Unbuilt: House in the Mountains

Working out a what-if mountain house idea, I thought of cabins bumping awkwardly but lovingly into each other, an architectural meet-cute of little houses. One cabin would be just a roof, and act as a dogtrot outdoor porch between the guest cabin and the other cabins. Two sided fireplace. Sit outside and hear the rain. The dogs will want to stay here, and not go back in. We’ll watch the sky clear and the sun reluctantly fall.

Quick 5 minute massing study of jumbled cabins. Entry side.

Massing study of cabins. Private side.

Massing concept model. View from entry drive.

So we have five cabins teaming up to form a house: 1) a garage/storage/art studio/home gym cabin; 2) a two-bed/two bath lockout cabin for guests we love but let’s be honest, we all need some space after that long day on the river; 3) the dogtrot roof cabin: our outdoor living room and year-round connection to the land; 4) the main cabin with a big dining room for intimate feasts, with a kitchen island where we all can sit and pretend to help while pouring that second glass for everyone as she tries to get to the point of her story, and the living space with room to be together again, and the hearth for that quiet conversation by the fire, a wall of glass to trace the flight of the red-tailed hawk teaching her young to hunt, or the storm rolling in across the valley; and lastly 5) the master bedroom cabin, its quiet remove, its horizon-stretched view...

Sketchbook: prophetic note to NOT smooth over the forms…

Front axon sketch. Creeping rationalism.

Rear axon sketch: What’s this going to cost?!

As I forced actual program spaces into my idea, the cabins smoothed together a bit, elongated, becoming perhaps too efficient, losing that first date excitement from the early jumbled study. Vertical cedar siding and standing seam metal roof. Stone chimney. A lap pool would be good. Clerestory lights are needed for that art studio/gym.

Floor plan.

Nothing preventing me to get back to that spirit, though. I thought this would work in the forests of the Blue Ridge Mountains, but it would work in Sonoma as well. Took some inspiration from the Northern California lifestyle here: connect to the outdoors, put on no airs, use honest materials, track the path of the sun, plant a garden, invite your friends over. Use architecture to remind them they are loved. But you’ll be sure to tell them as well.

Inspiration: Cabins with interstitial zones between.

Dogtrot breezeway.

Clean composition.

Wood and glass.

Outdoor rooms.

Indoor Outdoor feel.

Sketch vs. Reality: Drawing is Thinking

An apartment project I designed in 2016 is finally taking shape in Buckhead, an in-town neighborhood in Atlanta. From the first sketch I wanted to get the massing right, the breakdown of the forms, and now that it is standing there (at least one of the two buildings is nearing completion) I took a moment to peek back at the first thoughts I put down on paper and compare what was on my mind then to what I see now.

First massing concept: trying out some dichotomies to see what fits…

Under construction.

First thought of the view from Roswell Road, looking north.

Under construction, Roswell Road looking north.

Design often morphs completely from one’s first idea, but in this case the ‘bones’ of that first thought survive pretty well into the finished building: the white brick, the high contrast charcoal of the top two penthouse floors, the syncopation of the facade moving in and out, the oversized windows, the entry porch, the brightness of it.

Sketch of solid and void space.

Under construction.

The key to solving the building’s massing was designing this three-sided, two-bedroom/two-bath unit that created the white brick extensions to the linear form.

There is a tendency these days to almost begin the project digitally, to think and form the first thoughts in the drafting space. It is one method, but there is a delay in the input: you have to use the tools and commands and layout the program offers. I think that those digital tools in your ‘toolbar’ can dictate or even help predict what you are about to do.

There is no input delay in sketching: it is hand to (mind’s) eye coordination; it is direct, it is both knowable (‘this is what I meant’) and unknowable (‘this is unexpected!’), and in its gesture and line and focus it can contain the thought you are trying to reveal.

Metaphor

I had an opportunity to design a standalone boutique hair salon for a small lot in Buckhead. The client had big ambitions with a budget that made me wonder if the project could happen at all. The site context was sleepy yesteryear going caffeinated future: neighborhood streets of little early 20th century cottage-like homes repurposed for salons and tiny art galleries and bespoke retail shops were being devoured and re-constituted as parcels for larger developments. There is an entrepreneurial charm to these streets, but progress is culling them, and the city grows.

I designed a pragmatic, efficient box to fit the programmatic demands, and then gave hair extensions to this small, two story salon that would give it an arch, fabulous presence to match its proprietor’s sense of grandeur and drama. Why look back in time and pretend to be one of those little houses, when you can condition and curl the facade, and be whoever you feel like you are. Thinking beyond metaphor, maybe we’re really talking about persona here. Subtle reinvention and focus of persona. That’s exactly what a facade is, isn’t it?

Concept study for voluptuous horizontal strands…

Metaphor is usually the well-worn tool of the poet; the results are felt singularly, in our hearts. Architects wield it just as well, though with less subtlety, because the results are there for all to see and experience from here, on the sidewalk. Facade of Beauty Salon as Architectural Hair. Oh I get it.

You and I, we could talk about poetry and architecture and the noble use of metaphor and all the subjective feelings they supply; we could walk through the city and swagger under all the weight of whether a particular metaphor would be a good idea, if it should be allowed, if metaphor itself should be divorced from the capital A in architecture. But with Technology assisting us: our computer drafting programs parametrically waved the flat plane like a curtain, and sliced the curtain into strands, and then numbered and dimensioned the strands, so when combed into place, they became the thought we had.

If you’re going to go for it, go for it all the way. Believe you’re worth the $400 color and the $200 cut, and the world may believe it right along with you. Pricing came in and Compromise bumped up against the execution of the architectural idea: when you design something that is applied (as ornament?!), its cost will be seen as a line item that could be removed. As the Owner contemplated the thought of not following through with the extensions, I suggested that what remained would be like a box of hair dye on the pharmacy shelf…could he really do that to us? What do we deserve?