yes it is a box and wood construction (except one three piece steel frame) on an urban hillside los angeles lot with decent material and few simple details on and under 125 per sq. ft. built six years ago by a bargain hunter developer client and my know how as well. it is possible (maybe i should say "was possible.")
I would say it's still possible if you skimp on finishes and some other extras.
ICFs are slightly more expensive (2-8%) than wood frame... if you finish them. And there's plenty of people happy with having exposed concrete in their homes. Cut out the interior drywall for 40-60% of the house and ICFs are much cheaper than stick.
You can supposedly also use ICFs as foundational walls too. So, I wouldn't be surprised if some fancy pants architect could apply the balloon framing technique to ICFs— e.g. use a 2+ story wall, partially bury the wall and hang the floor from the wall.
That'd cut out about 50% or so of your labor costs.
manta - something similar to orhan's pics would be in that range. wood frame for sure. could be tiny bits of steel.
my partner did an addition to his house last year for just over 125/sf, but he acted as the gc (though the overall savings was neglibile). now, if we had had another gc do it... probably about 175, but honestly, most of that would have been for risk management...
ya right...80 dollars a square foot...pioneer times....or old yankee times. I always love it when someone says 80 dollars a square foot when cement is $95.00 a yard.....someone is whistling dixie... Then there is the question...does that include the land and sanitary sewer (septic fields) or sewer hook up cost and or Community water or your own personal well...and ya do you get the stoop on the front of the house....and Windows....yes those expensive ass buggers. I don't think I have been involved in a project in the last ten years where the windows were less than $15,000.00.
william, all the windows are generic brand clear anodized aluminum 1-1/4" frame fixed or combo with awning panels. fleetwood slider sets with ox 5' panels, cheapest series they had with single glaze which is okay to use in los angeles. standard doug fir one lite french doors, and 1 6'x6' dome skylight and 3ct. 2' x 4' skylights. i think all were 11k and installed by the framer. they work perfectly no jams.
btw, sorry about schindler while back. i assume you talked to judith sheine, chair at cal poly pomona arch. she wrote several great books on schindler with a lot of record drawings and descriptions..
Greg, that house is really cool except the shockingly antisocial entrance. Dissonance is striking.
I feel compelled to share some of my work as well. So here it is:
Drawings and general provisions of the contract, unless otherwise directed by the Architect, or indicated in the drawings, shall apply to work as noted, unless noted otherwise.
Just came from an inspiring talk by Ed Mazria! there is hope that architects can save the world by reducing energy demand to zero by 2030. Now off to teach and see how many of my students were paying attention.
The only way this is mathematically possible is if unemployment in construction industry hits 100%. There are talks of carbon offseting, and carbon neutrality, and regenerative design, and blah blah. And I'm 100% behind a lot of these initiatives, but some of the terminology used is pure greenwashing. We need to be careful how we say stuff (if we are to be ambassadors of green).
Architecture is an incredible energy hog. Even moreso if you consider raw material industry (concrete, steel, oil based products used in thermal and moisture protection).
Since I know Donna has seen "Where the Wild Things Are," and others may have as well, I need to know, is it ok for a smart, and alpha-type four year old? He watched Davy Crockett, and The Swiss Family Robinson just fine. All the online reviews are leaving me confused.
check out denmark rusty. the country is going to be carbon neutral in near future. it's not difficult technically, but the govt is mandating it. unlike usa, where most of the country seems to think climate change is a heathen hoax.
@ sarah, what four year old boy ISN'T alpha-type? ;-) we have the dvd. it's nice to look at but hard to watch. my kids have tried a few times to watch past the first thirty minutes but get bored and put something else on, so i haven't seen it all the way through. it seems pretty safe to watch for any age, except for the lack of a story that can keep a kid in her seat.
If the energy demand of anything ever hits 0%, then the universe will fail to exist, have a existential crisis, collapse a few dimensions, pull itself back into a singularity and explode all over again.
Will, Denmark can not be carbon neutral. Math is just not there. We pump out 85.6 million barrels of oil PER DAY (globally). Nothing can offset these figures.
In lieu of 'carbon neutral' and 'zero energy', I prefer the term 'less fucked up than before' as a realistic goal.
I don't think we will ever get there as long as Dick Cheney keeps getting hearts....cause it will be pump....pump....pump! Who knows he might win the Republican Nomination for President with Sarah Palin as his Vice Presidental back up. Stranger things have happened and they are not Science Fiction.
Steve I had the good fortune to have worked in an office where Ed was a consultant on a passive solar girl scout retreat lodge in Wyoming. Actually saw him and Bucky Fuller give a lecture on the same weekend in Jackson Hole.
Rusty how expensive are you for freelance specs? It would be fascinating to work with you some day. If only to talk through some of the more arcane spec stuff. (I have a perverse love of specs, given the fact that I feel they are responsible for 99% of the banality of the American built environment...)
who said anything about offsetting? nice summary here, if interested.
you sound a bit like the guys who said the world would go dark without whale oil. we must kill more spermecetti! or maybe you just need a thneed?
the idea is to stop burning carbon to make shit. i agree its not easy but if the govt is making it a law (even natural gas boilers will be outlawed for home heating in new construction next year) then why not? i tell you i just lived through a year of energy blackouts and basically japan has shut off ALL of their nuclear power plants now so i foresee the country heading the same way. energy consumption can be changed and energy technology changed too if there is a desire to do it. of course radiation from a smoking ruined power plant is good incentive too...
the real problem is china and other countries with coal who are just getting started. doesn't matter what denmark does if china don't do the same. in which case yeah carry on. maybe somebody should call the lorax.
Sarah, like Will said, the Wild Things movie is kinda boring for kids. Visually beautiful but the story is confusing. In a way I like it, as it seems like a small slice of a story that was happening before the movie started and will continue after the movie ends, but the themes are kind of adult. Not sexual, but emotionally very mature.
"check out denmark rusty. the country is going to be carbon neutral in near future."
from the article: "This week, lawmakers in Denmark agreed... ...that will put the country on a path to getting 100% of electricity, heat and fuels from renewable resources by 2050."
Denmark's goals are formidable, but calling the effort out as "carbon neutral" is silly. I say we should all make an effort to use better terminology when promoting green technologies. No greenwashing guys. It only fuels the enemies and distractors. No pun.
manta: "Rusty how expensive are you for freelance specs?"
I used to offer a volume discount, but I recently went corporate. I no longer have clients. I have an employer. Besides a stable income, I am (for the first time in many, many, years) surrounded by architects and designers (that I can chat with on daily basis). Love it!
"I have a perverse love of specs, given the fact that I feel they are responsible for 99% of the banality of the American built environment..."
Most architects are terrified of specs. So I can't blame you for feeling that way. There's nothing perverse about specs. Besides getting the basics down (who dunnit?), rest is mostly all about QA and QC. Simple really.
Build environment in America is banal indeed. But if you are looking for something to blame, you should aim your blame finger a bit higher than a stack of papers. Unless directed otherwise.
i don't get that rusty. not burning carbon is the entire point of the deal.
greenwashing is about faking it and not going beyond the surface. don't see how the example of denmark fits that description but do understand that you don't want to oversell the future. especially in amerika.
feeling totally lucky to be in country where climate change is not connected to religion and politics ;-)
i think it's just the difference between path and result. using 100% renewables is a *path* to carbon neutral, but the process of the changeover will USE a lot of carbon for production and set-up: probably pretty carbon intensive at the front end. just think of what it takes to make all of those aluminum turbine towers!
so carbon neutral has to be parsed: is a future carbon neutral going to take all of the carbon the danes have to use now to get there into account in it's "neutral"? or will we ignore that and pretend that the negative externalities of getting to carbon neutral don't matter and just pat denmark on the back?
don't get me wrong. i think it's all good, and it's a way to nurture an economy based in renewables, but 'carbon neutral' is a slippery claim.
speaking of NOT carbon neutral, i'm taking off to drive to new orleans today! can't wait to see the city that i've missed for so many years. i get to take my girls on the streetcar to visit the audubon zoo, buy them beignets, and dance to street musicians. i love that city!
What Steven said. The rest is kinda personal. I have to be very careful with words and phrases in my line of work. Supply/install/furnish: pick a wrong word, and you just cost your client some serious $$.
Until there is an ASTM standard that tests for 'carbon neutrality', it's a BS term that means nothing in terms of numbers.
Personally, I'm (perversely) rejoicing at the passing of the 'painter of light' - yeay for significantly less crappy art in the world. (Donna, I do like that mash-up!)
To paraphrase Ed Mazria, yesterday he said: 'china is very competitive and once it sees the US doing something, it will try to do it better.' re: high-speed rail, photovoltaics and wind turbines. So if the US can cut demand for coal generated electricity, china will try to do the same. the question is will they succeed?
Steven, driving your family produces a fraction of the emissions that flying does. drive safe and have fun!
Oh, Barry, honey…the market will ensure that there is even MORE Light painting being produced now! I predict a new series of "The Light Beyond this Life" painted by his throngs of Master Highlighters along with a zilion commemorative bells, whistles, and funerary urns.
The work is crap but what it represents about our culture and our taste, our markets, and our attitudes toward art is far worse. But still, 54 is too young to die.
Speaking of death, I read this last night in the brilliant book Bonk by Mary Roach (her first book was called Stiff, about funerary practices). Gentlemen, be warned it may make you squirm:
(In 1916), in the first of two JAMA articles, G. Frank Lydston, a professor of genitourinary surgery at the Chicago College of Physicians and Surgeons, outlined the beneficial effects of tissue from a third testis...implanted in the scrotum beside the two that nature had bestowed. Though an increase in "sexual power" and "vigorous and prolonged erections" were the most common type of claimed results, the secretions of the auxiliary gonad, in Lydston's view, erased many of the afflictions of advancing age: high blood pressure, senility, arteriosclerosis. At one point he described curing a twenty-two-year-old youth of, among other afflictions, the "frequent writing of incoherent, rambling dissertations on architecture." It seemed no ailment stood strong in the face of another man's testis.
Make of it what you will. It made me giggle to think that architecture is something with which one is afflicted.
@ rusty, there is a provision to convert factories to non- carbon in the plan. i agree it won't resolve the issue entirely in a global economy but looks like a good first step to me. since they are starting on it next year the 2050 target seems reasonable and should lead to steady decline in carbon based energy production in all sectors. but let's see. could all turn to bollocks. they seem to be aiming deeper than most plans out there. they may even have spec writers in their govt.
china is already connecting their nation with rail that is faster than japan's shinkansen. not the best construction apparently, but still...
the discussion on rudolph's govt building is interesting. im not sure which side i sit. looks great as building (especially the interior is amazing), but also believe people should tear down the stuff they don't like. totally don't believe in teaching aesthetics to anybody, ever. that kind of argument is the one architects always lose.
Interesting, Will. How do you think people learn their aesthetic preferences? Just from their surroundings and culture, from childhood on? Is it the same for visual preferences as for music or food?
If we tore down the stuff we didn't like we'd be tearing things down willy nilly constantly. There are always people who don't like things. I would personally be responsible for half of my town's destruction. But that's not a very good way to be stewards of our resources, OR our history. I hate the Portland building but I find it useful to learn from. If we tear down everything we don't like how will we learn from it? I truly don't understand this attitude. I find it very wasteful and short-sighted. Plus, there are lots of things I didn't like until I learned about them, and then I grew to respect them - even if my tastes didn't necessarily change (and sometimes they did, through my eyes being opened). If we limit ourselves to preserving only the things we, uneducated, have a consensus 'taste' for, we'd probably be surrounded by blank boxes. The richness of life would be weeded out.
well i just don't feel architects should set themselves up as taste merchants is all. if we try to take that role we will lose badly. better to not have that discussion, really.
i'm not saying that you should tear things down manta, unless you owned it all. but if the owners want to well its theirs to do with as they like. that's just reality, and one i prefer over some sort of fascist taste police (there is enough of that already). i like and don't like a lot of stuff too and am happy to say so, but wouldn't try to take some sort of high ground because of my special education in aesthetics.
the rudolph building has some qualities that would be missed so i do hope it stays in place. but if most of the people there hate it then i don't see much way to get around that other than talking about what it does, or maybe better to talk about what it could do, since what it does is fail to work very well. calling people idiots is not much of a strategy for getting them to support your/our point of view.
much of this discussion is just frustration that we don't own what we design, and don't have control over it either. power is in the hands of others and we want it. which is cool, but trying to take the power by flashing our fashion sense seems unlikely to work to me...maybe what we need to do is produce work that is aspirational. that doesn't mean aiming for the lowest denominator.
I would prefer if we aimed to be more inclusive, all in all, and not set out to fix the world by trying to shut out a whole group because they aren't educated or whatever.
I agree that calling people idiots is never the way to win an argument (right-wing evangelists just scream for it, though!). But I do like to make a rational argument that calls on someone to state something about which they are an expert - medicine, law, hunting, country music, whatever - and make a comparison to their knowledge base vs. mine. I *do* know more about architecture and architectural aesthetics than most people, and I learned that knowledge through experience and education, just as skilled pheasant hunters learned their passion. If the issue at hand is bow vs. shot to bring down a bird you want to eat and/or for a festival of hunting, I respect others' superior knowledge.
does anybody know of someplace to get cool/modern/minimalist/whatever funeral urns? i've done a little bit of googling and everything that i find is crap.
there are some in japan philip, but kind of doubt they export to usa. can try and track them down if you want to try...
@ donna, i understand you and agree, kind of.
the problem is that nobody but us thinks we are experts in anything useful. No matter your background, taste is subjective and education does not make mine or yours better than someone else's. Even if we do have better taste we don't have the power to act on it so it doesn't matter. As a profession we are better off highlighting other things. It's a real sticky wicket.
On the issue of taste, I actually accept more and more that taste as most people refer to it does not exist. Think of a time when someone's told you, "well, that's just your taste. My taste is different" and you outright knew that they were accepting a less superior product. You knew that based on your experience, and your attention to details that they did not perceive. But the way most people see it, "taste" is the irreproachable thing that everybody has and everybody's is equally valid, and that is exactly what I don't believe in.
But really, taste is really something that is built up over time, that is a shorthand for what accommodates our needs and priorities. When a client or boss argues that a certain font is "better looking" than something else, I talk to them about legibility at scale, or pull out examples of what people commonly see that font used in (and will therefor be likely to associate us with either consciously or subconsciously). The same thing could be said for a building material, a construction detail, a lighting fixture, pretty much anything. When you choose a material, you see in it not just color, texture, and thickness, but also light transmission, reflectivity, cost, labor, upkeep, and a dozen other things all based on your past experiences. Taste is preference, but that preference really is built on something, and calling attention to the details of what makes something better to us as professionals generates more respect for our "taste," and the experience that has shaped it.
phillip, there are some basic metal jars you can use for ashes specially if you scribe a design or a memoriam on them. these are stainless steel.. just an idea....
Thread Central
yes it is a box and wood construction (except one three piece steel frame) on an urban hillside los angeles lot with decent material and few simple details on and under 125 per sq. ft. built six years ago by a bargain hunter developer client and my know how as well. it is possible (maybe i should say "was possible.")
http://www.flickr.com/photos/87051047@N00/sets/72157606679667909/
I would say it's still possible if you skimp on finishes and some other extras.
ICFs are slightly more expensive (2-8%) than wood frame... if you finish them. And there's plenty of people happy with having exposed concrete in their homes. Cut out the interior drywall for 40-60% of the house and ICFs are much cheaper than stick.
You can supposedly also use ICFs as foundational walls too. So, I wouldn't be surprised if some fancy pants architect could apply the balloon framing technique to ICFs— e.g. use a 2+ story wall, partially bury the wall and hang the floor from the wall.
That'd cut out about 50% or so of your labor costs.
manta - something similar to orhan's pics would be in that range. wood frame for sure. could be tiny bits of steel.
my partner did an addition to his house last year for just over 125/sf, but he acted as the gc (though the overall savings was neglibile). now, if we had had another gc do it... probably about 175, but honestly, most of that would have been for risk management...
Orhan- Nice Project!
Who made the windows? Spec? What did they cost?
Cheers,
William
OMG Gregory I love your partner's project! Gives me inspiration for the front of my own crappy house!
Or let me rephrase that: inspiration for redoing the crappy front of my own house, which is actually quite lovely on the inside and in back.
your house is way cool donna!
rip, jim marshall
I like all your current Front facade ideas, Donna. Just sayin.
ya right...80 dollars a square foot...pioneer times....or old yankee times. I always love it when someone says 80 dollars a square foot when cement is $95.00 a yard.....someone is whistling dixie... Then there is the question...does that include the land and sanitary sewer (septic fields) or sewer hook up cost and or Community water or your own personal well...and ya do you get the stoop on the front of the house....and Windows....yes those expensive ass buggers. I don't think I have been involved in a project in the last ten years where the windows were less than $15,000.00.
william, all the windows are generic brand clear anodized aluminum 1-1/4" frame fixed or combo with awning panels. fleetwood slider sets with ox 5' panels, cheapest series they had with single glaze which is okay to use in los angeles. standard doug fir one lite french doors, and 1 6'x6' dome skylight and 3ct. 2' x 4' skylights. i think all were 11k and installed by the framer. they work perfectly no jams.
btw, sorry about schindler while back. i assume you talked to judith sheine, chair at cal poly pomona arch. she wrote several great books on schindler with a lot of record drawings and descriptions..
orhan that house is really lovely! what's the idea behind the awnings? It looks like a kind of chain metal screen?
also, what's on the floor above the garage?
ALSO, Greg, beautiful house! Thanks for sharing! It's so nice to see everyone's work around these parts. I'll have to put some of mine up.
Greg, that house is really cool except the shockingly antisocial entrance. Dissonance is striking.
I feel compelled to share some of my work as well. So here it is:
Drawings and general provisions of the contract, unless otherwise directed by the Architect, or indicated in the drawings, shall apply to work as noted, unless noted otherwise.
Thank you.
lol rusty! like.
Rusty your punctuation is relentlessly minimal in contrast to the organic whimsy of the syntax. Great work!
Just came from an inspiring talk by Ed Mazria! there is hope that architects can save the world by reducing energy demand to zero by 2030. Now off to teach and see how many of my students were paying attention.
"by reducing energy demand to zero by 2030"
The only way this is mathematically possible is if unemployment in construction industry hits 100%. There are talks of carbon offseting, and carbon neutrality, and regenerative design, and blah blah. And I'm 100% behind a lot of these initiatives, but some of the terminology used is pure greenwashing. We need to be careful how we say stuff (if we are to be ambassadors of green).
Architecture is an incredible energy hog. Even moreso if you consider raw material industry (concrete, steel, oil based products used in thermal and moisture protection).
Ok, quick sidebar...
Since I know Donna has seen "Where the Wild Things Are," and others may have as well, I need to know, is it ok for a smart, and alpha-type four year old? He watched Davy Crockett, and The Swiss Family Robinson just fine. All the online reviews are leaving me confused.
check out denmark rusty. the country is going to be carbon neutral in near future. it's not difficult technically, but the govt is mandating it. unlike usa, where most of the country seems to think climate change is a heathen hoax.
@ sarah, what four year old boy ISN'T alpha-type? ;-) we have the dvd. it's nice to look at but hard to watch. my kids have tried a few times to watch past the first thirty minutes but get bored and put something else on, so i haven't seen it all the way through. it seems pretty safe to watch for any age, except for the lack of a story that can keep a kid in her seat.
Will, rusty is pointing out the word "energy."
If the energy demand of anything ever hits 0%, then the universe will fail to exist, have a existential crisis, collapse a few dimensions, pull itself back into a singularity and explode all over again.
Well played James. golfclap.
Will, Denmark can not be carbon neutral. Math is just not there. We pump out 85.6 million barrels of oil PER DAY (globally). Nothing can offset these figures.
In lieu of 'carbon neutral' and 'zero energy', I prefer the term 'less fucked up than before' as a realistic goal.
I don't think we will ever get there as long as Dick Cheney keeps getting hearts....cause it will be pump....pump....pump! Who knows he might win the Republican Nomination for President with Sarah Palin as his Vice Presidental back up. Stranger things have happened and they are not Science Fiction.
Steve I had the good fortune to have worked in an office where Ed was a consultant on a passive solar girl scout retreat lodge in Wyoming. Actually saw him and Bucky Fuller give a lecture on the same weekend in Jackson Hole.
oops....that was for Barry!
Rusty how expensive are you for freelance specs? It would be fascinating to work with you some day. If only to talk through some of the more arcane spec stuff. (I have a perverse love of specs, given the fact that I feel they are responsible for 99% of the banality of the American built environment...)
happy happy joy joy! happy happy joy joy! happy happy joy joy! happy happy joy joy! happy happy joy joy!
happy !!!
who said anything about offsetting? nice summary here, if interested.
you sound a bit like the guys who said the world would go dark without whale oil. we must kill more spermecetti! or maybe you just need a thneed?
the idea is to stop burning carbon to make shit. i agree its not easy but if the govt is making it a law (even natural gas boilers will be outlawed for home heating in new construction next year) then why not? i tell you i just lived through a year of energy blackouts and basically japan has shut off ALL of their nuclear power plants now so i foresee the country heading the same way. energy consumption can be changed and energy technology changed too if there is a desire to do it. of course radiation from a smoking ruined power plant is good incentive too...
the real problem is china and other countries with coal who are just getting started. doesn't matter what denmark does if china don't do the same. in which case yeah carry on. maybe somebody should call the lorax.
Nice post, Will. I like how it circles back.
Sarah, like Will said, the Wild Things movie is kinda boring for kids. Visually beautiful but the story is confusing. In a way I like it, as it seems like a small slice of a story that was happening before the movie started and will continue after the movie ends, but the themes are kind of adult. Not sexual, but emotionally very mature.
"check out denmark rusty. the country is going to be carbon neutral in near future."
from the article: "This week, lawmakers in Denmark agreed... ...that will put the country on a path to getting 100% of electricity, heat and fuels from renewable resources by 2050."
Denmark's goals are formidable, but calling the effort out as "carbon neutral" is silly. I say we should all make an effort to use better terminology when promoting green technologies. No greenwashing guys. It only fuels the enemies and distractors. No pun.
manta: "Rusty how expensive are you for freelance specs?"
I used to offer a volume discount, but I recently went corporate. I no longer have clients. I have an employer. Besides a stable income, I am (for the first time in many, many, years) surrounded by architects and designers (that I can chat with on daily basis). Love it!
"I have a perverse love of specs, given the fact that I feel they are responsible for 99% of the banality of the American built environment..."
Most architects are terrified of specs. So I can't blame you for feeling that way. There's nothing perverse about specs. Besides getting the basics down (who dunnit?), rest is mostly all about QA and QC. Simple really.
Build environment in America is banal indeed. But if you are looking for something to blame, you should aim your blame finger a bit higher than a stack of papers. Unless directed otherwise.
How Denmark's policies not promote carbon neutrality?
i don't get that rusty. not burning carbon is the entire point of the deal.
greenwashing is about faking it and not going beyond the surface. don't see how the example of denmark fits that description but do understand that you don't want to oversell the future. especially in amerika.
feeling totally lucky to be in country where climate change is not connected to religion and politics ;-)
i think it's just the difference between path and result. using 100% renewables is a *path* to carbon neutral, but the process of the changeover will USE a lot of carbon for production and set-up: probably pretty carbon intensive at the front end. just think of what it takes to make all of those aluminum turbine towers!
so carbon neutral has to be parsed: is a future carbon neutral going to take all of the carbon the danes have to use now to get there into account in it's "neutral"? or will we ignore that and pretend that the negative externalities of getting to carbon neutral don't matter and just pat denmark on the back?
don't get me wrong. i think it's all good, and it's a way to nurture an economy based in renewables, but 'carbon neutral' is a slippery claim.
speaking of NOT carbon neutral, i'm taking off to drive to new orleans today! can't wait to see the city that i've missed for so many years. i get to take my girls on the streetcar to visit the audubon zoo, buy them beignets, and dance to street musicians. i love that city!
Have fun Steven!
What Steven said. The rest is kinda personal. I have to be very careful with words and phrases in my line of work. Supply/install/furnish: pick a wrong word, and you just cost your client some serious $$.
Until there is an ASTM standard that tests for 'carbon neutrality', it's a BS term that means nothing in terms of numbers.
.
Will said "the country is going to be carbon neutral in near future"
Personally, I'm (perversely) rejoicing at the passing of the 'painter of light' - yeay for significantly less crappy art in the world. (Donna, I do like that mash-up!)
To paraphrase Ed Mazria, yesterday he said: 'china is very competitive and once it sees the US doing something, it will try to do it better.' re: high-speed rail, photovoltaics and wind turbines. So if the US can cut demand for coal generated electricity, china will try to do the same. the question is will they succeed?
Steven, driving your family produces a fraction of the emissions that flying does. drive safe and have fun!
Oh, Barry, honey…the market will ensure that there is even MORE Light painting being produced now! I predict a new series of "The Light Beyond this Life" painted by his throngs of Master Highlighters along with a zilion commemorative bells, whistles, and funerary urns.
The work is crap but what it represents about our culture and our taste, our markets, and our attitudes toward art is far worse. But still, 54 is too young to die.
Speaking of death, I read this last night in the brilliant book Bonk by Mary Roach (her first book was called Stiff, about funerary practices). Gentlemen, be warned it may make you squirm:
(In 1916), in the first of two JAMA articles, G. Frank Lydston, a professor of genitourinary surgery at the Chicago College of Physicians and Surgeons, outlined the beneficial effects of tissue from a third testis...implanted in the scrotum beside the two that nature had bestowed. Though an increase in "sexual power" and "vigorous and prolonged erections" were the most common type of claimed results, the secretions of the auxiliary gonad, in Lydston's view, erased many of the afflictions of advancing age: high blood pressure, senility, arteriosclerosis. At one point he described curing a twenty-two-year-old youth of, among other afflictions, the "frequent writing of incoherent, rambling dissertations on architecture." It seemed no ailment stood strong in the face of another man's testis.
Make of it what you will. It made me giggle to think that architecture is something with which one is afflicted.
that is hilarious donna.
@ rusty, there is a provision to convert factories to non- carbon in the plan. i agree it won't resolve the issue entirely in a global economy but looks like a good first step to me. since they are starting on it next year the 2050 target seems reasonable and should lead to steady decline in carbon based energy production in all sectors. but let's see. could all turn to bollocks. they seem to be aiming deeper than most plans out there. they may even have spec writers in their govt.
china is already connecting their nation with rail that is faster than japan's shinkansen. not the best construction apparently, but still...
the discussion on rudolph's govt building is interesting. im not sure which side i sit. looks great as building (especially the interior is amazing), but also believe people should tear down the stuff they don't like. totally don't believe in teaching aesthetics to anybody, ever. that kind of argument is the one architects always lose.
Interesting, Will. How do you think people learn their aesthetic preferences? Just from their surroundings and culture, from childhood on? Is it the same for visual preferences as for music or food?
If we tore down the stuff we didn't like we'd be tearing things down willy nilly constantly. There are always people who don't like things. I would personally be responsible for half of my town's destruction. But that's not a very good way to be stewards of our resources, OR our history. I hate the Portland building but I find it useful to learn from. If we tear down everything we don't like how will we learn from it? I truly don't understand this attitude. I find it very wasteful and short-sighted. Plus, there are lots of things I didn't like until I learned about them, and then I grew to respect them - even if my tastes didn't necessarily change (and sometimes they did, through my eyes being opened). If we limit ourselves to preserving only the things we, uneducated, have a consensus 'taste' for, we'd probably be surrounded by blank boxes. The richness of life would be weeded out.
RIP THOMAS KINKADE....MY THE LIGHT SHINE ON!
well i just don't feel architects should set themselves up as taste merchants is all. if we try to take that role we will lose badly. better to not have that discussion, really.
i'm not saying that you should tear things down manta, unless you owned it all. but if the owners want to well its theirs to do with as they like. that's just reality, and one i prefer over some sort of fascist taste police (there is enough of that already). i like and don't like a lot of stuff too and am happy to say so, but wouldn't try to take some sort of high ground because of my special education in aesthetics.
the rudolph building has some qualities that would be missed so i do hope it stays in place. but if most of the people there hate it then i don't see much way to get around that other than talking about what it does, or maybe better to talk about what it could do, since what it does is fail to work very well. calling people idiots is not much of a strategy for getting them to support your/our point of view.
much of this discussion is just frustration that we don't own what we design, and don't have control over it either. power is in the hands of others and we want it. which is cool, but trying to take the power by flashing our fashion sense seems unlikely to work to me...maybe what we need to do is produce work that is aspirational. that doesn't mean aiming for the lowest denominator.
I would prefer if we aimed to be more inclusive, all in all, and not set out to fix the world by trying to shut out a whole group because they aren't educated or whatever.
I agree that calling people idiots is never the way to win an argument (right-wing evangelists just scream for it, though!). But I do like to make a rational argument that calls on someone to state something about which they are an expert - medicine, law, hunting, country music, whatever - and make a comparison to their knowledge base vs. mine. I *do* know more about architecture and architectural aesthetics than most people, and I learned that knowledge through experience and education, just as skilled pheasant hunters learned their passion. If the issue at hand is bow vs. shot to bring down a bird you want to eat and/or for a festival of hunting, I respect others' superior knowledge.
does anybody know of someplace to get cool/modern/minimalist/whatever funeral urns? i've done a little bit of googling and everything that i find is crap.
there are some in japan philip, but kind of doubt they export to usa. can try and track them down if you want to try...
@ donna, i understand you and agree, kind of.
the problem is that nobody but us thinks we are experts in anything useful. No matter your background, taste is subjective and education does not make mine or yours better than someone else's. Even if we do have better taste we don't have the power to act on it so it doesn't matter. As a profession we are better off highlighting other things. It's a real sticky wicket.
On the issue of taste, I actually accept more and more that taste as most people refer to it does not exist. Think of a time when someone's told you, "well, that's just your taste. My taste is different" and you outright knew that they were accepting a less superior product. You knew that based on your experience, and your attention to details that they did not perceive. But the way most people see it, "taste" is the irreproachable thing that everybody has and everybody's is equally valid, and that is exactly what I don't believe in.
But really, taste is really something that is built up over time, that is a shorthand for what accommodates our needs and priorities. When a client or boss argues that a certain font is "better looking" than something else, I talk to them about legibility at scale, or pull out examples of what people commonly see that font used in (and will therefor be likely to associate us with either consciously or subconsciously). The same thing could be said for a building material, a construction detail, a lighting fixture, pretty much anything. When you choose a material, you see in it not just color, texture, and thickness, but also light transmission, reflectivity, cost, labor, upkeep, and a dozen other things all based on your past experiences. Taste is preference, but that preference really is built on something, and calling attention to the details of what makes something better to us as professionals generates more respect for our "taste," and the experience that has shaped it.
phillip, there are some basic metal jars you can use for ashes specially if you scribe a design or a memoriam on them. these are stainless steel.. just an idea....
here is something ikea sells.
i hope you guys feel better.
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