I was recently having a fun meeting paging through photos with a client and discussing interior detailing. She expressed a keen interest in a combination of several of the classic styles with some slight departures from particular orders. To really see how such detailing might fit in her project, I suggested some perspective views and since we were using Revit for the project, she could walk around and get a good view of it.

This goes way beyond what a contractor can typically just ‘mock up’, and shows how design professionals can show a client what they desire and what really works, saving money and effort.  Contractors don’t necessarily want to mock up something this complex unless you’re pretty close to knowing what you want. To reveal both the strengths and weaknesses of Revit, I’ll show you some interior mock ups that I did for a client recently.

Sometimes, it may look cool in one space, but doesn’t fit yours. Not only that, scale and proportion are highly subjective. In this case, I thought it would help to show the detailing style that she had wanted but in her space, then reduce from there. I utilized a column/pilaster style from another larger project, and as you can see, the molding for the interiors started out pretty much dominating the rooms. After a couple iterations, we landed on a look that better fit the space and style the clients wanted.

Living Room Interior version 1

Living Room Interior version 2

Living Room Interior version 3

Living Room Interior version 4

Living Room Interior version 5

Living Room Interior version 6

Revit is great for many aspects of design, but interior rendering is not it’s main strength. To give credit, these are just screen captures, not complete ‘photo realistic’ renderings by Revit. Compared to what is out there, Revit is still a bit half-hearted when it comes to serious visual renderings. However, as a tool that does so much of what we need in architecture, I often find I’m able to provide much more than what most architects offer to clients. Being able to show a client what certain details will look like in their own space is the most optimal solution.

And for those of us that need to have greater consistency in the expression of design elements, I’ll tell you that I hope to bring back the arch for the passageway on the left.

View of San Francisco From the Point Richmond Project

Standing for 100 years and more.

Location, Location, Location: This is an amazing site, just take a look at the view. The house sees a gigantic swath of the San Francisco Bay, with a view of the Bay Bridge, and the Golden Gate Bridge peeking out from behind Angel Island, and from upstairs, the Richmond/San Rafael Bridge. There’s also a nice framing of Point Richmond Ferry Point and the shore and beach below.

Historic. The house is more than 100 years old and was pretty isolated when first built. The community grew in around it, but the property is still pretty large.

Project start, signs go up.

The house has stood through many earthquakes, large and small, and the settling has been slight despite the brick foundation. As you can see from the photos, the poor thing needs some restoration. In the 40s the house was remodeled, and expanded. The large front porch was enclosed with the stairwell element added as an entry signifier.

At that time, the exterior was changed from all shingle to board and batten at the second floor with stucco at the first, and a brick exterior at the base. Over the years there have been quite a few incremental changes and none of the windows match. We’re breaking this up into several phases. The first phase includes reworking the first floor, restoring the garage and a voluntary seismic upgrade. I also get the opportunity to unify most of the windows into historically appropriate double hung windows. I reworked the alley entrance to the house so that there’s a sense of entry that is both better covered and more accessible.The alley is where everyone comes to the house anyway, and this improves that relationship. The design includes many improvements to energy efficiency and the use of green materials. We elected to rebuild the detached garage in the same style so as to keep the 1940s style and scale for the streetscape and keep the neighborhood happy.

Keeping the neighbors happy: The neighborhood council was just as surprised as we were to find that we we’re not required to strictly comply with Historic Preservation in this location. The property happens to fall just outside that boundary.  Regardless, the council is pretty aggressive in their review and the weight they pull with the city. So if it’s not approved by the neighborhood, it’s a real uphill battle with the city.

New footings and reinforcement.

Considering our experience with historic preservation, this was not hard, just political. The best move when it’s political is to approach all the major players and make sure they feel that they’re in the loop. The design is mindful of the history in this house and maintains and restores many details that need care and attention.

In the photo to the right, you can see the formwork and rebar for the new footings for the house. After a lot of discussion, we decided to put the new footing in next to the brick so we wouldn’t have to lift the whole structure. For engineering, I decided to bring on the big fish in the little pond of Point Richmond, Interactive Resources. I know Andrew Butt from my work on the WCCUSD Citizens Bond Oversight Committee and I’ve gotten to know his work. His architecture and engineering firm does mostly schools and commercial projects. They’ve done a great job on the Nystrom Multi-purpose building in Richmond and several other school projects.

Part of the project is to rebuild the garage. Below right you can see the original garage and the freshly poured footings is where we are today further below. The only salvageable lumber was the lower cords of the roof joists. The walls were slowly crumbling at the base and there was not much to the foundation.

Existing Garage

We have Floyd Construction building out this project and I’m happy to have them again. I’ve worked with Joe and his team for years. I look forward to more great results from his very capable Foreman Paul McGlaughlin.

I love modern architecture. I don’t usually write about local architects, but I just had to do a little exploration of a local project. I discussed a project with Sean Kennedy of CCS Architecture and Pete Kasten of Kasten Builders. Up in the hills of Marin, they just finished a modern residence that combines modernism with newer sustainable practices while exceeding an extraordinary level of luxury.

This modern home is a four bedroom three bath with office, art studio, pool and a two car garage. The owners chose to retain the pool with the reworked pool house as a place to change and lounge. The views practically surrounds this property with the master bedroom upstairs situated on the north end to have a nice view of Mt. Tamalpias. The project team carefully weighed the choice between remodel and tear down and found a new structure from the ground up would be more cost effective and practical.

Northwest Exterior

I think Cass and Sean did a great job on creating a design that continues to fearlessly push modern architecture to be more responsive to local environment and sustainability while maintaining modernism’s high ideals and elegance. This is not a box that was just plopped down on a random lot. As with any sophisticated design, it responds to the site and climate while providing a well worked out relationship of spaces internally.

The form of the house has a North South linear orientation, with main living spaces on the main floor, bedrooms and office upstairs, with the studio and additional bedrooms downstairs. The entry is given significance and warmth by a large wood and glass pivot door. The main floor is offset from the upper and lower floors to give the impression of several large sculptural slabs resting on one another with the floor to ceiling inset window over the entry giving the impression entry importance and great light while making a statement with the main floor based on solidity and presence.

Detail Window shade

There are many great details such as the upstairs sun shades. These are custom designed by CCS Architecture and fabricated for the client. It’s a strong and thick sheet of aluminum mounted flat above the windows with the outermost third of the sheet perforated with a screen pattern of small diameter holes. The functional aspect seems to work well, and the look is very clean.

Exterior detail, the West bend

There were several challenges to the site including the slope and trees. CCS had a nuanced and graceful response to one of the redwood groves that inhabit the property by putting a bend in the front face of the house. It’s not noticeable from inside but gives the mass an interesting distinction and gives extra space to trees that they want to keep for a long time.

Northwest Exterior second floor deck to open house

This is California, so the architects truly exploit the advantage of the good climate by making the all of the main rooms open onto the spacious patio that merges seamlessly with the deck over the lower floor. Wow, I’d love to be at a party there. Sean told me that there was a lot of deliberation over the window manufacturer. Expansive yet well insulated large sliding glass panels that are easy to use (lift and push), have high precision, and are well insulated, have been a real challenge to find. After much deliberation over the performance and discussion with the client, they chose Goldbrecht. It was all shipped in a 40’ long shipping container from Germany, and is both better built and significantly less expensive than local manufacturers.

Interior main stairwell

Looking through from the deck the windows frame the grove of redwoods and shape the light for refined entry statement. I always get a little annoyed when I see pictures of stairs in magazines for the united states that don’t show any railing or little enclosure. This always means that they either shot the project prior to installation of railing or it’s in another country. So internally I groan when a client points to such picture and says that they want ‘that’. So here’s a good looking stairwell that is also legal in the States.

Dining to open

The house feels expansive without feeling cavernous, and the fenestration makes the relationship to the outside seems so effortless. The floor transition from inside to outside does not hide the inescapable reality of how the door tracks need to provide good waterproofing, and the detail works well. Noticeable but not intrusive are the skylights in the deck. A closer look shows how well the selection of skylights and pedestal deck system work together and that the spacing of the tiles is part of how the skylights are placed.

Exterior deck skylights West second floor

Exterior detail roof deck skylight and pedistal deck

Detail pedistal decking

Interior First Floor Office and Au Pair

The skylights give what would be wonderful rooms and make them magical. The downstairs studio and office are warm and responsive with the natural light. Yes, I know, I hear some of you saying, “exposed concrete inside?” and I say “YES!”, be brave, be interesting! It makes for great contrast. I get tired of the old knee jerk reaction of plastering and smoothing it all out. It’s all part of a larger composition, and I like it. Concrete may seem cold, but it doesn’t if you’re comfortable due to the warmth or cool from the hydronic heating in the floor.

Living room

The same long thin skylights are used in the living room, giving a subtle continuity. These shots were taken prior to the client moving in, so please forgive the lack of furniture or other staging. I thought I would be remiss if I didn’t show the living room. It’s a wonderful space.

Detail deck copper and window

Exterior detail copper reflection

Note how the copper in the lower left creates interesting patterns of reflection. Warning to my clients, I may suggest this cladding…

Exterior South ramp to Office

Interior Kitchen from Dining

The kitchen is open, warm and inviting, and centrally situated in the plan of the house, reflecting current trends in use. The overall palette of materials both inside and out gives the modernity warmth .

Detail Kitchen Range and Island

Detail kitchen range

The following are several more shots of details that caught my attention, enjoy.

Detail Door Hardware

Detail of Sconce used in Master Bedroom

Detail Railing at office

Detail Skylight in Master Bath

Interior Master Bath

I can’t wait to see some of the up coming projects by CCS and Kasten Builders, I’m sure they’ll please.

Front - Northeast Exterior

All Photography: Copyright 2011 Brant Fetter.

Look honey! no layout work!

Try it out if you have an iPad or other touch tablet, it’s a great example of good user interface.

Napa Guest House

Our latest project featuring rammed earth walls is very near done.  Considering the popularity of the rammed earth article, I’ll share some ‘after’ photos. This should be a treat for my readers since these are not on my firm’s website as of this publish date and I don’t think they’ll will be.  This turned out to be an amazing house and credit goes to Eric Rogers for the design work.

Napa Guest House Dining Room

Napa Guest House DiniDining Room Photo:Eric Rogers

Living Room, Dining

Want to see more and even better photos? Visit our firm’s website and at this page to see more of this successful project. Thanks again to Grassi Construction and a tip of the hat to Nicole Hollis for the interiors.

Kitchen (After, during construction)

Even on the small jobs, effective design can have a big impact. Our clients were wanting to compliment a rework to one part of their house by finishing the main living areas.

Our clients came to us with a very dated living room, a cramped, outdated and poorly lit kitchen, and a family room that also needed a little more feeling of space and light. They also had a restriction of not expanding the footprint discernibly. We came up with a design that was both respectful of the overall style of the home yet worked in a some better practices of the type. We achieved all of this without changing the footprint more than an extra 100 square feet.

We bumped out the entry and the kitchen just a little and the strategic use of this space leveraged into a much larger feel for the house.

Kitchen from family room (Before)

We changed the circulation of the kitchen and raised the ceiling of the family room, kitchen entry and dining room. We also reworked the windows on the south of the house so that they no longer featured the next door neighbor but instead featured the great views. We also reworked the living room to be a better use of space with respect to furniture (imagine that!).The evidence of what good light does is shown in these before and after photos, just wait till they have the (high efficacy) lighting going! The clerestory windows do not work for many styles of home, so finding the right method according to each house is important.

(Before) Entry detail shot

The contractor on the project is Floyd Construction, and they did a fantastic job. We’ve worked with Joe Floyd and his crews for many years and they always deliver a great result large and small. The foreman on this project, Paul, has excelled. We also brought in Serge Anderson for the cabinetry, and he did a great job also.

Entry from inside (after, during construction)

I think owners who want to live at the work site need to think very carefully about the pros and cons. This is a rare project where the client was actually able to live at the project site while the work was being done. Here are the reasons why it worked:

1. Paul and his crew were working on a discrete and easily sectioned-off area of the house. So the scope was well defined and limited.
2. The client was able to easily convert a large bathroom to a temporary kitchen and still had another two baths for the kids and the couple.
3. The bedroom areas of the house had reasonable access to the street.

We typically don’t have projects that are this small, but on the rare occasion when a client can live there, we usually recommend against it unless it meets many important conditions. If all of these conditions line up, it can save some money.

All of the green building technology and large complex projects are fun to talk about, but it’s important to highlight the every day successes we have.  Want to find out more about great design, visit Wagstaff Architects.

Family room from kitchen (After, during const.)

Modern vs. preservation: Parisians have finally decided to raise the height limit in Paris.

 

Paris skyline from Pompidu Center

Marais District, Paris, winter 2010

The city of Paris deliberately keeps all buildings under a 37 meters, resulting in a very consistent skyline that doesn’t compete with the Eiffel Tower. The monuments thrust up and act as classic landmarks From the top of the Pompidu Center, (which was begrudgingly allowed to rise above the height restriction)  you look across a fairly even skyline of residential roofs and that makes it easy to see the Eiffel Tower.The heights of Paris are found elsewhere.  Around the 1970s, the city of Paris decided to enhance an outlying district in line with the Champs Elysees, the statue in the middle of the round-a-bout there was called “La Défense de Paris”. The result was a new financial district that departs from the rules and allows large modern buildings. It has been so successful that they’ve decided to keep expanding the area with increasingly adventurous modern architecture.

La Defense at night

There is this extreme contrast between most of the neighborhoods (arrondissements) where every building looks like it was built in 1730, and La Défense.  The exception to this rule 18 years ago was the Tour Montparnasse, which is still widely despised by Parisians. I couldn’t bring myself to go to the top for the view, mostly because they’re willing to charge, yet the structure has very little charm.

It’s still worth stating that Paris is a city with a distinct contrast between modern and traditional districts. Who knows? that may change in the coming years. There are of course exceptions to the unrelenting pattern such as the Branly Museum near the Sein, a stones throw from the Eiffel Tower.

musée du quai Branly from the Eiffel Tower

This is a very current and modern museum that, ironically, or not houses anything, but modern art. I was glad to see a lot of French kids at the museum, so that more than justifies the mission.

From the standpoint of a visitor, the distinctive style and traditional texture of the architecture can be both impressive and draconian in a Imagineering® fashion. I’ve listened to French architects lament the suffocating stricture they hold, while the tourists and writers still wander through the streets in awe. Of course, many quaint little villages all around Europe can have that feel, each with their own unique architecture and personality, yet in Paris, it’s the immense scale and consistency that impresses. Every street is lined with 6 or 7 stories of what is or used to be residential flats adorned with what would be considered outrageous and extravagant detailing in the states. At ground level are small boutiques, large chain boutiques, with the occasional real estate office, repair shop, or Monoprix thrown in. Cafes and brasseries tend to gravitate to the corners.

Musée du quai Branly, color and form

Professions such as dentists, internists, attorneys and psychologists that eschew store frontage usually have discreet name plaques at the ground level indicating their presence somewhere upstairs, shoe horned in between oh-so-haute boutiques. In contrast to U.S. professional businesses that seem to invite more attention, it’s as if French professionals should be spoken of in hushed tones.

What struck me was the evidence of so many years and so many man hours of effort to build in such a distinct and consistent style and form. It just goes on and on. It will be interesting to see how the change in rules intrudes.

Kentfield California Craftsman by my firm, eaves featured

In our effort to maintain a higher degree of finish quality or improve the sustainability of a design, I tend to venture into areas that I suddenly realize nobody has seemingly bothered to investigate. I’m always exhilarated by the discovery that I’ve stumbled into an aspect of our trade that has not been pushed.

So here’s the challenge: Find affordable prefab trusses that meet WUI code with open eaves.

I’ll explain a couple terms there for those of you that may not know, otherwise skip to the next paragraph. There are new rules for homes built and remodeled in areas near “wild lands” adopted recently in California: WUI (Wildland Urban Interface) regulations and get this… the majority of the enforcement and oh-so professional people in the trades are are pronouncing it “woo-ee or woowee”. Try looking professional while saying “ we need to comply with woo-ee.” When I say ‘open eaves’ I’m referring to what you see in this picture. Prefabricated Trusses are becoming more commonly used even in custom homes due to the sophistication of the software used to design and engineer the product.

If you’re using trusses for your roof (in an effort to reduce cost, improve efficiency, and reduce the use of wood and thus improve sustainability), AND you’re in what is called a WUI zone, then you need to provide fire rated assemblies at the eaves. Our California Craftsman homes typically have open eaves with the rafter tails showing. This happens two ways, either you 1) run the top member of the truss out to the fascia or two 2) ‘scab on’ or attach a rafter tail to the truss. These trusses are made of regular lumber and they’re ridiculously expensive if they’re made entirely with exterior grade fireproof lumber. You might as well hand frame or ‘stick frame’ the entire roof.

I’ve worked with Tim Carley when he was at Peidmont Lumber (Capella Truss Division) which, despite their great service and product, succumbed to financial ruin during the great recession, so he’s at Kelseyville Lumber’s Truss Division now. Recently when I called him I realized during our conversation I was wondering off into new territory with him. What on earth could be new and innovative in the production of trusses (or even interesting)?  Talking to Tim, I gathered that at this moment, no truss manufacturer in California is producing affordable trusses on a regular basis with rafter tails that meet any kind of exterior fire rating. They can but they don’t.

WUI has been on the books for several years, yet nobody is doing it, yet. Does anyone see an business opportunity here?

Today I thanked Pat Ravasio for loaning me a bulldozer to destroy a building that did not live up to my aesthetic standard. We’re also designing it’s replacement. (Don’t worry, we’ll take care of that little building in the background).   In reality, Pat,  Bob and another investor are actually the clients on this project.  Pat was so excited about getting started, I just had to congratulate her. I’m thrilled to be working with Pat and Bob again.

This is also a good opportunity to mention that I strongly encourage our clients to use deconstruction as a great way to offset the cost of demolition and benefit the environment. I’m not talking about using a design methodology that reassembles the form and material of a design to evoke a more striking, expressive and evocative result… I’m talking about taking the darn thing apart, literally. There is a burgeoning industry that can take apart a house and reuse and recycle the majority of the materials. Unfortunately, Pat and Bob Ravasio did not have this option since the home had been damaged by fire earlier this year. Comment or send me a note if you’re curious about firms I recommend for deconstructing a structure, and of course, if you would like to discuss designing a new home or facility.

Rammed earth columns.

The Napa guest house gave us a chance to experiment with rammed earth instead of concrete. I’m going to take you back to the spring of this year (2010) when the project was just getting started. The use of the rammed earth turned out to be a great success. Ian Neilson of Grassi and Associates worked closely with our firm to bring our designs to life.  Ian had just been finishing up another project where he used rammed earth, but in less complex fashion. We were trying to evoke a feeling of rock of the earth being cut through to reveal the columns and walls of the structure.

Many projects that use rammed earth are authentic to the method of rammed earth which is typically done in consistent ’lifts’ which yet, can look a bit like unfinished concrete which doesn’t really play up the significance of the material being utilized in contrast with concrete. As the methods are refined, the trend is toward techniques that evoke natural stratification. So we chose a slightly more complex layering and coloring.

We know that it’s always a trade off between rammed earth and concrete. The increased cost gives you a much prettier result and an average reduction in energy use and carbon emissions.

We turned to David Easton of Rammed Earth Works to provide the expertise and placement of the rammed earth in the forms.  For this project the cost hovered around 110 per sq. ft surface area due mostly to the extra labor for the slightly more refined forming and David’s crew for the earth ramming. We had 3 different colors in lifts, set in a stratified or sedimentary pattern we had designed for these structural elements.

Note the sloped forming

Unfortunately the structural engineer was not comfortable with anything less than 1500 psi strength for any of the rammed earth walls or columns. This led to a high cement ratio so it may have been a bit less green, but our overall score for the house was very high regardless (kudos to Eric Rogers at our firm).  There were several steel columns in the rammed earth walls.

Rammed earth wall forming with steel column.

Whereas reinforcing bar (rebar) is used directly in the rammed earth (just like concrete) large steel is treated differently due to the significant difference in expansion and contraction with temperature fluctuation. Ian had his crew epoxy seal the beams then wrap them in foam board to provide for sufficient slip allowance. I was surpised to find that no release agents were used but rather just the smooth face MDO plywood for forming was used. This prevented the rammed earth from being stained or having inconsistent results.  At first glance, it may not seem significant, but the arrangement of steel, rebar and foam board in the form is important so I show a picture of the form just prior to filling.

Let’s say that I want to work in the look, to complement the main rammed earth walls, but I need concrete for a thinner wall, or just can’t afford it in every spot or the placement of the wall is less significant, are there ways to combine our new knowledge with the age old practices with concrete? In response to some concepts that David Easton puts forth: An 18″ wide wall has a 12-hour thermal flywheel effect, that means that the outside temprature takes half a day to migrate through the wall to the inside face. This brings to light the value of such solid masses in green building practices. However, it would be nice to bring some of that beauty to regular concrete and other placements.

Don't cover it up, instead use the right material.

As an aside, I also wonder if the substitution of fly ash can achieve a similar reduction in green house gases and reduction in energy use compared to rammed earth. For thin infill walls that we want to do as concrete, is it possible to do some kind of concrete modification to simulate rammed earth or is this just disingenuous rather than authentic to the material? Another possible avenue is thin wall applications over insulation to fit smaller spaces or uses. At this time, rammed earth just can’t be thin, so perhaps onsite methods with modified equipment might be worth exploring.  I think both may be possible expansions of the use of rammed earth or similar processes, while bringing the authenticity to the material.

Architects frequently attempt to utilize materials in a more authentic manner, this means that instead of covering up something like a concrete floor or wall, we just polish it and leave it as is and appreciate it for what it is. Done in the right way, it can be really cool. Or perhaps treat it in a way that brings out the better aspects of the material’s appearance and strengths such as throwing in a little colorant into the mix.

Forming up the walls for the dining room

This does a couple things, it saves money because you are not putting on additional layers to achieve the same goal, and it should make the assembly more reliable since less complexity is typically better for such purposes.  However, some materials just don’t deliver on what many thought would the their strengths. Anybody remember Cor-Ten? It’s a particular metal blend that many in the 70s in the building trades  thought would behave well in exterior applications. It’s a lot cheaper than copper and seemed to have the potential to similarly patina over the long term in a visually appealing fashion. One good example comes to mind is where a colleague who used it as a slatted cladding for large gate across driveway.

Our colleague who worked during that era now detests the material because it may have not fallen apart or rusted out, but instead left very visible and unsightly stains on the driveway from all of the oxidized material that sloughed off. Additionally, the clients don’t really want to touch the gate due to the oxidized material. So this brings to light the difficulty in using a material authentically yet not comprimise on the actual function. A basic distinction between architects is how they deal with this balance.

I think the rammed earth walls on this project strike a very good balance.

There are newer images of the project on the post named Napa Guest House Update.

For a look at more great projects from my firm, visit www.wagstaffarchitects.com .