I realized this morning that my entry last night came without an opinion of Susanka's Not So Big House. While a description of a book tends to go in Readings Along These Lines I think it pertinent to explain this particular book here. As I mentioned in my last entry, "To explain, the basic idea of the book is to minimize unused space in a
house. For example, a typical house may come with a dining room and
parlor room. After following Susanka's methodology of recording spaces
one spends the most time in and one feels the most comfortable in one,
may discover that the dining room is nothing but wasted space." While I have not yet read the book in its entirety, the premise behind this particular methodology sounds wonderful to me. Following such methodology would allow for differences in culture and even differences from individual to individual within the same culture. In my mind this is how architecture should be, though it is interesting to think of such a concept in relation to the reselling of houses, which I am curious to see how Susanka approaches.
To me this is much more ideal than the concept of universal architecture, one which I absolutely appall and is used by several famous architects like Mies van der Rohe. The idea of universal architecture is to create a building which could be placed in Santa Fe, NM; Mexico City; Atlanta, GA; Dubai; Dalian, China; or in a bubble on the moon. The site does not make any difference at all. This concept is fairly absurd to me as it means that a building comes void of the culture of the area and that culture doesn't change built artifacts.
Based on this analysis, the fact that my family's friend paid enough attention to architecture to include any elements from Susanka's book is very impressive to me. To include elements from such a book, shows that one has good taste and a good approach to built form.
Sunday, December 30, 2012
Saturday, December 29, 2012
Critiquing a version of the Not So Big House
We read excerpts from Sarah Susanka's book entitled Not So Big House (a great book which I look forward to reading in its entirety soon) for a class I took this past semester. Strangely enough after the semester ended I went home for winter break only to find that the house my father's friend has been working on building for years is designed after ideas from the book. The house has been completed recently, with some landscaping changes still in the process, and we got to take a tour. The following are some ideas I had in comparing the house to the book.
Approaching the house from the long winding driveway through the woods, it doesn't appear to be very different from many other houses. And it comes complete with some of the same aspects one may have seen in magazines like Dwell, the faucet that turns on with a touch, the porch awning that retracts with a button, the pond with a small walking bridge over it, the outdoor patio with built in grill, and blinds operated with a switch.
However, it also blends in some aspects from the book. To explain, the basic idea of the book is to minimize unused space in a house. For example, a typical house may come with a dining room and parlor room. After following Susanka's methodology of recording spaces one spends the most time in and one feels the most comfortable in one, may discover that the dining room is nothing but wasted space. Similarly this house doesn't have high ceilings, as they create nothing but wasted space. It also has an open kitchen / eating / living room area which increases the chances of the space being used. However, it does have an extra dining room, a mini kitchen on the second floor, an extra full bath above the garage, and a dumb waiter which only goes between the second and third floors instead of the first and third. It also has a couple small corner spaces which I have no idea how they would be used and are not currently being used, for example directly behind the front door if opened at a 90 degree angle. Based on Susanka's suggestions I question how often these aspects are actually used. I also question the architect himself on the elevator, which is very small and has the entrances on the first and second floor perpendicular to each other so that one has to turn in the elevator to get out, a maneuver that is very difficult to do depending on the size of the wheelchair.
The house also makes me question what Susanka's approach is to guest rooms. Clearly they are spaces one wouldn't use unless guests are around and as such may be seen as unnecessary. But, as one can see from Eisenman's House VI (a house entirely void of guest rooms, among many aspects), they are definitely important spaces (as one usually does have guests at some point in time). Strangely enough one aspect which reminds me in some ways of House VI and that the owner spoke of as needing to change is the lack of door between the master bathroom and the toilets.
There are many elements to this house that I personally adore. Despite the architect's objections, the main client (the female partner) insisted on having arches incorporated into the house. The front door creates an archway when open, there is one leading to the bathroom above the garage, and one between the second floor and a spiral staircase leading to the third floor. I love these arches and the personality they bring to the house. It makes the front door almost seems hobbit-like. I love the outdoor sleeping space built into the second floor of the porch and the view from the third floor. I also have a somewhat unexplainable admiration for spiral staircases. I'm not sure about the placement of the workout room, currently located above the garage. However, I definitely want a workout room if I ever get a chance to build my own house, though it would include a squat rack and bench press along with the treadmill and eliptical that this house has. I also love the inclusion of a urinal as well as a typical western seated toilet in the master bathroom. In my personal house I may include a squat toilet as well, especially after having read that the seated toilet is more troublesome on the bowels. Additionally an aspect that my boyfriend has commented on desiring is secret passageways through the house. Though this particular house does not have such elements it does have a closet and fridge hidden by certain elements, the closet blending in to the wall and the fridge into the cabinets. It also has crawl spaces above the garage, which my father mentioned playing in as a child. But this is speaking much more to a personal level.
Just to note this passage was written from ideas I have from only reading excerpts of the book. My ideas may change after reading the entirety of the book, we'll have to see.
Approaching the house from the long winding driveway through the woods, it doesn't appear to be very different from many other houses. And it comes complete with some of the same aspects one may have seen in magazines like Dwell, the faucet that turns on with a touch, the porch awning that retracts with a button, the pond with a small walking bridge over it, the outdoor patio with built in grill, and blinds operated with a switch.
However, it also blends in some aspects from the book. To explain, the basic idea of the book is to minimize unused space in a house. For example, a typical house may come with a dining room and parlor room. After following Susanka's methodology of recording spaces one spends the most time in and one feels the most comfortable in one, may discover that the dining room is nothing but wasted space. Similarly this house doesn't have high ceilings, as they create nothing but wasted space. It also has an open kitchen / eating / living room area which increases the chances of the space being used. However, it does have an extra dining room, a mini kitchen on the second floor, an extra full bath above the garage, and a dumb waiter which only goes between the second and third floors instead of the first and third. It also has a couple small corner spaces which I have no idea how they would be used and are not currently being used, for example directly behind the front door if opened at a 90 degree angle. Based on Susanka's suggestions I question how often these aspects are actually used. I also question the architect himself on the elevator, which is very small and has the entrances on the first and second floor perpendicular to each other so that one has to turn in the elevator to get out, a maneuver that is very difficult to do depending on the size of the wheelchair.
The house also makes me question what Susanka's approach is to guest rooms. Clearly they are spaces one wouldn't use unless guests are around and as such may be seen as unnecessary. But, as one can see from Eisenman's House VI (a house entirely void of guest rooms, among many aspects), they are definitely important spaces (as one usually does have guests at some point in time). Strangely enough one aspect which reminds me in some ways of House VI and that the owner spoke of as needing to change is the lack of door between the master bathroom and the toilets.
There are many elements to this house that I personally adore. Despite the architect's objections, the main client (the female partner) insisted on having arches incorporated into the house. The front door creates an archway when open, there is one leading to the bathroom above the garage, and one between the second floor and a spiral staircase leading to the third floor. I love these arches and the personality they bring to the house. It makes the front door almost seems hobbit-like. I love the outdoor sleeping space built into the second floor of the porch and the view from the third floor. I also have a somewhat unexplainable admiration for spiral staircases. I'm not sure about the placement of the workout room, currently located above the garage. However, I definitely want a workout room if I ever get a chance to build my own house, though it would include a squat rack and bench press along with the treadmill and eliptical that this house has. I also love the inclusion of a urinal as well as a typical western seated toilet in the master bathroom. In my personal house I may include a squat toilet as well, especially after having read that the seated toilet is more troublesome on the bowels. Additionally an aspect that my boyfriend has commented on desiring is secret passageways through the house. Though this particular house does not have such elements it does have a closet and fridge hidden by certain elements, the closet blending in to the wall and the fridge into the cabinets. It also has crawl spaces above the garage, which my father mentioned playing in as a child. But this is speaking much more to a personal level.
Just to note this passage was written from ideas I have from only reading excerpts of the book. My ideas may change after reading the entirety of the book, we'll have to see.
Review of my Research Ideas
I seem to have a strong tendency to do things in waves. I'll exercise for a while and then stop for a while and then go back into exercising. Blogging is apparently the same way. Though I will try to keep it up for a little while. Just as a brief update since I last wrote I applied to PhD programs in Architecture, got into two, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champagne and University of Michigan at Ann Arbor. Decided to go to the later as I was told the professors had more in common with the line of work I was interested in and they had a better deal for me. Just completed my first semester in the PhD program and now I'm applying for a dual degree with an MBA.
What exactly am I interested in researching? Part of this has been repeated over the blog entries that I wrote in here but since the wording of it seems to change over time as I get better at explaining it and it may have changed a little I will review.
The following is a little blurb I wrote after meeting with an employee (of my family's company) the other day.
What exactly am I interested in researching? Part of this has been repeated over the blog entries that I wrote in here but since the wording of it seems to change over time as I get better at explaining it and it may have changed a little I will review.
The following is a little blurb I wrote after meeting with an employee (of my family's company) the other day.
Professions focus on teaching their discipline as an art,
the art of medicine, the art of law, or the art of design, just to name a few. Since the shift away from apprenticeships and towards teaching professions in an academic environment, learning the art of business has been lost to some extent. More recently many architecture programs have started to require
students to take one business course entitled Professional Practice, a crash
course on business with one week per topic for example one week on finance, one
on marketing, one on strategy, etc.
I believe that these professions would be even more successful with a
more developed integration of business throughout all aspects of their
program. This would require a change in the education system away from the current design-as-centerpoint, a term created by my advisor Linda Groat, towards a more integrated education system. This new system would teach an architect how to be a better project manager, how to be a better team leader, and how to better communicate with clients of similar or vastly different cultures. With such knowledge in architecture an architect would become a more valuable commodity, having the ability to help the engineer speak to the construction manager or the interior designer, and understanding the needs of the client more. Similarly if such knowledge was taught in medicine, doctors would be better versed not only in how to speak to a patient but how to treat a patient. Ideally I would like to teach this knowledge to architects, but if I, for whatever reason, am unable to get a position as an architecture professor I wouldn't mind teaching this to another profession either as a business professor or in some other field. I also wouldn't be surprised if such a career comes hand in hand with consulting for firms that would like to use this method to make their firm more successful, or their clinic, or whatever field the business may be in.
Tuesday, June 7, 2011
MA-PhD programs shift and the connection between Anthropology and Architecture
I finally finished all my work for the University of Chicago master's program and am just waiting to graduate this Saturday. Very exciting indeed. In the meantime I have started looking at PhD programs in architecture. It seems that there are a very small number of programs that have a cultural component to them, including the University of California at Berkeley, the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, the University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champagne and with a somewhat different program, North Carolina State University. At least those are the programs that I have found so far. Right now I am also working on a possible dissertation topic, of which I'm leaning towards doing a historical look at social factors in architecture from the late 1940s to today. Unlike the University of California at Berkeley's Conference entitled Death and Life of Social Factors, I do not believe that social factors have in any way died in architecture, just morphed. Moreover I am curious as to why social factors seem to have this slow change in architecture as opposed to the growth that other design fields have seen over the same time period.
While looking into these PhD programs I have been reading a really interesting book called the Fountainheadache: The Politics of Architecture-Client Relations by Andy Pressman which I will be writing a critique of once I am finished (this may be a while as my parents are coming into town on Thursday and I'm leaving for New Jersey next week).
Throughout my reading and looking into PhD programs my meetings have started up again. I have a meeting very shortly with Avigail Sachs and have started taking a class at IIT entitled Mapping Neighborhoods with Monica Chadha. After class yesterday Monica and I got together to discuss anthropology's role in architecture. As with everyone I have spoken to thus far, Monica agrees that as an anthropologist I have a lot to contribute to the field of architecture. She was explaining to me that while there are individuals who teach at the college level with no PhD in Architecture it very much makes sense for me to get my PhD as I do not wish to be a practicing architect. Unfortunately there has been some question recently as to whether my program at the University of Chicago will support me in my PhD decisions, as they (like most who aren't architects) do not entirely understand the connection. However, I am hoping to change their mind in yet another meeting discussing my intentions with the program director.
Also in our meeting Monica and I discussed two distinct connections between anthropology and architecture. One is the community development which a section of architects have started pursuing, groups like Public Architecture, Rural Studio, Design Build Bluff, etc. Similarly, Monica's class at IIT gets me involved with how anthropology helps architects look at an area from the neighborhood level, a level that is very familiar to many anthropologists. However there is an entirely different segment of architecture which I also wish to embrace, that is the traditional practice of architecture. This is an area of architecture which architects do not typically understand the connection to anthropology in the beginning. This is the area which I wish to train architects to be better at, and more valued in, the work that they already do. I do not wish to change the traditional practice of architecture at all. In fact I only wish to make it stronger by teaching methods that architects need to use in the practice already, which strangely enough are not taught in MArch or BArch (Masters in Architecture or Bachelors in Architecture) programs, such as interviewing, observation, working with peoples of different cultures and possibly even business techniques. In order to get more involved in this I believe my first step must be to shadow an architect.
While looking into these PhD programs I have been reading a really interesting book called the Fountainheadache: The Politics of Architecture-Client Relations by Andy Pressman which I will be writing a critique of once I am finished (this may be a while as my parents are coming into town on Thursday and I'm leaving for New Jersey next week).
Throughout my reading and looking into PhD programs my meetings have started up again. I have a meeting very shortly with Avigail Sachs and have started taking a class at IIT entitled Mapping Neighborhoods with Monica Chadha. After class yesterday Monica and I got together to discuss anthropology's role in architecture. As with everyone I have spoken to thus far, Monica agrees that as an anthropologist I have a lot to contribute to the field of architecture. She was explaining to me that while there are individuals who teach at the college level with no PhD in Architecture it very much makes sense for me to get my PhD as I do not wish to be a practicing architect. Unfortunately there has been some question recently as to whether my program at the University of Chicago will support me in my PhD decisions, as they (like most who aren't architects) do not entirely understand the connection. However, I am hoping to change their mind in yet another meeting discussing my intentions with the program director.
Also in our meeting Monica and I discussed two distinct connections between anthropology and architecture. One is the community development which a section of architects have started pursuing, groups like Public Architecture, Rural Studio, Design Build Bluff, etc. Similarly, Monica's class at IIT gets me involved with how anthropology helps architects look at an area from the neighborhood level, a level that is very familiar to many anthropologists. However there is an entirely different segment of architecture which I also wish to embrace, that is the traditional practice of architecture. This is an area of architecture which architects do not typically understand the connection to anthropology in the beginning. This is the area which I wish to train architects to be better at, and more valued in, the work that they already do. I do not wish to change the traditional practice of architecture at all. In fact I only wish to make it stronger by teaching methods that architects need to use in the practice already, which strangely enough are not taught in MArch or BArch (Masters in Architecture or Bachelors in Architecture) programs, such as interviewing, observation, working with peoples of different cultures and possibly even business techniques. In order to get more involved in this I believe my first step must be to shadow an architect.
Saturday, May 21, 2011
Buckner Companies HQ in Graham
A new article in the Chapel Hill Herald regarding the Buckner Companies Headquarters in Graham left me puzzled. The article's title emphasizes the award that the Carrboro-based firm received but it never in fact even mentions the name of the award. The article itself is entirely based on the benefits the building has for Buckner Companies' owners and staff. However, and this may be where journalism differs from anthropology, the entire article is based on one interview done with the owner of the building, Doug Williams. Not one other individual is quoted throughout the entire article. That is astonishing to me! As an anthropologist, the thought of an article that is based on one interview alone being acceptable to my professors is totally unheard of, unless you are explicitly stating that it is, in fact, based on one interview (which this article does not).
With this in mind it is almost impossible for me to agree with Williams or not. If his staff in fact agree with his comments and the comments of the author of this article, that the building is "a haven for employees, a favorite gathering place for community groups, an alluring recruitment tool for prospective employees and a draw for client firms who now want to meet here while staying in Chapel Hill instead of bringing Buckner associates to their states" then this building seems to have, in fact, been designed for the user. However, in actuality there is no telling from the article whether this is truly the case or not, as none of those users have been interviewed or any of the members of the aforementioned groups.
If one is as curious as I am about why the building received the award, which is not discussed in this article, ArchDaily discusses some of the reasons why it might have received the award. From the Herald's article one would think that Buckner Companies received the one and only architecture award (which of course there is many). The award itself is discussed in another article, it is entitled Specialized Carriers & Rigging Association Environmental award and Buckner Companies is the first winner of the award along with another building for a NY company entitled Skanska USA Building, Inc.
With this in mind it is almost impossible for me to agree with Williams or not. If his staff in fact agree with his comments and the comments of the author of this article, that the building is "a haven for employees, a favorite gathering place for community groups, an alluring recruitment tool for prospective employees and a draw for client firms who now want to meet here while staying in Chapel Hill instead of bringing Buckner associates to their states" then this building seems to have, in fact, been designed for the user. However, in actuality there is no telling from the article whether this is truly the case or not, as none of those users have been interviewed or any of the members of the aforementioned groups.
If one is as curious as I am about why the building received the award, which is not discussed in this article, ArchDaily discusses some of the reasons why it might have received the award. From the Herald's article one would think that Buckner Companies received the one and only architecture award (which of course there is many). The award itself is discussed in another article, it is entitled Specialized Carriers & Rigging Association Environmental award and Buckner Companies is the first winner of the award along with another building for a NY company entitled Skanska USA Building, Inc.
Wednesday, May 18, 2011
Cute Architecture Joke
A nice little architecture joke to brighten your morning. I do wonder where female architects fit into the picture though.
Tuesday, May 17, 2011
Mansueto Library
The person across from me just excused himself to leave and go sit elsewhere in the new Mansueto library, due to the fact that he was being blindsided by the sun reflecting off the whiteness of his pages. The woman sitting in that same seat before him had her sunglasses on. Yet I have decided to continue squinting at my computer screen as the black of my laptop becomes hotter and hotter. This place was not designed for the user. I am a mere 5 foot 2 inches, on a good day, and yet, in order to type on my keyboard in a way that is comfortable and typical for my hands, I have to sit slouched in the chair. This place may look cool, and indeed it does look very fancy. However, I would personally prefer to sit in the older part of the library where I can see without squinting, or wearing sunglasses and do not ultimately end my time with a massive backache from slouching. This may sound like a complaint, and indeed it is. In order to design a fully functioning space that works for the user these are issues that need to be addressed from the beginning, so one does not end up with these kinds of problems.
It seems from this video that the architects for this particular space did a wonderful job with it as far as technology goes, and even as far as the library's needs are concerned. However, once again the user was left out of the equation. Fortunately there are few users for this space, only the first floor of the dome actually has space for users to study or work.
It seems from this video that the architects for this particular space did a wonderful job with it as far as technology goes, and even as far as the library's needs are concerned. However, once again the user was left out of the equation. Fortunately there are few users for this space, only the first floor of the dome actually has space for users to study or work.
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