A nice part of the process

I am involved with a project that is currently in the trimming out phase. This is the point where, if all goes well, the client and the builder can really see what I was blathering on about months ago. The owner is having some "aha!" moments and really appreciating the back and forth of the design process and the builder is humming along comfortable in making decisions and enjoying doing good work. Of course with the warm weather and the snow finally gone here in Vermont and no bugs yet, I think it would be hard not to be happy. Gotta go work on the garden. We get a substantial portion of our food year round from our own garden.

I guess I’ll never be a rich architect

There is an article in the summer 2008 “Fine Homebuilding” entitled “How to Afford an Architect” by Duo Dickinson. A good article if you ignore the super high percentage of construction cost fee numbers he uses. I have heard of (st)architects getting 12% to 15% of construction costs but 16% to 18% and 60 to 80 drawings for a house? Get real Duo! That’s why people are scared of hiring architects. I doubt I could design a house complicated enough to require even 40 drawings! I think I did 18 once…Of course, maybe I’m going about this all wrong.

I am a Purist

I am a purist, architecturally speaking.

When the subject of style comes up people usually have very firm ideas in their heads. For years it seemed that everyone building their house in Vermont wanted a “cape”…with big windows and lots of light and an open floor plan. Talk about contradicting ones self. People tend to be as conservative architecturally in Vermont as they are socially liberal. Clapboard capes and Greek revivals are certainly not the most economical houses to construct either. I have done my share and I’ve done them well without too much compromising of my purist sensibilities. What I mean by this is that I like a lot of house styles but in reviewing houses that I really responded to emotionally over the years the common theme was that they were not trying to be something they weren’t. Capes trying to live like ranches, neo-victorians with cutesy plastic trim, developer subdivision type houses with layered gables on the front façade for no other reason than to attempt to reduce the scale of the house. I despise fakery of that sort. This reaction of mine applies to other things architectural as well. Concrete trying to look like stone, vinyl trying to look like wood, ceramic tile trying to look like stone or clay tiles, and (sound of “Psycho” violins) distressed wood cabinetry. Legitimacy of materials as well as style is important.

Site Decisions and Instinct

Today I visited the recently cleared site of a new house I have been working on. The site was a wooded plateau that is part of a much larger piece of land. There are old foundations, some amazing trees, steep slopes and lots of runoff water. My initial reaction to siting the house was avoid the old foundations. They were too cool to mess with. The old Frank Lloyd Wright idea of finding the least nice part of the site to put the house really applied here. I spent time on the site in all seasons and felt fairly confident in locating the house and yard where I did but it is always a nervous moment driving up to the site after the initial clearing. WoW! I did a good job on this one. The house will sit nestled into the uphill side of the plateau and have marvelous southeast views down the valley in the winter. In the summer it will sit on the edge of a lovely little meadow. Enough pine trees came down to provide siding for the house next year after getting milled and drying. The rest of the trees were smallish maples that will provide firewood for three years or so. From the main floor of the house there will be a commanding view of the little valley but without the house appearing arbitrarily plunked down. It is gratifying to see decisions of this nature play out. There is an interesting mix of gut reaction, intellectualizing, site analysis and just plain spending time on the site. Of course the site is now a mess of mud mixed with snow and a pile of stumps burns slowly in the middle. It will be a hot dusty summer there while the house is being constructed. But I look past that to what will be. 100 years ago someone made this hillside their home. Now someone will live there again.