dare to save on hollowed columns, though safer. What to do? Well, the clever architects of the day hit upon the idea of filling the voids with an inert but light material that wouldn't sound hollow. Their solution was to fill the columns with wax, then install the caps.

Now all was well with the world of Roman society, right? Not so fast! Snooty is as snooty does, as Forrest Gump might say, even 2000 plus years ago. Although one could fool others (not to say be safer) with a like-sounding hollowed column, still there was a motivated group that stuck mightily to their solid marble columns. Society even came up with a name for this last full measure of one-upsmanship. Those people "at the top" with the more expensive solid, real marble columns were said to be "without wax." The Latin for without wax was sine cera. And so was born, out of the architectural columns of Roman villas, the first homeowners who came to be known as sincere!

Now you have officially been exposed to my hobby of merging architecture, building and the etymology of the terms that give meaning to their world. However, all the same, I may not forward this to my brother-in-law!

EASTER EGG ARCHITECTURE

2008-03-22T08:20:00.000-07:00

Most people who don't follow architectural trends that closely will not be familiar with one that came and went rather quickly in the late 1970s, Post-modern architecture.

So-named by architectural historian Charles Jencks in his 1977 book The Language of Post Modern Architecture, it was a movement in reaction to the "blandness that had become the remains of the Modern Architecture movement of the 1940s and 50s (you know, high rise boxes that all looked
the same). It spawned terms like "the decorated shed" and heroes like Robert Venturi (Learning From Las Vegas), Charles Moore, and especially Michael Graves.

The most celebrated architect of that era, Frank Gehry of Santa Monica, wasn't really a Post-modernist at all; but rather was and IS a wildly independent iconoclast whose weirdly beautiful undulations like the Walt Disney Concert Hall defy categorization.

I bring this up because I was reminded last night of all of this while COLORING EASTER EGGS WITH MY FAMILY, and yes I think that entire movement was rather like the coloring of Easter eggs. It celebrated the decoration of the form as much as the form itself.

Otherwise sane designers often added cartoon-like decorative ornaments to their buildings, had them colored in combinations that had ZERO relationship to their environment, and had FIERCE rationalizations as to why a certain pattern language was "right" and another one was "wrong". These obscure and ego-driven rules and regulations in the architectural community is not - to say the least - my favorite part of my profession. It has always been so cocktail party argument-like!

Well, I just had to re-visit this silly/significant time period as an Easter Egg homage, and lay in a sample of the architecture of the day. Here are the most famous of the time period, Michael Graves' Portland Building, Charles Moore's Piazza d'Italia in New Orleans, and Philip Johnson's At & T Building in Manhattan (meant to allude to a Chippendale upright cabinet but please don't ask me why?!)

Here in Los Angeles, we have and had lots of examples including Charles Moore's Beverly Hills Civic Center (meant to refer back to classical Italian architecture but in an irreverent way), Frank Gehry's Chiat & Day's advertising company headquarters in Venice (the binoculars, suggested to Frank by friend Claus Oldenberg symbolizes the advertising nature of peeping into your wants and needs - clever, huh?), and even an entry from my portfolio, The Home Shops linen shop in Westside Pavilion, the entry symbolizing (in pink and purple of course!) the arched entryway to a house.

Well, the period was lots of fun, if not all that historically significant. It had one great fallout, which was to get architects over the stuffiness of the austere old Modern Movement. It just goes to prove to all of us, architects included are at one time or another, subject to our inner child of easter egg decorations; in my case as recently as just last night.

THE ITALIAN JOB

2008-02-19T11:30:00.000-08:00

It was Walt Disney who created the word "imagineering", meaning what can be created from a re-engineered environment when imagination rules. Well, of course, Disneyland for one! It's a good mindset for architecture, too.

I recently designed a home for a renowned Los Angeles restaurateur and his real estate broker wife that was both nestled in the hills of Los Angeles and spiritually set in the imaginings of Italy. This Italian Job was an exploration of two cultures and two lifestyles, and it served as a heads up that 21st century design in a multi-cultural country is part "the place where the house sits" and part "where it wants to be." It was imagineering - not just in the abstract of design and site, but also the Italian countryside where the owners' other lives resided - that allowed a freeing of the mind and the mindset to design in two worlds at one time.

This idea of home as lifestyle and not just rooms is the one of the core principles of my architecture. What becomes of design that resides only in the world of the architect and not the homeowner? I submit that it is just "product design"; a vision of the architect that can be beautiful and even stunning, but says nothing about the people who inhabit the spaces.

So it is that this Italian hillside house of LA is both an exploration of my life in design AND the owners' design of their lives. Here is a link to a slideshow of their residence, a testimonial to imagineering that is anything but "Fantasyland."
http://homepage.mac.com/cr8vin3d1/PhotoAlbum1.html

SAVING GRACE

2008-02-19T11:13:00.000-08:00

(This Valentine's Day offering was re-posted February 19th)

Valentine's Day is by far the most popular day of the year to get engaged; and, according to a survey in the Dallas Morning News, it is also the most popular day to get married (by a 2 1/2 to 1 margin over New Year's Eve and a 3 to 1 margin over June 1st).

Whether the upcoming Valentine's Day cycle is a remembrance of things past (my wife and I got engaged on Valentine's Eve at the highest restaurant in San Francisco, overlooking the Golden Gate Bridge and San Francisco Bay) or a hope for the near or far future, architecture and pastoral settings are likely to play a big part. Never is the power of architecture and landscape architecture more poignant than when it's form honors faith and romance. Church architecture and their surrounding grounds can uplift in a way that few other types can, providing a saving grace and place for memory to reside.

Here in Los Angeles, we have at least 2 world class places worth everyone's trip, and worth considering for those special days in one's lives. Wayfarer's Chapel. on the Palos Verdes Peninsula, is an almost completely glass enclosed church designed in 1949 by Lloyd Wright, the son of Frank Lloyd Wright. It's beauty lies in it's simplicity and it's graceful continence, rising from the ground with low walls of native Palos Verdes Stone (think sandstone) upon which sit upward soaring wood timbers. The glue-laminated timbers create both the pillars of the walls and the beams of the roof in one grand sweeping gesture. Everywhere else there is glass; glass walls, glass roof, glass symbolism.

Lloyd Wright's design inspiration was the majestic redwood forests of Northern California, and he nicknamed his design the "tree chapel". It exists as the foremost example of organic architecture of the post-World War 2 era in LA design. To say it is a popular wedding destination is an understatement.

Self Realization Fellowship Lakeshrine is a more pastoral setting, if that is possible. Part of a religious teaching founded by Paramahansa Yogananda in 1920, but open to all, it is comprised of a lake with swans, a waterfall, a windmill chapel, various gardens and walkways, and a lawn area housing the ashes of Mahatma Gandhi and the site of thousands of weddings. It is nestled near the Pacific Palisades beaches where Sunset Blvd. works it's way to the Pacific Ocean.To walk its grounds is to change one's life and/ or one's outlook, for a moment or for the length of a memory.

Beautiful places to mark special events exist far and near. Some of the most beautiful church architecture of the last half century was created by the late great Arkansas architect E. Fay Jones. His crowning achievement is Thorncrown Chapel in Eureka Springs, Arkansas, and to enter it's embrace is like entering a groove of trees. It and others like it earned Jones the AIA Gold Medal, the highest honor the profession bestows. It is not surprising that it was built primarily as a place for weddings and other celebrations.

So it is that Valentine's Day is fast approaching, and with it - for at least a day - a time of bonding which appeals to the better angels of our nature. Architecture and landscape design, at their graceful best, preserve those feelings in a permanent way, emotive places apart and yet part of us for all time.

A STAR LIKE NO OTHER

2008-02-03T11:08:00.000-08:00

(THIS DECEMBER 24, 2007 OFFERING WAS RE-POSTED ON FEBRUARY 3, 2008)

We are collectively about to celebrate the birth of Jesus of Nazareth, the spiritual Son of God and savior for more than a billion members of the human race. I grew up thinking that the baby Jesus was born on December 25th of the year "one", and of course we all know that isn't "exactly" true.

The date of December 25th coincides with the end of the one week Winter Solstice celebration in the Roman calendar . According to The History News Network "In ancient Rome, this festival was called the Saturnalia and ran from Dec. 17 to Dec. 24. During that week, no work was done, and the time was spent in parties, games, gift giving and decorating the houses with evergreens. (Sound familiar?) It was, needless to say, a very popular holiday.  

In its earliest days, Christianity did not celebrate the Nativity at all. Only two of the four Gospels even mention it. Instead, the Church calendar was centered on Easter, still by far the most important day in the Christian year. The Last Supper was a Seder, celebrating Passover, which falls on the day of the full moon in the first month of spring in the Hebrew calendar. So in A.D. 325, the Council of Nicea decided that Easter should fall on the Sunday following the first full moon of spring. That's why Easter and its associated days, such as Ash Wednesday and Good Friday, are "moveable feasts," moving about the calendar at the whim of the moon.

  It is a mark of how late Christmas came to the Christian calendar that it is not a moveable feast, but a fixed one, determined by the solar calendar established by Julius Caesar and still in use today (although slightly tweaked in the 16th century).  

By the time of the Council of Nicea, the Christian Church was making converts by the thousands and, in hopes of still more converts, in 354 Pope Liberius decided to add the Nativity to the church calendar. He also decided to celebrate it on Dec. 25. "

Liberius called the Nativity "the Mass of Christ", hence Christ-mas.

So, later in life it made sense to me that Christmas was a celebration of Jesus' birth not a "date certain." First, shepherds watched over their flocks at night. Shepherds among you know that only happens when the Ewes are pregnant, in the Spring! Secondly, Mary and Joseph were traveling, an act of "rebellion" under Roman rule (to keep the population from rising up). The exception was that Rome REQUIRED travel to one's place of birth to be counted for the census. There was such a census in the late Spring of what we now call 2BC.
Still my curiosity about the exact date of Jesus' birth persisted; that is until I ventured one day about 20 years ago to the Griffith Park Observatory in Los Angeles ( see photo).

There an astronomical show was presented in a darkened auditorium by a star projector replicating the night sky. It's subject was "The Star of Wonder" - The Christmas Star; and by searching for an event that would match the ancient tellings of the Christmas, the researchers at Griffith Park came up with the probable date of the birth of Jesus: THE 17TH OF JUNE IN THE YEAR 2 BC!

BELOW, REPRINTED FROM AN ARTICLE ON MSNBC.COM, IS THE STORY I HEARD ABOUT THE MIRACLE OF THE BIRTH OF CHRIST, THE MAGI, AND THE "STAR" THAT FOREVER MARKED IT IN HISTORY:

"Through the years, astronomers and others have proposed a variety of objects for the Christmas star — comets, an exploding star or a grouping of planets. Some suggest that the star was a miracle created especially by God. Such a suggestion cannot be proved or disproved, and it is entirely outside the realm of science. But there’s no need to resort to miracles, given the actual astronomical events of the time.
The first thing is to determine the approximate date of Jesus’ birth. Then we look into the sky of that period and try to identify the star. It doesn’t work the other way around: Since virtually any year can boast at least one reasonably interesting sky event, the astronomy must follow the history.
Ruling out prime suspects Let’s assume, as many historians have, that the most likely time frame for the birth of Jesus was between 3 B.C. and A.D. 1. Let’s also assume that the Star of Bethlehem could be observed by skywatchers elsewhere in the world, and not just by the Magi — who are known as “wise men” or “kings” but were actually priests who relied on astrology.
These assumptions would rule out some of the prime suspects in the mystery: comets, brightening stars known as novae, and exploding stars known as supernovae. The Chinese, who did a particularly good job of cataloging astronomical phenomena, recorded no such phenomena during the years in question.
Beyond the timing issue, there’s another consideration: A comet or supernova big enough to attract the wise men’s attention would have been widely noticed by royalty and commoners as well. But King Herod and his advisers seemed not to know or care about the star until the astrologers from the east came to visit.
However, if we suppose that the “star” actually referred to the planets, the situation is less problematic. The movements and groupings of planets in the night sky were of exceeding interest to astrologers and were closely tracked around the world. Historical records and modern-day computer simulations indicate that there was a rare series of planetary groupings, also known as conjunctions, during the years 3 B.C. and 2 B.C.
The show started on the morning of June 12 in 3 B.C., when Venus could be sighted very close to Saturn in the eastern sky. Then there was a spectacular pairing of Venus and Jupiter on Aug. 12 in the constellation Leo, which ancient astrologers associated with the destiny of the Jews.
Between September of 3 B.C. and June of 2 B.C., Jupiter passed by the star Regulus in Leo, reversed itself and passed it again, then turned back and passed the star a third time. This was another remarkable event, since astrologers considered Jupiter the kingly planet and regarded Regulus as the “king star.”
The crowning touch came on June 17, when Jupiter seemed to approach so close to Venus that, without binoculars, they would have looked like a single star.
Rewarding search The whole sequence of events could have been enough for at least three astrologers to go to Jerusalem and ask Herod: “Where is he that is born King of the Jews, for we have seen his star in the east and are come to worship him.”
Now, this doesn’t mean that astrology works. We haven’t ruled out other possibilities for the Star of Bethlehem. And the mere existence of interesting celestial events does nothing to prove that the birth of Jesus was accompanied by a star, that the Magi existed, or even that the Nativity took place as described in the Bible.
But it does make our search more rewarding to find a truly interesting astronomical event that happened during the most likely time for the Nativity.
This article is based on John Mosley’s 1987 book, “The Christmas Star,” which is available from the Griffith Observatory. “The Christmas Star” addresses many other questions about the season, such as: When was Christ born? Who were the Magi? Why is Christmas observed on Dec. 25? "
Whatever the actual date of Jesus' birth, there is no doubt that the miracle of it for millions and millions is worth celebrating, with friends, family, presents and merriment of all sort. I share in wishing you that joyous celebration....Merry Christmas!

IN THE BEGINNING WAS THE WORD

2007-11-29T13:46:00.000-08:00

I am a big supporter of the Hollywood screenwriters. True, I have my share of clients and friends who are screenwriters, including some manning the picket lines of the Writers Guild of America strike, but I also count producers among my clients and friends. I think my admiration for screenwriters goes to the difficulty of creation I face as an architect, the everyday job to create, do so insightfully, and on demand.

Whether it is one friend's creating a fantasy world for Mark Hamil to travel down (no, not THAT fantasy world, but a later world called "Slipstream"), another finding words and taut thrillers for Arnold Scwartzenegger, Tommy Lee Jones and Ben Affleck to inhabit, or a client putting comedic words in the mouth of "The Family Guy"; these guys give witness to the Biblical truism that "In the beginning was the Word."

So I thought it might be fun, as an homage to writers near and far, to let you in on a few words of the architectural profession, how they got to be the way they are, and what they mean.

Take the word threshold, that thing we all walk over when we go in our front doors. What exactly IS that thing, and why is it called a threshold? Well, in Elizabethan England, most commoners' houses had dirt floors. These floors would attract the mud and muck of cold and rainy winters as countless boots passed over their entryways. Soon a kind of bog would form at the front door. To counter this mess, householders would by custom put down a layer of thresh or straw near the front door and periodically replace it or stack more on top of the base layer. That solved part of the problem, but created a new one. As time went by, the thresh would spill out the front door and be lost to the street beyond. To prevent that, and hold this muddy layer of thresh inside, carpenters would lay a board or piece of stone under the door to act a s a stop for the wayward straw. This piece which held the thresh in became known, naturally enough, as the thresh-hold.

During this same time in history, there arose a term that started out as "architecture" but ended up as a kind of description of a flood. In the 16th century ( and long before), the problem of how to roof a house was easily solved by finding a good quantity of thatch, the wonderfully waterproof grass. Architects designed and carpenters built beams across roofs, separated just far enough that boards could be laid on top with (usually) lots of gaps, and then a layer of insulating, protecting thatch above that. Well, as it turned out, the world below the roof in England was a dangerous place, filled with people, horses, carts and all manner of "dangers." Animals such as cats and dogs found refuge living in the thatch above the street, much as cats today hang out "on the roof". That was all well and good (except for the gaps in the boards as I will explain below) until IT RAINED. Those among you who are thatch aficionados know that thatch, when wet tends to get slippery. Thatch at an angle (like on a roof) in a downpour gets REALLY wet, so wet that the dogs and cats would slip off their perches and come tumbling down onto the unsuspecting people below. In such deluges it was truly "raining cats and dogs"!

I also mentioned that there were problems with the gaps in the roof boards, principally that it allowed stuff to fall through the thatch above. Well, with cats and dogs living up there one can imagine what that "stuff" was. It was a big problem, especially for the nicer rooms where bed linens and finery below could easily get spoiled or worse. To the rescue rode the furniture designers of old, who invented a barrier on four poles above the bed to catch the unwanted droppings. Those of you who have already guessed the answer know that I am talking about the classic, canopied 4-poster bed. Not as romantic as our nicest visions of that bed, huh?

Lastly, there is the open courtyard and sometimes lawn adjoining a cloister. From the movies "A Nun's Story" and "Chariots of Fire", everyone has a vision drawn from their screenwriters of these ideallic settings ( see picture). Well its name comes from the Old Norse meaning of yard and the Middle English meaning of a hollow. What is this peaceful, architectural place from which to think, perchance to dream? It is called....a "garth."

THE COLOR PURPLE AND OTHERS

2007-09-26T19:00:00.000-07:00

The popular culture magazine "Entertainment Weekly" includes a feature that humorously attempts to log current trends in a sidebar called Now/ 5 Minutes Ago/ Out. Last week one of the categories was "Color", and as all followers of fashion can attest a color can indeed be "in" or "out."
By their reckoning pink is so 5 minutes ago (remember Donald Trump's pink power tie?), and purple is in. Well that's great I guess, but not something reliable when it comes to architecture. In architecture, color plays a huge role, and can be subject to whim (retro 50s colors anyone?). More substantially, color is used to provide accent, statement and create mood.
The architectural guru of color in architecture was Mexican architect Luis Barragan, and his disciple Ricardo Legorreta with whom I partnered on several projects is a great intellect in the use of color in architecture. He has a long and distinguished career that in part owes its distinctiveness to his use of color. Typically, Ricardo starts his commissions with a unifying color, such as a deep earth color found in his native Mexico. Then serendipitously, he will introduce color in a cathedral space or home's interior wall. The colors evoke mood and highlight spaces and their surroundings.
In the case of the Bel Air Residence (a project we shared), Ricardo introduced 2 shades of rich orange to highlight an interior Dining area off a stairway, and evoked a warmth not unlike that of a hearth - dinner around a hearth being a timeless image of warmth. In the Pershing Square project which renovated a historic downtown square in Los Angeles, he used a striking purple to communicate a sense of place in the midst of a forest of highrise buildings.

I designed a small chain of jewelry stores whose specialty was emeralds by introducing green neon pyramids that provided symbolic emeralds as a design theme. It was a fun way of evoking emotion in the customers, and I was fortunate enough to win a national lighting design award with that design.
In another case, I accented a Mexican themed Bath Suite which featured terra cotta colored tile and walls with blue green tile and glass at the shower to symbolize water. The reaction of the owners was that it provided a luscious oasis feeling in a small environment (see enclosed photo).

In a Hermosa Beach Residence, I introduced the rich red exterior that evoked the owners grandfather's native soil color in Monterey, Mexico, and accented it with a dusty green that symbolized the native vegetation in Monterey. In the totality of the exterior statement, the residence provides a warm remembrance and homage to the Mexican heritage upon which the owners then built with everything from clay landscape pots to Mexican furniture.

These examples illustrate that color plays a vital role in architecture. We can and do change clothes daily or more. Today's green iPod is tomorrow's red iPod. But with architecture, there is staying power, the power of time to create and enhance our homes, our shops and our public places.

More than any other segment of our daily existence, the colors of architecture are the colors of our lives.

TO DO WITH WHAT WE HAVE

2007-09-10T19:32:00.000-07:00

The recent passing of Luciano Pavarotti reminded me of another inspirational artist, Itzhak Perlman. The renowned violinist has had a lifelong struggle "to do with what we have", and in the process has triumphed and provided the world with some of the greatest musical performances of the past half century. No performance in his life was as courageous and inspirational as one he gave in New York City in 1995. Below, Houston Chronicle writer Jack Riemer relived that performance of a lifetime:

"On Nov. 18, 1995, Itzhak Perlman, the violinist, came on stage to give a concert at Avery Fisher Hall at Lincoln Center in New York City. If you
have ever been to a Perlman concert, you know that getting on stage is no small achievement for him. He was stricken with polio as a child, and so he has braces on both legs and walks with the aid of two crutches. To see him walk across the stage one step at a time , painfully and slowly, is an awesome sight. He walks painfully, yet majestically, until he reaches his chair.

Then he sits down, slowly, puts his crutches on the floor, undoes the
Clasps on his legs, tucks one foot back and extends the other foot forward. Then he bends down and picks up the violin, puts it under his chin, nods to the conductor and proceeds to play.

By now, the audience is used to this ritual. They sit quietly while he
Makes his way across the stage to his chair. They remain reverently silent while undoes the clasps on his legs. They wait until he is ready to play. But this time, something went wrong. Just as he finished the first few bars, one of the strings on his violin broke. You could hear it snap - it went off like gunfire across the room. There was no mistaking what that sound meant.

There was no mistaking what he had to do.

People who were there that night thought to themselves: "We figured that he would have to get up, put on the clasps again, pick up the crutches and limp his way off stage - to either find another violin or else find another string for this one."

But he didn't. Instead, he waited a moment, closed his eyes and then
signaled the conductor to begin again. The orchestra began, and he
played from where he had left off. And he played with such passion and such power and such purity as they had never heard before.

Of course, anyone knows that it is impossible to play a symphonic work
With just three strings. I know that, and you know that, but that night

Itzhak Perlman refused to know that. You could see him modulating, changing, re-composing the piece in his head. At one point, it sounded like he was de-tuning the strings to get new sounds from them that they had never before.

When he finished, there was an awesome silence in the room. And then
People rose and cheered. There was an extraordinary outburst of applause from every corner of the auditorium. We were all on our feet, screaming and cheering, doing everything we could to show how much we appreciated what he had done.

He smiled, wiped the sweat from this brow, raised his bow to quiet us,
And then he said - not boastfully, but in a quiet, pensive, reverent tone:
"You know, sometimes it is the artist's task to find out how much music you can make with what you have left."

What a powerful line that is. It has stayed in my mind ever since I
heard it. And who knows? Perhaps that is the definition of life - not just for artists but for all of us. Here is a man who has prepared all his life to make music on a violin of four strings, who, all of a sudden, in the middle of a concert, finds himself with only three strings; so he makes music with three strings, and the music he made that night with just three strings was more beautiful, more sacred, more memorable, than any that he had ever made before, when he had four strings.

So, perhaps our task in this shaky, fast-changing, bewildering world in
which we live is to make music, at first with all that we have, and
then, when that is no longer possible, to make music with what we have left."

~Jack Riemer, Houston Chronicle, February 10, 2001

In this blog we talk a lot about architecture and design, but most especially about the inspiration behind it, and by implication the inspiration behind a life well lived. I believe that we all, rich or poor, can gather inspired design spaces to our lives and so lift up the experience of our homes, our businesses and our other special spaces. Do not be fooled into thinking that great design requires great financial resources. Great design more often is a product of revelation and being open to the inspiration of the simple but unique. Happily, in the design world, it is possible to make beautiful music anywhere, and celebrate our successes "to do with what we have."

THE ARCHITECTURE OF 9/11

2007-09-08T14:02:00.000-07:00

When I served as National President of Architects/Designers/Planners for Social Responsibility (ADPSR) in the 1990s, we had a distinguished Board of Advisers. It included architects you might recognize like Frank Gehry and Richard Meier, but also other distinguished members of the profession including someone you may not have heard of, renowned structural engineer Les Robertson.

Les in turn was good friends with my predecessor, Sidney Gilbert, a Fellow of the American Institute of Architects. Sidney was a pioneer in the field of sustainable design, evangelizing for green principals long before it was popular to do so.

Tuesday will mark 6 years since America awoke to a beautiful Fall morning, only to witness an act of infamy that would change the universe we knew, and reveal an enemy we hardly knew at all. Among the victims that day, though not directly from the attack and collapse of the World Trade Center, were Les Robertson and Sidney Gilbert.

For Les Robertson, the pain of seeing his engineering pancake to the ground drove him to depression after the attacks.The irony is that he HAD designed the towers in the mid-60s to resist the impact of a slow moving passenger airliner (a then state of the art 707 at about 180 mph). His design was the ONLY design outside of military or nuclear facilities to be so designed.

No one could have anticipated a 20% heavier 767, fully fueled, being ACCELERATED at up to 600 mph into the towers. And as Les himself said: “To the best of our knowledge, little was known about the effects of a fire from such an aircraft, and no designs were prepared for that circumstance. Still, in ways known only to the creator, he deeply blamed himself for the collapse of his creation. In part he blamed the genius of his own design, state of the art engineering when the Twin Towers went into service. Simply speaking, the WTC was designed as a structural box exterior and a structural box inner core (which contained the elevators, stairs and support spaces). Each floor in the shape of a square donut was structurally "hung" from the twin structural boxes.

It was brilliant, rigid and strong. However, the collapse of a single floor as happened in the inferno of 9/11, meant the floor pancaked onto the one below, dislodging THAT floor and so on, causing the entire building to implode upon itself.
I have heard from friends at ADPSR that for a time Robertson blamed himself, an awful self-judgment from a brilliant engineer that designed a solution that allowed the buildings to withstand the initial collisions, and saved hundreds if not thousands of lives in the process.

The other architectural casualty was my mentor Sidney Gilbert, FAIA. After a decorated and extended design career, Sidney was that September morning battling serious lung cancer. Although not aware of the details of his disease, I had no doubt that this full-of-life mountain of a man would continue to fight his disease with the vigor he had approached his life. New York City was the heart center of that life, and all who visited it with him as I once did were filled with his special places and special feelings about the city. Then, suddenly, 9/11 happened and the city changed instantly from that of the hunter to that of the hunted.

Within 48 hours I got the shocking call from Sidney's wife that Sidney had gone straight downhill after the attacks and succumbed to his lung cancer. I'll never be able to prove it, but I am convinced Sidney Gilbert no longer wanted to live in a city as devastated as his. He was in my mind as much a victim of 9/11 as those who perished in the towers.

This September 11, as I mark the passing of thousands of lives lost in the terrorist attacks, I will remember 2 architectural giants, one shaken and one gone. Here's to you Les Robertson, you engineered your heart out; and here's to you Sidney Gilbert, we miss you, still.

MONUMENTAL MEANING

2007-09-03T15:24:00.000-07:00

This is my first entry after an August summer hiatus, during which time among other things my family journeyed to Washington, DC. I was most impressed by seeing the monuments on the National Mall at night, an awe-inspiring sight. It reminds me that we all honor such experiences, whether a national homage to a great President like the Lincoln Memorial, a restaurant owner's framed review of his cuisine, or a homeowner's family picture wall.
These places are made more special by the memories they evoke, the times they honor, the remembrance of things past.
Take for example, the Vietnam War Memorial on the National Mall. Most people know it as a stunning and emotive granite wall with the chronological listing of all those who died in that war. Lesser known are the symbolic meanings within the Wall. From the air it takes the shape of a "V" for Vietnam; and it descends in grade to create a permanent "wound upon the land", a purposeful metaphor from designer Maya Lin. Its granite face is highly reflective, allowing the seer to look at himself in the present and the honored dead in the past simultaneously. And the legs of the "V" point at the Washington Monument and the Lincoln Memorial, tying it to the procession of great monuments on the Mall.

Another example that takes away one's breath in person is the Lincoln Memorial, perhaps the most famous of all memorials (its elevation appears on both the penny and the 5 dollar bill, the only dually honored memorial. Most people are aware of its colonaded enclosure with the 19 foot high statue of the sitting Lincoln. Less are aware that architect Henry Bacon created the colonade of 36 doric columns, the number of states during Lincoln's presidency, as if to say this house of democracy, this America, was bound together and saved as a whole by the man within.

Even more esoteric, and disputed (by the National Parks Service), is the possibility that the sculptor Daniel Chester French carved Lincoln's hands to simulate the sign language for "A" and "L" (see picture and decide for yourself).

I came away from the experience of these and other places with renewed awareness of the obvious and subtle places of our lives, our homes, ours and other businesses, parks and yes the National Mall. I think the meaning of it all is that we must be sure, architects and their clients, to include in the designs we make those big and small emotive places apart. When we do, the monuments to our lives are all around us,
reflections of the past and present held together for us to see and enrich the spirit.

SHAKEN AND STIRRED

2007-07-22T19:47:00.000-07:00

Just before daybreak, on the otherwise unremarkable morning of January 17, 1994, a major earthquake hit Los Angeles. It shook me out of my bed and literally rearranged my design world. Within hours my wife and I were at a Santa Monica apartment helping to upright a friend’s jumbled apartment home. Within weeks, I was traveling around the greater metropolitan area strategizing on how to help distressed clients and friends with the enormous aftermath of it all.

One morning my intern, Adam Wheeler, the son of award-winning photographer Nick Wheeler, mentioned that a friend of his dad’s had literally had his entire house come unhinged from its foundation and could I help? Intrigued, I said yes, and asked who might be the friend in need.

It was America’s travel guru and best-selling author Peter Greenberg.

RESORT SUITE HOME

From the moment we first met, Peter and I shared a mutuality of inspiration. He saw every travel artifact as a potential piece of the design puzzle. I saw the way he lived as creating a style for those artifacts and for his life. Together the experiences of his extensive travels became the design that served his way of living.

In a story that will unfold in periodic postings on these pages, I hope to relate in a meaningful way how he and I turned his travel experiences into visions of his lifestyle in a newly re-designed home. Eventually, elements of 47 different hotels he had stayed in became parts of that home that would rise Phoenix-like from the San Fernando Valley floor in suburban Los Angeles.

More than being just artifacts from far away places, they began to organize into a philosophy with a cohesive theme. Each room, each niche, each window seat was destined to be woven into this new design for living. I have christened it Resort Suite Home (and sometimes Home Suite Home). It means the same thing: all that one could imagine luxuriating in at a far away resort, we as architect and client together could weave into a home.

It is at once a concept both simple and complex. The complexity comes from each client's unique life; some that are Kitchen centric, some that revolve around a Master Suite, others that depend on an indoor-outdoor flow of experiences. However, at its simplest, it really means "experience design"- in everything. That is the wellhead that came together with Peter Greenberg, the house as resort.

Out of the rumblings of that 1994 earthquake, the jumbled lifestyle design of the "inner vacation" I had long pondered had birthed its theme.

AN ABIDING PASSION

2007-07-16T20:36:00.000-07:00

I don't remember a time when I didn't want to be an architect. At age 4 I drew a door in the open position in a doorway, in perspective, and told my Mom I wanted to be an architect without much understanding of just what that was!

Still I got quite a lesson in 2001 on how you can construct a successful career or complete a difficult task (like building the home or business of your mind's eye) with just one critical ingredient. Six years ago this week (just weeks before the 9/11 tragedy) our family journeyed to Florida and eventually to the Cape Canaveral Space Center. There we heard an amazing story from a true American hero, Story Musgrave.

Story, who is an astronaut, gave a talk about how success in life and in any pursuit takes just "an abiding passion." He related how, as a kid growing up in Lexington, Kentucky, he wanted nothing more than to work in his dad's repair garage. The more he did it, the more passionate he became about it, wanting to be the best auto mechanic in all of Lexington. He soon gained quite a following and caught the eye of many when he joined the Marine Corps, as an extraordinary talent at fixing things. Eventually, he was selected to the astronaut corps and after that was instrumental in developing the Skylab program.

Then at a pivotal moment in this Nation's space program, Story was selected in 1993 to fly aboard shuttle mission STS-61. Its mission? To fix the Hubble Space Telescope and extend mankind's visual knowledge to the edges of the universe. On December 7th, he and his fellow astronauts did just that, culminating a decades long passion for fixing things.

That summer day in 2001 I learned that you, I, my kids - anyone - can succeed at anything with a driving commitment for what we are setting out to accomplish. That includes the design and construction of a house, a restaurant or a shopping center, or any other task we undertake. The common ingredient to bring to each and every commission is an abiding passion, and I try to do that every day. Sometimes I remember that Lexington kid with his head under the hood, and what it was he was able to do. It literally opened our (cosmic) eyes to the possible.

It's a "Story" worth remembering.

NUMBERS

2007-07-11T19:34:00.000-07:00

I was reminded last week that we as a Nation collectively care a lot about numbers. While dabbling in numerology may be a rarity, I know for sure that 12/31/1999 meant something to almost everyone. Why? Because it was the last day of the Christian millennium, filled with family photos taken on the beach in front of the last millennium sunset (including at our house) and trips to celebrate its passing in the South Seas with tribal chieftains (as enjoyed by a famous client of mine).

Just last week all kinds of good luck marriage ceremonies and lucky trips to Las Vegas happened because it was 07/07/07 on the calendar. There must be something to it, as I showed up at my local Apple store and they had a new supply of iPhones, after being out for days. Now I have one. Hmmmm.

Well, it turns out that there are some architectural numbers in the lifestyle of the American homeowner.

WE'RE NUMBER 1

For starters, a 2006 national survey of homeowners found that the Kitchen had overtaken the Great Room as the number 1 room in importance for the American family. There were a variety of reasons, not the least of which was that newly designed Kitchens are "not your Grandmother's Kitchen anymore."

Architects and their clients have loaded the modern Kitchen with a variety of user-friendly features, from the 20 year tradition of micro-wave cooking, to Breakfast Bars, eating islands, in-room media, bill-paying centers, and a variety of high tech appliances including gourmet ranges, industrial refrigeration, wine coolers, dishwasher drawers, trough sinks and many, many more.

In return, America has brought family and friends into the Kitchen for an ever widening variety of activities. Gourmet cooking clubs, wine and cheese gatherings, or just chatting up the cook are common activities cited by my clients as festive reasons to upscale the Kitchen. That and family-centric eating at breakfast bars and island counters have worked to make the Kitchen the winning ticket in more and more lifestyles.

THE SIGN OF THE 4

Another, earlier survey found that the vast majority of American homeowners live in just 4 rooms, no matter the number of rooms they have or ask their architect to design. The trick to that statistic is that it isn't necessarily the same 4 rooms across a single family; but it is interesting to sit and discover what is really important to you. I spend a lot of time in my Home Office, the Master Bedroom, the Media Room and the Kitchen.

If you sit a minute and limit yourself to just 4 rooms, you might be surprised to discover just how important that Master Bath with the fireplace is, or the tiny Library off the Entry. If you are starting a list of rooms or features for a pending remodel or new home construction, looking for "the sign of the 4"is a perfect way to prioritize what otherwise is a daunting array of rooms and needs. The great thing is that there are no wrong answers!

Give it a try. You might come to a "number" of interesting conclusions.

CAESAR RODNEY CHANGED YOUR WORLD

2007-06-30T17:58:00.000-07:00

On the rainy and thunderous nights of July 1st and 2nd 1776, Caesar Rodney, critically ill with the facial cancer that would someday take his life, rode urgently from Southern Delaware to the city of Philadelphia.

As part of the three man delegation from Delaware to the Second Continental Congress, he had journeyed to his home region to quiet the discontent which prevailed in that part of the country, but now had heard from colleague Thomas McKean that McKean and George Read were split on the question of whether or not the colonies should declare independence.

Delaware could not complete the unanimous vote of Colonies for independence without his singular, swing vote; and so he rode. The Founding Fathers had decided that only an unanimous vote of the delegations would have the weight to issue a Declaration of Independence from England. So important was this unanimous vote of the Colonies that it is entirely possible upon historic reflection that without it no Declaration of Independence would have been issued on July 4, 1776, if ever.

So with great effort Mr. Rodney reached Philadelphia just in time to give his vote, and thus to secure an entire unanimity of Colonies in that act of treason which changed the world.

John Adams would later write that Rodney was a tall reed of a man, one of the ugliest he had ever known with a head "about the size of a large apple." But, he added, he was resolute, committed and steadfast to the endeavor he faced.

231 years later on this week Caesar Rodney changed the world, may you celebrate and rejoice. May you know that, no matter your place or your circumstances, if you are true to your endeavors for good, whether your deeds are remembered in fireworks like Thomas Jefferson and James Madison or largely forgotten like Caesar Rodney's, you too will change the world.

And so be assured that the sons and daughters of your sons and daughters will celebrate in the fireworks of the future all that you have built for them to stand upon. Happy Independence Day.

COOL HEAT

2007-06-28T19:18:00.000-07:00

I was delighted to be the co-curator of a recent home tour that included both a seminal work of classic post-World War II design (The Eames Case Study House in Pacific Palisades, California) and an emerging modern classic (the Glenn House from architect Ray Kappe in Santa Monica, California). The theme of the tour was a kind of "that was then; this is now" view at two modular homes, demonstrating that great architecture separated by more than half a century could be created from fabricated systems.

The tour was sponsored by a local non-profit arts support group and was a big success. One of the side benefits of the visit to the Glenn House was learning about all the sustainable items that were designed into the production of the house. Things like solar panels, LED (low energy use) light fixtures and sustainable cork flooring were among the items that are becoming increasingly familiar to the design community and their clients interested in addressing global warming. But one item was both surprising and very cool.

Included as a central feature of the living space was a fireplace which burns clean denatured alcohol, needs no flue or chimney, creates no pollution, and as an added benefit is amazingly beautiful. The fireplace is the work of Ecosmart Fire, an Australian company with wide acceptance down under. The company has obtained the UL approval that allows it to be installed in the United States, and it promises to take off as a hot new product(http://www.ecosmartfire.com/USA/home.php).

The buzz for the new product includes its display at the prestigious 2007 Milan Furniture Fair and its selection by Interior Design magazine as one of its 2006 Products of the Year - for innovation. (http://www.interiordesign.net)

I already have one project picked out for this cool new product where a screenwriter-client has asked for a contemporary version of the wood-burning stove. Instead of all the mess (and pollution!), he will be able to just add clean-burning alcohol periodically. I can't wait to share the warmth of his reaction.

CLOUDS

2007-06-20T08:56:00.000-07:00

(This posting was inspired by an email dialogue with my friend, and architectural aficionado, Bill Bauer. He is always pointing out interesting new slants on architecture as a design experience).

Lebanese architect Nadim Karam's resort in the sky concept is simultaneously highly creative and a blight on the land it may someday touch. Karam presented the concept to the International Design Forum last month in Dubai. The resort would resemble a cloud floating 300 meters in the sky, supported by slanted columns looking like rain.

Like all architecture that is new but "not new" , it has historical roots. It follows the philosophy and work of Le Corbusier, the great Swiss Architect who postulated that man is wholly separate from his environment, that he is "above it" and should be designed for as such. That is where the concept of "machine architecture" came from; and it lies in the exact opposite direction from Frank Lloyd Wright, organic architecture (Wright's term), the Prairie style, and almost all green or sustainable architecture of the early 21st century.

The Hotel in the Clouds is just a concept for now. It is both seductive and dangerous, saying to its ($10,000 a night?) occupants that you are not of this Earth, nor bound by it's rules and regulations. It exists, in an era of global warming, in an emotional space that man's evolution needs to flee, in my humble opinion.

Here is a Le Corbusier project from 1930 that "says" the same thing, the widely celebrated but flawed Villa Savoye. It is no doubt a masterpiece for its time and a point of view. He called his theory of lifestyle machine a habitier, meaning a machine for living. Notice that it doesn't engage its surroundings and almost doesn't touch the ground at all. In its time it was an elegant visualization of mankind pulling itself out of a worldwide depression, lifting itself up from shantytowns and shacks, and in that light has a lot to say about the evolution of design 75 years ago.

"Corbu's" disciples include Richard Meier, whom I admire, but who can go terribly wrong with this separate from the environment thing when he doesn't have a blank piece of urban ground with which to pluck down a High Museum (in Atlanta) but instead has to grapple with a wonderful piece of raw urban sanctuary and comes up with a "rock on the hill" like the Getty Center (in Los Angeles), wholly without integration to its site or the city around it.

Any era of enlightenment has its countervailing trends, and I admit that the Hotel in the Clouds is fun to look at and contemplate ( although I wouldn't want to be in charge of cleaning of the column-rain sheets! Fantasy architecture moves the technological and aesthetic ball along its path of evolution, and may in fact have useful ideas buried within its vision.

Another celebrated architect, Ludwig Mies Van der Rohe, used to label his modernist but barren high rises with the famous "less is more" philosophy. In the 21st century that should mean that "less" wasted use of the planet's resources "is more" for our children and grandchildren to inhabit. That is a true calling to a lofty vision of building in our times. In summary, Nadim Karam may get wide praise for his hotel concept, but it is just one more super-rich man's play toy with its head "in the clouds".

CAREER DAY

2007-06-18T18:13:00.000-07:00

While participating in a Career Day last week at Hawthorne, California Middle School, I was moved by the degree with which the 6th and 7th graders were intrigued by the profession of architecture. They were excited, most of all, by a career where one actually made money by drawing, and beyond that by the general principle of being in a position to create something unique.

It reminded me that all of us, in our own way, look to stamp our imprint on the life of the planet, from immediate family to the family of Man. Architecture, despite all its rules and regulations, the functions it serves, and the needs of the client, is one of those professions where service meets creativity in a big way. But that is also true of countless other professions, maybe ALL professions.

At the end of the (career) day, we are all called by creativity in the service of others, by the words of the poet Ralph Waldo Emerson, who wrote:

To give of one's self, to leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch, or a redeemed social condition; to have played and laughed with enthusiasm and sung with exultation, to know that even one life has breathed easier because you have lived - this is to have succeeded.

I should have remembered to tell the students that part, the part where it doesn't matter what you do as a career, as long as you do it for the right reasons and with a personal sense of passion.

COUNTER INTUITIVE

2007-06-09T12:04:00.000-07:00

I have a friend who was one of the first I know to use concrete countertops. They are, by many measures a perfect material for a sustainable material world. Not only did he specify them some 20 years ago, he had his contractor cast the counters on-site, saving the longterm lifecycle costs of manufacturing (plant construction, machinery, and utilities) and transportation (gasoline, truck exhaust emissions). They have lasted and are still beautiful.

Even something as simple as countertop selection for a home or business can make a dent in the global warming crisis. I've included a summary of 10 types of materials people consider for countertops (if you cannot read it, control click on it and download it so you can enlarge it orfeel free to email for a reprint). Each has their usefulness, their beauty, and also their costs and benefits to the environment. For example, stones, concrete and composites like Corian have no outgassing over their lifetimes, whereas woods and plastics may. Metals like stainless steel are maufactured with up to 80% re-cycled content (www.ssina.com).Re-growablw wood tops such as bamboo are completely renewable but are porous and may harbor bacteria.

Each has its set of benefits and cautions. In general, when looking for choices, try to use products that are recycled or reclaimed, and if not those that do not drain the Earth's resources (like endangered woods). Lastly, if you choose a stone product, try for those which are locally or regionally produced.

To really dive into the topic, read "Sustainable Residential Interiors" from the American Society of Interior Designers, published by John Wiley & Sons. Better yet, hire an architect!

SIMPLE NOT COMPLEX

2007-06-04T19:46:00.000-07:00

Rightly or wrongly, I have always contended that life is simple, not complex. The complexity comes from our failing to see the simple solutions presented to us every day.

The huge issue of global warming has a simple solution: stop mis-using so much of the planet's resources which in turn threatens the Earth's future.The complexity comes from seeing the problem as so overwhelming that one is frozen in inaction. The truth is that there are some simple (not complex) actions we can all take to start addressing global warming. What then are those simple changes we all can make that start to alleviate our collective mis-use of Earth's resources. Here are just three, and a link to some more.

Buy energy-efficient appliances. Use your consumer power when buying appliances by shopping for energy-efficient models. You may spend a little more up front, but you'll save a lot on electricity, and you'll reduce pollution produced by power plants. Look for the Energy Star label, which identifies the most efficient appliances. You can also use the Energy Guide labels to compare the efficiency of specific models. Remember that refrigerators consume the most electricity in the home. Today's refrigerators consume less than one-fourth the energy of models built 30 years ago, so an upgrade could mean huge energy savings for your household.

Replace your light bulbs with compact fluorescent bulbs. While compact fluorescents are initially more expensive than the incandescent bulbs most people use, they last 10 times as long. What's more, a compact fluorescent will lower your energy bills by about $15 a year, and by more than $60 during its life. It will also keep half a ton of carbon dioxide out of the air.

Weatherize your home or apartment. For a very small investment, you can cut your heating and cooling expenses and reduce the burning of fossil fuels. Use weatherstripping to seal drafts around windows and doors. If a draft comes through electrical outlets or switches on outside walls, install foam draft blockers behind the cover plates. Use covers (inside or outside) on air conditioners during cold months. And make sure your home has adequate insulation. Many older homes don't have enough, especially in the attic. You can check the insulation yourself or have it done as part of an energy audit, provided by many utility companies. Call your company to see if it offers this service.

For more easy-to-do energy savings tips go here:

http://www.nrdc.org/air/energy/genergy.asp

It's a start, simply!

AN INCONVENIENT FOOTPRINT

2007-05-31T19:26:00.000-07:00

By now everyone has heard of the Al Gore documentary "An Inconvenient Truth" and its message that we need to do something, in fact many things to address global warming NOW. At the end of the documentary and in talks Mr. Gore gives, there is mention of reducing one's carbon footprint. So just what exactly IS a carbon footprint?

Formally speaking, the "Carbon Footprint is a measure of the impact human activities have on the environment in terms of the amount of green house gases produced, measured in units of carbon dioxide. "

Okay, good enough; but what are we mere mortals supposed to do about THAT? As an architect I have some advantages, being able to specify materials and processes for new residences and businesses. But can the individual make a difference in reducing his or her carbon footprint at home,at work and at places in between? The short, positive answer is: YES. In coming blog entries we will lay out some simple steps that will help anyone do just that. For starters try visiting this website to see what are the parts of, and differences between, a primary and secondary "footprint".

http://www.carbonfootprint.com/carbon_footprint.html

The chart re-produced herein is from that site and shows the elements that make up our collective inconvenient footprints - much more than inconvenient for the planet we call home.

WHAT IT WANTS TO BE

2007-05-21T00:34:00.000-07:00

(The following article is re-printed from Garth Sheriff Architect, a portfolio of residential and commercial projects available from the author for $25 by sending an inquiry to info@garthdesigns.com).

The artist Michelangelo was repeatedly asked how he could take a block of marble and create a masterpiece like the David or the Rome Pieta. Legend has it that he would invariably reply that he was simply chipping away to free the sculpture from the confines of its marble prison.

The idea that the solution to any artistic problem already exists within the problem itself (and that it is the artist’s job to see and express that) holds a lot of truth. My architecture is a detective story hidden in every vacant lot, every remodeled home and blank space waiting to be an office or restaurant. It is my job as the artist and collaborator with the client to discover “what it wants to be.” That implies that every design vision can succeed, no matter the budget, the style or the criteria, and as far as I can tell in over 30 years of design, that is always true.

As architect-detective, my sleuthing involves a set of tools and techniques. Mine exist in the words of a friend in the realm of the sublimely modern. That of course is different than a particular style: I have discovered the answers to design problems in styles from Zen minimalism to New England vernacular; from high concept modern to highly soothing tropical contemporary.

It is a life search to come to the conclusion that the answer is in the problem; which is that the David is already in the block of marble. Many designers start from a different place. They are tied to a set of design details and use them over and over, many times over the objections of the client. One very famous architect who shall remain nameless mandated that one of his homes have glass block down the middle of the Master Bedroom floor as the result of a pre-determined design language. His answer to “where does the bed go” was a dismissive “sleep in twin beds.”

I choose to start the detective story with a blank slate and create the tools of discovery from the clients’ needs and the site or building with which they have to work. So it is that I am fond of saying that “The shape of your life (or business) is the heart of our design.” That way, the vision that I create is always collaborative as is any good detective story!

In the creative vision of freeing architecture from its prison, THAT is what it wants to be.

WITH DIAMONDS

2007-05-21T00:04:00.000-07:00

Diamonds and jewelry stores, diamonds and baseball parks, those make architectural sense. But what do diamonds have to do with interesting houses? Well, if you can imagine that a diamond shape in plan is just a rectangle turned 45 degrees, you have a simple, dynamic architectural "trick" to make any old design more interesting. Taking a single room such as this one from a rather large Florida house for which I was the architect of record can transform a well planned rectangular house into a dynamic one (to say nothing of our landscape architect!)

In the case of this Sherman Oaks, California residence it became an entire design scheme, with 2 diamonds at opposite ends of the house design representing the Master Suite and the Home Office, and large diamond shape in the middle becoming the Great Room. That, along with connecting corridors from a central entryway, made it such that the Owner cound see virtually his entire house from a central entry point. All of this by the simple strategy of turning three rectangles 45 degrees and connecting them.

The beauty of this design technique is that builders don't complain that the Owner and Architect have created complicated shapes that cannot be econmically built. A square or rectangle is the same to build, whether its 90 degrees to the rest of the house or 45 degrees and cretes a diamond.

Creative, economical to build, and interesting; diamonds can be a homeowners best firend, too!

IN THE SKY

2007-05-20T23:22:00.000-07:00

There is modern day architectural equivalent of the old real estate dictum about the three most important rules of value (you know: location, location and location). The design version of that would be that the three most important characteristics of a houses surroundings are view, view and - that's right - view!

I can hear the readers' minds mentally reciting "well, duh!" while thinking of a view that is something like this panorama from a recent house I designed. Sweet!

Ah, but that is not all there is to "view". There are other vistas the designer can use to create a sense of openness to the surroundings. Try a window oriented to a treeline or even a single tree; and my favorite trick that applies to almost ALL houses: the sky!

The well placed skylight can open up a night sky, a morning sun, a cloudline that is every bit as pleasing as a city lights view. Most importantly, it performs the function that other view designs accomplish: it opens up the house to its surroundings, and so makes it seem larger than it is, less constrained if you will.

Here are 2 pictures of a house for the Travel editor of the Today show that gave him a great 'view'; of his landscaped and waterscaped yard, of an adjacent treeline, and of the sky beyond. Now that's a view lot.

LUCY

2007-05-20T22:23:00.000-07:00

There is a famous episode of the classic TV comedy “I Love Lucy” where Lucy’s husband Ricky Ricardo comes home to find that Lucy has created a bundle of trouble and Ricky points a finger at her and blurts out: “Lucy, you’ve got some splainin’ to do!” It’s always good for a big laugh.

I feel that I to have some “splainin” to do about the title of the blog. Hard is it may seem to believe, the name of this blog, “The Naked Architect”, was vetted with something approaching an all-star Board of Advisors. Those weighing in included the Head of a large National networking group, the guru of Los Angeles radio demographics, an actor friend, a former advertising agency wizard, and a nationally known internet specialist in word-of-mouth communication. Hmmm.

What then is in a name? Provocative? Possibly. Revealing? I hope so! Naked architecture as posted here will hopefully be straightforward: helpful, funny and insightful. It will most definitely NOT be dressed up (get it?) with the kind of verbal obfuscation one normally hears from architects’ mouths. Nothing here about iterations of geometric prerogatives. Not a peep about the golden triangle or the Miesian imperative.

I hope that you will check back often, and if I do wander into those murky shores, feel free to call me on it. Email me and set me straight.

The aim is, as the name suggests, just the naked facts about a field that millions of people are coming to value and have questions about as an art and as a part of their everyday lives. THAT, and not clothes, is what the Naked Architect hopes to be about. Whew!