Finishing up an ADU in Alamo and feeling great about the level of craftsmanship demonstrated by everyone on site.
Another Way of Looking At It
Or maybe it wants to look like this…
Quick renderings
Fast vignettes to help a client in Alamo understand the scale of spaces of their pending Accessory Dwelling Unit. SketchUp to Photoshop to the client.
Bedroom
Bedroom from Great Room
Great Room
Patio from Garden
Recent project makes a cameo appearance on NBC's Today Show
So this happened this morning. I received a text message that clients were featured on a Today Show segment on virtual family gatherings this Thanksgiving, hosting their end of a virtual feast from their recently-completed home in Santa Rosa.
Due to COVID-19 precautions, I haven’t seen the clients or their new home in almost a year. In fact, this is the first I’m seeing of the completed home. I’m thankful that they’re all looking well.
Hat tip to Artisan Home Builders. The casework looks great.
Throwback Thursday: "House that inspired Rush Creek Village selling for first time," Columbus Dispatch, January 19, 2014
Last week, while researching a current project, I stumbled across this old 2014 article on the Wakefield House at Rush Creek Village, with one of my many interviews with Columbus Dispatch reporter Jim Weiker over the years. I called the house “an important building for Central Ohio” and “a landmark.” I still stand by those statements.
The Wakefield House, Rush Creek Village, Worthington, Ohio
New owners purchased the house 6 years ago; I’m sure they’ve modernized the building. Hopefully, their work has been sympathetic to Theodore van Fossen’s original design of Martha’s idea as constructed by Richard Wakefield. If I’m ever back that way, perhaps I’ll drop in.
Detail, Entrance
Is “Throwback Thursday” still even a thing?
Throwback Thursday: Quarantine Edition
A slowdown provides the opportunity to look back at a recently-completed residential project in Santa Rosa.
Lunch
Quick study for a client during lunch, on the back of a placemat.
I Broke My Glasses at Arcosanti
A wintry weekend pilgrimage in the Arizona desert yielded the opportunity to revisit a site important to my development as a designer.
I originally discovered Arcosanti wandering the wilderness in 1993 on a spring break road trip and found a compelling project that provided vision for my own work as well as a family connection.
The iconic apse where ceramic bells are crafted
That inspiration also made for trouble with the architecture department faculty, most of whom had never heard of Arcosanti or it’s visionary founder, Paolo Soleri. They sure weren’t sympathetic to Arcosanti’s mission of sustainable urban planning and design.
Pigment applied to concrete formwork provides lasting, integral color to massive vaults that provide shade in summer months
Times have changed during the intervening decades, of course, and now sustainability is foremost in the mind of every planner and designer.
Living spaces overlook the amphitheater
Arcosanti has changed, too. Recent construction—and new projects—hint at a new purpose, especially since Soleri’s death in 2013. A great conversation with Arcosanti’s new outreach director, Tim Bell, suggests a newfound purpose as a voice in the wilderness.
The wind bells
This would be a perfect role for the project, which is needed more than ever: classroom, forum, and touchstone to focus the ongoing, urgent conversations about environment and humanity. I can’t imagine a better venue for such a dialogue at the confluence of art, design, planning, and policy.
The tower under a winter sky
Tim’s earnest enthusiasm was so refreshing that I didn’t mind breaking my glasses while we chatted. I was overdue to have my vision checked anyway.
Breaking Ground in Santa Rosa, Even As Butte County Burns
Commencing foundations work this week for a Tubbs Fire fire rebuild in Santa Rosa is a welcome sight, although bittersweet, as it’s seen in front of a smoky horizon from the Camp Fire, which is proving even more destructive and deadly.
Excavations underway
It’s been a long recovery process in Sonoma County over the past year, just to get to this point.
It’s the details...
The installation of a custom-designed towel bar, the result of a happy collaboration with East Bay blacksmith Celeste Flores, finishes a Lafayette master suite renovation.
Celeste (find her on Instagram @clay_and_steel) managed to transform several marginally-coherent sketches, a meandering narrative, and a cardboard template into a simple, sophisticated solution that compliments the beautiful Kohler wall-mounted trough sink. Collaborating with such a talented local artisan is a real pleasure and adds so much to the work.
This effort also afforded another opportunity to actually draw directly on the project, a sort of constructive graffiti, photos of which helped bridge the gap between a drafted detail and fabrication.
More later on my other work with Celeste...watch this space for details.
Throwback Thursday: JS Residence
Excited to be working with Fred Najera again, diligent framer of outrageous craftsmanship, who brings a centered, positive, focused energy to a project site.
Freddy was kind enough to share some old pics of a previous collaboration in Pleasant Hill back in 2014.
A beautiful view in Pleasant Hill
Freddy makes it look effortless! Thanks for the pics!
Construction Season 2018 is Underway
A two-story residential addition in Walnut Creek has posed some planning and technical challenges over the autumn and winter months. Bridging over a demolished swimming pool structure demanded (19) 24-foot deep concrete piers and 18x24” grade beams in a side yard along an angled property line with a 10-foot Sanitary District easement.
Now that the weather has afforded the opportunity, it’s time for foundations.
An impressive array of rebar for 1,300 square feet of single-family residential addition.
Anchor bolt placement
Friday morning, it all passed inspection. By Monday afternoon , it’ll all be covered with concrete.