Expressing Support for Architecture

San Sulpice

Notre Dame 

 Musee D'Orsay

Eiffel Tower

 Pompidou

One of the great highlights of a recent trip to Paris was seeing how architects over the course of history dealt with the issue of supporting their structures.  From Romanesque arches to vaulted ceilings, these buildings express their physics in ways that are both functional and beautiful.  The awe-inspiring feats of holding up the roof are a testament to the complex relationship architecture and engineering have with a desired aesthetic outcome while pushing the limitations of reality.  Each of these structures redefined architectural possibilities and in turn, defined a magnificent city.

Andrew Geller's Westhampton Pearlroth House

 Pearlroth house in Westhampton, NY, facing south.

Entrance into house

Jonathan Pearlroth with a view of the copper roofing

Geometry in the roofline

Built- in bunk beds

Guest blogger  Jane Jagger is no stranger to LI architect Andrew Geller's work.  Having restored a Geller-designed home with her husband, Steven, in Huntington Bay, NY, Jagger was gracious enough to photograph Geller's Westhampton gem for me-- the Pearlroth house. While celebrating the release of a new book by Jake Gorst,  Andrew Geller: Deconstructed, Jagger captured the angles and geometry of this iconic beach house.  As luck would have it, Bouler Pfluger Architects has been commissioned to design a beach house right next door. Certainly Dune Road has changed since Geller designed this pure, minimal geometric design; however the spirited architecture remains a tradition.

After Sandy

Long Beach, NY  November 2012 photo by Lauryn McDermott

The clean up efforts in the metropolitan New York/New Jersey area continue, but for many, recovering from Hurricane Sandy will take months, if not years. Life at Bouler Pfluger Architecture has also changed in the aftermath of the storm.  To help people rebuild after the devastation of many coastline communities on Long Island, the firm has teamed up with Sims Steel to form the South Shore Lift Project, in order to raise many damaged homes off of their foundations and onto ones that meet new FEMA flood elevation guidelines. Hopefully the process of rebuilding will be swift as many homes are currently open to the elements, often without heat or power. 

Platonic Ideal

Ask any child to draw a house and you'll find the classic gabled roof.  Despite the variety of houses they've seen, engrained in our consciousness is the triangular roof and straightforward facade. Here are two examples-- George Washington's house at Valley Forge, PA, and the other a Presbyterian church in Old Scotland, AL.  Divided by geography, function, materials, and about 50 years, they nevertheless retain the same ideal form.  Don't be surprised if both wind up as the subject of my next two paintings.

Four Seasons Resort in Costa Rica

The relationship between a building and its site can be complicated. Not only is functionality an issue, a building should capitalize on its setting. Four Seasons Resort in Costa Rica took its location on Peninsula Papagayo into account in its modern design when it was built seven years ago. A series of buildings nestled in the trees, the variety of natural textures and curving rooflines were intended to mimic the organic world around it. Coupled with its open and airy floor plan, the resort's spaces flow from lobby to lounge to landscape with ease.

Midcentury Modern Architect Andrew Geller

Architecture mavens know how important preservation is, however midcentury modern has gotten short shrift in this regard. Perhaps it is too close to recent memory to be cherished in the same way as quaint saltbox structures, but it is part of our architectural history nonetheless. Long Island architect, Andrew Geller, produced structures on Long Island worth saving, as chronicled by modernemama who has been renovating her own Geller residence. Preserving his daring geometric buildings is the subject of potential documentary now raising funds on Kickstarter. Let's hope the family finds the funds to bring this project to the big screen.

The New and the Old

After visiting Cornell's Lab of Ornithology this weekend, habitat seemed to be a central theme. Whether for humans or animals, where we live is an evolving process. The lab's new facility, a beautiful piece of modern architecture based on the structure of a bird, functioned perfectly with its mix of public spaces and research facilities. In the distance was the traditional and classic Kip's barn, a harbinger of the past.
Birds, too, need evolving habitat, and it can be found in some unlikely ways. One Cornell project meant to supplement chickadee nesting sites uses PVC pipe, whose hollow structure could be made to mimic the interior cavity of a rotting tree. Next to it sat a more traditional bird house for comparison. Wouldn't you know it, the chickadees preferred the PVC-- a simple enough way for even a novice to create some new habitat. For directions to build your own, click here.

Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire

Artist Louise Millmann

Last week marked the 100th anniversary of one of the worst industrial accidents in US history: The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire. The fire, exacerbated by cramped working conditions and locked fire exits, led to the death of 146 workers who leapt to their deaths to escape the flames. Most who died were young women, recent immigrants to our country searching for the American Dream. It took this type of tragedy for factory reform. Alfred E. Smith became a champion for workplace safety and regulation and unions were formed.

To honor the event, there was a rally last Friday on the Lower East Side in NYC. Artist Louise Millmann, dressed in period clothing, walked in the parade, stunning the onlookers who believed they had seen a ghost. Millmann described the experience as quite emotional, a poignant reminder of the sensless loss of life and the continuted need for safe workplaces everywhere.

Architect as Dictator

In this Sunday's NY Times Arts and Leisure section, art critic Roberta Smith reflects on the growing success of MoMA's 2004 renovation.
I had great ambivalence about the renovation of the Museum of Modern Art. In its previous state, the collection, like a textbook, had a linear layout, moving chronologically and ideologically from one space to another, and needless to say, I knew where everything was. The museum was already lagging well behind the Whitney in terms of showcasing cutting edge, contemporary artwork, so why upset the proverbial apple cart. The new layout, in a renovation which cost a staggering $435 million, is more like a pinball machine, as you stand in the center of a space and have to direct your attention this way and that in a frenetic attempt to keep up with the sequencing of images. No use complaining about it of course, except when they relegated Matisse's great painting 'The Dance' to a stairwell. And to then see the cavernous, empty space of the atrium, at first dedicated to dwarfing Monet's once monumental Water Lilies (thus coining the term 'monuminimal'), it was enough to make this museum member want to barf.
And then something happened. MoMA became relevant again.
Architect Yoshio Taniguchi designed the space, saying that if the museum gave him enough money he could make the walls disappear. True to his promise, Taniguchi's design forced the curators to notice they were wasting this grand space at their fingertips and needed to make curatorial decisions to capitalize on it. The architecture lends itself to public interaction, a dynamic courtyard surrounded by sterile, somber chambers devoted to the static nature of painting. The contrast was heightened as projections and performers began to stage happenings, where the audience became part of the spectacle. In this modern-age coliseum, the walls between artist and audience blurred, a perfect response to the architect's directive.

The Mockbee Legacy: Rural Studio

Few people embody community service the same way as Auburn University architecture professor and visionary Samuel Mockbee. Mockbee, who started the Rural Studio program at Auburn in 1993, five years after James graduated from Auburn's architecture program, believed that good design and affordability were possible goals in building homes in rural Alabama. With an army of architecure students, architecture was no abstract concept. Instead, students applied their knowledge to the hands-on task of building homes for those in need. Many of the structures, created out of hay bales, recycled materials, and industrial materials, stretched the students' creative process. In establishing the Rural Studio, Mockbee, who died in 2001 from leukemia, not only taught the next generation of architects about design, but about social responsibility.

Why Can't a Building Be More Like a Machine?

Back in the day, buildings had to engage their climate in order to be efficient. Porches, overhangs, and the site, all had to work together to address the needs of the inhabitants. Then along came modern heating and ventilation systems, and quickly buildings no longer took environmental needs into account. Inefficient buildings account for 48% of all energy consumption in the United States, so it makes great sense to set goals and incentives to decrease the carbon footprint of our buildings.
This is not some fantasy initiative. Bouler Architecture's Oak Beach project generated more power in its first year than it consumed, making it better than a zero energy structure, but as it stands, it takes a special, forward-thinking client to take on such a goal. Local building codes, however, should take note. With a combination of alternative energy systems, comfort doesn't have to be lost to be efficient. Creative engineering which addresses the microclimate of the site can alleviate the need for turning on the AC or the heat. Towns should consider giving tax breaks to encourage alternative energy sources and eco-friendly landscaping elements, as well as setting incremental guidelines to encourage homeowners to invest in greening their homes. With the cost of off-shore drilling at $700 million dollars a rig, spills notwithstanding, it's hard to believe that making a building more like a machine isn't a cost-effective way to move into the future.

Zero Energy House

I'm guest blogging today on Bouler Design while Nadine is in the Gulf viewing the devastating effects of the oil-spill first hand. Her daughter Olivia has been walking the walk since April when a broken oil pipe allowed thousands of gallons of oil a day to gush into the sea, threatening the fragile eco-system. But Bouler Architecture has put sustainable building at the core of its philosophy since they started business. The zero-energy house at Oak Beach on Long Island is a great example how we can build smarter, not just to reduce our use of fossil fuels but to actually produce more energy than we consume.

For the architect, James Bouler and his client Jill Korman, efficient design was key. They sought to maximize the potential of the site for solar power by demolishing 50% of an existing structure and rebuilding using a geothermal pump, photovoltaic solar panels, an EDPM white roof, energy performance rated windows and Icynene insulation. The house has been finished for a year and has exceeded all expectations, producing more energy than it used and earning it the highest energy-rating on Long Island.
Jill's brief to the architect was simple: build me a comfortable house that is considerate of the planet using as few resources as possible - and Bouler Architecture delivered this functional and aesthetically pleasing design.


10 kw solar panels capture the strong South Shore sun; even in winter the house is energy efficient.


Careful placement of the roof lines and windows allows for passive solar heating and cooling, blocking the summer sun but allowing the sun's rays to heat the poured concrete floors.


Before the geothermal pump was hooked up and the radiant heating started this still kept the house a comfortable 60F in winter.


The angle of the windows in the barrel roof shades the sun, while the clerestory windows on the north side allow for ambient light


Salvaged and reclaimed wood from the original beach cottage was reused throughout the house - either decoratively as in this stair post, for framing the new house or as scrap lumber.

The Oak Beach house is a model for the implementation of green technology and great sustainable design, an irrefutable argument for environmentally-responsible building - modernemama

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.

Framing Geometry

James went to check on the framing of two different projects at two different stages.

House Studies

Looking for buildings to paint, I walked Warren Street in Hudson, NY., snapping pics of anything that caught my eye. The commonality of what I chose seems to be 19th Century brick, wouldn't you say?