Lido Beach: Under Construction

Oceanfront Boardwalk Elevation

 3D Model

 3D Model Street Elevation

 Overhead Rendering Kitchen

 Great Room with Ocean Views

 Kitchen Rendering

Master Bathroom Rendering

The Lido Beach project is fully underway with the framing almost completed.  Bouler Pfluger Architects is working on the interiors utilizing these cool 3D models. For energy efficiency and long term performance, the radiant flooring and the countertops will be poured concrete.  This solar powered house should be fully complete in 2013. Please follow the project on Facebook by 'liking' our page.

James Bouler: My Muse

From 2009 to 2011, I have been tearing through ideas and activities at a breakneck speed.  In fact, I once told someone I felt like a hamster on a wheel, on fire.  Let's just say that mindset isn't the best for making art.  My mind was both tangled like spaghetti and yet void of anything creative.
Sensing a momentary break in the action, Louise Millmann turned to me and said, "Time to get back in the studio."  OK, sounds good, but what to say?  After a few abstract watercolors, just to see color and texture again, I had my inspiration:  James Bouler's 50th Birthday.

I've dabbled in collage over the years, usually to generate ideas for paintings, but with James facing a milestone, his life gave me inspiration. It started in Photoshop, using old photos to make invitations and signs for an upcoming celebration.  Once the ideas started, it was time to work with tactile objects. Using a map of Alabama for the first image, I pulled in an old photo, text, and geography, trying to create a poem about his youth in the South.  With Ray Johnson's film, How To Draw A Bunny playing in the background for inspiration, Jackson helped me cut and glue the pieces in place.  We moved on to the target, with a man and his son planting seeds-- a metaphor for James in so many ways-- with his younger self running into the collage.  The text, a piece by Kierkegaard about the lives we lead and our spiritual goals, seemed a perfect fit to our 'target'-- a life well-lived.

Revenge of the Bureaucrats

More than once in my life I've been thwarted by bureaucracy. Did you know signing your car title in the wrong spot can send your life into a three week holding pattern? Yeah, I learned that at 21. How about inadvertently missing a deadline submitting paperwork for a teaching license? It could cost you for the rest of your retirement, as a young colleague of mine found out this year.

For as much as our society needs checks and balances-- it seems in certain circles the checks are overwhelming the balance. Architectural projects, especially commercial structures, certainly need guidelines, both local and state, otherwise we can only imagine the unsafe and oversized structures people would slap together. On the other hand, when overzealous regulations become a means to crush projects, burdening small businesses and homeowners with bureaucratic regulations that were initially in place to protect them, we have to re-evaluate the spirit of building guidelines.

In that light, I sat with my sketchbook last night to ponder how one could satirize bureaucracy run amok. James had played with the topic while in graduate school, writing a play entitled 'Ed's Vacation', where the main character's job was to sort vast amounts of colored paper, only to have it dumped into the same bin. I chose a 'Dilbert' inspired cartoon format-- wondering if there is a market for tee-shirts and coffee mugs mocking bureaucracy. But then again, there's probably a release form I'd have to get notarized before I can even ask the question.

Bayshore, NY: The Big Pour

Imagine yourself a busy architect jetting from one appointment to the next and on the way to the next site visit, you are practically run off the road by a caravan of cement trucks leaving your project. Enter the world of James Bouler. Check out that crane for Pete's sake. The complexity of the floor plan sets the groundwork for the parallel complexity of the roofline, so in order to get to all parts of the foundation on a waterfront job, the concrete had to be suspended overhead. With the rebar in place inside the wall forms, the snowstorm held out long enough for the concrete to be poured and set in time. The house will use a geo-thermal heating system, and the client says with the federal government incentives, it was an economical option.

Verace: Truth in Eating

Bouler Design Group has been commissioned to design a new Italian restaurant by the owners of Teller's Chophouse and Prime, two of Long Island's top eateries. The space, a brick building which has had many different functions throughout its hundred year history,will incorporate the classical element of a Romanesque arch in a post-modern, expressive way. These computer generated images (thank you, Nicholas Pfluger!) provide a sense of some of the interior elevations. By working with interior designer Jim Wood, James was able to reuse much of the existing building. According to Time Magazine, one of the greenest ways to further the construction industry is to reuse existing structures as much as possible. What's great about this one is its bones-- the aged brick, the beams-- and its context to the streetscape. Located on Main Street in Islip next door to Tellers, the cozy space between the buildings reminds me of an old European cobblestone alleyway. As for the interior finish, everything is being considered: color, efficiency, flow, texture, and ambience. Once open, I suspect Verace will become a regular stop to dine in for many of us on the island.

Walking Windham

It was a lovely autumn afternoon at the height of leaf season when we walked the property outside of Windham. After visiting Windham's street festival that makes one feel as if he has fallen into Thorton Wilder's play Our Town, we spent the rest of the day scouting the best building sites for a weekend house on Bouler Design Group's parcel of property. Mary King of Village Greene Realty has been listing the parcel with Living Machine House H, so that gave us good reason to check out every leaf and rock, as if we needed a good reason beyond its untouched beauty.
The site has many natural features including a running creek and a sweet waterfall. Excited by the possibilities of the nearly ten acre site, my digital camera was humming with image after image. Some of my favorites were of rotting tree stumps and mushroom colonies. I love how nature evolves. It reminds me of the recent article in the science section of the New York Times which described how Thoreau's Walden is now being studied as a scientific account of the ecology of Concord, MA during the 19th Century. By comparing Thoreau's careful observations to the same terrain today, it's clear just how much variety has been lost in wildflowers alone. It makes me feel more passionate about integrating more eco-friendly features into our homes, as well as being sensitive to the untouched nature which surrounds it. What a fantastic panecea to the modern age to live softly in the woods.

Columbus Discoveries

If Columbus had actually landed on our shores this weekend, he would have thought he had found Heaven and not India. The Hudson Valley had hit its peak.
After breakfast at the very modest and friendly Marco's Diner, where Olvia vouched for the fluffiness of the pancakes, Saturday was a look at the Hudson River from the banks of Athens. Hudson River Valley painter Thomas Cole couldn't have asked for a more perfect subject to paint. Then at Green Lake, armed with a rig consisting of a twig, found string and hook, and stale potato chips for bait, the kids caught and released a brace of brim.
At Black Horse Farms, we sampled their usual goodies-- handgrown or handmade-- and splurged on handmade mozzarella, goat cheese, fresh tomatoes, apples, and a divine cheesecake by Michele in Freehold. Needless to say, the remainder of the day consisted of wine, food, and tree gazing.
Sunday brought another road trip; this time west to visit Bouler Design Group's parcel of property near Windham. Here the kids were kids, and played by racing leaf boats in the rapid creek, while James and I scouted out possible bulding sites for the Living Machine's House H or House F. Afterwards we touched base with Mary King of Village Greene Realty in Windham and scouted out some properties for several clients.
The only sad note of the weekend was the four car accident our builder Keith Abrams of Green in Greene was involved in. Thankfully he and his family only sustained minor injuries.
As I write this in the golden light of the afternoon, there is a pot of purple mums by my side, a fire in the outdoor pit, and handpainted Halloween cards drying on the table. I guess this is why they call second homes, vacation homes.

Downtown Revitalization

I went to take updated photographs of one of Bouler Design Group's commercial projects today. I like this project because of its siting. It's such a visual anchor in an otherwise busy crossroads in the heart of Syosset, New York. This rehab is situated on one end of the three roads that caddycorner over each other-- where steady traffic, a train station, a gas station, and pedestrians mix it up in one absolutely confusing landscape. It proves the point that architecture defines and articulates space. In fact, James and I spent a lot of time analyzing different cityscapes, trying to put our finger on why some are more intimate than others. What we've noticed in places like Key West, Antwerp, the French Quarter, and Greenwich Village is that the buildings are between three and four stories high and are mixed use-- commercial on the bottom, residential on top. Of course the car in those places is given second-class status with narrow streets since most of the traffic is by foot. On the other hand, the wide streets of Chicago, Houston, and Atlanta are far less intimate in scale. This distinction, of course, explains my visceral reaction to Salt Lake City, where I had a minor panic attack, not from the Mormons but from the sense of space.

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.

Potic Cottage: Before (and After, to follow)

After years of studying the importance of space and place in art, literature, philosophy, religion, and architecture, James and I decided a weekend place was just the type of space our young family needed. An intense search ensued, so when we saw this very private and affordable home in an ad on Craigslist, we knew we had to see it immediately. Despite a snowstorm and leaving for Florida the next day, our family packed into the station wagon for an adventure. Situated in the Hudson Valley, the windy country roads and the breathtaking mountain views captivated our imaginations. The house itself was small and cozy. We liked what we saw, but it was our daughter's response to the place: "It reminds me of Granddad's camphouse in Alabama" that compelled us to made an offer within a half-hour of seeing the one bedroom, 665 square foot cottage.

Of course, the impetuousness of our decision came home to roost when confronted with sleeping on the floor of the living room one night too many nights. I started a paper journal in the spirit of Thoreau's Walden, watched bread bake and birds eat at the feeders, but the 665 square feet were becoming smaller and less useable. From sleeping on air mattresses, to being unable to invite friends to stay (except for the hardiest of folks), we knew it was time to make a change. After many hours of contemplation and a couple of bottles of wine (ok more than a couple), James picked up his pencil and scale and got to it. Bouler Design Group has a client in Hudson Valley who wants a modern, eco-friendly, innovative, and spacious building addition for less than $30,000. Ever one for the challenge, James was imagining suspended decks, glass walls, barrel roofs, green roofs, and a bathroom that opened to woods. Crunching the numbers, well, that brought back some reality, but we feel it will be a great task for Bouler Design Group (www.boulerdesigngroup.com) to pull together a machine, a living machine, that uses a pre-existing cottage, reclaimed materials, that suited both the site and our aesthetic.

With the help of a "green" contractor, Keith Abrams of Green in Greene, we found a kindred spirit who will work with us in creating a home that is both eco-friendly and a piece of cost-effective modern architecture. James produced several design solutions to develop an addition that maintains the integrity of the original structure while doubling the square footage and incoporating fantastic views, all within our budget of $30,000. Back to Craigslist we go for supplies.