Whitewash Studio Architecture Podcast

Show Notes:

My Mission

There are many architects that I’ve considered to be great designers and world changers. When it comes to creating space and our environment. Alvar Aalto, Tadao Ando, Santiago Calatrava, Zaha Hadid, Le Corbusier, Mies van der Rohe, Louis Kahn, IM Pei, Norman Foster, and Frank Lloyd Wright. They all have meaning and purpose behind their work.

None of them, not one of them, designs cool buildings. They take larger concepts or social issues and design environments. Architecture to express ideas or they speak to solve or bring attention to those ideas.

If we look at Wright. Even though most say he was designing for himself he emphasizes our connection to nature. He focus’s on family and creating a heart of the home. Something that enhances family and brings them together. His buildings connect us with nature and its patterns of life. They are extraordinary spaces that when in them you can’t help but feel inspired.

This is how we feel when we’re in great architecture. We feel inspired. I believe architecture should strive to bring that inspiration. It should inspire each individual that either lives, works, or plays inside or around it. Architecture can be inspiring. It can inspire on a more social level or in our homes. I want to strive to bring that inspiration with my architecture.

I will never be a Wright or Rohe. What I can do. Is, I can carry on the tradition of bringing great design into the world. Design with purpose and meaning to the lives of those that commission it into existence.

If you have a question for me I would love to hear it. You can email me at [email protected]. If you would like to connect with me on Twitter I’m @wwsarchitecture and the same on Instagram @wwsarchitecture

Show Notes:

BAD IDEAS LEAD TO GREAT ONES

We all live in unique spaces. We have unique requirements on those spaces. We use them in all sorts of various ways. When it comes down to it we live our lives in our homes. They need to fit our lifestyle. It’s not surprising after living in a home for a while you start to determine something just isn’t right. You feel a need for a change of some kind.

Perhaps the kitchen doesn’t work for you. Maybe the master bathroom is too small. Maybe you need another bathroom for kids. Whatever the problem might be, you need to find a solution. An adjustment to the home. Something that fits your current needs. It is rare that someone considers a remodel just to change the look of something. It’s more that they’re disappointed with the performance of a space. While improving the function they improve the aesthetics.

So how do we start? If you’ve listened to my podcasts you might be familiar with my needs and options review. Together, we take the time to discover your goals and get into your unique situation. How can I tailor a solution to your individual problem or need. While tackling the needs we are striving for achieving the wants.

It’s clear when designing that the needs drive the wants. When you start to sketch out solutions to the needs the wants fall inline and conform to the solution. I’ll talk more about discovering the difference between needs and wants later.

After understanding your goals and discussing options with you, I take quick measurements of the space. These are to get a rough idea of the structure and space. Then the sketching begins. We work together during this stage of design. The goal is to develop a plan that visualizes your needs and goals. We want to turn all the ideas and verbal communication we have been having into a plan.

During this stage it’s important that we do not get wrapped up in the details. We can discuss them. We might even break off into some side sketch ideas for future use or to help us evaluate our current plan. The details will develop during another stage. This is the early stage of design where we are discovering solutions to your struggles.

It’s important to think big picture. We are discovering solutions to big picture goals. Although it might seem on the surface that your goal is to have a green kitchen. That’s not your goal. Green’s a detail or option that can be applied later to the solution. A goal would be to have a kitchen that does x or allows my family to y. It might even be larger than that. It could be our family is having z problem. Is there something we can alter with our home that would solve z problem?

First we discover the struggles you’re having within your home, then we search for solutions to those struggles. That is not to say the details are not important. The details effect everything we perceive of a space. They’re just not the focus now. The color of the kitchen and material on the floor are details that can be applied to virtually any space or design.

During this sketching stage don’t be afraid to voice an idea. Unlike there are no bad questions, there are bad ideas. But the good thing is that the bad ideas are necessary. They’re the momentum and the unboxing of your thoughts that allow us to reach for the good ideas.

A good idea cannot be born unless several bad ideas were explored first. It’s one of the few understood elements of design. Bad ideas lead to good ones.

If you have a question for the show I would love to hear it. You can email me at [email protected]. If you would like to connect with me on Twitter I am @wwsarchitecture and the same on Instagram @wwsarchitecture

Show Notes:

PELLA PROLINE VS MARVIN INTEGRITY WINDOW COMPARISON

Hello and thank you for joining me for this episode of the whitewash studio podcast.

My name is Marc Sawyer and I’m your architect. My goal is to give you the knowledge so you can advance your dream of creating the ideal home for you and your family.

Today we are going to get into a little bit of a competition here. Who or which is better? Marvin vs Pella. This is not something that I take on very frequently. Pinning one product against another, but you know this is a legit question and I think it really needs to be looked at and examined.

This question comes from D on Houzz.com.

D asks,

“I am currently trying to decide between the Marvin Integrity Wood-Ultrex windows versus the Pella Pro-Line. Any thought?”

I can see why you might be questioning which is better because when you really get down to the numbers each manufacturer uses a different rating systems and standards to prove their worth or to describe their features. Basically both the Pella Proline 450 series and the Marvin Integrity Wood-Ultrex Series windows both of them are clad wood windows.

Which means that the window is made from a majority of wood and the exterior has an extruded aluminum fastened to the exterior in the case of the Pella and it has a pultruded fiberglass in the case of the Marvin. This provides that extra durability and weather protection on the exterior.

Marvin Product Performance Guide

Pella Product Performance Guide

Pella’s highlighted feature is the EnduraClad Aluminum-Clad exterior that comes in standard and feature (or more expensive) colors. This is a trademarked protective finish. It’s a baked-on finish that’s applied to the aluminum. Which means that it’s not like paint it will not peal and you shouldn’t see any fading or need to repaint in several years.

The product lines that Pella offers are the vinyl 350 series, the Impervia, which is a fiberglass window, the Proline, then the Designer, Then the Architect Series. We could do an entire episode on just the Pella products. These all range in price with the lowest cost being the vinyl and the most expensive being the Architect Series.

Marvin Integrity Wood-Ultrex Series window was voted most efficient window of 2014 by EnergyStar. That rating was given based on a Tripane Low E glazed window. The Integrity window features the Ultrex cladding which is referred to as a pultruded fiberglass that according to Marvin outlasts vinyl and roll-formed aluminum as well as other fiberglass composites. The benefits is a much stronger window that resists fading, chalking, peeling and cracking.

The Marvin company has several different product lines and they separate them into what looks like three distinct companies. There is Marvin which is their higher end line. Everything is custom and built to order with this line. The next is the Integrity line which is the clad wood windows. Then the last line is the Infinity Line. The infinity line is marketed as their replacement line that is entirely made from the Ultrex fiberglass. I would say similar to the Pella Impervia, but I’m sure a sales rep would argue differently.

When it comes to comparing the windows I am going to base it off several factors. 15 Different items.

http://professional.pella.com/windows/features-and-options

1. Window Type

2. Durability and Performance

3. Thermal Performance

The Marvin Double-Hung Insulated Glass with Low E coating has a U-factor of 0.34 and Solar Heat Gain Coefficient of 0.53. The U-factor is 1 over the R-Value. So that is an R-value of around 3. Pella offers a very similar R-Value of 3. But I will get in to a little more detail later on in this comparison.

4. Air infiltration

I looked into what the standards are based on and pulled out some interesting information. Most of the standards are rated to give a cfm/sf at a certain pressure of wind. Cfm is cubic feet per minute. It is the measurement use to measure a volume of air. So what this measurement is giving us is how much air or what is the volume of air moving through or being allowed to pass through the window if a certain amount of wind pressure is applied to the exterior face of the window.

The Pella window ranges from 0.05 to 0.30 cfm at 1.57 psf.

The Marvin window gives very little information only stating that they achieved an A3 rating from CSA-A440 testing. I had to scour the internet to even find what the A3 was referring to. I found that the A3 standard for a picture window was 0.04 cfm/sf. That means that if the window meets that 0.04 rating it would fall in line with what Pella was stating or maybe a little better.

I’m sorry, but they have got to make this easier to compare. Who knows what a CSA-A440 A3 rating even means. If you go to the CSA website you can’t find anything. But I did eventually find what this rating is all about.

The A ratings have to do with Max Air Leakage Rates and are measured in mcubed/h *m to the negative 1. Basically the highest rating you can get on an operable window is the A3 Rating and that is 0.55. A fixed window will give you almost half that at 0.25.

5. Water Resistance

Marvin has a B2 rating. Again, who knows what that means. The chart I found says the ratings go from B1 to B7 or 150 Pa, which is the Water Leakage Test Pressure Differential. So the Marvin window received a 200 Pa. I don’t know how to really judge that.

6. Design Pressure

No Description

7. Hurricane Shield

Marvin also has an option to move up the the impact zone 3 window for added wind and impact resistance for hurricane zones.

8. Security

9. Operating

10. Interior and Exterior Finish

Marvin offers the bare wood pine or the pre-finished white interior. The bare wood can be stained to match your interior in the field.

Pella offers Unfinished wood made of pine, factory primed, factory painted, or factory stained. They offer 8 colors. One being a natural clear coat. But having that option to have the windows pre-finished interior and exterior is a large advantage.

Pella has the pre-finished aluminum clad option where as Marvin has the pre-finished fiberglass clad that has the ability to be painted. So Little more flexibility with the Marvin but at the same time the durability and consistency of the pre-finished aluminum is appealing.

11. Glazing

Marvin – Has three levels of Low-E and they label them as E1, E2, and E3. If we compare the coating with a similar U-factor as the Pella window of .28 with argon right out of the gate you are looking at a slightly higher R-value of 3.57 compared to Pella’s 3.33. The SHGC is .70 with a visible light transmission of 79%. In order to reduce the SHGC to that similar to Pella you would need to move to the Low E3 coating that provides .27 SHGC and a VLT % of 65. The end resulting R-value of 4.16.

All in all the Marvin window appears to perform better with a higher R-value and more visible light transmission.

12. Sound Transmission Class

13. Accessories

Marvin offers Simulated Divided Lites with or without the spacer bar. They also have grilles between glass, and wood interior grilles. The patterns are fairly verse as well.

Pella features the factory installed self-aligning surface mounted sash lock. The finish is baked enamel in 5 colors. Champagne color locks are standard on unfinished units and White is standard on primed white units. The Pella locks are advertised as being cam-action locks that increase the leverage as the window is closed to assure a weathertight seal.

Marvin hardware is a touch above the Pella factory installed hardware. The design of the hardware is more fluid has a contemporary look. The colors are available in 5 standard colors.

Pella offers something marvin does not when it comes to screens. Pella has invested some time and innovation in developing the InView screens or Vivid View Screens. Vivid View screens offer 78% light transmission. They offer more light transmission and will be less obstructive to your view.

Marvin did not highlight their screens other than to say that they are standard and ship with each operating window at no extra cost. Each screen will be an extra charge when choosing Pella. But, I did want to mention that they offer a retractable screen for their casement windows. So the screen is concealed to one side until pulled out across the window. Since the window on casements swing out the screen is on the inside of the room.

14. Colors

Because of the nature of the fiberglass Marvin Ultrex exterior is paintable and they claim that it holds dark colors better than vinyl. It does come in 8 standard finishes or pre-finished exteriors.

15. Warranty

Marvin – They offer a transferrable limited warranty as well.

D This was fun and I hope that you found it helpful. I’m really glad that you asked this question. I think it was a very valuable question that can help a lot of other people in a similar situation to yours. Now if you have a question about a design that your struggling with, you can email me: [email protected].

If you enjoyed this episode and found the comparison useful to help you plan for your window selections, please leave a positive review for the show.

You can really help the show by either leaving a review through the iTunes podcast app that you may be using or by going to whitewashstudio.com/iTunes. What helps the show even more is to share the show with a friend. Tell someone that you know. Show them how to listen on the app. If you know someone that is designing or planning the construction of their dream home, let them know about the show. I would love for more people to be able to hear and get some value from the podcast.

I would also love to hear your feedback and know if you’re finding this podcast useful.

As I mentioned earlier, If you have a question for the show I would love to hear it. You can email me at [email protected]. If you would like to connect with me on Twitter I am @wwsarchitecture and the same on Instagram @wwsarchitecture

I would really appreciate hearing from you and listening to your suggestions that you have for the show or struggles that you are having with your particular space. Let me know and I would be glad to help you.

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Show Notes:

WORKING THROUGH A MASTER BEDROOM LAYOUT

With the whitewash studio podcast, I have several different types of episodes. Some of the time I discuss things on a more theoretical level and other times I like to dive right into an actual real life question. Today I’m going to be exploring and answering an actual question from Jose.

Before I do I wanted to thank you for listening. If you have a question you would like help with, please let me know by going to whitewashstudio.com and getting in touch. You can also reach out to me on twitter @wwsarchitecture.

Now for Jose’s question.

Jose asks,

“I would really appreciate your input. So we are building a house and my bedroom is where I have a problem. It’s a single bedroom, not a master. But it’s build like one. With a walk in closet and bathroom. The bedroom’s shape is a rectangle, the shortest end is 3.12 meters (10 feet) and longest side 5.0 meters (16 feet) and the bathroom and closet space is 1.68 meters (5 and 1/2 feet) in the shortest end and 5.0 meters (16 feet) in the longest end.”

So there is a larger rectangle that is 10’ by 16’ and the bathroom runs the full length of the 16’ and is about 5-1/2’ deep.

Jose goes on to say, “So I have two options. Option 1: keeping the bathroom and closet separate. Placing the doors on each side of the bed. I like the separation idea it keeps things in there own place. But that would place my bed in the center of the room which hinders the space of the room. The room is not that long in the short end.

So the space between the bed and TV is not that much, which I feel I would be walking thru it a lot because the bathroom and closet are on each side of the bed.

Second option: making the bathroom and closet one whole room by eliminating the door of the bathroom, the separating door and arranging the walk-in closet differently. It adds so much space to the bedroom but I am not that sold on placing a bathroom and closet together.

Keep in mind that I cannot move the wall that separates the bedroom and the bathroom since that wall supports the house. I would love your input! If you have different options don’t be afraid to be vocal about them! Thanks! ( pics below )”

Images from Jose’s post on Houzz.com (Link to the post)

Jose, First of all thank you for allowing me to answer or at least discuss your question. I think there are a lot of people that can benefit from a question like this. When we start to look into designing our space we will inevitably run into challenges in certain areas. These challenges create a fork in the road and we have to choose to take one direction over another.

I believe it’s usually very helpful to ask other people their opinion, so you can bounce ideas back and forth. Sometimes a fresh set of eyes on something can open up a new solution. So thank you for asking the question.

In your question you said that your bedroom is not the master but it is designed like one. I thought that was an interesting point and wanted to touch on it. I was just thinking what makes a bedroom the master.

The master or what is starting to be called the owners suite more and more, is the main bedroom. It’s generally the largest, perhaps the most private. It has the largest bathroom and actually the only bedroom in the house that is typically designed around two people.

There are bedrooms that people share of course, like kids rooms. Then there are separate rooms that open to one bath. The Jack and Jill bathroom arrangement. But the master is the only room that is typically dedicated for two people. Since that’s the case there are a couple of elements that go into it that are not found in other rooms.

The first is the obviously larger bed. Most typically a king. Then you might find either separate his/her closets or a larger walk-in master closet.

The master also has some unique features to the bathroom. There’s generally, but not always a separate tub and shower. The vanity is usually a double or either separate for each person. Because the room is shared the toilet is usually separated into another toilet room compartment.

So those are really the basic elements to the master. Now Jose, you mentioned that it is designed like the master but is not. That leads me to believe that it’s a bedroom for just you. You will not be sharing the bedroom and therefore you don’t need to have the double vanity, the separate toilet room and you can either have a shower or a tub/shower combo. You don’t need the separated tub and shower.

I hope that I am interpreting that correctly.

So when we look at the bedroom. You have a minimum dimension of 10’. I am going to use feet for now. I know that you are using metric, but I am more comfortable with feet. So you have 10’ in the narrow dimension and 16’ in the wider dimension.

If this was a master bedroom, I would say that the 10’ is a couple of feet shy of a typical master. This is actually pretty close to a minimum dimension for a bedroom. Unless you’re really trying to build a tiny house or something different than the typical.

The reason ten is a minimum is because the typical king and queen bed length is 80” long. That is 6’-8”. Just a little side note. That’s also the most common door size in height.

So we are close to 7’. A comfortable path, and I not talking about minimum, but just a comfortable path through a bedroom is 3’. That puts us at the 10’ dimension.

I believe that it’s very smart of you Jose, to note that with the bed and the tv opposite the bed you would have very little room between the tv and the bed for circulation. It would start to feel a little tight. Not impossible, but when you are passing through on a regular basis you might start to get tired of bumping into the tv or whatever might be below the tv if you have some kind of dresser or cabinet.

If you had a 12’ dimension you would not have any issue at all with easily passing through the space. It wouldn’t be a big deal at all. Since we have 10’ we should look at some alternatives to this layout.

Now from the sketch you sent, it looks like the entry door into the room is near the wall that separates the bedroom from the bathroom. I assume that the door could be moved to any part of that wall, but for now we can just leave it where you have it.

So with option 1 again you had the bed located on the back far wall then you had a 3’ circulation path then the door to the bathroom on one side of the tv and the door to the closet on the other side.

As far as the width of the room you have 16’ and the bed is taking up 7 or so feet of that space so if you have the bed centered you have 4-1/2’ on both sides. That is not bad. It would feel pretty comfortable.

You mentioned that you are building the house. I just wanted to ask if you have the option to add an additional 2’ to the depth of the room. If you do, you might want to take advantage of doing that. If not, we will have to find another solution.

One wall is the entry door and maybe a hall outside the room, then the exterior wall is right across from the entry. It looks like from the sketch you are planning for a double window dead center of that wall. Normally I might say to separate those windows so that you could place your bed between them if you wanted to later. Or just have one more option for bed placement in the room, but with the 10’ dimension you really don’t have a choice to place the bed on that wall.

I think you are stuck with placing the bed on the far wall along the long dimension facing the bathroom and closet, or possibly having the bed on the bathroom wall if we can reduce the number of doors on that wall.

Lets start with the first approach, the tv wall would be the wall between the rooms. You mentioned in the question that it was a load bearing wall and could not be moved. It’s typical that when you have bearing walls you could open them up for some portion and allow for openings. Similar to what you would do for a door. Your contractor would frame in a header to the appropriate size and that would allow you to open up the space.

The reason I mention this is you could recess your tv within this wall. It would allow it to mount flush with the wall and recess out of the bedroom.

I assume that any furniture would be on the sides of the room within that 4-1/5 to 5’ dimension. It’s a possibility.

So this recess would cut into the bathroom a little, but wouldn’t really have to be anymore than 4-6” with today’s tv’s. The bathroom as it is now you mentioned is 5.5’. As you know the typical tub is 5’ long, so you have several inches to play with. It looks like you might even be thinking a shower in this bathroom. I would vote for a tub/shower combo if it were me.

Now on to the bathroom and closet part of your question. There are definite advantages to combining the bathroom and closet. And when I say combine the two I don’t mean that you can see everything all in one space. What I mean is that the closet is accessed through the bathroom. This can be a large advantage for your circulation and limit the number of doors interrupting your bedroom as well as provide a dressing area outside of your bedroom. If you like to dress in the closet.

You mentioned that you could keep the two separate and connect to them through the bedroom passing by the tv, or you could combine into one room.

I would suggest a combination or alternate 3 to that idea. I would have your door into your bedroom from the hall come in at the bottom of the room, like you show. As you look in you see the bed wall to the right, the exterior window is in front of you and the tv is opposite the bed.

Then as you push the door open and continue further you would see a door to your left that would open up to the bathroom. This door would be on your tv wall but just before you get to the tv. By the way typical residential interior doors are 30” wide.

You just want the bathroom door to be out of the way of the bedroom entry door. You don’t want to have to shut your bedroom door to get into the bathroom. So about 5 to 5-1/2’ in you would have the door to your bathroom. Align the door so that it faces the vanity. You don’t want to have the door open directly to the toilet.

The layout of the bathroom would be shower on the hall side. If you were to continue the wall down, the wall that has your entry door. Continue that down and that would be the back wall of your shower. Next to the shower would be the toilet, then the vanity. So the vanity area would be just behind the tv wall but of course on the opposite side of the wall. For example the plumbing would not be in the load bearing tv wall. It would all be on the other side.

What this does is it allows you to have one door into your bathroom then when you are looking at your vanity and you turn to the right you would see the door into your walk-in closet. You would walk into the closet from the bathroom.

I believe that would be the best solution for your space. If the tv does not really bother you since you might not be passing in front of it as much then just don’t recess it. Mount it to the wall and keep the components clean and it might be just fine. Or matter of fact you could place the bed on the load bearing wall just beyond the bathroom door. Then have the tv on the opposite wall. The bed would be off center a bit in the room, but as long as you keep 3’ on the side of the bed along the exterior wall, I think you will be good.

Again Jose. Thank you for letting me walk through this question and I look forward to hearing how your home turns out.

I would really appreciate hearing from you and listening to your suggestions that you have for the show or struggles that you are having with your particular space. Let me know and I would be glad to help you.

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Show Notes:

EXPIRED KITCHEN

Hello and thank you for joining me for this episode of the whitewash studio podcast.

My name is Marc Sawyer and I’m your architect. My goal is to give you the knowledge so you can advance your dream of creating the ideal home for you and your family.

Today I am going to be answering a questions about refreshing a dated room. I think we have all run into a situation where we just feel either our entire house or a portion of it is too dated. We would like to refresh it and enhance it in some way.

JJ asks,

We just bought a place built in the 90’s. The kitchen and living room is where we want to start. We are thinking of getting rid of the island and making a two-tier bar on the window side. Any advice for cabinets, floor, appliances etc? If possible we would like to repurpose the cabinets.

Question on Houzz

So the 90’s. That is not that old. The interesting thing is that design changes so rapidly. If you think about it over the past 10 years we have seen a resurgence in the transitional style. I like to call it the transitional farmhouse style kitchen. It is kind of a cross between farmhouse with exposed materials and simple cabinets with the transitional style which uses modern materials and clean contemporary lines and details with a focus on the quality of materials.

JJ, So I think what you are searching for is a kitchen that has the qualities of that transitional style that is so common today. Something more fresh, light and open. Refined details and character.

This is a great question. So the kitchen feels dated. Anytime that we have something that might feel a little off we need to take some time to explore why it feels this way and what are the predominate features or elements that are forcing a particular feeling. Then once you fully understand the space you are able to really tackle all the challenges head on and make the transformation happen.

I know that sometimes it feels overwhelming as well but, we will be able to figure this out so don’t worry about that. There is hope. There is always hope. Lets take a look at the space. Now when I do this it is important to not take any of these comments personal. This is a house that you purchased. It is not you. You are not a reflection of the design or state that your kitchen is in. I think that it’s important for you to understand that no matter what you are renovating. Having a professional come into your home and start pointing out all the issues and problems can be a little disheartening, to say the least.

You might feel like its an attack on you as an individual but understand that this has nothing to do with you and you are not your house. Ok with that said lets take a look at your kitchen and living room.

From the photos it appears that the Garage or Mudroom might lead into the kitchen on one end. Perhaps a laundry area off the kitchen.

Then the kitchen which is in a U configuration with the door to the laundry interrupting one corner of the U. There is a skinny looks like 30” deep island in the center of the U that might be 36” long and the end of the island has a bar with stool and small overhang. A space for one person at the end of the bar.

The kitchen flooring looks like vinyl with a tile pattern and is a palette of various shades of brown. The cabinets are brown as well. Most of the appliances are black except for the dishwasher that is white.

There is a pantry door on the end of the kitchen. Just have to mention here that the pantry door appears to be a bi-folding door with a small door handle that looks out of proportion with the door. Something more suited for a cabinet pull.

The cabinets stop and there is an open breakfast area at the top of the U, with a 3 sided bay window that has a great amount of glazing revealing the pool in the back yard. I like this.

The third room in this row of rooms is the living room. It is open to the breakfast room but is separated from the two areas by a wood railing with pickets. This was a common thing to try and separate some rooms and also make a floor transition. The goal of the rail was to have separation but maintain the open plan. The railing if nothing else dates this area. If it doesn’t date it, it interrupts the space for sure.

The overall feeling I get from the space is that you have great views to the exterior pool area and a large amount of windows. Including one window over the sink in the kitchen looking out to the pool as well, but the interior is not getting the light that it deserves. The brown color palette and dark corners of the kitchen are soaking up all the light to your spaces.

The design is in the details so I want to take a look at all the little components and revisions to this area that we can do to bring it up to date and a space that will look and feel like you want it to.

There are several details that are dating the space. The cabinet door face style is one of the most important. All of the upper cabinets have curved tops.

We will keep the current cabinets you have in place. They are in great shape and the layout is pretty efficient. We can talk about the refrigerator and island in just a minute. So we remove the faces of the wall cabinets and replace with a shaker style door that has a more simple detailing and one simple recessed panel.

All of the cabinets are wood grain and stained brown. Which is great but the trend today is either to have an extremely dark stain or to have a light paint. White, gray, even light greens or blues. For this kitchen layout and our need to brighten up the space I would choose a light gray painted cabinet color.

The door hardware can be a simple chrome or polished stainless knob. You don’t have to have the bar pulls to achieve the updated look. The bar pulls can be nice but in this situation I would use only a simple knob pull. The handles you have now are the ornate curved metal ones with the colored insert. This is a very seventies style pull. Changing this hardware to something more simple in a polished chrome will help to update the cabinets as well.

So I am sure that you have noticed it, that something just doesn’t feel right with the kitchen ceiling and the cabinets. When you look at the cabinets up to the ceiling you see that the ceiling is framed down to the cabinets and actually sits out past the cabinets. the builder framed a soffit around the perimeter that kind of caps off the tops of the cabinets. What this does is it gives a strange claustrophobic feeling at the ceiling. It closes that off making it for more enclosed than it actually could feel.

Typically when something like this is done its for the purpose of adding some kind of ventilation to a space or venting something or other. I don’t believe this to be the case with your kitchen JJ. This needs to be part of the renovation. Removing the soffit around the perimeter of the kitchen. This will open up the ceiling and give you an opportunity to add some trim to the top of the wall cabinets.

The other thing that will allow you to do is place another can light directly over the sink. You are needing a light there as well as two more additional can lights in the ceiling. 2 more on the breakfast room side of the existing 4 cans. They make remodeling cans that can be installed in existing ceilings. This is what you will want to add to the space.

Now you do have an island and one of the big things is to drop pendants over an island or bar area. I would resist trying to do that in this kitchen. The layout of the island is not suited to that lighting layout. simply because of the size and the location of the island.

While you are refacing your cabinets and adding lighting add some under cabinet lighting to illuminate your counters. This will provide great light for working within the space and make it very functional. You will not be disappointed with any light that you add to the space. The more the better. I would just stay away from adding any linear fluorescent strips. Stick to the Led under counter lighting.

Your counters look pretty nice. They are a light gray appears to be granite counter but is a nice looking laminate from the picture. If you are updating all the cabinet faces, updating the counter would complete the renovation. It would make the project shine and the quality and look of the overall space is going to be relying on these details.

Another thing to mention is because the counters are laminate the kitchen sink is a drop in mounted sink. When you replace the counters with a stone counter use an under mount sink. That will help to clean up the details of the sink and counter. Either shoot for a large sink that has one small bowl and one larger or a single bowl kitchen sink. The single bowl is more preferred now than the smaller double bowl sinks. I would stay away from a farmhouse sink for this particular design.

The backsplash appears to be painted. You have the integral 4” splash that is part of the laminated counter. Since you are replacing the counter with stone this would be a great opportunity to tile the backsplash. There are 3 possibilities. the first is to use large tiles on a 45 degree angle. the second is to use the super small tiles that look like little bricks. They come on a mesh backing and you put them up in 12” sections. The third is to use a simple rectangular tile. I suggest going simple with this and using a simple rectangular glossy white tile. You can do something interesting with the pattern and run it in a running bond pattern but turn it vertical. This is a rather fresh contemporary look.

Given the amount of counter space you have and the number of appliances that we have today sitting on our counters it would be good to locate the microwave over the range where the current fan is located. You have the height with the cabinets to place a built in microwave with an exhaust fan over the range. This will free up some of your counter space for the actual space you need for cooking.

As you know to complete the package you need to update the dishwasher to a black dishwasher. You can replace the door so all the appliances will match the black and it will have a cohesive look.

So were talking about ensuring we are creating a cohesive look. The details of a space are what provide that, the details are what develop the character of a space.

The key is to make sure that the details and the character of a space makes someone feel comfortable. And by comfortable I don’t mean relaxed or calm necessarily. What I mean is that its not odd or unnatural.

Anything unnatural or odd will standout. It will jump out like a sore thumb waving its hand around screaming, “look at me, look at me.”

It’s important to be aware of when things strike you as odd and one thing that struck me as odd in this kitchen is the pantry door. It was one of the first things I saw when I looked at the pictures that you made.

Right now you have a bi-folding door where you would typically see a single swinging door. Because the door is small and light the previous person decided to put a cabinet pull handle on the door as opposed to a real latch. It comes across as being odd because the door is not a cabinet door yet it is being treated that way. It leads you to believe it was either in error or a mistake made to save costs.

The great thing about all of this is that it is not really that big of a deal. I mean I am making it a much larger deal than it really is just to emphasize how making one odd decision can affect and entire space. In order to solve the pantry door issue, my suggestion is to hang a single paneled door slab. A door that actually acts like a door. Having a handle and latch.

JJ in your question you mentioned you were thinking about getting rid of the island and creating a two-tier bar near the breakfast area. Now since your kitchen is fairly small and the island is actually pretty narrow I would recommend not creating a two-tier bar.

The reason is the bar is going to end up being short not really provide you with any kind of real substantial seating area and at the same time it’s going to actually conflict with your breakfast room area and make the space practically unusable.

My suggestion is that you put a table in the breakfast room area and rework your island to make it a little bit longer so you can provide a little more cabinets underneath it. Remove the one stool at the existing island and extend the island in the direction of the breakfast area, maybe 2 feet.

This will allow you to have more countertop surface at the island as well as make that space more functional. Because you will not being encroaching on the breakfast area, that room will be able to be utilized for it full potential.

The flooring throughout the kitchen looks like it’s a vinyl floor covering and it has a pattern of wood or maybe various shades of brown tile.

I assume that once you pass the breakfast room into the living room the low free floating railing also serves as a flooring transition that goes to carpet or wood?

I would like to see the kitchen floor converted to a wood floor. The wood could be carried out through the remaining rooms all the way into the living room.

The reason I would like to see wood is because the natural material is going to add a level of richness to the space that vinyl just can’t achieve.

Your other option to wood is tile. Tile is a much harder colder surface. Which are the qualities that make it more durable, but the more and more I talk to homeowners, people are preferring hardwoods in the kitchen. They provide a certain level of comfort when working in a space for longer periods of time.

When you put hardwood flooring in the kitchen have it extend into the breakfast room and living room like I mentioned earlier. If you don’t want to have it in the the living room then just stop the transition where the railing is currently shown.

Just to finish up my thoughts on your space JJ, The railing detail separating the living room form the breakfast area is probably one of the features us dating your space the most. I believe everyone would agree to remove this railing.

From the image it looks like the railing is separating nothing more than the room. There doesn’t appear to be any transitional height change, but if there is you still want something to protect people from falling off. If this was the case, which it does not appear to be, I would put a low solid knee wall at least 36” tall.

JJ this was fun and I hope that you found it useful. Now if you have a question about design that your struggling with and you would like some advice. You can email me: [email protected].

If you enjoyed this episode and found some ideas or tips to help you update your kitchen. Please leave a positive review for the show.

You can really help the show by leaving a review either through the iTunes podcast app that you maybe using to listen to the show or by going to whitewashstudio.com/iTunes.

I would really love to hear your feedback on the show and if you’re finding this useful.

As I mentioned earlier, If you have a question for the show I would love to hear it. You can email me at [email protected]. If you would like to connect with me on Twitter I am @wwsarchitecture and on Instagram @wwsarchitecture

If you are a long time listener to the show you’ll notice that I actually have change my Twitter handle from ThomasmSawyer to wwsarchitecture and I’m trying to transition everything over to that.

The reason is I actually go by Marc which is my middle name not Thomas so I thought it would be more appropriate to go ahead make a switch now and let everyone know in this podcast so if you do go to the previous Twitter handle you’ll see a notification that I’m switching to this one.

I would really appreciate hearing from you and listening to your suggestions that you have for the show or struggles that you are having with your particular space. Let me know and I would be glad to help you.

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Show Notes:

TAKING ADVANTAGE OF YOUR SURROUNDINGS

It has been a while since my last episode of the podcast and I want to just jump right into the topic for today. I really do. But wanted to give you just a quick run down of what has been going on. Since the last episode My wife and I purchased a real teardown and we have been going through the process of renovating it ourselves and getting it back up to living conditions and beyond. So that was consuming a lot of my extra brain power and time. We have things to a point that there is direction and so I wanted to start the podcast back up. Get it back on track.

I was thinking about this topic a while back and think that it resurfaced in my mind after this weekend.

So my question to you is, when was the last time that you got together with family or friends? I just hosted my family at my house for the weekend. I had my brother with his daughter, my sister with hers as well and my parents were in town staying at a hotel nearby. We were able to get out and explore the city a bit. We went to the Aquarium and saw the play Motown. Went to dinner, the neighborhood pool. All kinds of things. One activity after another. Exhausting and fun at the same time. Motown is a very good show with some amazing music by the way.

What did you do this weekend or past week? Did you get together with friends and family? Did you travel? Were you able to gather with friends without traveling?

I feel rather lucky today. My wife and I are very lucky to be in a neighborhood that is very friendly to one another. We have friends on both sides of us as well as down the street. This is the first time in my life that I have really known most or all of my neighbors. Of course growing up I knew a lot of people on our street, but that has become less and less common throughout my life.

How many of your neighbors do you know? How often do you have deep conversations with them?

The thing is, it can be extremely difficult at times. I’m what I would consider to be an introvert. Actually I took the myers briggs test and found that i am an INTJ. I for Introvert. I don’t go seeking to talk to everyone. I’m very reserved at functions and usually pretty quiet. Even talking into this microphone is difficult. very difficult. That has been one of my struggles with keeping the episodes coming.

It’s an introvert thing. Or maybe just a me thing.

Would you consider yourself to be an introvert or extravert? I think most people are introverts. Most don’t like speaking in public or walking up to strangers, but you know what, you can change all that. If you identify with that you can change it. It takes practice. And no more than 3 seconds.

Have you ever heard of the 3 second rule? Not the one about dropping food on the ground, but the one about talking to people. So the rule goes that when there is someone you would like to meet you need to get up and go up to them within the first 3 seconds. Otherwise you will talk yourself out of it.

We have this strange inner voice that just tells us not to approach people. At least introverts do. If you don’t have this problem then you are most likely an extravert. That voice tells us that you might sound stupid or they might not like you. Just stay right here and be comfortable. Don’t make a fool of yourself.

And if you let that voice talk to you for more than 3 seconds you will stay right where you are until that opportunity is gone. So I experienced this recently. I was at the AIA convention. There were several people that I wanted to talk to but I broke the 3 second rule and talked myself out of it.

A lot of the time it was not on purpose it was just lots of people were crowding around the presenter or something else got in the way. Excuses right, I could have waited around or I could have approached them faster to beat the crowd. Either way I talked myself out of it.

So how does all this relate to you and your neighborhood and even architecture and demystifying the construction of your home?

It’s about connections to other people. Everything is about connections to people.

I’m not talking about surface level marketing or networking. Those have their place but I’m talking about true connections. These are extremely valuable for our lives.

Are you making connections with the people around you and are you getting to know your neighbors? Not only getting to know your neighbors but are you getting to know your neighbors problems? You might always hear that gossip that goes around neighborhoods. There is always that one person that seems to know everyones problems and loves to share them with the world. This is not what I am talking about. This is personal forming a connection with a neighbor so you can help them as you would one of your family.

What keeps them up at night? what are they struggling with? You might be surprised to learn that you can actually help them work through a problem they might be struggling with if you can get them to open up to you.

I have actually started to take this approach with neighbors. I tell them what is going on in my life. I tell them my ideas my goals. I let them know what I’m struggling with. You would be amazed at the things you can work through by simply sharing your thoughts. The other day I was discussing an issue i was having with one of my neighbors. He was able to give me some clarity on the issue and approach it from another angle. It was really helpful to discuss it and just bounce ideas off someone.

Another thing that I have found a great deal of interest from lately is just exploring my surroundings.

I know that it sounds strange but there’s so many things in the world especially in this digital age that really pull you away from your natural surroundings things that distract you. I mean we walk around looking at our smart phones we don’t take in the things around us as much as we used to.

When was last time that you walked with open ears and open eyes and really took in your surroundings. walk through the city, walk through the field through the pasture, walk in your house. What did you see? What did you smell or sense that really interested you? Was there something that you noticed that might not have been there before or that you just never happened to notice. How has that space changed since the last time you walked through it?

Why is it important to stop and look around to since the world around us to take it all in? It’s important because that’s what makes us human that’s what makes us individuals, free thinkers. It’s what allows us to see the world through our own eyes as opposed to being told how to see the world through someone else’s.

So we’re constantly consuming media, (print, television, internet). We see the world through the eyes that we view it. And when we view it through the lens of the TV or filtered media we’re lead down the path to assume that things are not as they are. Have you noticed how sensational headlines are in the news? What i like to call click bait.

Those snappy titles that make you want to click and find the answer. Then once you do your so angry that you wasted time on it. The story turns out to not be quite as dramatic or even relevant or important. Did what they had to say really have any bearing on how you live your life? Is there anything that you can do about it? Or was it just a sensational story to get you upset and boost their ratings so they can sell more advertising? Did you notice the ad next to the article?

We need to take a step back and look into our own lives. What are we doing? Let me ask that again what am I doing to make a difference? Don’t waste energy worrying about things that you cannot influence or change. Take your energy that you have. Your precious energy that you have and use that to make positive change and positive environments around you.

So look around you in your neighborhood. What’s happening in your neighborhood? What’s happening in your backyard, in your front yard? What can you do in your neighborhood to help those around you your neighbors?

I was recently listening to the portfolio life podcast with Jeff Goins. He is a writer and is an amazing interviewer. He was interviewing another author and she was talking about her neighborhood. Her street. She lives on a cul-de-sac and a lot of her neighbors have lived on the street for many years. So they are older. Well she has kids and her parents sometimes have over other grandkids and stuff. The kids like to play outside and her mother was getting tired of having to stand and watch the kids so she decided to get a bench. She set up a bench in the cul-de-sac and soon got another one. One day she looked out the window and some older ladies were sitting on the bench talking. Nothing unusually they usually came out and talked a bit then went back inside. Well this time they stayed out. They sat for several hours and talked. Neighbors talking to neighbors. This happened again. and again. and again. Neighbors talking to neighbors.

This is what I am talking about. One little bench in the middle of a small cul-de-sac created a place for these neighbors to talk and come together. What is happening in your front yard?

Every town and every city presents opportunities to us. Each one has unique advantages as well as some disadvantages. Explore the places and people around you and understand what the opportunities are in your area. How can these opportunities benefit or enhance your life.

what are the advantages that your location gives you that you wouldn’t get anywhere else in the world. What do you enjoy most about where you are right now and what keeps you there? what makes you want to stay? what would you miss if you left?

It’s funny but when you go to visit other places and you talk to people that actually live in the town your visiting you’ll find out that most of the time those people haven’t really even gone to the attractions or explored the area that you’re actually visiting.

So I want to offer a suggestion, the next time let’s say today you’re running around you’re trying to get everything done, just take a moment. If you’re driving and you see a park just stop for a moment get out and take a nice walk around the park.

We get so wrapped up in the day-to-day we don’t break out of our constant routine to really enjoy what’s around us. So we’ve talked about getting out exploring the world and Taking advantage of the things around us and to connect to the people around us.

So there are two things that we need we need community but at the same time we need privacy. So how do we create both? creating privacy is much simpler than creating Community. Although there are some complexities. There’s times when the two try to overlap. There’ve been many days when all our neighbors are outside talking laughing children are playing and I’m just arriving home from work. This is when it becomes the most challenging to me because as I mentioned earlier I’m an introvert and this is time that I’m the least social. I’ve just been driving in a lot of traffic. the day has been long and I’m tired. The last thing I want to do is talk to people.

But if you want to make sure that you foster the community that you have and maintain those friendships you need to allow yourself to open up to situations that present themselves. Opportunities for bonding with your neighbors. An interesting thing is that after investing the time I start to unwind and relax and just enjoy watching the kids play.

But is there more to it then just hanging out with neighbors and friends is there more to community? And I’m going to say no. Generally when we think of community we might think of something much larger much more comprehensive. Something of that involves your whole city area entire neighborhood but community doesn’t have to be so large and impersonal. It can be a small group that Foster’s one another and helps each other whenever possible.

It’s actually in the smaller communities that you will see the most value. Just take some time this week and think about what’s around you who’s around you and how you’re connected with both.

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Show Notes:

EXPERIENCES FROM THE AIA NATIONAL CONVENTION

Well hello guys. Better late than never right?

This is a little different of an episode. All last week I was spending my days at the AIA (American Institute of Architects) National convention. It was an incredible experience and a huge amount of knowledge was gained from all the speakers as well as the vendors on the exhibit floor.

So this episode is from some of the opening keynote where Bill Clinton addressed the crowd. I also give some of my thoughts on the overall experience. Make sure you continue to listen to the portion after Clintons speech. The Rural studio wins a well deserved award and the acceptance speech is very inspiring.

Thanks for putting up with some of the sound issues that come with traveling and recording.

I hope that you are having great success with the planning and construction of your home. If you want to get in touch with me please reach out to me on twitter or google plus.

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WHAT ARE THE CHALLENGES AND ADVANTAGES OF A SHIPPING CONTAINER HOME

Today I want to talk about a new thing on the market, shipping containers. I know shipping containers are nothing new and have been around for years, but building with them is still relatively new.

Just to be sure you’re familiar with what these are, they are the rectangular metal boxes that are usually 40 feet long some are 58 feet long and usually 8 feet tall. They are stacked on cargo ships and carried overseas to transport goods to China and back, well from China usually. You usually see them being carried down interstates on the backs of tractor-trailers. When they’re off loaded from the ships they’re placed on trailers and trucked from there to wherever the final destination is.

Because of the unusually large amount of goods that we import from countries like China, we have an excess of shipping containers here in the United States. So it makes sense that there’s a huge amount of them available for some alternative uses.

If we were to send the containers back to China to pick up more goods we would actually be sending empty containers back. Sadly it would cost more money to send them back empty than it would be to make new ones. So it only makes sense that because of the abundance the shipyards are reselling these containers into a different market.

And the cool thing is there’s a lot of uses for these containers other than shipping. Because of the fact that a lot of the containers have only been used once to ship in one direction many of them are actually still in really good shape.

Don’t get me wrong there are plenty that are in rough shape built in the 70’s. Of course those are the ones that the shipyards would like to sell off first. So if you are purchasing one make sure that you confirm what your are getting before you purchase.

One thing that makes these so interesting and appealing to people, is the fact that the structure is built into the container. The way they are built is they have a metal tube frame that wraps around the entire rectangular cube to provide load bearing strength and corrugated metal sides which provide the resistance to sheer which is a lateral force.

A lateral force is something like a force caused by wind. The wind would push latterly on the face of the building and you the structure would need to be able to resist that. So what’s the advantage to having structure this kind.

Well these containers are ideal for stacking so you can take them and stack them on top of each other with very little effort and the erection time of the project is cut down tremendously.

They’re made for stacking on ships while carrying a tremendous amount of weight, so naturally they stack on top of each other very well when only using a few. The only difference is that when you’re using them for a house you don’t want them to be separated so you have to join the spaces by cutting holes into the containers top, sides and floor in some cases. Each time you cut a hole you weaken the overall strength of the container and have to add back some reinforcing.

So if you’ve ever seen images of a shipping container house you’ll note that they look very distinct. It’s pretty obvious that it’s been built out of metal boxes. It’s kind of like it’s part of the design statement that’s being made. Although I do believe that you could, with a little extra effort, you could add some detail the exterior that would hide the fact that it was a shipping container house but you’d be adding cost to the project that you may not find necessary.

I found an article written on April 29 by Rory Scott. The article discusses some of the challenges involved with this new method of building and they asked several builders and designers around the world that have worked on these type home what the major challenges were.

They gave some quick tips on what they would’ve done differently had they known.

The first tip was make sure you see the containers you’re buying. Like I mentioned earlier they come in a bunch of different levels of if care. Some of them are really beat up and some can be in good shape, so he wants to make sure that you understand what you’re getting when you order the shipping containers.

If you are in an area of the country where they have these container yards you can actually go to the shipping yard and pick them out. Of course they are all stacked so they might get pissed if you ask for the one on the bottom.

Larry Wade also mentioned that he wished he would’ve known about one trip containers and he would’ve used the one trip containers that are still pretty much brand-new.

The next tip from this article was about understanding your local rules and requirements. A lot of people see some awesome images of homes on Internet and decide that is what they want to do.

Many Don’t understand that that particular construction or method of construction might not be allowed in a particular part of the country either because of code reasons, climate, or any other kind of regulation that might be required in your area. You want to make sure that you understand other local rules that also are involved with the shipping container house.

The fourth tip was find a contractor that can do it all. The entire house build and interior finishing.

Apparently this group, when they were building the containers, they had one contractor that actually stacked all the container units and another contractor that came in and finished out the interior.

I believe this is the case with every project not just a container house. The reason is you want to make sure you have at least one consistent person through the entire project.

Otherwise everyone is pointing fingers to the other guy saying they made mistakes that are affecting their work.

You need to have that continuity of one person from the beginning to the end of the project. That one person can make sure everyone stays accountable to each other.

The fifth tip was to know your shipping container market. What this means is that there’s a variety of different types of shipping containers and they range in different sizes. There’s anything from a 20 foot to a 58 foot.

I mentioned earlier that they are 8 feet tall but there are some that are taller than 8 feet if you are looking for more height to your space.

8 feet in house actually feels rather low if you’ve got an expansive space. To not be restricted by the 8 feet could be something very positive for your house if you’re planning on doing this kind of construction. Of course you could always stack two and cut out the floor and ceiling to make it one volume.

When it comes to cost of the shipping container house, a lot of people assume that because the containers are being recycled that the overall construction is going to be super cheap.

So you stacked these things up and you are done. But this really is not the case.

The cost to construct these homes are very similar to a stick built house when all is said and done.

And the reason is the complexity of finishing out the spaces as well as joining and connecting the spaces, insulating and water proofing the structure. Your planning on living inside a structure that was not really made to be lived in.

You are also dealing with metal framing since all of these are made with sheet metal. All the traditional interior materials have to be attached to something and they can’t just be attached to the sheet metal because every hole would make a puncture in your exterior skin.

You end up having to add furring strips to the wall that are most likely metal then spray foam insulating the walls shaving them down flush with the channels and then applying your interior finish like gypsum board, wood or whatever.

Each of the furring channels would most likely be welded to the exterior wall. That adds a trade to the job that is not typically involve in residential construction adding cost. If it’s a union labor state your in get ready for some high hourly rates.

Another thing to consider is how you’re running around all your electrical and plumbing piping. Because of the metal walls and frame and furring out your cutting through metal with each penetration which makes it a little more difficult. If a mistake is made it is very difficult to repair.

And the last tip that they had in this article is they said that the homeowner did not expect the amount of wind on the site and now they’re having to screen the wind with vegetation since the container makes a bit of noise when their are large gust of wind. I’m not sure what could be done differently to help resolve this.

The thicker the furring and more insulation used the better the sound insulation would be. The metal walls are pretty thin so you really need to increase that density if you want to eliminate the noise.

Now one thing to consider is that these containers are made for shipping on salty seas over long periods of time. They have to protect these containers from the elements and one of the ways to do this is with paint. Some of the industrial paint being used in these containers is not meant to be breathed in for long periods of time. It might be best to see if the container can be sandblasted on the interior to make sure that solvents and harmful chemicals that might be in the container are removed. Just something to be aware of. Might not be an issue but you never know.

So a lot of this episode has covered the topics related to the challenges of building with containers. I wanted now to talk about some of the advantages.

* Eco Friendly

* Durability

* Speed of Construction

* Portability can be built and finished off site then brought in and finished.

So this might give you something to think about if you’re considering this type of home the shipping container home. There are a lot of advantages to it and I think it makes a really unique and interesting home if you can push through some of the challenges.

If you’re expecting to build a very inexpensive yet nice home with a shipping container then you might end up being disappointed because the level of detail that will have to go into the interior.

The interior construction will most likely offset the savings you get on purchasing the structure pre-made.

I hope that you are having great success with the planning and construction of your home. If you want to get in touch with me please reach out to me on twitter or google plus.

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Show Notes:

WHAT IS THE FUTURE OF OUR HOMES

When I was doing some research for this episode I was struggling to really find what I was looking for.

I think what I was searching for was some kind of trend or something to point me in the direction of where architecture is going. How is it progressing and where are the current design thoughts taking us.

If you were to pick up some of the leading magazines in the architecture field you would find almost every article is on some cutting edge modern design.

I ran a cross this article from Forbes. First off I have to say this is one of the most disappointing websites I have ever visited. It has constant popup advertising. You can’t even make it through an article without constantly having to minimize a new popup. Its awful. Why are they interrupting their user experience with ads?

Back to the article I found really the article was very minimal but it was discussing the future of architecture as it relates to residential design. They had 10 ground breaking projects that were supposed to reflect where the housing industry was going.

I can’t remember all of them but the first was

They were all pretty ridiculous and trying to solve problems that don’t exist. Probably the most realistic one was the tornado house, just simply because it solves a problem, it’s not just some cool form or just visually interesting.

So if you look at all of these houses I start to get the feeling like the architects are just trying to make a design statement. Trying to be shocking right. And we think that this is new. Actually it is not new at all. We can go way back centuries to find architecture that was breaking out of convention to create some grandeur.

Before the mid century most of those buildings were either religious or civic in nature. From the early 1900’s we start to see more unique ideas being expressed in the residential market.

If you look at all the famous structures and architects, all of these guys and gals were making statements. Take for example Frank Lloyd Wright. His creation of the prairie style, the thought that we needed less rooms, but larger rooms with circulation that flowed was a large driving factor in his designs.

So what kind of problems are we solving with this constant evolving and changing architecture? Were the homes before Wright that bad. Was it something that could not have been endured for another century?

As more becomes available to us as a people. People seek out the things in their life that make life easier. Ways of doing things that save time, save energy (at least their own energy).

At the same time we are adding all these complex systems to our lives, we are seeking more simple environments. Spaces that appear to be simple but with convenience. Most of the new architecture has some form of automation to it. Something that adjust and transforms to the situation.

One of the houses mentioned earlier, it had skylights that would tint and open and close with the intensity of the sun. So you could minimize it when the sun is strong and maximize it later in the day and early morning.

This concept is nothing new. Institut du Monde Arabe Paris by Jean Nouvel has a mechanical aperture system that adjust with the sun. The entire facade is a series of various sized circles like the lens of a camera. Just like when you adjust the aperture on the lens of a camera the area of the lens open to light reduces. The facade can actually close the light out by a mechanical system very similar to that.

The way that this is changing is that it is becoming less mechanical. there is less involvement from us on a daily basis. In this futuristic house, you think the home owner is going to be mechanically adjusting windows to reduce light throughout the day. No. Everything is automated. It is set on a computer schedule and there is goes. Of course there would be some kind of override that would be allowed but it would be at the press of a button.

So much home automation is being built into homes. Things that were never possible before. Several episodes ago I was talking about solar. About batteries and storage etc… Well I recently ran across an interesting article by Huffington post. The article is about Tesla. The car company. They have made such innovations with their battery technologies that they are starting to expand past the electric cars and bring the technology to your house. They have batteries now that are made for your home. They mount to the wall and you can run these in series, up to 9 of them. They store your solar energy and make it available to you later. The advantage they argue is space, storage capacity, maintenance, and costs over the traditional battery banks. Plus they look much cooler.

Not only do they store solar but they will also go onto the grid during not peak hours and recharge then during peak hours you can run your house off the batteries so you never pay for peak hour electrical prices. Wow. So I will link up to the article in the show notes.

Tesla Story

Our need for space seems to be getting less and less. At least in some of these larger cities you see people living in tiny apartments with very little room. As we declutter and organize many people are realizing that they don’t need as much space as much as they need quality space. Now I definitely am not completely naive to think that everyone is going to smaller spaces and everyone is starting to appreciate quality over quantity, but some are. The some that are, are the ones that are innovating the most.

Not just technological innovations but more interest is put into the use of materials. Creating unique spaces rather than large expansive spaces. Using materials that have not been traditionally used in the same way. New materials. It seems like every week I have reps showing my some cool new product. The market for interesting new materials is exploding right now. It’s like a second industrial revolution.

The AIA national convention is in Atlanta in the next week or so. I am going to be there going to as many of the talks as possible and visiting the expo. I am sure they will have some interesting products to showcase. I hope to take my mic to the show and get a couple of interviews for the podcast here. I will try and take some video for the site as well.

It might seem like all these innovations are slowly hitting mainstream but they are coming faster than you think. It might seem slow but things are changing radically. It is not being adopted by everyone but it is changing.

Let’s just look at the iwatch. People all over are dogging the new iwatch. Any article you read says, pretty cool but not sure you need it…

We don’t need any of this stuff. Who needs a laptop, we have a desktop. Who needs email on our phone, we have a laptop. I mean I don’t need email on my phone. Who needs an iwatch. I mean I have a smart phone in my pocket, I can just check it.

This is a major shift and it is coming. All these revolutionary devices change how we interact with our environment. If you don’t think that the iwatch will be able to control every aspect of your home your crazy. In less than 10 years everyone will be wearing some kind of device that controls their environment.

Forgot to set the alarm, oh i’ll set it now on my watch. Better yet it knows your not home, as soon as you walk out and out of range it sets itself.

We are just in the beginning stages of home automation. Innovations will be coming that we can’t even imagine.

I hope that you are having great success with the planning and construction of your home. If you want to get in touch with me please reach out to me on twitter or google plus.

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Show Notes:

QUESTIONS TO ASK DURING AN INTERVIEW

For our 40th episode I wanted to dive into something that might provide some value to you guys. Especially if you are in the beginning stages of hiring an architect. I am going to go over the questions you need to ask your architect which was put out by the AIA the American Institute of Architects.

They say that these are the questions that you need to ask and I will try to see what these questions are really driving at. What is the goal with the questions and what do you as the client potentially get from asking these questions.

Or better yet how can asking these questions really help you do define what you might be looking for.

So The questions are broken down into 5 sections. They are Experience, My Project, Design, Green Design, (which I not sure how that is different than design, but we shall see) and the final one is Fees.

AIA Questions

In their Experience Category they ask, “What is your design philosophy?” With this question you are really trying to hone in on what type or what style of design the architect does. Are they more modern and sleek or more traditional? It also touches on what drives the designer. What excites them. Perhaps they feel their design philosophy is that they like to connect people to nature. And that drives their style and design. What you are looking for here is that you need to understand that their design philosophy is something greater than your one project, it is something that they have been focused on for some time during their career. It is a greater over arching theory that interjects into each project so if that philosophy does not align with your values or your goals then they would not be a good fit. Most likely you would have seen their work and understood or had a hint of what their design philosophy was before you brought them in.

The next question is, “What sets your firm apart from other architects with similar experience?” I can almost guarantee that the answer to this question will be our personal service. “We match a level of service that can’t be matched.” If you really want to dive deeper into this question my suggestion would be to follow up with another question. Ask, “What do you do as a service that others do not?” This might find them scratching their heads a bit but it will allow them to explain further what they do and how they can help you through the process. What is it in particular that sets their service apart from others?

The third question is, “Do you have experience with the building type and size of my project?” This is an important one. You want to make sure that what you are trying to achieve has been done by them before. You don’t want an architect that has only designed industrial warehouses to design your home. This leads to the next question.

“Will you share with me a portfolio of similar projects and provide a list of client references?” And of course they will. They probably have it with them right now and are eager to get it out and talk about it. This question will spark a series of things that will derail your series of questions. What will happen is they will most likely have a portfolio with them that they will start pulling out and discussing each and every project. Pointing out all the fine details, the challenges, the obstacles and how they were overcome. I suggest that you save this question to lower down in your list. Maybe towards the end.

The fifth and final question in the experience category is, “Who from the architecture firm will I be dealing with on a regular basis? Is this the person who will design my project?” Depending on the size of the firm you will be working with you might experience a situation where you initially meet with the owner or an architect and then once through the initial stages you are passed off to an intern or someone who has the ability to draw all the details and construction drawings. In smaller firms you will find that the owners tend to stay involved further into the projects where as larger firms tend to pass the project off to staff.

Now at first this might sound like a bad thing and it is not necessarily bad. It all depends on who you will be working with. If you approach a larger firm you have to understand that the owner of the firm cannot possibly be involved in all the stages of design and construction. So the have to delegate. Just be sure to meet the people that you plan to be working with so you understand who will be taking over the project once the owner steps aside. Be sure you fit with their personality and style as well. A lot of times owners will bring this person a long to the interview so you would have a chance to meet them and feel comfortable.

So it’s good to understand who the team will be and who your main point of contact will be as well. If you are unclear on who that is make sure you ask that way you can insure that things you communicate to your architect are not lost in the duffle of the project team.

The Next category are questions that pertain to Your Project. Project specific questions.

The first in this category is, “Are you interested enough in this project to make it a priority?” I can’t imagine anyone saying no to this question and it actually would turn off most architects because I would assume that you don’t really understand the process and you might be somewhat of the wrong client for me. I can see why they added this question but it strikes me as odd. For one the architect has already taken time out of their schedule to discuss the project and shown a certain level of enthusiasm for the work. If you can sense no excitement what so ever and you want to kind of politely ask this question because it appears that the architect does not really care then by all means ask but if you have to I would assume that this architect is not right for you.

What challenges do you foresee for my project? This is a good question but it assumes that you have already gotten into a large amount of investigative work. If all you have told the architect is a rough outline it might be difficult for them to give you an honest logical answer and they may just give you some challenges that they faced with a previous similar project that might not necessarily be the case on your project. If you tell them that you would like to build a house for 60$ per sf in 2 months then they might be able to let you know the challenges with doing that and what the results of that goal might be.

The next question is, “What do you see as the important issues or considerations in my project?” Most likely this question will spark discussions about time or schedule and your budget. Those are usually the two most difficult items that clients have poor expectations with. Generally most are somewhat shocked by the time required and floored by the potential costs.

What is your estimated timetable for my project? Again this can be a difficult question to answer at such an early stage but it can be estimated based on past projects. There are two phases to this question or actually three. Design phase the permitting then construction. We have found more and more time being added to the permitting phase be prepared for that.

What means will you use to collect information about my needs, goals, etc.? This is a great question. This will give your architect the chance to explain their process and assure you that all your goals are understood and that the project will be meeting your needs.

How will you help me to fully understand the scope and sequence of the project? Will you utilize models, drawings, or computer animation? Again part of the architects process. This question also starts to get into some of the deliverables. These will be spelled out with a lot more detail in the project proposal which might be several steps away.

The third category is Design.

The first is, “What are the steps in the design process, and how are they organized?”

“What criteria will be used to establish priorities and make design decisions?”

“What do you expect me to provide?”

“How disruptive will construction be?”

“What role do you have during construction? Am I expected to work with the contractor directly?”

Fourth category of questions to ask your architect during the interview process are related to Green Design.

These questions could be part of the overall design questions.

“Do you have experience with “green” or sustainable design?”

“Do you regularly integrate low or no cost sustainable design strategies into projects?”

“Considering the many areas that may be affected by sustainable design, how will you determine which options to pursue?”

“If sustainable design technologies are implemented, do upfront costs exist that may affect the construction budget? What are the expected pay back times?”

The final category and list of questions are related to Fees.

“How do you establish fees?”

“In anticipation of a formal proposal with costs, what would you expect your fee to be for this project?”

“What is included in your basic services and what services would incur additional fees?”

“If the scope of the project changes later in the project, will there be additional fees? How will these fees be justified? How will this be communicated to me?”

“What is your track record with completing a project within the original budget?”

I hope that you are having great success with the planning and construction of your home. If you want to get in touch with me please reach out to me on twitter or google plus.

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