Dense Affordable Single Family Housing
Nowadays, there seems to be a garden apartment orthodoxy (in what might be called the new urbanist style) that separates architects from the consumers of affordable housing. Most affordable housing is just downright awful and not worthy of discussion. But some attempts to be better than that. Unfortunately, even in the best cases, developers and taste makers want trendy apartment buildings while most of the public prefers a single family dwelling. This results in solutions that favor developers over residents and architecture instead of community. In an apartment building, the developer keeps ownership and accrues wealth if the project is a success. With single family dwellings that wealth can and should be flowing to the residents. Architects tend to side with the developers for two reasons.
A. The developers are paying them.
B. A groovy apartment building is a more lucrative project and is much more likely to win accolades than is a group of inexpensive single family dwellings.
Our purpose here is to challenge that orthodoxy, to suggest that there are valuable choices being ignored that foster both community and architecture, and that benefit both the direct beneficiaries and the taxpayers who are subsidizing this housing.
We believe first of all in diversity. So, yes, there is a place for apartments and row housing. There are people who want and need to rent. But there is also a place for inexpensive single family dwellings. There are low income families and individuals who will make greater contributions to our communities if they are property owners. Single family dwellings can and should be a central element in the provision of affordable housing. In the USA at least, home ownership, at some point, becomes an essential part of full-fledged citizenship. That sense of ownership fosters the development of healthy communities.
There is a place for mass transit. But, outside of our largest central cities, automobile ownership and use is an essential aspect of living in North America, no matter the income level. Even in low income families, this often means 3-5 cars per residence. Because everybody has to work and everybody has to drive to work, everybody has a car (or a pick up truck). A significant portion of affordable housing must acknowledge this.
In the 1950’s single family housing (think Levittown) was being built in subdivisions with a density of approximately five units per acre. Today’s typical winding street subdivision generates a typical density of about 3 units per acre. In the north especially, these lower densities result in especially burdensome infrastructure costs. More deeply buried utility lines and greater snow plowing requirements are two of the infrastructure costs that increase dramatically as one moves north.
With some thought though, sustainable, affordable, practical fee simple single family housing can be built at approximately 10 dwelling units per acre. Streets should be very narrow, just wide enough for two sidewalks, two lanes of very slow traffic, two lanes of parking and lots of stickball. It happens that these streets are also just wide enough for fire and emergency vehicles and smaller scale snow removal equipment. Side loading trash trucks are also essential for these small streets to work in today’s world. In northern climates, when topography allows, these streets should run primarily north to south. That means the sun can warm the pavement even in the darkest days of winter. It also means the houses can be laid out to have outdoor spaces in the sun on both sides of the street. Lots are just wide enough for two parallel parking spaces on the street and a driveway. The higher density and smaller streets both support more pedestrian activity. The higher density also increases the likelihood that commercial services will be available within walking distance.
Fences and walls must clearly define the boundaries between automobile and human activity without unnecessarily isolating the street from the homes. The car is accommodated, but it is not allowed to take over. Where cars are allowed to take over, the properties are misused and property values and citizen self-respect falls. Fences and walls allow for precise boundaries. That makes it possible for comfortable human activity and automobile storage to coexist happily on a smaller piece of land.
Houses are built against two property lines, becoming walls for the neighbors’ outdoor spaces. Light can pass through glass block in these property line walls but they are otherwise strong fire, sound and visual barriers. Instead of having two useless five foot wide side yards and a small front yard and a small back yard, we provide one large yard. This yard is private and thoroughly integrated into the interior of the house. This yard is set up to take the maximum advantage of any available sun and to pass that sun into the interior of the house.
It is also important that the wealth created by affordable housing programs accrue to its residents instead of going to developers. This gives residents the incentive to maintain and improve their homes. It also turns them into tax payers instead of tax consumers. The government, federal, provincial, state or local, through its housing agency, should be the developer. There is no need for developer profit here. Homeownership should occur under a cooperative regime. Down payments can be minimal or non-existent. Capital gains that occur at resale should be shared by the individual and the cooperative. The cooperative’s share can then be used to create more affordable housing.
Affordable housing programs that do not foster home ownership and at least tolerate automobile ownership (unless mass transit is available and generally used by everyone) tend to segregate their residents from the rest of the community. Once we begin to create affordable housing that fosters good citizenship and results in increased property values, we will have a much easier time creating mixed housing developments – the ultimate goal if we are to have a healthy society. Affordable housing programs must be about bringing us together, not keeping us apart.
5.16.2009
The recent article about the Anchorage Industrial Land Assessment (AILA) misrepresents the report and the availability of industrial land in Anchorage. This was one of the weakest attempts yet to revive the thankfully expiring Knik Arm Crossing project.
AILA predicts a need for 720 to 1080 acres of industrial land in Anchorage between 2010 and 2030. It acknowledges the existence of 801 acres of undeveloped industrial land and 662 acres of underutilized industrial land. This math says that we have between 383 and 743 acres of available industrial land in excess of our needs between 2010 and 2030. AILA’s own summary page (Table 1, page 3), projects an excess of land!
In addition, AILA specifically excludes the 2442 acres (see Anchorage 2020, Chapter 2, Table 2) owned by the Airport, Port and Railroad. Much of this land is vacant or underutilized. All of these owners are devoted to nurturing industrial development. Further, AILA suggests the possibility of military land expansion instead of the much more likely reduction.
AILA manages to suggest the possibility of a shortage by claiming the difficulty of developing 201 of these acres because they are in Eklutna, Chugiak and Eagle River and rejects another 401 acres because of soils limitations. But remember the recent article’s proposed solution. Which is more expensive? Land at Eklutna or land across Knik Arm? Land in the Anchorage bowl with a soils problem or land across Knik Arm? To its credit, AILA does not recommend the Knik Arm Crossing as a solution, but rather recommends the same redevelopment efforts supported here.
By ignoring Eagle River, Chugiak, Eklutna, the Airport, the Port, the Railroad, most underdeveloped land and any land with a soils limitation, AILA manages to suggest a worst case scenario shortage of 484 acres. According to Anchorage 2020, in 1998 there were 24099 developed acres of residential, commercial, and institutional land in the Anchorage bowl. Even if we ignore the better options listed in the previous sentence, converting just 2% of this land would accommodate all predicted industrial uses. The worst case scenario, created only by ignoring all of the options that would become viable should the market actually demand industrial land, amounts to 8 parcels the size of the Park Strip. For that we should construct a 2 billion dollar bridge?
We have just spent months listening to mayoral candidates talking about reducing the cost of government. Especially in Anchorage with frost, snow and darkness, the cost of government is directly related to any reduction in density. Water, sewer, electricity, police, fire, schools, everything the government does costs much more the more it is spread out. Between McHugh Creek and Eklutna, most of the infrastructure is already in place. We are already paying for it. I can’t imagine there are many taxpayers who want to start buying all those things for the properties at the other end of the proposed Knik Arm Crossing.
The City of San Francisco has an area of 232 square miles. Anchorage is 1,697 square miles.
San Francisco’s population is 744,230. Anchorage’s is 282,810. The density in San Francisco is 3,208 people per square mile. In Anchorage, it’s 167 people per square mile. Given the presence of the Presidio and Golden Gate Park, and given the typical topography in San Francisco, it is completely implausible to suggest that Anchorage is out of industrial land or any other kind of land. We need to concentrate on redeveloping and improving the land we have. This land already has most of the necessary infrastructure in place.
The AILA report was produced by a firm from Sacramento with funding from Anchorage Economic Development Corporation (AEDC) and MOA. One might ask why AEDC sent this work to California when there are a number of qualified Alaska firms. I am guessing the answer would be low bid. I think that proves my case. Industrial development across the Knik Arm will never be the low bidder without subsidies from you, me, our kids and our grandkids.
AILA predicts a need for 720 to 1080 acres of industrial land in Anchorage between 2010 and 2030. It acknowledges the existence of 801 acres of undeveloped industrial land and 662 acres of underutilized industrial land. This math says that we have between 383 and 743 acres of available industrial land in excess of our needs between 2010 and 2030. AILA’s own summary page (Table 1, page 3), projects an excess of land!
In addition, AILA specifically excludes the 2442 acres (see Anchorage 2020, Chapter 2, Table 2) owned by the Airport, Port and Railroad. Much of this land is vacant or underutilized. All of these owners are devoted to nurturing industrial development. Further, AILA suggests the possibility of military land expansion instead of the much more likely reduction.
AILA manages to suggest the possibility of a shortage by claiming the difficulty of developing 201 of these acres because they are in Eklutna, Chugiak and Eagle River and rejects another 401 acres because of soils limitations. But remember the recent article’s proposed solution. Which is more expensive? Land at Eklutna or land across Knik Arm? Land in the Anchorage bowl with a soils problem or land across Knik Arm? To its credit, AILA does not recommend the Knik Arm Crossing as a solution, but rather recommends the same redevelopment efforts supported here.
By ignoring Eagle River, Chugiak, Eklutna, the Airport, the Port, the Railroad, most underdeveloped land and any land with a soils limitation, AILA manages to suggest a worst case scenario shortage of 484 acres. According to Anchorage 2020, in 1998 there were 24099 developed acres of residential, commercial, and institutional land in the Anchorage bowl. Even if we ignore the better options listed in the previous sentence, converting just 2% of this land would accommodate all predicted industrial uses. The worst case scenario, created only by ignoring all of the options that would become viable should the market actually demand industrial land, amounts to 8 parcels the size of the Park Strip. For that we should construct a 2 billion dollar bridge?
We have just spent months listening to mayoral candidates talking about reducing the cost of government. Especially in Anchorage with frost, snow and darkness, the cost of government is directly related to any reduction in density. Water, sewer, electricity, police, fire, schools, everything the government does costs much more the more it is spread out. Between McHugh Creek and Eklutna, most of the infrastructure is already in place. We are already paying for it. I can’t imagine there are many taxpayers who want to start buying all those things for the properties at the other end of the proposed Knik Arm Crossing.
The City of San Francisco has an area of 232 square miles. Anchorage is 1,697 square miles.
San Francisco’s population is 744,230. Anchorage’s is 282,810. The density in San Francisco is 3,208 people per square mile. In Anchorage, it’s 167 people per square mile. Given the presence of the Presidio and Golden Gate Park, and given the typical topography in San Francisco, it is completely implausible to suggest that Anchorage is out of industrial land or any other kind of land. We need to concentrate on redeveloping and improving the land we have. This land already has most of the necessary infrastructure in place.
The AILA report was produced by a firm from Sacramento with funding from Anchorage Economic Development Corporation (AEDC) and MOA. One might ask why AEDC sent this work to California when there are a number of qualified Alaska firms. I am guessing the answer would be low bid. I think that proves my case. Industrial development across the Knik Arm will never be the low bidder without subsidies from you, me, our kids and our grandkids.
6.08.2007
No Bridge to Nowhere
Originally Published in the Anchorage Daily News January 10 2007
Don’t Stay This Course!
Governor-Elect Palin has an opportunity to do great things for Alaska and her own political future – in one simple move. She should give back the Bridges to Nowhere monies.
I was in Washington, DC, just after the election. I noticed that everything, from the Iraq war to potholes in northern Virginia, gets blamed on our bridges to nowhere. It is truly amazing how many ways the press in Washington finds to deliver snide references to Alaska and its congressional delegation. At the same time, the Governor-Elect’s party is getting hammered about pork and ethics and the election day results reflected that. On the other hand, Ms Palin was one of the few happy stories for the Republicans. She’s a fresh face and she won big on a night when Republicans were losing all over the country. Now, she has an opportunity to come forward with a fresh idea that perfectly resonates with the will of the majority in the country today.
Although the public relations impacts are reason enough for this gesture, there are many other potential benefits.
She partly made her name exposing the misuse of public funds. Those increased salaries at KABATA cannot have pleased her. Shutting down that operation gets rid of one headache and frees up funds and personnel for the problems she really wants to solve. I hope she also knows that the Knik Arm Crossing is not a good deal for Wasilla and the Mat-Su. I hope she’s looked at the map. If built, both rail and highway traffic will eventually completely bypass Wasilla. She knows that if it gets built in the near future, it will saddle both the Mat-Su and Anchorage with huge new and growing infrastructure costs.
Some have said that you just can’t give back federal monies. Some also said you can’t elect a young relatively inexperienced woman to the governorship of Alaska. So far, Sarah Palin has been all can-do in the face of a chorus of can’ts. I hope she keeps it up.
We don’t want our next Governor to get crosswise with our Congressional delegation. She needs to get them on board. Senator Murkowski, I think, would love to be rid of the personally painful conflict between her Government Hill roots and her devotion to progress for Alaska. Senator Stevens can say out loud what many have been thinking from the beginning. It is not a good idea in this day and age to route a public right of way across the end of the main runway of Elmendorf Air Force Base.
Ms Palin must be most respectful of Congressman Young. He has made great efforts on behalf of these bridges. But he is an Alaskan and a big Alaskan, and a big Republican too! He is big enough to admit that this one got a little bit ahead of itself. He can share the credit for restoring the honor of Alaska and the Republican Party.
The return of the funds need not imply disrespect for the efforts made to date on behalf of these bridges. The studies have made valuable contributions to our understanding of Cook Inlet and its surrounds. Some day, when Wasilla has expanded west to Point MacKenzie and Anchorage has redeveloped itself into a more important regional hub, the Knik Arm Crossing can be built to connect two real places. This bridge could be consistent the guidelines for Federal Highway funding. By that time, there will be infrastructure, and taxpayers, on both sides of the Arm, ready to share the burden of the cost of the bridge. (I know little about Ketchikan’s bridge to nowhere, though on the face of it, it appears less well conceived than the Knik Arm Crossing.)
Yup,
It’s a win-win-win-win-win. With one decision, Governor Palin erases years of national talk about Alaska pork and pfd selfishness, not to mention nepotism, and replaces it with the most astoundingly generous gesture ever made by one of these United States. Who knows, if she goes through with it, we might begin to hear talk about the possibility of Vice President Palin.
Don’t Stay This Course!
Governor-Elect Palin has an opportunity to do great things for Alaska and her own political future – in one simple move. She should give back the Bridges to Nowhere monies.
I was in Washington, DC, just after the election. I noticed that everything, from the Iraq war to potholes in northern Virginia, gets blamed on our bridges to nowhere. It is truly amazing how many ways the press in Washington finds to deliver snide references to Alaska and its congressional delegation. At the same time, the Governor-Elect’s party is getting hammered about pork and ethics and the election day results reflected that. On the other hand, Ms Palin was one of the few happy stories for the Republicans. She’s a fresh face and she won big on a night when Republicans were losing all over the country. Now, she has an opportunity to come forward with a fresh idea that perfectly resonates with the will of the majority in the country today.
Although the public relations impacts are reason enough for this gesture, there are many other potential benefits.
She partly made her name exposing the misuse of public funds. Those increased salaries at KABATA cannot have pleased her. Shutting down that operation gets rid of one headache and frees up funds and personnel for the problems she really wants to solve. I hope she also knows that the Knik Arm Crossing is not a good deal for Wasilla and the Mat-Su. I hope she’s looked at the map. If built, both rail and highway traffic will eventually completely bypass Wasilla. She knows that if it gets built in the near future, it will saddle both the Mat-Su and Anchorage with huge new and growing infrastructure costs.
Some have said that you just can’t give back federal monies. Some also said you can’t elect a young relatively inexperienced woman to the governorship of Alaska. So far, Sarah Palin has been all can-do in the face of a chorus of can’ts. I hope she keeps it up.
We don’t want our next Governor to get crosswise with our Congressional delegation. She needs to get them on board. Senator Murkowski, I think, would love to be rid of the personally painful conflict between her Government Hill roots and her devotion to progress for Alaska. Senator Stevens can say out loud what many have been thinking from the beginning. It is not a good idea in this day and age to route a public right of way across the end of the main runway of Elmendorf Air Force Base.
Ms Palin must be most respectful of Congressman Young. He has made great efforts on behalf of these bridges. But he is an Alaskan and a big Alaskan, and a big Republican too! He is big enough to admit that this one got a little bit ahead of itself. He can share the credit for restoring the honor of Alaska and the Republican Party.
The return of the funds need not imply disrespect for the efforts made to date on behalf of these bridges. The studies have made valuable contributions to our understanding of Cook Inlet and its surrounds. Some day, when Wasilla has expanded west to Point MacKenzie and Anchorage has redeveloped itself into a more important regional hub, the Knik Arm Crossing can be built to connect two real places. This bridge could be consistent the guidelines for Federal Highway funding. By that time, there will be infrastructure, and taxpayers, on both sides of the Arm, ready to share the burden of the cost of the bridge. (I know little about Ketchikan’s bridge to nowhere, though on the face of it, it appears less well conceived than the Knik Arm Crossing.)
Yup,
It’s a win-win-win-win-win. With one decision, Governor Palin erases years of national talk about Alaska pork and pfd selfishness, not to mention nepotism, and replaces it with the most astoundingly generous gesture ever made by one of these United States. Who knows, if she goes through with it, we might begin to hear talk about the possibility of Vice President Palin.
Northern Urban Density
Originally Published in the Anchorage Daily News May 23 2007
KABATA (Knik Arm Bridge and Toll Authority) and its supporters have managed to frame the debate on the Knik Arm Crossing (one of the infamous Bridges to Nowhere) as if it was one between progressives (them) and no growth environmentalists (us). That is not and never has been the case.
Anchorage’s future depends on our successful devotion to conservatism. We must be fiscally conservative and make civic decisions with an eye toward minimizing the operational costs of our city. We must be environmentally conservative, making sure that we don’t make a mess of the most pristine urban environment left in the United States. And, finally, we must conserve the essential, irreplaceable wealth of our city – its proximity to the magnificence that is undeveloped Alaska.
Alaskans are especially and legitimately wary of density. We love our blue skies, open spaces, clean water and air. That’s why we live here. We don’t want to live in Detroit or Seattle or even Portland – too much traffic and smog and too far away from wilderness. We have started to experience the awful impacts of poorly, or unplanned, density – site condos and the traffic at Lake Otis and Tudor. We don’t want to turn Cook Inlet into the Potomac River and so we must stop pouring sewage into Cook Inlet. We must get beyond onsite septic systems before the hillside slides down on a layer of . . . . . . . .
Nonetheless, density is essential for successful conservatism in Anchorage.
Imagine Government Hill with the charm of San Francisco’s North Beach, Bootlegger Cove with the excitement of Miami’s South Beach. Think of the Hillside as a future Berkeley, California, and Spenard as Pioneer Square. Density can create great neighborhoods. Density makes possible a first class east-west rapid transit line with stops at the Airport, Historic Spenard, the Midtown Shopping District, the University District, the Medical District, and the MountainSide Residential District. It connects Kincaid Park and the Coastal Trail with Hillside Ski Areas and Chugach State Park. It fosters a similar line from Government Hill to Girdwood with stops at Ship Creek Center, Downtown, the Midtown Shopping District and park and ride facilities at Dimond and Huffman. How great would it be if you could jump on something like BART to get to Kincaid or Girdwood, no matter what the weather?
Rapid transit saves tax dollars, especially in a place the where the cost of building, maintaining and plowing roads is so great. Rapid transit makes possible affordable housing – housing with economical access to all of the amenities of Anchorage.
Density means we don’t have to sprawl. Encouraging our community to sprawl, whether it’s up the Parks Highway, or across the Knik Arm, moves Alaska farther away from those of us who live in Anchorage. When we keep our community compact, we keep Alaska close.
We live in an extreme environment. Everything costs more as a result. Utilities have to be buried twice as deeply as in communities with more temperate climates. Decisions that reduce the compactness of our community will inevitably raise somebody’s taxes. It costs more to live farther away in a northern city. The bridge will not make more affordable housing available. How can families with limited incomes afford to build (and maintain) their own roads, schools and fire stations? How can people with limited incomes afford to be the only tollpaying commuters in Anchorage?
Manhattan is 23 square miles. The City of San Francisco is 47 square miles. The non-military, non-airport, non-Chugach State Park portion of the Anchorage Bowl is 84 square miles. We have not run out of land!
During discussions this spring, members of the Anchorage Assembly expressed serious doubts about the wisdom of the Knik Arm Crossing, but voted to keep it in the plan for the purpose of further study. Now KABATA has hired a public relations firm to convince us that building the bridge is the right thing to do. Advocacy is not study! Fiscal conservatives must stop this misappropriation of public funds now! Instead, let’s get on with building a sustainable Big Wild Life for Anchorage here in the Bowl.
KABATA (Knik Arm Bridge and Toll Authority) and its supporters have managed to frame the debate on the Knik Arm Crossing (one of the infamous Bridges to Nowhere) as if it was one between progressives (them) and no growth environmentalists (us). That is not and never has been the case.
Anchorage’s future depends on our successful devotion to conservatism. We must be fiscally conservative and make civic decisions with an eye toward minimizing the operational costs of our city. We must be environmentally conservative, making sure that we don’t make a mess of the most pristine urban environment left in the United States. And, finally, we must conserve the essential, irreplaceable wealth of our city – its proximity to the magnificence that is undeveloped Alaska.
Alaskans are especially and legitimately wary of density. We love our blue skies, open spaces, clean water and air. That’s why we live here. We don’t want to live in Detroit or Seattle or even Portland – too much traffic and smog and too far away from wilderness. We have started to experience the awful impacts of poorly, or unplanned, density – site condos and the traffic at Lake Otis and Tudor. We don’t want to turn Cook Inlet into the Potomac River and so we must stop pouring sewage into Cook Inlet. We must get beyond onsite septic systems before the hillside slides down on a layer of . . . . . . . .
Nonetheless, density is essential for successful conservatism in Anchorage.
Imagine Government Hill with the charm of San Francisco’s North Beach, Bootlegger Cove with the excitement of Miami’s South Beach. Think of the Hillside as a future Berkeley, California, and Spenard as Pioneer Square. Density can create great neighborhoods. Density makes possible a first class east-west rapid transit line with stops at the Airport, Historic Spenard, the Midtown Shopping District, the University District, the Medical District, and the MountainSide Residential District. It connects Kincaid Park and the Coastal Trail with Hillside Ski Areas and Chugach State Park. It fosters a similar line from Government Hill to Girdwood with stops at Ship Creek Center, Downtown, the Midtown Shopping District and park and ride facilities at Dimond and Huffman. How great would it be if you could jump on something like BART to get to Kincaid or Girdwood, no matter what the weather?
Rapid transit saves tax dollars, especially in a place the where the cost of building, maintaining and plowing roads is so great. Rapid transit makes possible affordable housing – housing with economical access to all of the amenities of Anchorage.
Density means we don’t have to sprawl. Encouraging our community to sprawl, whether it’s up the Parks Highway, or across the Knik Arm, moves Alaska farther away from those of us who live in Anchorage. When we keep our community compact, we keep Alaska close.
We live in an extreme environment. Everything costs more as a result. Utilities have to be buried twice as deeply as in communities with more temperate climates. Decisions that reduce the compactness of our community will inevitably raise somebody’s taxes. It costs more to live farther away in a northern city. The bridge will not make more affordable housing available. How can families with limited incomes afford to build (and maintain) their own roads, schools and fire stations? How can people with limited incomes afford to be the only tollpaying commuters in Anchorage?
Manhattan is 23 square miles. The City of San Francisco is 47 square miles. The non-military, non-airport, non-Chugach State Park portion of the Anchorage Bowl is 84 square miles. We have not run out of land!
During discussions this spring, members of the Anchorage Assembly expressed serious doubts about the wisdom of the Knik Arm Crossing, but voted to keep it in the plan for the purpose of further study. Now KABATA has hired a public relations firm to convince us that building the bridge is the right thing to do. Advocacy is not study! Fiscal conservatives must stop this misappropriation of public funds now! Instead, let’s get on with building a sustainable Big Wild Life for Anchorage here in the Bowl.
11.25.2006
NOTHING NEW UNDER THE SUN
Michael Graves in Louisville (The Humana Building, 1982) on the left, Josip Plecnik (The Church of the Sacred Heart, 1932) in Prague above.
Photo on left courtesy Humana Inc.
Photo above courtesy John Morris Dixon FAIA.
11.14.2006
RULES FOR ENTRANCE
You can break the rules but you must know you are doing so and why.
Entries should present a memorable aspect of the house.
Guests are ready to learn something about the residence and its occupants when they enter. You must take advantage of this opportunity. Reward them with some exceptional architecture – a special space or detail or view.
Don’t make the guest look up at the owner. The exterior floor should be essentially at the same level as the interior floor. See also the Gerald Ford Rule – don’t make people climb a step and negotiate a door at the same time.
Don’t let the entry be dumb. Inflect towards the guest. For most houses, we know from what direction most guests arrive. The entry should bow towards those guests. Entries that face the street directly often appear dumb – in the technical sense of the word. They do not greet the guest. They do not wink about the knowledgeable architect who knew they were coming. If the house faces south and the guests arrive from the west, the entry needs to somehow acknowledge that fact. This is a way to humanize a home.
Entries should generally be smaller, lower-ceilinged, spaces. We come from the out of doors. The scale of the grandest living room pales before the ceiling height outside. It is good to squeeze people through a low ceilinged and or narrow space and then show them a grand space. The living room can feel grand in comparison to the entry. The entry can feel grand in comparison to the front porch. Squeeze people through a smaller space before presenting a large room.
Entry geometry should always inflect towards the likely path of the guest. The occupants know how to use the house because of repetition. Guests may not. The hall or opening to the living room should be wider than the path to the kitchen. The entry geometry should lean towards the public spaces and away from the private spaces. The front door should open in the way that presents something public and important. It should not open to present the coat closet door.
Front entries and rear entries may be different in that guests or delivery people may be waiting to be allowed in at the front entry. That means there is more need for weather protection at a front entry.
Front doors are often disastrous!
Some houses have a pair of doors. What is that about? Even in California or Florida, I can’t imagine the purpose of a pair of doors. No one ever opens both doors. A front door is usually an important psychological boundary. I can imagine throwing open the pair of french doors between the house and the back yard. Often we want to connect those two spaces. They are both within the family or personal domicile. The front yard, on the other hand, is almost always a somewhat public space. We do not control who is in the front yard. We do control who is in the entry. Double doors at this boundary make no sense. Of course, they make even less sense in a northern climate. They make it relatively impossible to seal the front door even when it is closed (because the second door does not provide the rigid jamb that a wall can.
Because it is the front door, Owners often want to spend some extra money. The American market is overflowing with horrendously designed, very expensive, front doors. These doors almost never have anything to do with the rest of the house. Avoid! An overdesigned (whether well designed or not) front door obviously does not fit. The message is clear. The Owner spent a lot of money (or even worse, spent very little money on a bad fake) with no guidance from the architect. It’s not a good introduction.
This is also an example of the “We don’t hire the designer in Indianapolis” rule. We don’t like to use designed products. We like to use plain materials and arrange them in a unique way. We don’t like tiles and doors and sinks with applied designs. Details and finishes in our houses regularly remind occupants and visitors of the sentient creator in the background. I don’t think store bought design provides this humane wink.
We have collaborated with local craftsmen on many unique wood doors. A simple flush insulated metal door can be punctured and painted or otherwise decorated to make a door that is specific to the Owner at relatively small cost.
Glass in a door is less expensive than a relite. In the north, this glass must always be insulated.
In the north, we use something we call the igloo entry. One enters an igloo by climbing under the edge of the wall and back up into the space. This allows the warm air (the lighter air that tends to rise) to remain inside. We accomplish the same thing in our houses by lowering the entry and placing three risers between the entry and the main floor.
For a variety of reasons, the interior floor is almost always higher than the exterior grade. A “sunken” entry has the added advantage of moving this grade change indoors. One never has to shovel snow off the interior stairs.
In warmer climates a reverse strategy is appropriate. Keep the cool air in the space by raising the entry. This is the corollary to a “sunken living room”. It is also consistent with the strategy of using the entry as a constricting transition between the sky as ceiling and whatever ceiling one provides at the interior spaces.
In both directions a stair near the front door is a dud. In the north a stair to the basement allows the cold air to rush in and down. In the south, the “prom stair”, that grand stair coming from the bedrooms to the entry, empties the upper floor of cooled air whenever the front door is opened.
A stair opening into the entry is also generally the wrong answer in conventionally arranged two story homes. The entry is a transitional space. It is shared with guests and therefore feels partly out of the house. It often has harder floors. It does not make sense to walk through the entry on the way from your bedroom to your kitchen.
Arctic Entry
This is a greeting space with doors at both ends. The strategy is that the interior door is always closed when the exterior door is open, maintaining the thermal enclosure. I am not sure how often the Owners actually open and close all these doors, but we do it anyway. We do try to make sure that the interior door is a pocket door so that in warmer seasons, the door can disappear.
Entry Heating in the North
Entries are a great place for a radiant floor. (More on radiant floors some other day.) Snow and ice get melted and evaporated. It’s a win, win, because this is an excellent source of clean, unpolluted, humidification for the house, too.
Entries should present a memorable aspect of the house.
Guests are ready to learn something about the residence and its occupants when they enter. You must take advantage of this opportunity. Reward them with some exceptional architecture – a special space or detail or view.
Don’t make the guest look up at the owner. The exterior floor should be essentially at the same level as the interior floor. See also the Gerald Ford Rule – don’t make people climb a step and negotiate a door at the same time.
Don’t let the entry be dumb. Inflect towards the guest. For most houses, we know from what direction most guests arrive. The entry should bow towards those guests. Entries that face the street directly often appear dumb – in the technical sense of the word. They do not greet the guest. They do not wink about the knowledgeable architect who knew they were coming. If the house faces south and the guests arrive from the west, the entry needs to somehow acknowledge that fact. This is a way to humanize a home.
Entries should generally be smaller, lower-ceilinged, spaces. We come from the out of doors. The scale of the grandest living room pales before the ceiling height outside. It is good to squeeze people through a low ceilinged and or narrow space and then show them a grand space. The living room can feel grand in comparison to the entry. The entry can feel grand in comparison to the front porch. Squeeze people through a smaller space before presenting a large room.
Entry geometry should always inflect towards the likely path of the guest. The occupants know how to use the house because of repetition. Guests may not. The hall or opening to the living room should be wider than the path to the kitchen. The entry geometry should lean towards the public spaces and away from the private spaces. The front door should open in the way that presents something public and important. It should not open to present the coat closet door.
Front entries and rear entries may be different in that guests or delivery people may be waiting to be allowed in at the front entry. That means there is more need for weather protection at a front entry.
Front doors are often disastrous!
Some houses have a pair of doors. What is that about? Even in California or Florida, I can’t imagine the purpose of a pair of doors. No one ever opens both doors. A front door is usually an important psychological boundary. I can imagine throwing open the pair of french doors between the house and the back yard. Often we want to connect those two spaces. They are both within the family or personal domicile. The front yard, on the other hand, is almost always a somewhat public space. We do not control who is in the front yard. We do control who is in the entry. Double doors at this boundary make no sense. Of course, they make even less sense in a northern climate. They make it relatively impossible to seal the front door even when it is closed (because the second door does not provide the rigid jamb that a wall can.
Because it is the front door, Owners often want to spend some extra money. The American market is overflowing with horrendously designed, very expensive, front doors. These doors almost never have anything to do with the rest of the house. Avoid! An overdesigned (whether well designed or not) front door obviously does not fit. The message is clear. The Owner spent a lot of money (or even worse, spent very little money on a bad fake) with no guidance from the architect. It’s not a good introduction.
This is also an example of the “We don’t hire the designer in Indianapolis” rule. We don’t like to use designed products. We like to use plain materials and arrange them in a unique way. We don’t like tiles and doors and sinks with applied designs. Details and finishes in our houses regularly remind occupants and visitors of the sentient creator in the background. I don’t think store bought design provides this humane wink.
We have collaborated with local craftsmen on many unique wood doors. A simple flush insulated metal door can be punctured and painted or otherwise decorated to make a door that is specific to the Owner at relatively small cost.
Glass in a door is less expensive than a relite. In the north, this glass must always be insulated.
In the north, we use something we call the igloo entry. One enters an igloo by climbing under the edge of the wall and back up into the space. This allows the warm air (the lighter air that tends to rise) to remain inside. We accomplish the same thing in our houses by lowering the entry and placing three risers between the entry and the main floor.
For a variety of reasons, the interior floor is almost always higher than the exterior grade. A “sunken” entry has the added advantage of moving this grade change indoors. One never has to shovel snow off the interior stairs.
In warmer climates a reverse strategy is appropriate. Keep the cool air in the space by raising the entry. This is the corollary to a “sunken living room”. It is also consistent with the strategy of using the entry as a constricting transition between the sky as ceiling and whatever ceiling one provides at the interior spaces.
In both directions a stair near the front door is a dud. In the north a stair to the basement allows the cold air to rush in and down. In the south, the “prom stair”, that grand stair coming from the bedrooms to the entry, empties the upper floor of cooled air whenever the front door is opened.
A stair opening into the entry is also generally the wrong answer in conventionally arranged two story homes. The entry is a transitional space. It is shared with guests and therefore feels partly out of the house. It often has harder floors. It does not make sense to walk through the entry on the way from your bedroom to your kitchen.
Arctic Entry
This is a greeting space with doors at both ends. The strategy is that the interior door is always closed when the exterior door is open, maintaining the thermal enclosure. I am not sure how often the Owners actually open and close all these doors, but we do it anyway. We do try to make sure that the interior door is a pocket door so that in warmer seasons, the door can disappear.
Entry Heating in the North
Entries are a great place for a radiant floor. (More on radiant floors some other day.) Snow and ice get melted and evaporated. It’s a win, win, because this is an excellent source of clean, unpolluted, humidification for the house, too.
11.04.2006
WHY SCIENCE?
The case for a disprovable architecture.
There are many ways in which architecture can be important to a community. Public buildings and spaces not only fulfill their daily practical functions but also reflect who we are and who we wish to be. They remind us of the values of our forefathers and tell our great grandchildren something about us. From a functional point of view, city hall is often a very simple office building. But it is also the ongoing physical representation, the front door or the face, of its community. Architects with exceptional skills in the appearance of buildings should be hired for this type of project. This is a modern day version of monumental architecture and it still has its place in our world.
(All but the most adventurous of communities are going to hire a predictable architect, an architect with a recognizable style, so the community has a fairly clear idea in advance of what it will be getting. If there is a good place for the star architects of our media saturated world, this is it. Ironically, these are not the most exciting architects of our day. They offer us predictability, but it is precisely that predictability that limits their ability to give us the very best design for our specific needs.
It is a sadness of our time that local architects do not dominate this field. Local architects have the opportunity to be brilliant about their own locales, to know them the best. Local architects have a much better chance of creating a design that tells a richly true story about its community. This is only true if the local architects have prepared themselves. Not many have, but more have than get this opportunity. Instead of documenting and celebrating our specificity and diversity, we bring in the famous architect who makes our architecture just like someone else’s.)
Houses are at the other end of the architectural spectrum.
Houses must first of all be tools for living.
(There are, of course, those houses that are just for show, or primarily for show – by definition, they are not houses. Rather, they represent a private highjacking of architecture’s appropriate public representational role described in the first paragraph above. Depending on the astuteness of the observer, these houses tell much more than the owner ever intended.)
Individuation is the house architect’s most important task. A house must accomplish the very best fit between the needs of its occupants and the opportunities and requirements of its site. In the hands of a skilled architect, this fit will produce a design that also reflects the values of the site and the occupant. Skilled house architects must have an eye (and ear and nose and skin) for composition, for color, proportion and texture. But first they must know how to read sites and read clients. They must be students of how we live and how we interact with the physicality of construction. For the most part, this knowledge is not opinion based. It is scientific, objective, repeatable fact. House architects operating on opinion are charlatans. House architects who don’t have an exceptional understanding of all the humdrum details of daily life cannot possibly provide the value their clients deserve.
I start with a generic concept of house. I’ve done the “perfect house”. What do I do with the rest of my life? Happily, the perfect house is only perfect once, and in fact, probably not even once. So, I modify the generic concept in response to the forces presented by the site, the prospective occupants, and my own architectural education. House design is an exhaustive process of moving the specific design further and further away from the generic concept – but always with legitimate, genuine, reason.
Art? I think I must do everything for a reason (elegance is a measure of how many different reasons inspire one move), but I must do everything artfully.
What makes me think my reasons are legitimate and genuine? My own test is whether my client understands.
Architectural education? After thirty years, I do think I understand most of the forces. Many of the fits I have found are less than perfect and every project is an opportunity to improve the fit. These can be technical – avoiding the damaging effects of rain, and functional – how best to light a dining room.
(Clients who have their homes designed by architects with a recognizable style are subverting their own identity to that architect. Certainly, an individual has the right to do that. These architects have chosen a role similar to that of writer or painter. I can understand the desire to have your portrait painted by Picasso, but I would think you would want to have Wayne Thiebaud do a portrait, too. I can’t imagine that you would want Nabokov to write your biography. Picasso’s portrait and Nabokov’s biography are going to be more about them than you. These products will be judged on the artist’s execution of their personal goals. That’s not what a house should be about. A house is a tool for living, a specific tool for a specific environment. The owner and the architect should be clear that the fitness of that tool is the goal. All other things are secondary.)
The possibility of a scientific architecture has been a revelation to me. Conversations about architecture within the profession are generally of two types. Most are about business, about how to make money. The others are about design. What I have come to understand is that aesthetic ideologues dominate this conversation. They set the agenda. We talk about the relative merits of critical regionalism and classic modernism and so on. I am glad I live in a world where these kinds of things are discussed. I like to read the New Yorker and I like to debate the merits of this or that style. I do not believe that either is very important.
Improving the relationship between mankind and the built environment is, on the other hand, very important, as important as any task facing humanity. Aesthetes can have their esoteric world and I will enjoy it as a form of entertainment. When I am working, though, I want to do important architecture and I want my profession to get back to where it concerns itself primarily with important issues.
I do not believe that all buildings are equal. I do not believe that the only differences in architecture are a matter of aesthetic judgment. HOUSE SCIENCE can show you how a house can be truly, objectively, better. Architects who make houses that are truly, objectively, better will increase the stature of architecture and architects in our culture.
There are many ways in which architecture can be important to a community. Public buildings and spaces not only fulfill their daily practical functions but also reflect who we are and who we wish to be. They remind us of the values of our forefathers and tell our great grandchildren something about us. From a functional point of view, city hall is often a very simple office building. But it is also the ongoing physical representation, the front door or the face, of its community. Architects with exceptional skills in the appearance of buildings should be hired for this type of project. This is a modern day version of monumental architecture and it still has its place in our world.
(All but the most adventurous of communities are going to hire a predictable architect, an architect with a recognizable style, so the community has a fairly clear idea in advance of what it will be getting. If there is a good place for the star architects of our media saturated world, this is it. Ironically, these are not the most exciting architects of our day. They offer us predictability, but it is precisely that predictability that limits their ability to give us the very best design for our specific needs.
It is a sadness of our time that local architects do not dominate this field. Local architects have the opportunity to be brilliant about their own locales, to know them the best. Local architects have a much better chance of creating a design that tells a richly true story about its community. This is only true if the local architects have prepared themselves. Not many have, but more have than get this opportunity. Instead of documenting and celebrating our specificity and diversity, we bring in the famous architect who makes our architecture just like someone else’s.)
Houses are at the other end of the architectural spectrum.
Houses must first of all be tools for living.
(There are, of course, those houses that are just for show, or primarily for show – by definition, they are not houses. Rather, they represent a private highjacking of architecture’s appropriate public representational role described in the first paragraph above. Depending on the astuteness of the observer, these houses tell much more than the owner ever intended.)
Individuation is the house architect’s most important task. A house must accomplish the very best fit between the needs of its occupants and the opportunities and requirements of its site. In the hands of a skilled architect, this fit will produce a design that also reflects the values of the site and the occupant. Skilled house architects must have an eye (and ear and nose and skin) for composition, for color, proportion and texture. But first they must know how to read sites and read clients. They must be students of how we live and how we interact with the physicality of construction. For the most part, this knowledge is not opinion based. It is scientific, objective, repeatable fact. House architects operating on opinion are charlatans. House architects who don’t have an exceptional understanding of all the humdrum details of daily life cannot possibly provide the value their clients deserve.
I start with a generic concept of house. I’ve done the “perfect house”. What do I do with the rest of my life? Happily, the perfect house is only perfect once, and in fact, probably not even once. So, I modify the generic concept in response to the forces presented by the site, the prospective occupants, and my own architectural education. House design is an exhaustive process of moving the specific design further and further away from the generic concept – but always with legitimate, genuine, reason.
Art? I think I must do everything for a reason (elegance is a measure of how many different reasons inspire one move), but I must do everything artfully.
What makes me think my reasons are legitimate and genuine? My own test is whether my client understands.
Architectural education? After thirty years, I do think I understand most of the forces. Many of the fits I have found are less than perfect and every project is an opportunity to improve the fit. These can be technical – avoiding the damaging effects of rain, and functional – how best to light a dining room.
(Clients who have their homes designed by architects with a recognizable style are subverting their own identity to that architect. Certainly, an individual has the right to do that. These architects have chosen a role similar to that of writer or painter. I can understand the desire to have your portrait painted by Picasso, but I would think you would want to have Wayne Thiebaud do a portrait, too. I can’t imagine that you would want Nabokov to write your biography. Picasso’s portrait and Nabokov’s biography are going to be more about them than you. These products will be judged on the artist’s execution of their personal goals. That’s not what a house should be about. A house is a tool for living, a specific tool for a specific environment. The owner and the architect should be clear that the fitness of that tool is the goal. All other things are secondary.)
The possibility of a scientific architecture has been a revelation to me. Conversations about architecture within the profession are generally of two types. Most are about business, about how to make money. The others are about design. What I have come to understand is that aesthetic ideologues dominate this conversation. They set the agenda. We talk about the relative merits of critical regionalism and classic modernism and so on. I am glad I live in a world where these kinds of things are discussed. I like to read the New Yorker and I like to debate the merits of this or that style. I do not believe that either is very important.
Improving the relationship between mankind and the built environment is, on the other hand, very important, as important as any task facing humanity. Aesthetes can have their esoteric world and I will enjoy it as a form of entertainment. When I am working, though, I want to do important architecture and I want my profession to get back to where it concerns itself primarily with important issues.
I do not believe that all buildings are equal. I do not believe that the only differences in architecture are a matter of aesthetic judgment. HOUSE SCIENCE can show you how a house can be truly, objectively, better. Architects who make houses that are truly, objectively, better will increase the stature of architecture and architects in our culture.
11.01.2006
CURRENT MANIFESTO
This is a manifesto for radical functionalism. AIA COD is, arguably, after the schools, and possibly the press, the most important forum for the discussion of architecture in the United States. So, it seems appropriate, here a mile from one of Lou Kahn’s masterpieces, to open the fight for the heart of the profession. For too long we have sought our meaning from academic wordsmiths. Architecture is not about art or politics. Architecture is about buildings. Buildings are tools. Architecture, therefore, is about maximizing the fitness of buildings. I am not the only one who has been troubled by the intellectual shallowness of the theoretical discourse in the 20th century. Architecture or revolution, give me a break. It is time to take back and put back the majesty of architecture. If you listen carefully enough to the programmatic requirements, the building will tell you what it wants to be. You don’t need a style or an ideology based in art or literature. You just need to tailor the building exceptionally well to the program. All architecture must spring from radical functionalism. Great architecture happens when we achieve a sublime functionalism. Of course, form follows function. Form is not architecture. We need to close the gap. Architecture follows program. That is all we need to make a great architecture. Architects and the public will recognize it as such.
Originally presented to the American Institute of Architects Committee on Design in May of 2004 in La Jolla California.
Originally presented to the American Institute of Architects Committee on Design in May of 2004 in La Jolla California.
10.31.2006
RULES FOR HOUSES IN ANCHORAGE ALASKA
In design, all rules must be broken occasionally. The important part is to know when you are breaking a rule.
When you go to buy a house – see if these aspects are present.
TO MAKE EFFECTIVE USE OF THE SUN
Extend the house east to west instead of north to south so as to maximize south walls. When we need the sun the most, it is only in the south.
Create high space and high walls on the south – this allows low angle sun to penetrate deeply into the building.
Provide open spaces on the south, enclosed spaces on the north – this allows the sun to penetrate more thoroughly into the building.
Provide sit down spaces on the south, stand up spaces on the north – don’t want the standers to shade the sitters.
Provide decks with sun doubling – places where the sun hits you and also bounces off the wall behind you and hits you again.
Know when you want to be outside and where the sun is at that time and put the decks there.
Make sure breakfast spaces and bathrooms face east and have east facing windows – good morning sunshine.
Locate houses on the north side of the lot so you can be outside south of your building.
Make sure that the windows provided are not required to be covered because of privacy concerns. A curtained window is often worse than no window at all.
TO DEAL WITH THE SNOW
Know that gutters do not work. Gutters require serious maintenance and even then rarely work in winter. They fill with ice and then the glaciers and icicles flow right over the gutter.
Never slope the roof so that it drains above the front door (or the back door either)!
Never slope the roof so that it drains above the garage door!
Never use a hipped roof – hipped roofs drain to all four sides – that is never the right answer.
Never create a roof with a valley! Valleys are impossible to adequately ventilate and they concentrate drainage. That means they generate glaciers and icicles. Not good for the roof, not good for anything beneath the icicle.
Never use a skylight. Our sun angles are low so south windows are better than skylights. Skylights melt water on the roof that becomes an icicle below.
Given the difficulty of plowing and shoveling, make walkways and driveways as short as possible.
Ugly is in the eye of the beholder. I don’t have the energy for the debate about what is beautiful or ugly. I care about the appearance of my buildings. I must satisfy my clients that they will be pleased with the appearance of their building. After that, well, everybody else can have their opinion. Everybody involved with the design of our city, at every scale, has much more important tasks than appearances. If the building drips on you or is dark or puts you in the shade, my guess is, you will think it is ugly. There are many examples around town of prettification. These are attempts to directly beautify the city. They mostly fall on blind eyes. Think about the circles incised in concrete on Northern Lights or the Concrete Blobs on 15th or even the various pieces of sculpture along C Street. Some of these are nice and all, but I can’t imagine that anyone really believes they are going to turn the tide on our ugly city. The wide sidewalks on 4th Avenue downtown on the other hand have allowed the street vendors to flourish and its fun to be there. The speculative house builders are always struggling to make a more attractive house – they seem to add another roof to their compositions every year – do any of us think they are succeeding? But if we could buy a house that doesn’t have ice on the front walk and where the sun shines in the family room – now, that might be a beautiful house.
I think my first task is to convince people that things can be better. My impression is that most people think all houses, all buildings, all cities are more or less the same so don’t worry about it. Buy something stupid, like everybody else, and then make do as best you can. Its not true. Houses, buildings and cities can be better! If we think of them as tools to support our lives and demand that they be designed and judged as tools, instead of debating about their ugliness, well, I bet we will end up with a beautiful city.
When you go to buy a house – see if these aspects are present.
TO MAKE EFFECTIVE USE OF THE SUN
Extend the house east to west instead of north to south so as to maximize south walls. When we need the sun the most, it is only in the south.
Create high space and high walls on the south – this allows low angle sun to penetrate deeply into the building.
Provide open spaces on the south, enclosed spaces on the north – this allows the sun to penetrate more thoroughly into the building.
Provide sit down spaces on the south, stand up spaces on the north – don’t want the standers to shade the sitters.
Provide decks with sun doubling – places where the sun hits you and also bounces off the wall behind you and hits you again.
Know when you want to be outside and where the sun is at that time and put the decks there.
Make sure breakfast spaces and bathrooms face east and have east facing windows – good morning sunshine.
Locate houses on the north side of the lot so you can be outside south of your building.
Make sure that the windows provided are not required to be covered because of privacy concerns. A curtained window is often worse than no window at all.
TO DEAL WITH THE SNOW
Know that gutters do not work. Gutters require serious maintenance and even then rarely work in winter. They fill with ice and then the glaciers and icicles flow right over the gutter.
Never slope the roof so that it drains above the front door (or the back door either)!
Never slope the roof so that it drains above the garage door!
Never use a hipped roof – hipped roofs drain to all four sides – that is never the right answer.
Never create a roof with a valley! Valleys are impossible to adequately ventilate and they concentrate drainage. That means they generate glaciers and icicles. Not good for the roof, not good for anything beneath the icicle.
Never use a skylight. Our sun angles are low so south windows are better than skylights. Skylights melt water on the roof that becomes an icicle below.
Given the difficulty of plowing and shoveling, make walkways and driveways as short as possible.
Ugly is in the eye of the beholder. I don’t have the energy for the debate about what is beautiful or ugly. I care about the appearance of my buildings. I must satisfy my clients that they will be pleased with the appearance of their building. After that, well, everybody else can have their opinion. Everybody involved with the design of our city, at every scale, has much more important tasks than appearances. If the building drips on you or is dark or puts you in the shade, my guess is, you will think it is ugly. There are many examples around town of prettification. These are attempts to directly beautify the city. They mostly fall on blind eyes. Think about the circles incised in concrete on Northern Lights or the Concrete Blobs on 15th or even the various pieces of sculpture along C Street. Some of these are nice and all, but I can’t imagine that anyone really believes they are going to turn the tide on our ugly city. The wide sidewalks on 4th Avenue downtown on the other hand have allowed the street vendors to flourish and its fun to be there. The speculative house builders are always struggling to make a more attractive house – they seem to add another roof to their compositions every year – do any of us think they are succeeding? But if we could buy a house that doesn’t have ice on the front walk and where the sun shines in the family room – now, that might be a beautiful house.
I think my first task is to convince people that things can be better. My impression is that most people think all houses, all buildings, all cities are more or less the same so don’t worry about it. Buy something stupid, like everybody else, and then make do as best you can. Its not true. Houses, buildings and cities can be better! If we think of them as tools to support our lives and demand that they be designed and judged as tools, instead of debating about their ugliness, well, I bet we will end up with a beautiful city.
Seattle Public Library
It has always been Venturi’s role. He shows the way. He does it first, maybe not so well, but then others follow. In Seattle it has happened again. At the Seattle Art Museum, Venturi attempted to integrate the hillside topography into the form and function of the building. Bohlin Cywinski Jackson learned that lesson and improved upon it in the new Seattle City Hall. Now, Rem Koolhaas has brought this idea to its apex in the new Seattle Central Library. It is hard to imagine a building more thoroughly infused with its topography. One could start another way. The Seattle Central Library succeeds where Wright’s Guggenheim fails. The sloped and spiraling stacks are a master stroke. It is almost like being in a Jorge Louis Borge novel. How can one possibly be in the same room at the same time with so many books? Sometimes the views are disturbing – have we had an earthquake?, is the structure sagging under the weight of the books?, but mostly the spiral is just a joy.
Architectural moves, if they are to be valued, must have multiple reasons. The form of the Library qualifies. The spiral floor might have led to the exterior appearance of an overdressed parking garage. The form and the skin release the floors from the look of the place. In often dark and gloomy Seattle, the undulations of the skin serve to cut back the corners of the building. This increases the open space at the street intersections, opens up views of Elliot Bay below and allows much greater sun to the maturely tree canopied foreground of the Courthouse to the east. There is also the much deeper question about the walls of a street. This building would not work nearly so well if it did not cover an entire block. Gaudi’s row buildings in Barcelona often read as overbearing boors next to their buttoned-down neighbors. Because the library occupies an entire block, the unhappy, seemingly anti-urban, juxtapositions in Gaudi’s work do not occur. This building opens up a new way of doing the walls of the street. In the context of the otherwise unremitting verticality, Koolhaas’ walls are a breath of fresh air – at the same time, presumably, not nearly the wind generators of their neighbors either. In the early twentieth century, architects eroded the four walls and introduced interconnected, flowing interior space. With this building, Koolhaas suggests that we here in the twenty-first century have the opportunity to do something similar with our cities, with our outdoor urban spaces.
We don’t seem to be ready for a library as a tall building – think Phoenix or Chicago. This is a tall building but it does not give that impression – except at the back of the elevator tower in the central space. At first, the grid of the skin seems a waste. It seems the architect is wasting public resources in a self-indulgent extravaganza. But on further reflection, maybe this is not the case. Compared to a tall building with all of its columns and spandrels and mullions? The blurring of the differences between wall and roof, and the rigorous separation between skin and partition has profoundly simplified the skin and the labor necessary to complete it.
The entrances are curious, unmarked penetrations of the otherwise in many ways undifferentiated skin. The doors are unmarked. In some sense, there are no doors. What is this about? Once again, this opens up new possibilities for the character of the space we call the street. There is a strong technical boundary between the interior and exterior space. But the lack of a ceremonial entrance, the lack of arches or columns or even significant signage tends to soften the psychological boundary between the street and the library. The low psychological impact of the entrances avoids creating a strong boundary between the indoor and outdoor spaces. Combined with the relatively extravagant volume of the interior space and the tall, vertical building constrained outdoor street space, one feels very strongly that the library is as much a public space as the street itself.
One might make a few small complaints. The building is a bit of a secret. There is little indication on the outside of the richness of life inside. One might suggest that the stunning exterior demands a walk inside. No, I’ve been disappointed by that assumption too many times. The floor finishes are consistently demanding of ones attention in ways that are inappropriately distracting. Don’t miss the view of the carpet from above, though maybe it go a little out of hand where it attempts to mimic the real landscaping outside. The wood block floors are noisy and feel as if they are not quite securely fastened to the structure. The floors in the spiral ramps look like they will be the first thing in this building to be replaced. And the big steel stairs, in a library? Huh?
The city and the architects seem unquestionably to deserve high praise, but I must admit, it might be too early to tell. I haven’t seen it in the rain and in the dark. This is a building that will change under those conditions. That’s a good thing. Let’s hope it’s a good thing, inside and out, in this specific case.
While you are there, don’t miss the following items in the neighborhood. On a medium sunny day in the afternoon, have a seat facing south at the sidewalk tables at Tulio. Enjoy the reflections in the glazing on the black glass skyscraper two blocks south of the Library.
Then, walk south a block and look up and back at the Crowne Plaza Hotel. At this distance and in a certain light, this building is a gloriously soft pastel drawing. At the street and close up, the exposed aggregate and reflective glass panes are harsh and heavy, but from a distance they are a joy to behold. Finally, don’t miss the Plymouth Congregational Church – a Noah’s Ark of divinity fudge that suggests how far Edward Durrell Stone and others might have, but did not, go.
Originally written in September of 2004.
10.29.2006
COMPOSITIONAL RULES
As designers, we try to make something new and unique. Sometimes breaking a rule is the way to do that. It’s ok to break a rule, but you must know that you are doing so and you should know why.
REALITY IS DIFFICULT
Architects are profoundly different from all other artists and creators. We can’t pick what parts of the scene we want to detail. A novelist almost never mentions the bathroom and that’s ok. Painters can gloss over the window trim. Architects cannot leave anything out. If we leave anything out, the contractor and reality fill it in for us, often with disastrous results. And we can’t cheat reality. Creativity and persuasion don’t compel reality. Reality has its rules and those rules are inviolable. The successful practice of architecture involves respecting reality's rules.
THE GERALD FORD RULE
Never try to do two things at the same time.
This is actually two rules in one so maybe it’s a violation of itself.
First of all, this is an acknowledgment of one of reality’s fundamental rules. If you try to do certain things at the same time, lines converge and the dimension becomes zero. But architectural elements always have thickness. The solution is often to separate transitions. Make sure the roof valley does not happen at the same place that the eave becomes a gable end. At handrails and guardrails, separate the transition from diagonal to horizontal from the change in plan direction.
The second part of this rule has to do with architecture as tool. It is almost never a good idea to ask people to do two things at once. If there must be a step between the interior and the exterior, move it away from the door. Do not ask people to open a door and climb a step at the same time.
NEVER DO ANYTHING ONCE, NEVER DO ANYTHING TWICE.
Once I submitted one of my favorite projects for an AIA design award. We did not receive the award. I was told that the reason was that my project lacked a discernible theme. That has lead me to try to understand why a theme might matter. An important characteristic of architecture is that it is recognizably a product of human endeavor. Ruskin believed in the importance of the presence of handicraft in architecture. I believe that doing things more than once in a building is like winking at the occupants. Seeing repeated details tells you that the building was consciously designed.
On the other hand, we never want to do the same thing twice. Partly it's just boring to do so, partly it's because we believe that it's our responsibility to enrich the world with as much genuine diversity as possible, and partly it's that each condition is slightly different. If we listen carefully enough, we can discover the specifics of the condition and modify the design to suit those specifics. So, we never do the same building twice, and we never do the same detail again in quite the same way.
HIT OR MISS A MILE.
This too relates to the way in which a building betrays its human creators. Finishes must either match or clearly be different. Lines and shapes must clearly align or be positively misaligned. When things are almost, but not quite, the same, the condition reads in one of two ways. Either no consciousness was involved in the selection and the building or space, as a result, lacks that reflection of human creation that I think is essential to architecture, or; it is disappointing architecture. The person who made the selections tried to match or align and failed.
If one thing would do, use one thing. Fine architecture is always elegantly economic. I think this is because, deep in our genes, we know that waste damages our possibility of survival. If the situation requires more than one thing, make sure the sensual messages are clearly different. We seek clarity. We don't enjoy being confused, except maybe at an amusement park. If things are different, but don’t read (through whatever sense is operating) as different, the architecture is sending a mixed message. There are certainly times when you might want to send a mixed message, but you must positively decide to do so – for a reason. Otherwise, one of the sheltering aspects of architecture can and should be the clarity of its sensual messages.
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