A Plan Update

Continued work on plan

I need to get off the model and back to 2d...

Here is my waypoint.

Stairway Oriel Blocked out

I am sorry, I could not figure out how to soften or improve the imagry. I will look for a lesson back at the office. I need to get some windows in this model and move back to the AutoCad drawings.

A little work on the brackets last night.

We are now protected from rain!

Still Cruising....

Progress update

Be patient... I need to complete this model

Slow Moving

Good Morning

Good night!

This is starting become fun... like Legos!

I will probably work on the new updated floor plans next... the change from a 7 5/8" mod. to a 3 5/8" veneer block will change all of my exterior walls. I will also change form 2x6's to 2x4's. More space...yummy!

Hide the cracks boys ... we are under construction!

Foxtrot - Modular building block system for building exterior construction

Copyright Case #1-149089831 (Jan 08, 2009)

Copyright Case #1-149089831 (Jan 08, 2009)

Crazy as a fox

Last night I found a west coast company that makes "energy efficient blocks." Could I be on to something. I will keep you posted.

Yesterday I spoke with a Connecticut cmu maker. I will contact them also to see if they have any interest in the different technology.

Listen, I haven't given up the shingle style, this is simple exploration...thing like an architect, outside the freakin box and allowing this process to bring me where it wants to go. I am intrigued with the idea that I could provide a maintenance free exterior skin to a residence, cost effectively, and true to the essence of the material.... meaning it isn't plastic trying to be would, or asphat shingle trying to be wood shingls. Gag my with a T square!

My Crazy Blocks

Well, for what its worth, this is what I was thinking about. Unfortunately, it cannot be a cmu since they are extruded, and this would really have to be molded, I think!

OK, laugh now!

This was my idea, try and make a cost effactive modular unit that might be easy to manufacture and pretty! Pretty sexy! Mies just turned over in his grave! Too bad is doesn't work.

No Laughing...

Mr. Shingles (that would be me,) spent the day learning more about cmu... really! I spoke to experts around the country. I learned that I don't think I can do what I want to, (design a custom 3d modular cmu,) but it wont stop me from studying in a drawing. I hope to update something tonight.

peace

Thoughts...Top to Bottom

I like the first floor allot. The great room with larger dining room is simple but perfect. The kitchen is set up well poking out into the back yard, and I like the addition of the bar stools facing into the back yard. I left the two bonus closets near the stair for mechanical for non Northeast applications.

The second floor works ten times better than before. I agree with a a couple of you that the master bath is not acceptable. One pedestal sink is not right. I love the 2nd floor laundry.

The elevations have been diluted a bit, especially the roof... nice, but much work ahead.

Peace

Update...Top to Bottom

Updated 2nd Floor Plan

OK, I redrew the 2nd floor plan to match the corrected 8' grid. I feel much better now, as if at a resting point or way point that will allow me to begin my next stage of development. In truth, my elevations need one more update to get to this stage, but to me, the datum is close to complete, and I now can begin to add the content...the story...the fun...the lust. The final 2nd floor square footage is 1391 sqft for a total of 2721 sqft.



OK

Updated 1st Floor

Here is the updated 1st floor. Still on the move....currently at 1330 sqft. I feel like its getting closer.

I realized yesterday that my entire 8' grid was really 7' -11 3/8". URGH....LOSER!

I am redrawing the entire first floor with the extended plan in the new grid. The joke is that, the grid is to the center of the walls... almost useless compared to material maximization. I will deal with all of that when I leave schematic design. Right now I need to solve the larger programmatic problem, and then go back and refine my design goals.

2nd Floor Update

Here is my latest rambling experiment. The extra 512 square feet (256 on the 2nd floor) allowed allot of things to occur. I like the extra space, private baths, laundry room, and better organized circulation... but the first floor parti could be blown to bits. We shall see...

I am thinking very seriously about adding 512 square feet to my plan, which basically is my 8 x 8 grid, 4 grid units wide x 2 floors high.

I will keep you updated.

Dave

It has been suggested (by Greg) that there is a lot of space given over to circulation spaces although its broken up into several small interstitial spaces. That perhaps, some of the esoteric planning decisions which give the house a lot of character may also be a turn off to many mainstream customers. For example the imbalance between small closet spaces in the secondary bedrooms and giant dressing room in the master, the lack of a bath, isolation of the study to the master suite. All valid points…. and its pissing me off! :^)

In our projects the master suite rules… and to that extent, I tried to design it large and with all the bells and whistles. To your point, I have really hurt the guestrooms too much. They are very undersized without walk in closets. Very poor! I have mixed feelings… I am OK with some of those decisions…but we very early on the process. URGH!

David R. pointed out to me today that my hierarchy of program items is switching on a day to day basis because my goal was never clear. Tragically, this is allowing my project to morph as it goes, and it is becoming very troubling for me. It is both a problem and an opportunity. I guess what I need to decide is what I am designing (before I have a nervous breakdown,) and this may not end up being a speculative low cost house… I now see four very different roads in front of me.

1. An Andreozzi Architects house with all my typical details (at a higher cost per square foot,) but available to the mass market for a fraction of the cost of my services. This has the most commercial opportunity and is still providing good design to the (more upper middleclass) masses.

2. A more modest house in detail which captures the spirit of my architecture but is much less money to build (i.e. $225 per foot) as I originally viewed it.

3. A low income version stripped of all detail.

4. A version that truly attempts to reinvents (or modernize,) the shingle style archetype with regards to ordering principles and architectural element decoration and reinterpretation. This is something I always wanted to do…but always seemed daunting. This is more sophisticated option and has the most publishable opportunities. But also with the much higher level of difficulty, and higher risk of public appeal.

The truth is that, up until today, I was doing all four at the same time, and I am in need of my meds. Seriously, this has been a freakin’ nightmare!.

Here are my latest updates. Don't be fooled by the hard lines, it is a Schematic Design

First Floor Plan

Second Floor Plan

Front Elevation


Side Elevation


Side Elevation


Rear Elevation

I spent some time on the 2nd floor last night (Christmas Eve,) and this morning. It works fine, but I was really disappointed in the little things, that most would not notice. I was just too confined by the square footage to refine the symmetries, asymmetries, and typical well designed architectural relationships that I demand in my work. Part of me wants to simply redraw this design with another couple hundred square feet to improve things, but ultimately I decided to keep moving forward.

Peace to all!

Dave

Please Note - This entire design and blog is Copyrighted at http://www.copyright.gov/, titled "Zoophorus 0815 | Opus One", claim number 1-145569441

Front Elevation

First Floor

Second Floor

I discovered that my house is too wide for a 12/12 pitch... and this is pretty upsetting to my! URGH!

Sunday morning progress with two jalapeno cheese covered eggs, over easy, on wheat toast, with a Maryland crab cake. Go Patriots!

I am back from Reinvention & CORA Congress in Austin and I am pretty confused. Now I am thinking that this needs to be greener by design and maybe bone bare cheap. I will continue on my merry way for now, thinking that it would be cool to see if I could take the same design and detail two different ways. We shall see.

The latest version continues with the 8' grid and overlays the golden section upon it to see where it may take me. I felt compelled to create a bump out for kitchen to give it some sense of soul, that led me to the rotated 32' square. I am also using it for a stair tower for now.

OK... I started with an 8' grid and I am cruising. I have moved the dining area into to the living room for a true great room. I am going to try and put the kitchen in the center back with a bump out. The plan is tight... but I cant get upset about it. I am forcing much program into minimal square footage.

I am going to the CORA meeting/Reinvention Tuesday so I don't know how much this will progress this week. Please be open to change, I design like solving a Rubik's cube, always looking for a more ideal solution. Obviously the lack of a site makes this both easier and more difficult.

I started the first floor plan. I will say, that as simple (and unoriginal) as the design is, I am becoming quite possessive of it. One early concern is that most of my designs are so complicated structurally that they would be very difficult to rip off, even with plans and pictures. This design should be so simple that any bonehead basement draftsmonkey could reproduce it. I wonder if I have stumbled on the whole problem with architects not relating to the masses... and why this is the inherent reason why I don't design these. It might be financial idiocy. I am troubled by this. It is concerning to me, but away I go!

Front Elevation

While our firm designs within many historic archetypes, the vast majority of our work is Shingle Style. I will using a style of Neo-New England vernacular for the genesis of my design thoughts; very simple and boxy to save money, analogous to a traditional cape or colonial, but putting a focus on architectural design and material quality rather than traditional fluff. I am using a starting budget of $225 per foot. My first thoughts are of a perfectly square bisected roof or four gables, allowing the rain water to be caught in the four corners and stored.

The Chimney is an important symbol in all of my New England house designs. I view the chimney as an imperative link that bonds a house, a home, and a family to the mother earth. Historically, it provided the heat, the food, and the stability of the structure itself through the cold and miserable winters of our New England ancestors. A good example of this for me is the Jethro Coffin House, the oldest house in Nantucket. In my first sketch I am thinking about locking a more contemporary chimney into the front corner of the house which will balance the front entry on the opposite corner, and in doing so create a tension to the front elevation.

A first sketch of the chimney... for shits n' giggles.

First Floor Plan

To me a plan needs to use architectural order to tell a lusty story. It can be myriad different types of ordering systems, but without it you become irrelevant...like most of Frank Gehry's work: sculpture without scale, void of any connection to its idiosyncratic vernacular, with architectural program forced within it. The celebration of this is scary, as idiotic and contrite as Adolf Loos's design for the Chicago Tribune Building. Once you choose your order you can pay respect to that order, or violate it. But the only in a way that the read of the story, or the participant of the architecture can understand through its experience. I try and use order, axis, scale of spaces, vistas and spatial relationships to carry you though a piece of architecture. Please, I don't pretend this is rocket science, it's basic freshman Arch 101... too bad to few remember it importance. Starting with my chimney and my front entry order, I have now constructed a 32 x 32 square (8' construction grid is good for material waste) and a 45 degree axis into the square plan.