Not every residential project I work on as an architect is large with an even larger budget – that just happens to be the case lately and where I find my role in the office. Since smaller projects with smaller budgets tend to be less complicated, let’s just say they don’t always need me to work on them and the client becomes the beneficiary of assigning someone with a lower billing rate than me shoulder much of the load. However – since my office is an “all hands on deck” sort of office, everyone contributes whenever and however they are needed. Such was the case with me at the end of last week.
.
I found myself working out some design ideas for a small addition with a respectable yet modest budget. The clients are a young husband and wife who had just bought this house and have bigger visions and better taste than their budget can really accommodate. The project is moving really quickly (for reasons I won’t go into here) and my task for the day was to develop elevation design studies to present the clients that reflected the floor plan addition that had already been roughly worked out and previously approved.
.
This is a picture of the front of the house – great neighborhood, large site, fantastic trees and … not so great curb appeal. This house has had (from my estimation) at least three additions that have been scabbed on to the original house over the years. By “scabbed” I mean the additions are obvious and stuck on in the cheapest, most direct manner, without any consideration of the whole. On the left you see a detached garage, and on the right, I am going to say it was the second additions garage that the third addition turned into a sunken playroom. If you want to walk up to the front door, you have to shoot the 5′ wide gap between the garage and playroom structures for approximately 50 feet.
Perfect for an ambush, not so great for welcoming people to your home.
So on last Thursday, I sketched up a series of exterior elevations – real quick studies (12 in all) and presented them to the clients that afternoon … except they had a hard time reading the 2 dimensional drawings. Since communication is really the name of the game, I told them that on Friday I would generate a 3-dimensional model of the house in SketchUp.
I thought it would be interesting to see the difference between the sketches I drew using nothing more than trace paper, sharpie pens and a straight edge – and the dimensionally accurate ones I generated using SketchUp.
.
This is a look at the main house – this is the passageway up to the front door (with the garage taken out-of-the-way for clarity).
.
This is the front elevation – same as the photo shown up above (but with the Volvo taken out-of-the-way for clarity). This 2 dimensional look is a little misleading because I have removed the pitched roof on the garage and replaced it with a flat roof. It doesn’t appear that way in this view because you are looking at the pitched roof of the main house well behind the garage. (Good thing the clients get to see the actual 3D version).
.
.
.
These sorts of projects are always a lot of fun and I am excited to see it develop. Trying to find a way to marry the clients budget with their modern aesthetic and budgetary goals is a rewarding way to design a project. I have always enjoyed the challenge to designing with common materials and reasonable budgets – its part of the reason I started the Low Cost Modern House Challenge (despite not being able to find the time to develop it properly). The major design consideration here is the budget – there are 100 things I would do differently if I had 25% more money to work with … but I don’t. Being clever and finding a way to solve the clients problem without spending money they don’t have is part of the puzzle and part of the solution.
Have a great day!
.
.
Designed in 1991 by Samuel Mockbee and Coleman Coker from Mockbee/Coker Architects, this 1,100 square foot bungalow was originally called the Kennedy House but is now called “Birdie’s”. I am a little embarrassed to admit that I have noticed this house on previous trips to Seaside but had never bothered to take photos or look up the architects (that’s one side effect to having a blog – your thoughts are forced into action). So this year I made a little extra time for myself to take some good (as good as I am capable of producing) photographs along with a little research so I could talk about some of these buildings.
.
.
The original clients had requested a “weekend fishing shack” except the town of Seaside has a fairly stringent set of design ordinances that govern, among other things, exterior materials. The June 2004 issue of Architectural Record, in an essay by Andrea Oppenheimer Dean, Samuel Mockbee had described his architecture as contemporary Modernism grounded in Southern culture and drew inspiration from such vernacular sources as overhanging galvanized roofs, rusting metal trailers, dogtrot forms, and porches. “I’m drawn to anything that has a quirkiness to it, a mystery to it,” Mockbee said. His designs tended toward asymmetry and idiosyncrasy…” (source)
If you are familiar with the work Samuel Mockbee developed with the Rural Studio program at Auburn, you can see the early application of his design philosophy here (because this house predates the creation of the Rural Studio in 1993 by two years). I feEl like I am giving the short shrift to Coleman Coker since his name is on this project too – they were in practice together from 1983 till 2000.
.
.
Here I am once again stalking the perimeter and lurking in windows … I suppose it’s an occupational hazard. Despite the obvious invasion of privacy involved with taking pictures and publishing them on the internet for 12.7 billion readers, I make it a rule not walk onto the property and if I see someone, I’ll introduce myself, tell them who I am, what I am doing, and ask for their permission. Luckily, nobody has ever told me no … I suppose I have an honest face (or a pathetic one). This site is more accessible than most since the house is located on the corner – but it was still difficult to get a clear view through all the vegetation surrounding the building.
.
.
This is the screened porch that runs along most of the house that faces the public right of way. Screened porches are by no means uncommon at Seaside but this is the only one I’ve seen that had this much fun with the framing. One thing that this pattern does is that it forces you to reinterpret the way the space is enclosed and as a result, the space itself. Many screened in porches are throw-away spaces from how the people outside looking in see them. By creating a random and asymmetrical pattern, the screen wall becomes a feature element, adding substantial visual interest to the street elevation.
.
.
.
The picture above shows a detail that over the next few years appears regularly in Mockbee’s work – the peeling back of the roof to expose the structure beneath. While the gesture may seem minor, it changes the scale and texture of the elements – breaking down the mass of the screened porch and presenting it as an assembly of componants.
.
.
.
Since outdoor showers are present at almost all Seaside houses, I had to include a shot of the shower above. Simple, practical and effective – three desirable descriptors for any contemporary modernist.
.
.
This is the rear end of the house and the area that was modified from the original design. The square windows above were not part of the original design and the sleeping porch on the second floor level was in this location. If you care to look at the second floor plan drawing below at #10, you can see the location of the sleeping porch. Looking further down, you can also see the original elevation at this end by looking at the North Elevation drawing.
.
.
.
I discovered that this house was reviewed in a book I have in my architectural library – ‘The New American Cottage‘ which is where the following drawings were collected. I have provided a link towards the bottom for the book if you’re interested in having your own copy. In the 20 years since this house was originally built, little has changed. At some point, the screened sleeping porch (#10 in the plan below) was enclosed but other than that … even the paint is the same color as it was originally.
.
.
.
.
.
“The New American Cottage”
written by James Trulove and Il Kim
.
.
.
This is another great little project I found in Seaside – one of my favorites to accompany the Seaside Chapel by Merrill and Pastor Architects. If you find yourself in the Florida panhandle – and even if you don’t – Seaside if a destination worth visiting.
.
.
.
