Say a brick building has a stone water table...say some of the windows fall below the water table and some rest on top. Say there are shutters, fake ones, on these windows...
I can hold my tongue about the shutters above the water table, but I feel it looks unatural for the shutters to go below the water table, where as the water table has to be cut short in order to allow room for the shutter.
In my example, I was more worried about the condition where the water table stops, and the brick starts behind/beside the shutters. It has since been made clear that they brick and stone will be in the same plane, and only a slight bump at the trim between the brick and stone will exist. So its a bit less akward I think, but still seems unnatural to me.
Maybe I'm still too high-minded being fresh out of school.
I tend to disapprove of fake elements if ALL the (in this case) shutters are fake. But if just some of them are fake, say if there's some technical reason that the real ones wouldn't work on one or more specific windows - then I approve of "installing" fake shutters on those windows... for the sake of homogenity or whatever.
I used to work in a brick factoy building in Rhode Island that had the situation that you're describing: there was a walkout basement level where the bottom two thirds of the windows were in the stone wall, and the upper third of each window was in brick wall. They had old wood shutters, painted black, which were "real" in the sense that they appeared to be operable (were hinged and had the old S-shaped stops screwed into the wall below them , that could be turned to release them. They were "fake" in the sense that nobody had probably attempted to operate them in 80 years...
The whole 4-story building had the black shutters, and it probably would have looked more odd to leave them off that lower story.
my house has fake beams. the contractor thought they'd look nice. they look ok, but i wish they were really holding up the ceiling and not just tacked on.
Fake shutters should never, ever, in any circumstance, be used. Ever.
If there is a window where a regular shutter won't work, for whatever reason, then instead of tacking on a piece that "looks like the others" for the sake on consistency, do the heavy design work required of the problem. Ask yourself "What is the problem trying to be solved with this item?"
In the case of shutters, they are intended as protective devices and sometimes as shading devices. The entire point of them is that they be operable. So if they can't be operable in the traditional sense, how else can they work? Hinged on the top or bottom edge? Two halves, one at the plane of the brick, one at the plane of the stone, with a horizontal cover/attachment piece bridging the planar gap? A rolling shutter hidden inside the wall? Fixed louvered panels that provide the protection most desired without allowing the view/sunlight which may be less important at this location?
If you keep backtracking to what the purpose of something is, the answers become evident.
Maybe the first question is, why does the window break the water table?
My absoloute favorite detail ever is the "Ironic Column" that Venturi Scott Brown put over the loading dock of the Allen Art Museum Extension in Oberlin, OH. It's a Wooden mockup of an Ionic colum in the VSB style that appers to support the corner of the building. I walked by it almost every day for five years, and It wasn't until the fourth year that I found out it doesn't touch the ground (you have to lay down on the ground to see).
although i agree whole-heartedly with LB and the other fake-shutter-haters, i also hate being a hypocrite...and i am struggling here, since my 1927 craftsman bungalow (purchased 1.5 years ago) has 6 fake shutters...we've been working in the interior of the house, and we still have some work in the kitchen left to do before we are happy; but the exterior has been left untouched (except for landscape, new street numbers, new porch light, and new mailbox), and those 6 fake shutters are still there...looking at me, calling me names as i walk by...when we first moved in i was ready to take them down, but my wife asked me to leave them on until we are ready to address some siding issues (there will be some discoloration and the siding might be replaced within the next couple of years)...so...what am i to do...declare my hatred to fake shutters and be branded a hypocrite, or wait until i get enough case to install new siding and only publically declare my hatred then...
From my recall, the craftsman style rarely used shutters... I have researched this.
I like fake shutters and those Eye Talien "Doors For The Dead".
In fact I might make a window for the dead and frame it with fake shutters, so there.
their function is very clear: to help complete the fantasy that your house is of some certain time in history that wasn't really as great as everbody wants to pretend it was.
simples, you're not being a hypocrite! Nor you, cityboy!
Simply, we don't earn enough to make our houses exactly what we dream of them being all at once - like our clients do. I've owned two houses now, both of them I gutted and redid on the interior, but the exteriors are a disaster, an embarrassingly ugly disaster! My current home has a PoMo arched entry porch and a matching front door with a fan light...ugh! But the interior is perfect and I just need to wait it out until I have he $20K I need to redo the front!
simples, in your case the concern about siding fading is valid - if you tear off the shutters and have those faded rectangles underneath you'll end up with a trashier-looking house. We started repainting the house this June, and what with summer things keeping us busy we've so far done only the front and half of one side...so the house looks even uglier than usual and unless I find a lot of free time in the next month I see us living through winter in a half-painted house, ugh.
my comment for this one: i'm also a fake-hater, but i can acknowledge that there is some grey area. i recall commenting a few months ago on a photo that p2an had on his flickr account of a new project by bolles and wilson in Den Haag, NL. the project had brick tile on the facade, and i expressed displeasure in this. he stated, as mdler does above, that it's all just a skin, whether whole brick or brick tile or glass or stucco or whatever. nevertheless, as i see it, a brick is a brick. a brick tile is pretending to be a brick.
otherwise, the firm i worked at in back in florida employed at least one architect that was not above using fake elements in projects. in the ymca that i've posted on the jobsite thread, he drew up a slew of engaged "folumns" in order to "add rhythm" to the walls of a couple of not so long corridors. fortunately, he was let go while the project was still in DD, and we quickly scrapped the folumns and came up with alternative ways to break up the monotony of these spaces.
the only thing worse than fake shutters is fake shutters that aren't wide enough to cover the window they surround, were the shutters actually operable. clowns
brooklyn boy: antlers? I see some definite grey area when the "real" material is an animal part and the fake is a replica of it. I'd rather not use animals, if I can avoid it.
I'll even use faux leather. But! I did just see a hair-on-hide leather patchwork rug for which I now lust....it's dreamy...so sometimes it's OK.
my step-father-in-law has a whole room of antlers that he hunted, including a antler chandelier in the middle of the room. that room gives me the heeby-jeebies.
Fake Building Elements
A poll.....
How do you feel about fake elements? Can you compromise if they follow all the parameters of the real thing?
For example...
Fake shutters...
Say a brick building has a stone water table...say some of the windows fall below the water table and some rest on top. Say there are shutters, fake ones, on these windows...
I can hold my tongue about the shutters above the water table, but I feel it looks unatural for the shutters to go below the water table, where as the water table has to be cut short in order to allow room for the shutter.
Your take? Am I being too idealistic?
I despise non-operable "decorative" shutters.
I like operable shutters and would like to see more of them. They're used all over the rest of the world and seem like a good idea.
i'm all for fake EIFS, wait i meant EIFS. either way, real or fake, it still won't work.
buildings should NOT be any more real than those who inhabit them.
don bother me a bit...it did when i was a student but now i don't care. is just style. some people can do it, some can't.
FAT seems to do ok fake sometimes...
so i wonder. water-table example is not bad cuz fake, jes bad cuz not nice design?
but anyway, what ISNT fake nowadays?
In my example, I was more worried about the condition where the water table stops, and the brick starts behind/beside the shutters. It has since been made clear that they brick and stone will be in the same plane, and only a slight bump at the trim between the brick and stone will exist. So its a bit less akward I think, but still seems unnatural to me.
Maybe I'm still too high-minded being fresh out of school.
I tend to disapprove of fake elements if ALL the (in this case) shutters are fake. But if just some of them are fake, say if there's some technical reason that the real ones wouldn't work on one or more specific windows - then I approve of "installing" fake shutters on those windows... for the sake of homogenity or whatever.
keep it real, man.
I used to work in a brick factoy building in Rhode Island that had the situation that you're describing: there was a walkout basement level where the bottom two thirds of the windows were in the stone wall, and the upper third of each window was in brick wall. They had old wood shutters, painted black, which were "real" in the sense that they appeared to be operable (were hinged and had the old S-shaped stops screwed into the wall below them , that could be turned to release them. They were "fake" in the sense that nobody had probably attempted to operate them in 80 years...
The whole 4-story building had the black shutters, and it probably would have looked more odd to leave them off that lower story.
it is all fasasodomy anyways. Unless your building is load bearing brick, should it really be made of brick????
2x4 framing + .......
I don't mind fake shutters, because additional color can be used. Can we call any particular color fake because it is not functional?
W.W.L.C.D?
my house has fake beams. the contractor thought they'd look nice. they look ok, but i wish they were really holding up the ceiling and not just tacked on.
Operable shutters are cool.
Fake shutters should never, ever, in any circumstance, be used. Ever.
If there is a window where a regular shutter won't work, for whatever reason, then instead of tacking on a piece that "looks like the others" for the sake on consistency, do the heavy design work required of the problem. Ask yourself "What is the problem trying to be solved with this item?"
In the case of shutters, they are intended as protective devices and sometimes as shading devices. The entire point of them is that they be operable. So if they can't be operable in the traditional sense, how else can they work? Hinged on the top or bottom edge? Two halves, one at the plane of the brick, one at the plane of the stone, with a horizontal cover/attachment piece bridging the planar gap? A rolling shutter hidden inside the wall? Fixed louvered panels that provide the protection most desired without allowing the view/sunlight which may be less important at this location?
If you keep backtracking to what the purpose of something is, the answers become evident.
Maybe the first question is, why does the window break the water table?
dammson, who is LC?
whats a water table?
lb, le corb...
I may be in love with liberty bell. That's exactly how I feel.
Isn't the point of the water table disrupted by the presence of windows?
My absoloute favorite detail ever is the "Ironic Column" that Venturi Scott Brown put over the loading dock of the Allen Art Museum Extension in Oberlin, OH. It's a Wooden mockup of an Ionic colum in the VSB style that appers to support the corner of the building. I walked by it almost every day for five years, and It wasn't until the fourth year that I found out it doesn't touch the ground (you have to lay down on the ground to see).
but sometimes the purpose is to just look real.
them practical jokers...
rather than actually being real...
LB:
You fake shutter hater, you.
Stop the Hate!
I hate the color black, it's so fake.
you guys have opened up a can of worms for me...
although i agree whole-heartedly with LB and the other fake-shutter-haters, i also hate being a hypocrite...and i am struggling here, since my 1927 craftsman bungalow (purchased 1.5 years ago) has 6 fake shutters...we've been working in the interior of the house, and we still have some work in the kitchen left to do before we are happy; but the exterior has been left untouched (except for landscape, new street numbers, new porch light, and new mailbox), and those 6 fake shutters are still there...looking at me, calling me names as i walk by...when we first moved in i was ready to take them down, but my wife asked me to leave them on until we are ready to address some siding issues (there will be some discoloration and the siding might be replaced within the next couple of years)...so...what am i to do...declare my hatred to fake shutters and be branded a hypocrite, or wait until i get enough case to install new siding and only publically declare my hatred then...
From my recall, the craftsman style rarely used shutters... I have researched this.
I like fake shutters and those Eye Talien "Doors For The Dead".
In fact I might make a window for the dead and frame it with fake shutters, so there.
simples,
just grease pen "this is not a fake shutter" on said shutters.
cf...you are right...i just photoshopped the shutters out of the house, and will present my case to my "better-half"
also agree with LB...... the house we just bought has a set (yikes) CAN'T WAIT to rip 'em off the wall!
i wore a suit made of fake shutters today. also had a clip on bowtie as i am not quite as cool as petey
how come architects tend to live in craftsman bungalows?
they're not fake.
they're just not shutters.
their function is very clear: to help complete the fantasy that your house is of some certain time in history that wasn't really as great as everbody wants to pretend it was.
i think what we all despise is called neo-eclectic
i do this stuff at work all the time.. i wish the clients hated it as much as i do
fakin the funk......
simples, you're not being a hypocrite! Nor you, cityboy!
Simply, we don't earn enough to make our houses exactly what we dream of them being all at once - like our clients do. I've owned two houses now, both of them I gutted and redid on the interior, but the exteriors are a disaster, an embarrassingly ugly disaster! My current home has a PoMo arched entry porch and a matching front door with a fan light...ugh! But the interior is perfect and I just need to wait it out until I have he $20K I need to redo the front!
simples, in your case the concern about siding fading is valid - if you tear off the shutters and have those faded rectangles underneath you'll end up with a trashier-looking house. We started repainting the house this June, and what with summer things keeping us busy we've so far done only the front and half of one side...so the house looks even uglier than usual and unless I find a lot of free time in the next month I see us living through winter in a half-painted house, ugh.
Such is the life of an architect!
My biggest residential pet peeve:
8' windows with 1' shutters. THAT'S NOT EVEN CLOSE YOU F**KTARDS!
If you're gonna fake it, fake it right. The false shutters should, in theory, be able to cover the window they're flanking.
Sometimes I completely loose faith in the competence of mankind.
search for "light emitting concrete"
oops...that was intended for a different thread.
my comment for this one: i'm also a fake-hater, but i can acknowledge that there is some grey area. i recall commenting a few months ago on a photo that p2an had on his flickr account of a new project by bolles and wilson in Den Haag, NL. the project had brick tile on the facade, and i expressed displeasure in this. he stated, as mdler does above, that it's all just a skin, whether whole brick or brick tile or glass or stucco or whatever. nevertheless, as i see it, a brick is a brick. a brick tile is pretending to be a brick.
otherwise, the firm i worked at in back in florida employed at least one architect that was not above using fake elements in projects. in the ymca that i've posted on the jobsite thread, he drew up a slew of engaged "folumns" in order to "add rhythm" to the walls of a couple of not so long corridors. fortunately, he was let go while the project was still in DD, and we quickly scrapped the folumns and came up with alternative ways to break up the monotony of these spaces.
folumns = fake columns
the only thing worse than fake shutters is fake shutters that aren't wide enough to cover the window they surround, were the shutters actually operable. clowns
good fake:
composite panels w/ wood veneer
ok fake:
thin brick
bad fake:
inoperable shutters
folumns
faux bois
sconces that look like antlers
brass (sure it's "real" but it's usually used as fake gold)
the problem is when the fake element or material tries to evoke a romantic past or "luxury"
Light fixtures that are aluminum painted to look like clear anodized aluminum?
Wood veneer unless the edge is expressed.
brooklyn boy: antlers? I see some definite grey area when the "real" material is an animal part and the fake is a replica of it. I'd rather not use animals, if I can avoid it.
I'll even use faux leather. But! I did just see a hair-on-hide leather patchwork rug for which I now lust....it's dreamy...so sometimes it's OK.
And I'm OK with wood veneers.
my step-father-in-law has a whole room of antlers that he hunted, including a antler chandelier in the middle of the room. that room gives me the heeby-jeebies.
neutra painted any exposed wood in most of his buildings silver to appear to be aluminum for that "industrial" look.
color is fake
although lb hates fake shutters, i know that she has a softspot for the fake viga.
^ fake viga or fake viagra???
wood veneer isn't fake, it's good use of material. same with stone veneer. you put the good stuff on the outside where it counts.
viga you goof...
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