Reflections on life in the Brattleboro area

Some friends recently announced that they were going to leave the Brattleboro area in search of a better life. The list is:

1. A Waldorf school for their kid to be able to go to through high school. 2. Better job prospects 3. An easier place to grow old in - perhaps this means less dirt roads, closer to town... 4. Closer to some long term friends for more regular visits. 5. They are tired of living in an unfinished house.

Then my wife said she would be willing to move for the right reasons too – specifically a great, high paying job (for me). This sent me into a few days of introspection and soul searching. I had to re-evaluate my own values by themselves and in relation to my family. I have always felt an incredibly strong connection to land and place. If I plant a tree, I have a need to watch it grow for the rest of my life. Fine - I can accept that this is unusual. I also have a strong need to be in the woods pretty much every day. I would have a hard time being the sort who goes camping on weekends to get my outside time and even day hikes in the mountains have little allure. I need the outdoors much more integrated in my daily routine. I think if I were living in an urban or suburban area for any length of time I would feel very constrained.

1. School – Brattleboro does have some excellent options for schools. Charlotte got a good start at Neighborhood Schoolhouse and Alden will too in a few years. The big crisis came when it was time for Charlotte to start kindergarten. Our ideal choice would probably be the Grammar School in Putney, http://youtu.be/Yk49lac7EPU an excellent private school whose “philosophies” most closely align with our own. Financially it was not in the cards. With a number of educators in the immediate family we are rather progressive in our education ideals. We also would rather not have our kids attend a school with only like-minded students and parents. Perspective is a very important aspect to social development. She will have a number of excellent teachers to get to know over the years and the advantage of a small school is that she is already getting to know them - she has a great rapport with her future 7th/8th grade teacher. She will get to know a wide variety of classmates and their families - Perspective! Our ideal is that our kids' elementary experience provides them with the social tools to easily handle the pressures of attending a larger public high school, and life in general, and come out on top. Our local public elementary school has been trash-talked by a number of friends and neighbors so we were a bit leery of sending Charlotte there but realized that all the nay-sayers were speaking from very little or very limited experience. This didn't sit right with us and we are currently glad we decided to form our own opinion. The school is fairly small – my daughter's kindergarten has 5 kids – and the size has definite advantages in terms of addressing individual students' and parents' needs. The school is also a community in itself and very tied to the local community - a community integrated education is also very important to us. The main issues we have with our local elementary school are the sheer amount of driving time and gasoline used in our cars to get there there every day, (see #2 below) and not enough time spent outdoors (probably the same as at any public school). It is also very important for our kids to take advantage of community opportunities in the arts and Brattleboro is certainly a top notch community with it's dizzying array of opportunity in this regard. Brattleboro is a very kid-centric community. New England Center for Circus Arts Brattleboro Music Center Vermont Jazz Center New England Youth Theater Bonnyvale Environmental Education Center Brattleboro School of Dance River Gallery School of Art Plus the high school has an excellent cross country ski team!

2. Job prospects – It is hard around here to earn a living for sure. The average household income in my town is under 30k. People say “but the quality of life and and fewer expenses and blah blah blah ..” however, automobiles cost the same – and where I live all-wheel or 4 wheel drive is needed part of the year. Which means a more expensive car with worse gas mileage. And fewer opportunities to accomplish the daily activities on a bicycle. There are fewer cost savings to living in the country than many people seem to think. In terms of my own job prospects, I could possibly work in a larger firm in a more urban environment and perhaps I would even love the job but the likelihood of a paycheck big enough to make it worth it is very unlikely. Working for myself is definitely stressful and most years is quite un-sustainable but I'm an optimist and always seem to think that things will turn around soon. Very soon. (stressful on family) Other Job Prospects: 3. Growing old. - I'm hoping to gradually make our estate into a place we could hole up in for weeks at a time. I do have 30+ years before I really need to think along these lines. A lot could happen in 30 years. The North Atlantic Gyre could cease due to melting polar ice and then all bets are off.

4. Friends. - A very personal one. Kid-less friends always complain that when their friends have kids they have no more time available for visiting. Certainly true, however having kids suddenly opens up a whole new world of potential friends. You get out what you put out for sure. My wife is much more social than I and would love to see dozens of her best friends every day for coffee. I, however, am an old-codger-in-the-making and am perfectly happy to mutter around the house and grounds for days at a time without seeing anybody. Working on my woodpile.

5. House – I feel this one. - We live in a small house and I realize that our “standard of living” would be unacceptable for most middle-class people in America, at least for the past thirty years or so. I do have great plans for addressing this but...see #2 plus reference this older post

Why Hire an Architect ?

An older post buried away and re-posted here today for ya'all with some extra muttering added.

As I have mentioned before, much of my work is for people who would never have gone to an architect in the first place, thinking that they could never afford it. Designing a custom home for someone is an incredibly complex endeavor. You can buy a set of plans relatively cheaply that may go 75% of the way towards fulfilling your needs and end up with a decent house. Most people go this route. However, some of my best work to date has been for people who are more concerned with money and value. I have been hired by clients to say “no, you can’t afford it” when they lose focus in the process of building a home and start to make a decision or series of decisions that would blow the budget. A good architect should be able to save a client at least the cost of architectural services if that is one of the stated goals. If you have $250,000 to spend on a house you can buy a plan and build a house that is worth $250,00 or you can spend $20,000 on an architect and build a house for $230,000 that gets you a better looking house with a more efficient and flexible floor plan and nicer spaces that fit your lifestyle more comfortably, a house that costs less to maintain over the longer term. Notice that I keep saying “good architect”. As with any profession there is a wide range of talent and specialties. Always ask for and check references. Find an architect and a builder who you are comfortable with. You need to develop a good relationship with these folks. They’re not just there to sell you something.

Of course if you have lots and lots of money, maybe you don't need an architect. Many problems can be solved by throwing more money at them. Perhaps a not-so great-floor plan can be solved by increasing the size of the building. If it starts looking too big you can add jigs and jogs and gratuitous dormers and gables to lessen the visual impact. Perhaps a high heating bill doesn't bother you so why bother with energy modeling and value engineering? Perhaps you are not planning on spending a lot of time in the new home so certain things are simply less important. If your caretaker discovers leaking, rot and mold 6 years down the road there are folks who are perfectly willing to deal with that too.

Miscellaneous Musings

I am working on this new small greek revival in Maine. Not the high style Greek Revival with huge columns like you see on banks and government buildings but the small, simple style that is so ubiquitous in New England and doesn't get much attention but everybody knows. I'm designing it to "pretty good house" standards. It is for a family member who lost her house in a fire- we'll see how the budget goes and if the details get watered down as is often the case. She has always loved the Greek Revival look which is more often done wrong than right it seems. I used this sketchup model to push and pull and play with trim and proportion to get it right. I have found that often the frieze board (the wide flat board at the top of the siding under the eaves) often gets shortchanged when the builder frames the house including window openings then discovers that he doesn't have enough room for a properly proportioned frieze.

In any design there is always a lot of back and forth on windows - what works inside may not be so great on the outside etc. so I use the model to really fine tune it in terms of balance, rhythm, symmetry/asymmetry (exterior aesthetics) and light, cross ventilation, views, sun and solar gain, the feel of the room, (function and interior aesthetics)

This is very different from this house which is currently under construction in Vermont which is also a "Pretty Good House" although nearly to the Passive House with Unilux triple glazed windows from Germany But with a modern aesthetic and some really beautiful spaces and materials. We are using raw green 1 x 3 hemlock from a local mill at siding over coravent strapping (rain screen detail) and Mento 1000 weather barrier. The hemlock will dry in place, turn grey and gap in a rougher version of open joint siding often created with Ipe or cedar siding.

I am also studying and reviewing the first three days of Passive House training. The next three days are coming up next week. I am learning a lot of building science stuff that will improve the level of design and service I am able to provide - whether or not I ever get to work on a certified passive house. It was disconcerting, however, to ride the bus into Boston past thousands upon thousands of older houses and housing stock that is rather the opposite of Passive House in terms of energy usage and all the other metrics. You get the feeling of "what's the point". Is passive house a just another trophy for someone building a new house to attain and meaningless in terms of saving ourselves from the coming death, doom and destruction of climate change? I am looking at it in terms of simply building better houses and not thinking about saving the world.

"No matter how many times you save the world, it always manages to get back in jeopardy again. Sometimes I just want it to stay saved, you know? " - Mr Incredible.

Freeze Drying your Laundry

An interesting facebook discussion recently - highlights here. Perhaps my mom-in-Law should be one of those nerdy building engineer folks! Me: Grumpy time: People who claim to be concerned about the environment and climate change who don't have (and use) clotheslines! #hypocrites

Reply from Mom-in-Law-provider-of chocolate: OK, you've caused me to obsess about it. According to the websites I just consulted, the amount of time we use our dryer translates into about 20 kw/mo. If we line dry, it generates about 1.5 hour of ironing activity (b/c we are both still working in jobs and in places that expect us to look ironed) per week's worth of wash...making for a net energy usage of around 10 kw/mo, so we're wasting 10 kw by using our dryer...but wait! I still have to iron a little with the dryer, so say 12 kw wasted....but wait! We minimize doing laundry such as bedding and taking hot showers by using hot tub and sponge baths, and not using hair conditioner (requires washing hair in 1:3 ration if conditioner is used); we minimize doing laundry such as area rugs and mats by shaking them out; we keep our thermostat set several degrees below what is recommended even for energy savings. We turn lights out obsessively when we leave rooms, and use compact fluorescents. We rarely bake. We tried line drying in Seattle and had to rewash clothes frequently due to bird poop. We line dry sometimes in NY, but for several months the clothes freeze rather than dry. Did I mention that we've measured the hot water we use washing dishes by hand compared to using the dishwasher, and so save by hand washing the dishes?

Am I out of the hypocrites corner yet?

This, of course, led to a discussion of freeze drying clothes.

I, however, am concerned by the statement that they rarely bake.

My Children's Education

Another barely architectural post wherein I ruminate on elementary education models. Here in rural Vermont we have to make choices about how and where we educate our children just like anywhere else. There are the public schools, private schools and home schooling. There are special challenges that we face that may surprise some of you. We have no worries about our own children's abilities in reading writing and arithmetic. This year at our local public elementary, transportation is an issue. We will have to drive our daughter 9 miles to school over mostly dirt roads and then pick her up after school. Class size is also an issue – she will only have three classmates. My daughter is entering kindergarten this year after spending a few years in pre-K at Neighborhood Schoolhouse. Neighborhood is a great school without any particular “dogma” that we found at other early education centers such as Montessori and Waldorf. Neighborhood actually goes up to grade 6 but we preferred not to keep her there through 6th grade or reasons I shall touch on below.

Last year I realized that I knew very little about how school is currently taught and what the different models and options where so I began a process of self-education. I quickly learned about the good and bad aspects of modern education. I finally learned what “teaching to the test” means. There is a bit too much of this at the school she will attend starting tomorrow (our local public school) but I expect it will be tempered with the fact that she will have only three other classmates and therefore her individual needs will not be ignored. I also think a bit of this rigor might do her some good. I have become a big fan of integrated and project based learning and I hope to send our own kids to schools where these are the prevalent learning methods. Edutopia is a great resource for information on this and I am a big fan of “the World in Claire's Classroom” a film about a local school. (Everyone with kids should see this)

I can look back on my own architecture school education as a model of how project based learning works. A very important aspect of architecture school was having 50 classmates all working on similar projects and grappling with similar issues individually and in groups. It would have been a very different education if there where only 6 of us. This was the main reason I dropped out of the art program at my first college. My own elementary education followed a more traditional model where we learned math out of a textbook, did worksheets, wrote research papers and book reports etc. It didn't work very well for me (I had an amazing ability to completely forget everything I learned over the summer) and I expect it won't work very well for my daughter either. Project based learning applies a method of learning more similar to architecture school to grade school education and seems difficult to incorporate into lesson plans for small classes with limited community involvement.

Which brings me to an issue which is important to us – class size. Locally, The Grammar School in Putney is a great example of a school that incorporates project based learning, has excellent teachers who are all on the same page with regards to learning methods, has adequate class size and has a huge variety of resources outside the classroom to call upon – involvement with the local community and the “real world” are important aspects of project based learning. We hope to send our kids there in the future – when we can afford to. Neighborhood Schoolhouse incorporates project based learning but really suffers from inadequate class size and resources once kids get beyond kindergarten and first grade. However, Brattleboro is a great place to raise community minded kids no matter what school they attend. There is a tremendous array of opportunity in music, theater and circus arts, sports and other activities to engage in outside of school. My daughters attended her first Sweetback Sisters concert when she was only a few months old and we get her to as many concerts and museums and so forth as we can.

I'm the only architect in the United States without an I-Phone!

I'm the only architect in the United States without an I-Phone ?(or rectangly glasses) (or black in my wardrobe – old bike race t-shirts don't count right?) (or even a jacket – let alone a suit!) Ah, rural life...peaceful silence, other than the occasional airplane, haying in nearby fields and a neighbor down the road working on enlarging a wood pile (insert personal guilt and feelings of inadequacy here) and no internet or cell phone access. Actually much of this area of Vermont has no internet or cell phone access once you leave the I-91 corridor. So I have an office in Brattleboro with cable and my business phone is my cell phone. When I leave my office it usually means I am also out of cell phone range. Thus I have little use for a smart phone. I sometimes long for “aps” even though I barely even know what they are and, by the way, I can't text to save my life. We also gave up on TV years ago. The only option for television is a satellite dish high on a tree near the house. Then at some point we realized we were much to busy to ever actually watch TV so we canceled service. We still had a public television station when the rabbit ears were adjusted just so. Then TV went digital and we lost our one remaining station after trying out one of those little boxes you get with a coupon. The we got a Netflix account which we still have although we manage to watch about one movie every six weeks. (we came down with kids) so I expect that will go next. So there is still radio. Except that the sound of the wind in the pine trees over the house and the crickets in the field is so lovely.

Working part time – my daily schedule and life

As my mom says: “When do you actually work?”The answer is complicated. I try to fit in a bit of work here and there when nobody is paying attention. This morning I had the kids until 2 pm. And now I have a few hours to get a proposal done and type up this little bit of mumble. Then I have to head back into the house to start supper. (I'm at my big desk in my big barn right now with a lovely breeze flowing through the window) Typical day in the summer. Normally, I would be more of a morning person and get up very early every day to start work. Except I have to pack lunches, haul my 5 year old teenager out of bed, argue with her, feed her and get her dressed and started on her day. I would much rather be off on my bike right now. After supper usually involves lots of dishes and laundry and corralling Charlotte to bed which includes more arguing. Then more dishes to wash. By this time I am usually exhausted. During the school year it is usually a bit easier to get in my hours although with the new kid, (6 mos.) this coming year may be will be a bit more complicated. In architecture school I was usually up until at least midnight and I often was at my $3/hour work study job in the library until 1 am. Then early classes. It is very hard to imagine how I did it. I guess I must have been in my twenties or something.

What would Bob do?

I have been asked before: If I could start from scratch with a decent budget, what sort of a house would I build for myself? I was thinking about that the other day as my eyes wandered up to the huge pine and maple trees that tower over the house (mental note: check homeowners policy) That is a tough question to answer. Part of me would live to live in a big old farmhouse and part of me wants a Tom Kundig sort of house with lots of steel, glass and concrete and a cool device that does something interesting. The reality may be somewhere in between. Living where I do, energy efficiency and insulation rule out either of these options in their pure form. But there are lessons to be learned from both extremes. My own tastes probably run toward a warm modernism with Scandinavian influences that isn't afraid of wood and stone as well as glass and steel. I would not impose the limitations of “traditional” architecture on myself. I've seen too much for that. I'm spoiled. I like light and dark, open spaces and well defined spaces. Indoor and outdoor. I don't like to take my shoes off whenever I come in the house. Function rules! I like porches. I like woodstoves.

I like low maintenance. I like simplicity. I want a huge range in the kitchen and a huge island to match. I like old fashioned pantries - with a window. I like when a window goes down to the floor. I want laser cut steel switchplate covers. I like wood ceilings and floors but not wood walls. I love dark slate with dark thin grout lines. I don't like big bedrooms. I want a soaking tub. I dislike fancy. I hate frippery and fakery! (fake divided lite windows make me gag) Sometimes I use the term “carpenter modern” to describe my tastes. There is a lot of this in VT. My own barn is a good example. It describes a building or house or detail that does the job without any overt nod to “style” but in its simplicity and function and logic, it becomes beautiful. Did I mention that I love raw steel? It is difficult for me to find examples of what I like in print media. Everything is too big, too fancy, too complicated, too precious. Dwell Magazine does a better job of presenting "real people" type projects. And I love looking at what happens down South at Auburn U's Rural studio If I were to design my own home, it would probably kill me.

the path to success

I stole this off a friends facebook page and I don't know where she got it from. This sums up so much of what I do. As I gain experience I should be able to make my process look more and more like the first sketch right? Nope - as I gain experience I see more options and opportunities on my way toward success so the process looks more like the second diagram but for different reasons than, say ten years ago. I occasionally stumble when I come to clients with a piece of paper or a model outlining a simple and clean solution that gives no indication of all the work it took to get there. All the things I tried and rejected, wrong turns, right turns, left turns and my turns, all the prior versions and sketches, all the time looking for just the right inspiration in books, magazines and on the web - (Google images is a great tool, as is Houzz.com) I find if I don't include clients in the process more, all they see is the success part and have a hard time understanding why they must pay for the time it took to get there.

Doing the Architect thing

Probably related to the previous post.There seems to be a lot of psychology to what I do as an architect. When someone comes to me with their ideas I often sense that there is something behind those ideas and I want to know what it is. Some people welcome this level of “interrogation” and others just want me to do some drafting so they can get it built. I figure if someone is going to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on something, they would want it to be the absolute best thing possible to meet their needs. (needs including budget!) I like to understand people's needs as well as to help them analyze their needs, not just write them down and follow blindly. Sometimes clients are pretty insistent that I do follow blindly. I think this usually happens when they have either been thinking about a project for so long that they have lost all objective ability or desire to critique their own thinking or if they are sick of thinking about it and just want to get on with it. Following blindly is difficult for me. I have often heard “I've finished designing it and now I need and architect to draw it up” Huh? Sometimes I have to do it just to pay the bills but it is difficult to stand by and watch people do stupid or ugly or overly complicated things. It feels like a cop out and like I'm not really doing my job. I would hate to have someone come back to me later and say “why didn't you suggest doing it this way?” I can't really tell them “because this was just a drafting job and you were too cheap to pay me to do the architect thing” Numerous times I have started a project at this “just follow the program” stage, couldn't help myself and suggested a different way of looking at things which starts a cascade of communications resulting in going back to square one where I get to help them analyze and re-define the whole “program” which is what I probably should have been hired to do in the first place.

Nostalgia as a design influence

(Grumbly architect alert)Nostalgia is a powerful design influence for most clients. I find it interesting that otherwise artistic and creative people get all conservative when considering their own houses and I think a lot of this is due to a sense of nostalgia and a search for an emotional connection to something from their past whether real or imagined. Sometimes, however it may be less nostalgia and more along the lines of simple thinking about architecture as something that happens to other people. People are not very nostalgic or conservative when it comes to choosing their automobile or smartphone or clothing but there seems to be a strong disconnect between architecture and the other visual arts. In my own practice, I have seen this nostalgia border on a crippling anachronism where people really want something that may not be in their best interest or conflicts with their other requirements. A few years ago I did some projects for a dance camp in Massachusetts and found that these supposedly creative and artistic people were incredibly conservative to work with and really demanded a strict re-creation of the existing architecture (but up to code). It was frustrating as an architect to see so much potential to do wonderful things but to meet with such resistance to change. Imagine trying to put a modern Honda civic engine and interior in a model T shell – Except it is not even a real model T shell but a carbon fiber copy that sort of looks like a model T (ish). That is what so many people want in their homes. Not far from here is a house that replaces an old cape that burned down a while back. The owner took the insurance money and build a new “old cape” except the builder got the proportions all wrong and the trim is kind of cheap looking and the windows have fake muntins and there are french doors everywhere and, well, it looks look what I would call a faux neo-colonial. To me it looks yucky but I am aware that most friends and family would look at it and say “Oh how lovely, it looks like it has always been there”

Architect trees bear

Another one for my Urban hipster friends:Pa Ingalls ain't got nothin on me! If this had been three or four hundred years ago I would have been called “crazy white dude who chases huge bears up trees and then throws plant pots at them” by the locals.

This particular huge black bear Ursus Americanus Americanus showed up on our porch while we were watching Hugo which was a pretty good movie although the automaton will probably show up in a few scary dreams in coming days. (mine). In the spirit of “putting the fear of Bob” into this bear so he wouldn't come back looking for handouts, I charged out the door yelling, shining flashlights and letting adrenaline do all the work. Instead of running into the woods he climbed up this tree. This happens too often to me. I need to re-think my approach – perhaps less rapid. Did I mention that this bear was really big? My wife thinks I'm crazy now. Crazier. At least I was dressed this time.

Here is a picture with gentle sheep:

Mud Season in Vermont

This should really stun my more urban friends.My morning commute was blocked by some $#%$$# trying to drive through this soup with a little car. Which then got stuck and was abandoned. This just in: The car belongs to a neighbor who had an emergency - he needed to go bowling! This is so Northern Exposure

Then I noticed the little orange light on my gas gauge.

Occupant Behavior puts a kink in the calcs

From Martin Holladay on Green Building Advisor in an artivle titled "Occupant Behavior Makes a Difference" Engineer things all you want but when you put Americans into a house the metrics tend to change. This is pretty funny.

It didn’t take long to figure out what was driving the high energy bills. “There is a very large plasma TV, plus a second TV on the porch,” said Panish. “There is a DVR. The two TVs and the DVR use 600 watts when they're on and 100 watts when they are off, and the TVs are on for an average of 6 hours per day. The loads for entertainment and computers are high. There is an old freezer in the basement. There is a basement dehumidifier. The lighting load is 600% of what was predicted. It seems as if all the lights in the house are left on all the time.”

Drawing Floor Plans - what's involved

Anyone can draw up a floor plan right? well.... Drawing a a floor plan is more complicated than most people realize.

Floor plans are a fun but small part of what I do as an architect and involve much more than sketching on graph paper. To create a floor plan, or I should say; while creating a floor plan I must think of much more than room sizes, traffic patterns and kitchen triangles. I must think of the whole site as a floor plan – how does the site relate and interact with the floor plan on functional, practical and aesthetic levels. I must think of the structure to enclose the plan as well as any connections to existing structures and how to simplify to reduce cost and complexity. Does the plan support or go counter to an expressed exterior visual goal? (house style) The plan may need to support flexible uses over the next few hundred years of the life of the building in terms of additions and adaptations. Complexity of plumbing, wiring and HVAC systems must be minimized. Different methods of construction need to be considered and may have an impact on how they affect the plan. Stairs and kitchens seem to be a flash point for many people because there are so many possibilities, options and price points. I need to think about light, both natural and artificial. I have to think about how the spaces will be used during many possible scenarios from holiday gatherings to quiet nights alone. I have to hear what clients are saying and what they are not saying. Often I have to balance and judicate between couples. Sometimes there are specific furniture needs. Sometimes there are photos from magazines or the web that provide inspiration. Often, clients bring plans they have been working on to help me see the issues that they are grappling with. Sometimes these serve as a starting point for conversation and other times clients are more rigid about sticking with what they have come up with so far. Above all, I try to insert a level of grace and elegance which permeates all of the above issues and unless one has years of experience and gobs of talent is just about impossible to pull off successfully.

On Being a perfectionist

The idea of architect billing for their services as a percentage of construction cost has, in the past, struck me as inherently unfair but increasingly, I am seeing the merit in that method of compensation. In my own experience, when building hourly, this leaves the opportunity open to pick and choose from my services as one would a drafting service. I run into the situation where the design has a lot of refinement necessary to make it great and the client doesn't want to spend the money on more design and more meetings. It becomes a matter of standards and, being a perfectionist, my standards are normally higher than my client's. I look back on past built work and feel disappointment when I see things that could have been so much better or situations when I “gave away” time to make something right because the client was not willing to pay to do so. I think this is where architects who bill for their services as a percentage of construction cost often screw themselves. Being perfectionists, when billing a fixed fee, the longer we spend on a project “getting it right”, the lower the equivalent hourly rate becomes. Soon, the architect is down around $20 or $30 an hour which is completely unsustainable and leaves us trying to explain to our families on April 15th how we worked our asses off all year and only made $25k. But, at least, when billing based on a percentage of construction costs, the end result is likely to be a lot better.

A La Carte Drafting - more grumpy architect mutterances

Bob Borson in his blog “Life of an Architect” touched on the Red Flags subject recently which put me in a grumpy architect mood. I would like to elaborate on his list of red flags. Beware clients who want a very limited set of drawings. I am often approached by potential clients wanting incomplete plans. They usually want just basic floor plans and elevations and if they know what a section is they probably want that too. Just enough for a permit. I am hereby taking the stance that I will not accept these types of projects. Let it be known and henceforth and all that sort of thing. It is true that I have been talked into doing these limited service projects in the past. I just spent some time in my files looking over past projects of all sorts and remembering past rants, usually endured by my wife. Let me elaborate on why I won't do a half-assed job now. 1. They cost me money. Inevitably, the contractor will call me and ask for clarification on details or framing which results in my doing the drawings anyway and not getting paid for doing them, or spending way too much time on the phone or email dealing with issues that should have been in the construction documents in the first place. Or worse, the project gets built with my name on it as the architect and it ends up ugly and poorly detailed. Which leads to point number... 2. I have to be very careful what my name gets associated with. This is a small town and one poorly designed, underdesigned, poorly sited or poorly detailed building can really hurt a reputation. In this business reputation is very important. I was less careful with this in my early years and had the attitude: “whatever - it's their project” but the result of this is that there are a number of projects that are just plain ugly and my name gets mentioned in association with them. Ouch! 3. It is part of my job to ensure that the whole process goes smoothly and providing incomplete services would be counter to this. 4. There are Liability issues with providing incomplete services which frighten me as well although I have been lucky in that I have never experienced them directly. Perhaps I should have a lawyer write up a special contract that would protect me by scaring off any potential clients who fall into this camp.

In the past most of these projects have morphed into full services as the client begins to understand just what it is that I do. Most people seem to think architects are overpaid drafters but I, for one, actually do very little drafting. Systems are in place to minimize the actual drafting for a project as a percentage of the whole. Figuring out what to draft takes a whole lot more time and effort than the actual drafting. If I am unable to communicate this up front, that is a red flag for me and I will have to consider carefully whether I will take on the project.

Stewardship

We have a cemetery on our land with two skeletons in it.

This will probably be an excellent source of terror for our kid at some point. We also have the stone foundation of the house where they lived over 100 years ago. The barn foundation is across the road. There are some old rusty sap boiler parts and masonry from a “sugar shack” where they (or someone) boiled maple sap into syrup. Of course, stone walls are everywhere and often serve as property lines. The soils are rich to the south of our house where a hundred years ago or more cows where probably pastured. These soils now sustain sugar maples, black cherry, and ash trees. The soils to the north probably never saw intensive livestock farming are are thinner and less rich. White pine, red maple and birch grow there. With some exceptions, none of our trees are over 100 years old. There are several other cemeteries on our sparsely populated road and the uninhabited valley to the Northeast of our land has many old cellar holes where houses and even an inn once stood. All the land was completely cleared of trees a long time ago. We cleared an acre and a half of the woods for a field where we play, grow fruit trees, watch stars and with occasional success, garden. The sense of the history of the land is strong as is the feeling that we are new to the land and very temporary. People will be on this land and changing it long after we are gone. I think of buildings the same way. If we are building structures that we hope to last for two hundred years or more we need to look at more than just the needs of the current occupants (clients). I think this is an oft overlooked tenant of “green design”. If I design an ugly building because the client insists on it, will the building be torn down in thirty years time because others can't stand to look at it? And do all the “green” bells and whistles included to make the building use less resources and energy really matter at that point? Historically, beauty and function where given equal billing here in New England which is why we have such a rich heritage of historic architecture. We now seem to be emerging from an architectural period where we let engineers and developers design our buildings into a more collaborative effort where those trained to look at beauty, history and function with a more long term approach (architects) are working with people schooled in the more functional aspects of a building's performance. Architecture should be more about stewardship and legacy than lists of user needs, green features and feasibility studies.

Styles

I have been thinking a lot about traditional vs. modern home design. These terms are gross oversimplifications and this is the categorization of style issues I like to complain about. In the eyes of the populace it seems that modern still connotes white boxy houses with flat leaky roofs. Traditional has become a bastardized cheapened re-interpretation of the older houses found in the neighborhood. Architects working in the modern style used to be “out of touch”, overly intellectual”, “never swung a hammer”. Few are that anymore. Builders used to be scholars of the vernacular and learned the rules of convention and proportion in addition to construction . That mostly went out the window decades ago. Speaking abstractly, when I look at a pleasing-to-the-eye older house in Brattleboro, say a two family Greek Revival, I see an interplay of proportion, traditional details and an overall set of rules. A successful modern building would not try to copy this but instead perhaps be more true to available building materials and methods and not try to engage in historical fakery.

A successful modern building would still need to play by a set of rules even if those rules have been updated considerably in the last 100 years. Although some of the more mathematical rules such as the golden section seem to stand outside the progression of time and are perhaps more to be thought of as universal truths.

Think Music

In music there are definite rules that nearly all styles play by; scales, rhythms and harmonics to name a few. In the past, music styles have been greatly segregated. In modern times the separating walls have eroded. Musicians now draw on a wide variety of influences and new music is increasingly hard to categorize according to style. The internet has accelerated this phenomenon greatly and the music world is experiencing an artistic renaissance. The world of residential architectural design is as well although at a slower pace. The average 35 year old new home buyer has probably been exposed to modern design much more than a generation ago. The house that their parents wanted in House and Garden magazine is not necessarily what the younger generation, who are more likely to peruse design focused websites on the internet or subscribe to Dwell, want anymore simply because they have seen the alternatives. Although developers and the banks seem a bit slow to recognize this there are exceptions.

Like any good musician, an architect must continually practice the fundamentals. In my case that means studying and working within the successful local vernacular and try to do it in a scholarly way without being too anachronistic. And occasionally I am given license to fly!

Building Science II - FaceBook conversation

What follows is a discussion from Bluetime Collaborative's Facebook page. For those of you who don't know, Bluetime is Vermont Architect. It represents the increasingly collaborative nature of running a small architecture business.

Bluetime Collaborative: I just attended a mini seminar at Building Green with Peter Yost on wall and roof systems - moisture management. something of a recap for me but what I think about are how many architects and builders are still doing things the way they were 10 or 20 years ago.

Bluetime Collaborative: I think what I got out of it was that we need to think more in terms of systems rather than simply products. There is a huge amount of information and discussion out there that most builders and architects are ignoring at their own peril.

Bluetime Collaborative: Remember building is a science, codes represent bare minimums and are always ten years behind the science, r-value is but a small part of a system

Dave: Bob, what is their wall/roof system recommendation?

Bluetime Collaborative: it boils down to air and moisture management and dealing with them as separate issues. ideal systems may differ from practical systems. (what would you do on your own house -vs-what would you design for someone else to build. Always know where your dew point will be to prevent failures. (LOTS of failures in the northeast in recent years) walls need to dry to the inside and outside. Air condiitoning introduces a whole new set of parameters. Boston based Building Science Corp is a good place to start. Insulation is what you add when everything else is done right. Systems management means there are tons of great and products out there and tons of hype, but little knowledge of how to put them all together as a system to minimize risk. Have a lawyer design your details ;-) they will research the science and design no minimize risk. Or design like a lawyer...

Dave: What's the current though on closed-cell foam? I like what it does for creating a very tight envelope but question what happens when water works its way into the wall. Open cell scares me - I have seen it blacken with mold because of infiltration at a roof.

Bluetime Collaborative : worth further investigation I would check greenbuildingadvisor.com - I have been lucky to never have used open cell. I hear it isn't great. I have used closed cell in a flash and batt situation often. It works very well with my double stud wall system and has lots of advantages. The key seems to be to flash thick enough so the dew point doesn't happen at the sheathing and look at the overall wall in terms of how it can dry out. (always assume things will get wet) For instance; vinyl wallpaper doesn't allow for drying to the inside.

Dave : Fine Homebuilding just had an article on the flash and batt approach. I was apprehensive when I read it thinking it would only be marginally more to fully spray the walls. I'm hoping to do closed cell on our house but it will come down to a budget decision.

Bluetime Collaborative: Flash and batt is usually cheaper enough to make the decision clear. A timing advantage in the fall is that you can flash, then all the subs do their thing in a warm heatable environment then fill in right before sheetrock. Probably the best performing system involves 2" of rigid outside (depending on where you live) with cellulose inside but detailing is tough - learning curve. Window manuf. are now adding exterior jamb extensions to their options.

Dave: I've seen that exterior insulation detail in Building Science Corp's books but have never done it before. Flash and cellulose is an interesting combination.

Matt : Bob, which window manufacturers? Thermotec? Also, this is a killer blog entry. I'm not buying flash & batt at all, especially with less than 2" flash coats; flash & pack ... maybe... better continuity, fewer gaps, between the lumpy foam and the cellulose than batts. I can't agree more on the theme of systems over products. I do construction estimating for a building supply company. I see 8-10 plans a week. The scariest thing I see right now is a la cart use of new products without regard to the system.

Matt: Actual construction document examples: taped 1" XPS over taped ZipWall with 5" cavity OPEN CELL, continuous Grace Ice & Water shield over closed-cell rafter bay insulation (Grace has even published a report advising against this), and 9" rafter bay closed-cell under a flat roof (mostly egregious because there are a dozen known more practical ways to deal with that).

Bluetime Collaborative: yikes!

Bluetime Collaborative: I should clarify and perhaps my terminology is wrong. By "Batt" I do mean a blown in dense pack cellulose or even fiberglass not batts. Does anybody use those anymore? (sarcasm)

Bluetime Collaborative: When I look back over the past ten years at my own work I see an interesting progression from 2 x 6 walls with fiberglass batts, poly vapor barrier and no questions asked to now where each house I do is a bit different and I spend much time investigating the options including what I can sell to the owner and what the contractor will actually build as well as what the budget will allow.

Dave: Bob - What is your "ideal" wall and roof system?

Bluetime Collaborative: as of today or what will it be next week? performance wise all foam on the outside with an empty 2 x 4 wall cavity inside.

Bluetime Collaborative: practical (cost /benefit analysis) double 2 x 4 stud 8 to 10" deep with 1 1/2" foam outside taped. up and over the roof if possible too.

Dave: With that much foam outside how to you detail door and window penetrations economically?

Bluetime Collaborative: that was my ideal performance scheme - not cost effective or very easy to detail. you see it sometimes on European passive house projects, often with the windows set to the inside face of the wall for increased thermal performance. Practical is 1 1/2" xps foam outside, (1" doesn't get the dew point out of the sheathing) and dense pack cellulose in the cavity. The question then becomes whether to set the windows and doors to the sheathing or block them out to the outside of the foam and strapping. (complicated layering and flashing) fortunately some window manufacturers are addressing this as I mentioned before with exterior jamb extensions. I also have a detail to allow an inswing exterior door to be mounted to the outside but still open nearly all the way. You can see it in the "Tiny House Plan for Sale"

Matt: Dave, if you want to see details on the 'all outside the wall' insulation plan you can download the REMOTE wall manual or look into the Canadian PERSIST method.

Matt: http://www.cchrc.org/

Bluetime Collaborative: foam on the outside works to get the dew point away from the sheathing but what about the ability of the wall to dry to the outside? I still have too many questions. I'm going to find a building scientist, knock him down and sit on his chest until he (or she) tells me what to do.

I hear you on that. One question: how do you figure out where dew point occurs for various times of the year within a wall?

Bluetime Collaborative : I think they look at the average temperature for the three coldest months (I could be wrong) because if the dew point occurs before the sheathing, water condenses on the sheathing itself and ices up rather than drying out. This is often a p...See More

Rui : good chat! With IBC 2009, the exterior wall design comes into question FINALLY, but only because the R-value is bumped up to 20 or (13+5). With the very first opportunity we had, we went with batt stud cavity R-13 insulation and R-5 continu...See More

Bluetime Collaborative : In VT and much of northern New England only 1" of ext foam puts the dew point in the sheathing too much of the time (rot issues) so we go with 1 1/2 to 2". Nominal vs actual doesn't seem to make it into codes either. a 2 x 6 wall with fib...See More

Rui: well that was exactly my next set of comments, the codes only go so far. Understanding the wall technology is more important than prescribed R values.

Bluetime Collaborative: reading...reading....

Dave: This is going to make a great blog post. I've been thinking about the wall section you sent for the last few days. I've also been thinking about this at a time where I'm detailing my own house. It's giving me a headache.

Bluetime Collaborative: Luckily we have GBA which has really become The on stop shop for learning. When I go to seminars for cont ed. it is all repeats of the discussions on GBA. Feel free to add questions you have, Environmental Building News is 1/2 mile away from my office - I have some contacts. http://www.energysmiths.com/ - Marc Rosenbaum is an excellent resource as well.

Dave: I'm scared of what the answers could be but I'm wondering about red cedars (non-rainscreen) over Zip System with closed cell poly (2x6 construction) and no vapor permeable membrane and an interior of veneer plaster. This is our standard wall these days...

Rui?:"Vaproshield" barrier

Bluetime Collaborative : vaproshield is an excellent product and what you use for an open rainscreen. I would look seriously at a rainscreen detail even just bumpy tevek type stuff. Rainscreen detailing is becoming code in parts of this country and if you did wood siding in some northern euro countries without rainscreen, they would look at you like you had two heads. I think the cedar works in your favor. We sometimes use New England white cedar from our local mill.

Greg: I am really not enthusiastic about the addition of low perm foam in thick layers to a wall system. Once you do this, you reverse to a drying to the inside wall system, and now suddenly every micro-climate needs to check the dew point location of their wall configuration to avert a disaster. To me this just does not make sense. A dry to the outside wall system is something that works over a wide climate range, and if AC is introduced, a smart vapor retarder like Membrain allows you to balance the drying performance for the summer.

Bluetime Collaborative: I'm starting toward the no foam on the outside idea as well. simply due to the drying thing. A local builder is liking Membrane and I tagged it elswhere for further study. We are lucky in VT as only people from out-of-state who build houses here seem to want A.C. We do seem to have extended very wet times (like now) every summer. I keep coming back to my oversimplified double stud wall for simplicity and low cost and excellent thermal performance. I've done it 1/2 doz times so far with different builders so the kinks are mostly worked out. Think of the inside 2 x 4 wall as just another interior wall.

This is typical of the conversation that goes on in the industry. Gregory La Vardera chimed in with this: "my opinion is the Building Sciences guys are brilliant, but rather insensitive to the practical side of what is easy or difficult, or even preposterous, to do in a house project. Even for a one of a kind custom show-off how energy efficient we can be house they can be a little over the top - never mind something we expect to be widely adopted across the entire housing industry." With which I would largely agree although I have found the building science folks around here seem to have a lot of practical knowledge gained from working closely with builders. LaVardera also linked me to a series of posts on his website detailing how the Swedes do things. If you go there, check out how they do windows - it's very cool. The swedes also don't do basements Grumpy architect alert: (Americans need basements because Americans have so much stuff) but have very nice foam slab forms that seem to have a durable cementitious outside surface rather than having to attach something to protect the foam afterwards. The Swedish system is built as much as possible in a factory which happens very little in the U.S. other than low cost modular type housing. There seems to be a big hump to get over in terms of creating factory built custom housing at a competitive price point. Also the Swedes don't seem to be afraid of Modern design. Perhaps that is also an American "thing"