Archinect
anchor

I hear it is his birthday!

snooker

I hear it is his Birthday! Alfred Parker Browning: A Class Act! google this master architect!

 
Oct 12, 06 8:56 pm
snooker
Oct 12, 06 8:56 pm  · 
 · 
snooker
Oct 12, 06 8:57 pm  · 
 · 
snooker

damn,damn, damn!

Oct 12, 06 8:58 pm  · 
 · 
snooker

go look here...http://www.gainesville.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060610/LOCAL/206100318/1078

Oct 12, 06 8:59 pm  · 
 · 
snooker

90 years of life and many of them spent in Architecture....

Oct 12, 06 9:03 pm  · 
 · 
weAREtheSTONES

oh so this is the guy that is responsible for the sprawl in florida - 6,000 houses - damn that some serious development. thanx AL

Oct 12, 06 9:14 pm  · 
 · 
vado retro

this guy really ought to quit ripping off dwell magazine. does he want a lawsuit or what????

Oct 12, 06 9:18 pm  · 
 · 
weAREtheSTONES

yeah let design more detached housing - thats what we really need

Oct 12, 06 9:20 pm  · 
 · 
weAREtheSTONES

with 2 acre plots - i love it

Oct 12, 06 9:21 pm  · 
 · 
snooker

Angry.... angry......look a bit deeper my friends....

Oct 12, 06 11:30 pm  · 
 · 
AP

wait, is someone really criticizing Alfred Browning Parker?

Oct 18, 06 5:28 pm  · 
 · 
weAREtheSTONES

yep

Oct 18, 06 5:36 pm  · 
 · 
AP

ignorant.

Oct 18, 06 5:40 pm  · 
 · 
AP

seriously.

if you don't know what you're talking about,
don't say anything.

Oct 18, 06 5:43 pm  · 
 · 
weAREtheSTONES

maybe i should of looked at another article but the one that was posted on i"i think its his birthday" wasnt very good representation of Mr. Parker

[Martha Kohen, director of the University of Florida's School of Architecture, said he has designed at least 6,000 houses, not to mention churches, schools, banks, shopping centers and offices.]


------this is the only portion of the article i read that had anything to do with sustainability.

[After air conditioning became prevalent in the 1950s, many Florida architects stopped using natural light and heat controls, Kohen said. Parker never did.
"He's very appreciative of the building's relationship with the environment," said Kohen, who compared Parker's work to Frank Lloyd Wright's. "His designs are highly innovative, and thrilling."]

-the article comes off as if parker designed all of gainsville - and correct me if im wrong but i think florida has the worst sprawl problem in the states...besides LA
-and this...parkers work is compared to FLW - Ha! I cant really think of a project that FLW did that was SUSTAINABLE - except for maybe fallingwater - but is constructing a house in the middle of the woods out of concrete and stone on top of a creek really sustainable??? and taliesin relates back to landscape...its in the middle of the desert!!! it has nothin to relate back to. what some random stones and cactus?

-to me detached housing will be the end of America the beutiful...conserve - not build houses where ever there isnt one yet.
from the article i read he didnt seem all that great to me

-in all seriousness could someone find an article or something that has Mr. Parker doing some sort sustainability so that I could be a little more clear on the situation




Oct 18, 06 6:22 pm  · 
 · 
le bossman

why is falling water the sustainable house? i always felt is was probably one of his least sustainable works in a lot of ways, and for the most part a sculptural work meant to be viewed from the outside. however, the solar hemicycle house he did in wisconsin was one of the first conscious examples of solar architecture. this was done in 1944. it didn't work very well because he didn't have high-tech glazings that we have to work with, but FLW was a pioneer in this area. way ahead of his time.

Oct 18, 06 7:22 pm  · 
 · 
snooker

stoned....falling water.....has a heck of alot of stone in it....I wouldn't call it all concrete....and I believe wood.....but don't know if those qualify as sustainable in our industry driven driven understanding of sustainable.

Oct 18, 06 7:28 pm  · 
 · 
treekiller

LA has less sprawl then florida - we are the highest density city in the US. We don't destroy natural habitats like the everglades, chew up the shoreline into a fractile labyrinth of canals to build 'waterfront' houses or have wall to wall condos destroying our coastline.

The again, we have more houses by FLlW in LA, then there are significant buildings e in the entire state of florida. Come on, when was the last time you saw a building from florida used in an architectural history or theory class. Arquitectonica never counted for beans, but maybe M. Lapidus does have some merit... but what is there?

My dear architect grandpa retired to the tropical environs of miami beach. For over 15 years after he died, my dad still got 'florida architect' in the mail for GranpaTK-AIA. That mag sucked in the 80s and 90s! does it still suck?

Oct 18, 06 7:31 pm  · 
 · 
weAREtheSTONES

well i do know that falling water has hella cantilevers so theres definatly a bunch of concrete in there not to mention steel

Oct 18, 06 8:02 pm  · 
 · 
weAREtheSTONES

anyway FLW used the surrounding area @ fallingwater to construct some of the home thats kinda sustainable............and i never knew about the solar hemicycle house...kool

-but does anyone have info on this parker guy

Oct 18, 06 8:09 pm  · 
 · 
weAREtheSTONES

but still they are houses in the middle of no-where

Oct 18, 06 8:12 pm  · 
 · 
snooker

Stones...I once over heard a conversation amongst three Sage a
Architects. You know guys who had been around the block and yup there was a great deal of respect for Parker you could hear it in their voices as I was driving them around Oak Park. So the story goes:

Parker wanted to show a friend one of what he personally felt was one of his best projects. When they rounded the corner, there was a different house located on the site....most likely one of those from "Awful House." He commented, " Don't you think the owners would tell the Architect they were going to tear down the house he designed, so he could at least photograph it."

Oct 18, 06 8:20 pm  · 
 · 
snooker

Stones: Everything I read....concrete is sustainable....

I would also like to mention go to Madison....find the house....and tell me it is isolated....Nope...Common folk live there.

Oct 18, 06 8:24 pm  · 
 · 

I took a sustainability class from Parker at UF. Although I cant say it was the most engaging class I've ever taken (He is in his 80's, and well kind of all over the place) he is very passionate about the subject. He showed his own houses and designs and talked about the principles of sustainability.

Oct 18, 06 8:40 pm  · 
 · 
weAREtheSTONES

UR TELLING ME THAT FALLINGWATER ISNT ISOLATED!...DUDE THE HOUSE IS IN THE MIDDLE OF THE WOODS...AND COMMON FOLK IN pa - THATS A JOKE. BUT SERIOUSLY FALLINGWATER WAS DESIGNED TO BE IN THE MIDDLE OF NO-WHERE AND IT IS IN THE MIDDLE OF NO-WHERE - [sorry for the caps] When FLW designed the "materpiece" there were no surrounding houses...nowadays when you stand at the site you cannot see another house at all...wouldnt that be isolated. THE AERIAL IM LOOKING AT LOOKS PRETTY GREEN TO ME.

Oct 18, 06 9:24 pm  · 
 · 
weAREtheSTONES

+q - yeah i had one of those professors - he would stand up during crit and lean against the wall while giving a crit...sometimes we thought he was sleeping...even when he was talking sounded as if he was falling asleep. but he was a (is a) very intelligent person.

Oct 18, 06 9:26 pm  · 
 · 
le bossman

also, ny is probably the most dense city, in terms of the city proper, but i do believe as a metro area that la is one of the densest cities.

Oct 19, 06 10:26 am  · 
 · 
mouse

New York is the most densely-populated city in the US - out of the top thirty, Los Angeles comes 29th. But no US city comes in the top ten world-wide - first is Hong Kong, second Lagos.

Oct 19, 06 10:41 am  · 
 · 
mouse

I really don't know why I did that........

Oct 19, 06 10:42 am  · 
 · 
treekiller
here is LA versus other places graphed

.

Just don't slam LA for lack of density.... If you ever tried to drive on the west side, you'd experience as much density as midtown.

Oct 19, 06 12:52 pm  · 
 · 
soleil

treekiller - your regional pride is charming.
now, per you comment regarding the state of florida having fewer significant architectural works than the # of FLW projects in LA - - --

I trust you've heard of Paul Rudolph? there is an entire book of his houses in florida - check it out. Then there is the Sarasota School of Architecture (its a historical movement - not a place of higher learning) you can find a book on that as well. Richard Meier built a house in palm beach. No doubt there are others - here are a few other florida architects to check out: Gene Leedy, Carlos Zapata, Mark Hampton, Alfonso Architects...not to mention the almost countless architecture faculty members at all the colleges and universities around the state that are certainly not sitting idle...

remember - just because you've never heard of it doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

Oct 19, 06 2:21 pm  · 
 · 
jensenarch
http://www.historical-museum.org/exhibits/florida_home/parker.htm

The Parker house on the attached link could have been in dwell last month just in color. Oh and it was done in 1954.

Blaming a 90 year old architect for Florida's sprawl is ridiculous. I didn’t realize that he had control of every municipalities zoning board. 6000 house over a life span may seem like a lot but 6000 houses will come on the market just this month in Florida. The word for his career is prolific. Why not respect an architect that kept his principals in a building environment that was pushing for more of Mizner’s Mediterranean revival.

Parker or FLW were sustainable in the respect to shading, breezes, and orientation etc. Comparing the 50’s to sustainable principals of today is like comparing a model T to the Toyota Prius. The technology just wasn’t there but the innovation has to be respected in its context.

Oct 19, 06 3:10 pm  · 
 · 
treekiller

ban de soleil - I should have winked in my original post, please realize that most of the comments were made in jest. there are only 6 houses by FLlW and 2 other buildings by him in LA- that's not very much. there are some great buildings in FL, but also just as much crap there as there is in LA.

As to Rudolph's 5 years in the sunshine state, you probably know much more about his contributions to architecture then I do. I am glad that I didn't go to yale and suffer in that building.

on the serious note- FL has a worse record of environmental destruction by developers then california does. Good luck with the billion $ boondoggle of restoring the everglades without removing the agriculture from lake occachobee.

Oct 19, 06 3:40 pm  · 
 · 
weAREtheSTONES

These are passive solar ideals. Which have been going on since the begining of time. You probobly shouldnt be an architect if you dont incorperate passive solar into your design. Here is another technique that has been used since WAY before FLW & Mr. Parker's parents were in their grandparents bellies!ancient sustainability techniques

Oct 19, 06 3:52 pm  · 
 · 
snooker

Tree Killer.....The highest concentration of FLW Buildingsin one area happens to be in Florida.
link">http://mysite.verizon.net/res8sukv/index.html]link[/url]

Oct 19, 06 4:59 pm  · 
 · 
soleil

TK - i understand what you're saying - the everglades is most certainly a disaster as is lake okechobee - blame the sugar industry (or better yet, don't eat/use sugar). development in FL is horrifying (part of why no longer live/work there)

but

my issue is with your dismissal of the important pieces of architecture that do exist in florida and refusal to acknowledge that anyone down there is making an effort at truly being an architect - that was the point of this thread - an acknowledgement of a dude who dedicated his life to design. I don't think this is a competition of "who has is worse" or "whose city is more dense" or anything else - - -- frankly - who cares?

Besides - you did ask what else is there...

Oct 19, 06 6:39 pm  · 
 · 
treekiller

thanks for the education on the glories of floridian architecture! I should also stop eating 'hothouse' tomatoes and oranges (unless their from CA) to save the everglades. Back when, I had a grad studio set on the west side of miami, that a semester was spent wallowing in the south florida swamp of urbanism. ;-)

hope my satire is not to dry for you gators.

Oct 19, 06 7:24 pm  · 
 · 
vado retro

i have been to florida once. it was before dizzyworld even existed. it was before we landed on the moon. we did go to cape kennedy and saw the apollo spaceship from about a mile away. i remember that there was a story on the news about two old ladies that were found dead in a car in an orange grove, apparently they got lost and couldnt find their way out of there.

Oct 19, 06 7:28 pm  · 
 · 

Block this user


Are you sure you want to block this user and hide all related comments throughout the site?

Archinect


This is your first comment on Archinect. Your comment will be visible once approved.

  • ×Search in: