I’ve been out of town for the past two weeks and had nary a moment to read architecture stories, let alone compose a post of my own criticism or comments. Sometimes the real world seems to not want to let me get back to the virtual one. So instead, as my welcome back post, I thought I would post a link to Eikongraphia’s Most Popular Architecture Blogs of 2008. This is really a best of the best list, look for future articles to be sourced from these blogs (and their coming addition to my links list). Maybe one of these days I can make this little side project into a top 25 worthy entry.
So I’ve been digging through the archive of articles that I have meant to write about, but have not had the chance and came across this article from boston.com which discusses Green Roofs, specifically the the American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA) in Washington DC, and discusses their popularity in Europe and compares them to standard roofs. Green roofs are one of the areas where building design in the US lags behind the rest of the developed world. In Europe, green roofs are more ingrained in the culture, for lack of space and in the northern climates, as a pre-modern cultural adaption. It has only been recently that this urban parkland has been identified as a environmental boon, and not just a social one. In the US contractors balk at putting dirt, substrate, plants and a drainage method on a roof, complaining that ti will be too costly, need more structural reinforcement that the design calls for, and pose greater chances for leaks. Yet rooftop gardens have been a fixture in NY for years and not just in skyscrapers. But green roofs should not just be urban elements. The suburban strip mall is perfect for green roofs or PV panels. [...]
I have been studying for my LEED AP exam lately, so my interest was peaked when I came across this article online. Apparently, DRI Energy has come out with a product called Lumeta PowerPly which adheres directly to the roofing membrane instead of being mounted on an expensive and heavy roof structure, which is one of the prohibitive cost factors in the implementation Photovoltaic Panels. I imagine that this application will have less of a yield because it is fixed to the angle of the roof than rack mounted systems, which can be tuned to face an optimal angle or even rotate and tilt to follow the sun.What is lost in yield I imagine can be made up on roofs that would normally not be able to handle PV panels (such as curved roofs and steep pitches). In addition, I would worry that since this bonds to the roofing membrane, if there is a membrane failure the PV panels will need to be replaced as well, instead of being able to be removed and remounted in a traditional system.
The New York Times ran an article about an architect who used a glass stair in his home to open it up and create more light. Glass stairs are nothing new to commercial architecture – they’ve been around for many years before Apple* built one in their iconic SoHo store in NYC, but they are relatively new in residential construction. Part of the reason for this is that the structural components for a glass stair like the one in the article (a concealed steel structure) are not commonly used in American stick frame architecture. Wooden stairs, though much less transparent, are less expensive, and thus tend to be the the de-facto choice, even under skylights. The thing that i find interesting about this article is the introduction of typically commercial elements (glass and steel) into a victorian townhouse. I noticed that the article makes no mention of the historic preservation / adaptive reuse element of this story, nor does it question the merits of completely transforming a house of this age in this manner. I’m not saying that i think it was the wrong move (i don’t know the full scope of the architecture) but from the accompanying images it [...]
This past weekend the Washington Post ran an article in their magazine describing one man’s trauma renovating his kitchen. It has some very negative things to say about the architect, the contractor, and the building process as a whole. It is obvious that there is blame to go around. Yes, the architect made poor design decisions and the contractor had his errors as well; but speaking as a member of the profession, I feel that the greatest problem here is with the public conception of what is the job of an architect. It is very clear what a contractor does. They interpret the architect/designer’s plans (or owner’s description) into a real built environment. Thats it. They may hire out subcontractors, manage time, and coordinate, but their number one job is to build. An architect’s number one job is to plan and oversee, not, as commonly believed, to design or create. Yes, part of the planning process is the creation of the original design with the input of the owner, but the real job of an architect (or at least a construction/production architect) in the US today is to make sure that end result conforms to code, performs within reasonable expectations [...]
Today The Washington Post reported that the rumors of the demise of the Dulles Metro Extension were greatly exaggerated. Of course, this does not mean that the funding is free and clear, it just means that the project has not been scrapped and it will continue, with certain requirements to be met. For those unfamiliar, this project is a rail extension for the WMATA run METRO’s Orange Line. The new line would run out to Dulles Airport, the main international terminal for DC, which is currently only reachable by Bus, taxi, or personal vehicles. This extension would also service the towns between the end of the orange line and the Dulles Airport, a heavily developed stretch of land that currently has very heavy commute times into and out from the city. This is some of the best news for Northern Virginia and the DC metro area in a long while. There has been rampant speculation in the housing and development markets in regards to locations of future metro stations; this was all in great danger of collapsing after some recent articles warning of the possible death of the project due to federal oversight and fears of a bloated budget. If [...]
Recently I have made a number of posts regarding green buildings and the paradigm shift which will be necessary if we are even going to have a truly green architecture (see posts here and here). I bring this up again because i recently read two different articles online from two different architectural professionals from two different cultures, Martha Schwartz – a Boston & London based landscape architect and Harald Bodenschatz – a professor of Sociology and Planning in at the Technische Universität in Berlin and they both discuss similar goals for a more environmentally friendly development. Schwartz focuses on the urban landscape and its development (or lack thereof) currently as opposed to in a truly green environment, and Bodenscahtz focuses on the development of inner cities and suburbia as sustainable growth tactics and in such a way to help the European city thrive. While neither of these articles explicitly states my previously argued hypothesis (that in order to be a truly sustainably designed society we need to increase our population densities and thus maximize our transportation schemes), both provide intellectual support to my arguments. Without a new 21st century version of urban renewal – one which is culturally, environmentally and [...]