The Living Machine

The Potic Cottage addition is still in the construction drawing process and will have to wait on permits, though we hope the Hudson Valley is a kinder place for building permits than traversing the red tape on Long Island. In the meantime, plans for The Living Machine, a division of Bouler Design Group, continue to move forward. Nicholas has been working on more innovative animations, this time of House F, while James has been contacting interested clients. Mary King of Village Green Realty in Windham, NY has been fantastic in promoting possible locations for House H. I have been doing my part, writing the text for The Living Machine website, working with James and Nicholas on the design philosophy and some of the technical aspects of renewable energy. I'm excited that the website will not only showcase our new projects, but it will also be a resource of articles and products for readers who would like to increase their eco-friendly awareness and reduce their carbon footprint. It should be fully up and running by the end of next week, thanks to Scott Devoti of PlanetNet Media. I'll let you know.

Pre-Fab at the Museum of Modern Art

The "Home Delivery: Fabricating the Modern Dwelling" architecture exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art not only gives a comphrehensive history of prefabricated residences, it actually assembled several on site so museum-goers can experience them. Perhaps most exciting was the Cellophane House, by Kieran Timberlake and Associates, a clear, modern box which used readily available materials and photovoltaic technology. There it is, a building off the grid, sitting in the heart of midtown Manhattan. True, the four-story residence is dwarfed by the buildings around it, but one can easily imagine it in different, and more bucolic landscapes. Perhaps prophetically, the newspapers today were abuzz with Mayor Bloomberg's plan to add wind turbines to city buildings as an alternative way to fuel Lady Liberty's torch. Imagine that! Already Roosevelt Island is powered by a water turbine situated in the East River. If Manhattan can be on the forefront of alternative energy, it could really propel architecture and the nation into a new era.
As for the rest of the show, it was a visually exciting place to be. From Sears and Robuck to Buckminster Fuller's pre-fab dymaxion dwelling machines, to more contemporary options (ie.,interlocking waterjugs for support walls, prefabricated modular cells)the show is able to offer possibilities of manufactured housing that's well beyond the double-wide mobile home. In an age where construction costs are prohibitive, providing people with aesthetically attractive, ecologically sound, and affordable alternatives seems like a goal we can all support.
In fact, it seems strikingly similar to Bouler Design Group's goals in the Hudson Valley. James Bouler and Nicholas Pfluger are developing a design division within Bouler Design Group called "The Living Machine." Inspired by Le Courbusier's modern design concepts, The Living Machine is an evolution from the shingle-style vernacular that is more prevelent on Long Island. Several of The Living Machine's prototypes are already animated and posted on YouTube-- see the links on the blog-- so you can get real feel for what it might be like to experience the interior and exterior spaces. Two models are already listed on available properties in the Hudson Valley with realtor Mary King at Village Green Realty in Windham, New York. The houses won't be prefabricated; however the design of the building takes into account efficient use of materials, passive and active energy systems, and labor saving structural designs to keep the cost manageable.
It's been exciting to watch the fast developments in architecture since our firm was founded ten years ago, and it's even more exciting to be involved in creating them.

The Preliminary Design is Ready

Thank you James Bouler and Nicholas Pfluger! I am happy to say that after a few collaborative meetings, we've hashed out a design that makes both design and fiscal sense. If you look at the first floor plan, (thanks to Tom Judson) you can see the footprint is pretty tight. Our initial response was to expand the foundation and go out to the back off the bathroom hallway. Unfortunately that disrupts a lot of the roofline and requires costly excavation. But the interior of the house couldn't accommodate a staircase for a second story, so we've decided to compromise. By expanding the footprint a tiny bit, we can add the staircase off the bathroom for an additional two bedrooms and a bath on a second story, thus leaving the downstairs footprint alone. We will be able to then rip the drop ceiling in the living room and kitchen and use the exposed rafters and flooring above as a ceiling. True, the bedrooms upstairs will be small; however we can soundproof the master bedroom over the existing bedroom and leave that ceiling sheetrocked and insulated.
The house as it exists right now is very low, so it was crucial to add the second story without losing the integrity of the existing cottage. And we certainly didn't want it to look like the traditional gabled, dormered, everyday addition we see far too often. Instead, we all agreed that boxy and a bit brutal was a good way to go,n offsetting those hard lines with a warm wood siding.
Now that we've got that agreed upon, it's time for construction drawings.

Gehry Field Trip

I suppose you could call it Bilbao in the Hudson Valley-- though I'm sure Bard's concert hall would be dwarfed by the Guggenheim's museum-- but it did save us the trip to Spain. Needless to say Gehry's performance center for Bard was awesome. I literally got tears in my eyes at its audacity in the rolling hills of Annendale-on-the-Hudson. It is incredibly easy to visit-- just pull off 9G for a short stint and whammo-- there you are, face to face with a truly memorable building. It doesn't change the direction of our ideas for Potic Cottage for obvious reasons; however it is not lost on us that Gehry's early experimentation was on his own home. Who knows what sorts of lessons we'll learn on our Potic experiment?

Launch Party!

Bouler Design Group hosted a launch party at Teller's Chophouse in Islip, NY to celebrate the publication of Leading Residential Architects, where Bouler Design Group is representing New York. Three of our high-end waterfront homes are showcased in this coffee table book, and many of our friends and clients were on hand to raise a glass to celebrate.