selophane.blog

DC at the Speed of Traffic

The majority of DC is a pedestrian city; it is meant to be viewed up close and slowly. The streets of row houses are hidden behind a protective screen of trees and gardens known affectionately as “The Parking” and can only be fully appreciated by a pedestrian wandering in this ribbon of green. Viewing these neighborhoods form a car is a difficult endeavor, first the greenery obstructs many of the facades and second unless you find a place to park, the buildings go by too rapidly (even at a leisurely 25 mph) to appreciate the finer details. The same goes for the grand vistas of the National Mall and the Federal City, while these are on a grander monumental scale, they are only really appreciated by pedestrians who can walk their lengths. Cars are able to drive down along the mall, but again the view across is screened by greenery and the few crossings do not provide a full appreciation of the structured view. Even the Modernist complexes of near South West are better appreciated on foot. Sure, you can see all of the buildings from the street, but only pedestrians can explore the rabbit warren of tunnels, paths and connections that link this Modernist Bloc into a city unto itself.

[Image via mgrass.]

There is a place in DC where this pedestrian preference disappears, and is in fact a hinderance, the golden triangle area of downtown. The buildings in this part of the city are not built with the pedestrian as the main consumer, sure there are pedestrian level storefronts and lobbies, but to be able to fully appreciate the streetscape you have to be driving. A perfect exmaple of this is K street. As a pedestrian the buildings on your side of the street seem to rise ever upward making canyons of steel and glass and the buildings across the way can only be seen at an almost worm’s eye perspective view perpendicular to the street or as an oblique two point perspective view down the street, either way the facades are not fully appreciated. Furthermore, the rhythm of the structures is such that a pedestrian it is boring, the bulk of the facades utilize very long elemental repeats which as a pedestrian are almost invisible.[There are a few exceptions to this, the buildings surrounding Farragut square tend to play to the park instead of the cars, and as such there are some stunning examples of intricate facades. But this is a a rarity] All of this changes from the perspective of the driver’s seat. The composition merges into a single point perspective view of the avenue where the bland facades suddenly reveal upper level details that were previously hidden. Furthermore, traffic not withstanding, the buildings read much more poetically at the stately speed of 25 miles per hour, their bland facades quickly passing and morphing into a steady stream of rhythm and order.

How to survive an Ice Age

[Image via richdedeyan.]

BLDGBLOG ran a story today about Project Iceworm and how the US had at one point built a research/military base UNDER the greenland glacier. While reading this story, all I could think of is how this kind of technology could be used. The three places my mind goes are colonizing Antarctica, surviving the next Ice Age, and colonizing Enceladus the Ice Moon of Saturn. I know, crazy right?

With modern advances in hydroponics and a near limitless supply of geothermal energy we could live quite comfortably inside an ice sheet. Of course a nuclear reactor or some other source of power would probably be needed at first to get the colony/city started, because it would take a while to get a hydrothermal system in place (and if this was an offworld colony the planet/moon would need to have an active geothermal system to support that kind of powerplant), but thats a startup cost that could easily be repaid overtime with ready access zero-emission renewable energy. Plus, during the “melt” season, you could harness some of the sub ice melt paths as hydro-electric systems. Sure, there would be the constant maintenance and trimming of the tunnel walls, but thats the source of the city’s drinking water. The biggest issue would be maintaining contact with the world outside of the frozen city.

Its just a thought, though I admit a slightly crazy one, but at least its not an undersea dome city. And hey, stranger things have been done – man made islands anyone?

Heaven in 3 and half rooms

In Fall of 2009 I went on a trip to Deep Creek Lake, Maryland with some friends. While I was out there I took the opportunity to visit both Falling Water and Kentuck Knob. They are about an hour away and part of the same tour system. While Falling Water may well be Frank Lloyd Wright’s most well known home, neither should be missed. Kentuck Knob is a great example of how a Usonian Home could be modified to suit the needs of a much wealthier client than the original target market. Furthermore, the house is built on a hexagon base unit which stands in full contrast to the rectangle used as the base for Falling Water.

When I returend to Northern Virignia I had the pleasure of touring a third Wright home, the Pope-Leighey House, a more traditional Usonian Home. While less well known, this house holds its own in any architectural arena. Compared to Kentuck Knob and Falling Water, this middle class home feels more garden folly than full time residence, but it is a great example of an early compact Modern compact home which manages to fit in the creature comforts in the smallest of spaces.

Which leads me to the general feeling I had about all three residences: how small and cave-like they felt. All of the spaces are characterized by tight control of light, generally short ceiling, and a lack of extraneous space. All three houses function in a completely different domestic paradigm than today’s residential housing stock. Wright’s signature styles of compression and release and geometric efficiency of space stood in sharp contrast to the contemporary residential style of orthographic expansion and redundancy. This is all part of the drama of his architecture. Falling Water, which has a total of 5,330 square feet (2885 square foot interior; 2445 square foot terraces) and a guest house of 1,700 square feet, is comparable to many of the McMansions of recent years with their 3,500 Square feet of interior space; but yet they somehow feel larger and grander. Even the minuscule solar decathlon houses which are often criticized for being free standing one bedroom apartments feel palatial compared to Wright’s 1200 square foot two bedroom, 1 bath, with office Pope-Leighey House.

All of that said, there is a comfort to be found in these small quarters. Everything feels more appropriate and human scaled and so well designed that additional space would be an unwelcome excess. Furthermore, these houses, unlike our modern bog-box storage units, are designed with a bare modicum of storage locations. The house is on display, not your collectibles. That is not to say these houses are austere, far from it, nor are they filled with a Rococo style of ornament. They walk a fine line between monk’s cell and IKEA showroom.

Notes from the Archive

Over the next few weeks I’m going to be posting some posts that have been sitting in my drafts folder for way too long.

After that I hope to bring this blog active again.

Geier Brown Renfrow Architects – a study in office culture

A few weeks ago I had a nice chat with John Wittman of Geier Brown Renfrow Architects in Old Town Alexandria; they are one of the firms I highlighted in my October 2008 post Top 24 Architecture Design Firms in the Washington DC area. John had emailed me recently and invited me to come to their office so I could learn more about them and better understand the work they do. While I was meeting with him I decided that this might be a great way for me to jumpstart back into blogging. Instead of just writing about Architecture, it would be great for me to write about Architecture Offices in the DC area and their specific cultures!

Geier Brown Renfrow Architects have been around for the last 30 years but, like most small firms have gone through a few periods of reinvention. Currently they are coming off of one of those periods. About a year ago they moved into a new office on Royal Street in Old Town Alexandria. Their new space is a physical manifestation of their corporate reinvention.

When I arrived at their office on Royal Street, I was not sure of what to expect. From the exterior the building was nothing special, but when the elevator doors opened I was in for a treat. The space is a bright and funky open plan intentionally designed around the concepts of collaboration, communication and the office as a community. This stands in stark contrast to the more typical treatment of an office as a collection of architects each working in their own ivory tower. This theory of space is illustrated from the moment you enter their modern space, they have done away with the traditional receptionist and lobby schema and put the collaboration zone out in front as the main public space. It has a large worktable and pinup space with a smaller four top cafe table and chairs for informal meetings and a conversation pit consisting of chair and couch (neither, should I add, are the default Vassily or Barcelona chairs). This work zone doubles as both the public zone and the central hub of the office: the individual desks, IT nook, Traditional Work room, Library, Kitchen and Conference room all feed off of it. All of these areas are well lit either though natural lighting from the curtain wall glazing or as in the case of the interior only library, IT nook, and Traditional Work room, through the use of strategically placed light fixtures.

Part of their reinvention has been a focus on more holistic design part of this is a focus on more green efforts. John mentioned that in the move they significantly down sized their product library and left only the sustainable and human friendly products. The other holistic solution they are looking at is pro-bono projects. Besides giving back, one of their reasons for pursuing pro-bono work is as a way of reintroducing the public to the concept of architects as problem solvers and not just as a luxury commodity. This directly relates to one of the issues I’ve talked about on here before – the public perception of architects. One of the other advantages of the pro-bono work was that it afforded them an opportunity to provide an architectural student with an internship working on real projects. In this specific case they were not planning on hiring an intern but a young man approached then and offered to work for free. Many other firms would have taken that opportunity to exploit the young intern for cheap labor for their own profit. Instead, GBR decided to do something different, the intern is volunteering on their pro-bono work and in exchange is getting valuable career experience.

While I was visiting John and I also discussed some of the previous articles I’ve written for this blog. During our conversation John was able to synthesize the point of my BIM article in a much more succinct way that I have been able to express before. While the practice of architecture in its digital evolution has made great strides in office workflow and reducing repetitive tasks, it has also made great barriers for young architects looking to go out on their own; in the past all you needed was a roll of vellum, some pencils, and a client. Now you need a workstation, multiple thousand dollar software license, a plotter or a plotting service, liability insurance, networked and regularly backed up storage and full retinue of professional service firms to help you navigate the legal process of firm creation and operation. While the professional service firms and liability insurance are not specifically required by the tools now used to design, they are a byproduct of the evolution of business. As projects get more complex not only does software solutions get more complex, but financial billings and legal liability become so as well.

I found the conversation informative and stimulative. It was a helpful look into how other firms are run and how their operating spaces influence their work. I would love to have the opportunity to interview other firms and discuss their specific cultures.

Home Owners Associations and Condo Boards – are they preventing small business recovery?

I think I may have a reason why this recovery is floundering, and it all has to do with housing. Now stay with me a second, this is not subprime loans, nor predatory markets, or anything else that has already been blamed, this is a simple shift in how America lives and how that has affected our abilities to innovate and recover. Yes, I am talking about the shift from single family residences to Condo and Town home living, and the lovely association rules that come with both of those housing styles.

Last year, when I decided to start my own architecture firm (studiosml.com) I, like many prospective small business owners, hit upon a major stumbling block – my condo association bylaws. Specifically, they prohibit operating any business out of your unit. At the time, this felt like just another hurdle to get over, but now that I’ve had some distance and i’ve wathced our slow recovery, I have to wonder whether rules like this are impedeing others as well.

Let me explain. I wanted to start my architecture firm, and at least in the beginning, operate it out of my house. This is one of the very common and traditional ways that people start firms, it means a lot less overhead which translates into more funds for other startup costs like licensing fees, filing fees, accountants, lawyers, etc. Unfortunately, like many people in my generation I live in and own a condo and my condo association strictly forbids running any sort of business out of your unit. This is rather common, and its not just an issue with condo owners, many Home Owners Associations (HOAs) also forbid the homeowners within the community from conducting any businesses out of their homes. This means that not only can I, an architect, not start up a home based business, but someone who wants to run an internet based craft business, a one person maid service, or even a webdesigner cannot legally use their home address as a business address. Furthermore, in some states you can’t use a PO box as a business mailing address, it has to be headquartered somewhere where a person can sign for any legal documents. This means that with their home address off limits a prospective entrepreneur needs to rent an office or use one of the many new business “virtual office” services like Regus, which start at $100 a month minimum.

So why is this a new reason for a slow recovery? While I don’t have the hard numbers, in the two most recent recessions – 2000 and 1990, there were significantly less people living in condos and with HOAs. The only hurdle to starting a business in your house would be getting a local occupancy permit, which for most traditional home based businesses is not a problem. So, when people were laid off or put on furlough they were able start a home business to either provide a new source of income or supplement their reduced income. This means that their personal effect on consumer spending was not as greatly affected by the economic recession and they were able to make a greater contribution to the recovery effort.

Now, to bring the dreaded predatory lending and subprime loans into the picture; as people lose their homes they are forced to either move into apartment buildings or live with family. Both of these situations are incredible bad for small business. While some HOAs and Condo associations may make exceptions for certain types of businesses, it is universally accepted lease provision that you cannot run a business out of an apartment that is managed by a rental agency. This means that as the recession deepens people who could benefit most from reinventing themselves as entrepreneurs have an even greater hurdle to overcome. Furthermore, if they move in with a family member, they have to hope that they not only live in a space that allows home businesses but they also have to be receptive to having that new resident run a business out of their house.

So where does this leave us? I would propose that in an effort to jump start the small business economy State Legislatures should look at housing law and potential make it unlawful to prohibit someone from earning a living within their primary residence if their business met certain conditions. These would be things like: no employees, no costumer visits, nothing that violates noise rules of an HOA or Condo Association, no service may be performed that can be a fire risk nor a health risk, etc. This would be a big step to allowing many americans, especially those in urban areas, to get themselves off of unemployment and back into being a productive member of sociaety.

To BIM or not to BIM that is the question

Today I came across an e-mail informing me that Autodesk had released the new 2011 versions of their CAD and BIM software, AutoCAD and Revit. If you are familiar with these products feel free to skip the following two paragraphs for my opinion about BIM and CAD, if not, read on.

For those of you who are not familiar with the world of architectural software it is broken into two different conceptual models: Computer Aided Drafting (CAD) and Building Information Modeling (BIM). CAD software has been around since the 1980’s and is a digital analog to hand drafting. In it, users work in either a 2-D or 3-D environment defined by points and lines (or vectors). CAD software is a time saver in that instead of each drawing being an independent sheet that needs to be redrawn whenever changes are made, the drawing lives virtually within the software and changes can be made rapidly without effecting other areas of the work. In addition drawing elements can be quickly scaled larger or smaller to create details or other drawings. Since CAD is a replication of the drawing process it is used by many different industries. For three dimensional work it can be clunky and hard to understand; to remedy this companies like Autodesk created add-on programs that extend the vector based system using pre-made and user definable blocks and proprietary elements indexed by a database to automate the three dimensional process. This system has its uses, but cannot compete with true BIM software when it comes to three dimensional coordination.

BIM is almost as old as CAD, but has only recently started to become a mainstream tool. If CAD software is the digital analog of drafting, BIM software is the digital analog to model making. BIM uses a database of elements to define space: instead of drawing two lines to represent a wall, or using a wall tool to create a series of lines and surface to represent a wall, in a BIM system a user models a wall by selecting an element from a database and defining its values, like height, length, material components, etc. The element that appears in the program looks very similar to what you would find in a CAD program, but instead of being defined by its fixed points and vectors, it is instead being built from a database element. This allows individual elements in the building to be categorized and identified much quicker and allows for a higher level of integration. Instead of just defining a wall as X feet high, you can define it as running from floor 1 to ceiling 1, this way if the distance between floor 1 and ceiling 1 changes the wall changes without the user having to make any other corrections. This system can take lot of time and effort in the beginning to create a model of a project, because every major element needs to be present. Once the skeleton is in place, though it saves an incredible amount of time, because elements can be augmented at will, and, at least in theory, everything will adjust. This system can also be automated to produce warnings when elements intersect in ways that are not desired, which can be a godsend when coordinating multiple construction disciplines (architecture, mechanical engineering, plumbing, structural, etc.).

Since I recently started my own firm, I have been looking to buy software to automate our design process. In previous jobs I’ve used AutoCAD Architecture and in school I used Revit, so I am comfortable working in either CAD or BIM. The real issue for me is a cost benefit analysis. CAD software can be as inexpensive as the new version of Autodesk’s 2-D only non-enhanced software,AutoCAD LT, priced currently $900, or can ballon up to Autodesk’s expensive, but powerful, 2-D and 3-D software with architecture specific modeling tools, AutoCAD Architecture 2011, priced at $4995. On the other hand, Autodesk’s Revit Architecture 2011, one of many discipline specific varieties of BIM software, is priced at $5,495. To me as a small practitioner, the cost of either AutoCAD Architecture or Autodesk Revit is prohibitive when I have the option of software at 1/5 the price. On the other hand, if I was going to buy higher end professional software that can automate my tasks I cannot see a reason to by AutoCAD Architecture, for $600 more I could start working in what is sure to be the new method of construction design. In addition, the hardware requirements for AutoCAD Architecture or Revit far outstrips any machione I currently have, and would require an additional $2000 purchase. Now, of course, if I was an existing office the choice would be a lot more difficult, if my files and previous projects were all AutoCAD based, and my staff was all CAD trained, BIM might seem like an unreasonable hurdle to overcome. Thinking about this makes me wary of buying AutoCAD LT, because even though it is a reasonably priced entry level piece of software, if that is what I start my business with when I am ready to move to a higher end piece of software I may find myself trapped by my future staff’s ability and my past projects.

So, for now, I will content myself with hand drafting until I find either a profitable contract to offset the infrastructure purchase of a high end machine and revit or find myself wasting too much time revising a project and break down and buy the lower end software.

Taking stock of what I have and what I haven’t

Today I turned another year older, and I think a little retrospective is in order. In the course of a year its sometimes hard to see the little things and I sometimes have a habit of overlooking all that I’ve accomplished. After sitting down with my employer yesterday for a yearly review I decided that maybe I should do the same for my life outside of my day job, so as a little experiment I figured I would list all of my quantifiable achievements and deficiencies over the past year. I:

spent 7 months unemployed
spent 5 months employed by NCARB
sat for 7 sections of the ARE
waited over 2 months for my last ARE result to arrive
passed 7 sections of the ARE
was licensed as an Architect in 2 jurisdictions (Virginia and Washington, DC)
started my own architecture firm, studioSML, LLC
wrote 40 posts to this blog
had a gap of almost 5 months between posts
wrote 2 posts for Greater Greater Washington
wrote 15 posts for DC Metrocentric
visited 3 homes by Frank Lloyd Wright
wrote 0 articles about those homes (which I plan on remedying as soon as possible)

The Problem with Architects

One of the things that has been the most disturbing to me since I graduated and joined the world of working architects is how little our craft seems to be understood in the United States, not to mention how little demand there is for architects to work on projects. There is a discussion raging over on archinect about the public conception that architects are wealthy, well paid, and always in high demand; while in reality compared to most of the other white collar professions (doctors, lawyers, et al.) it is the opposite. I for the past three weeks I’ve been trying to figure out how to explain why I think this is the case without devolving this post into a history lecture, and I think I’ve finally figured out how to do that. The root behind all of this confusion is two fold.

First, while architects work in the twenty-first century world, we still base our business on a nineteenth century business model. Unlike other doctors and lawyers who offer a mix of relatively small fee quick services (like sick visits and legal consultation) and large fee longterm services (complex procedures and trial and business law) architects perform mostly large fee longterm services for our clients. Most of our billing is for long drawn out projects, and even when we are involved in smaller home renovation services these projects still take weeks. What we need to discover is a way to sell single visit architectural consultation services which would be attractive to the public. To do this we have to determine a way to quantify the value that our services would add and why business and home owners should hire us instead of a less expensive builder driven solution. This leads into the second issue that architects face.

Architecture is a classist profession, it is only seen as necessity for business and government and as a luxury for upper and upper-middle class people. This contrasts sharply with Doctors and Lawyers who are seen as vital components to the modern way of life. Even the person of the most modest means will most likely visit a doctor in their life, whether through a medical clinic, hospital, or health care plan of some sort. In addition, since 50% of marriages end in divorce, even the poorest person has a very good chance of needing legal counsel if not for divorce, for some other reason. Whereas, most people will never work with an architect directly, and if they live in rural or suburban America, they will probably never live in a home designed by an Architect; the closest they will come will be working in buildings which are required by law to be designed by an Architect. This detachment from our industry prevents people from realizing not only the value of our services, but why we charge what we do for them. This lack of knowledge and detachment makes architecture and design a mysterious luxury, one which is far outside the world of most Americans. This will only change when we as a field discovers a way to make quick small fee services which will make us more accessible and affordable and not such a luxury.

Fairfax Circle

There has been a number of posts recently online decrying planning moves by Fairfax City that have been seen as anti-pedestrian and pro-vehicle. I believe that Fairfax Circle is the perfect place for Fairfax to make some planning changes that can be both car and pedestrian friendly.

[Image via The Library of Virginia.]

As a driver in Northern Virginia I have long been confused by the not-quite circle at the intersections of routes 29 and 50. This confluence of roads is counter intuitive and dangerous for a number of reasons.

This is the point where routes 29 and 50 merge in doing so their names also change. This creates a confusing situation where the roads leading into the circle are (clockwise from the North) Lee Highway (route 29), Arlington Boulevard (route 50), Old Lee Highway, and Lee Highway (routes 29 & 50).
This circle has a series of lights, which effective kills any chance of it being a true traffic circle. This also makes merging into the circle difficult, because given the light cycle the circle may be filled with stopped cars which often create their own lanes.
Route 50 travels through the center of the circle, but there are no left turns allowed and the signage indicating this is quite confusing. Drivers who wish to turn left onto Lee Highway or Old Lee Highway have to first turn right and then proceed through the circle, stopping at the light at route 50, from which they just turned off.
To add to the confusion, left turns from Old Lee highway or Lee Highway onto Route 50 are allowed and encouraged.
Lastly, like much of the landscaping in Fairfax, the planted portions of the circle are useless. Until recently there were no protected pedestrian crossings into the circle, and once in the circle there are no benches or any public amenities to act as a public draw.

At least the pedestrian access issue has been solved. After some mysterious construction, pedestrian crossing signals have been installed on the right hand turn lanes onto and off from route 50. This is a literal step in the right direction, but there is still a long way to go to make this circle something useable and safe.

This circle is near the border of Fairfax County and Fairfax City and could be treated as a celebrated entry into Fairfax City; this could be achieved by restoring this to a real roundabout, with lights regulating pedestrian crossings and entry into and out of the circle and creating a park-like center with a statue or fountain similar to many of the DC circles. If the traffic along route 50 needs a direct access to the other side of the circle a below grade ramp could be installed; there is already precedent for this treatment in Fairfax County. The intersection of Fairfax County Parkway and route 29 has a multi-tiered intersection with an express bypass for traffic along route 29. I personally do not believe that an underpass would be necessary. During rush hour traffic crawls through the circle, and at all other times of the day, the local 35 mile per hour speed limit should be easy to maintain in a properly timed and lighted DC style circle.

A real circle here would solve many of the problems highlighted above. This new traffic pattern would be easier for drivers, safer for pedestrians and the break in the continuity of route 50 would help emphasize the change from Fairfax County to fairfax City. In addition, the shopping centers surrounding this circle attract a decent number of pedestrians, a park-like circle would provide them with some easily accessible green space.