A friend comes to pick up her child from a play-date with our son and she announces excitedly that we are in Dwell. I smile and I say I know! Isn’t it great, we’ve been on Dwell a couple times, which one did you see! And she goes, no, you are in the “100 Houses we Love” Dwell, and you have a big article in it!

So we pick it up. Here’s an excerpt of the editorial:

They only chose TEN full articles, one per year. Thank you Dwell not only for choosing us–what an honor–but also for making us the chosen article for 2008.

One in ten years, ten homes in one hundred. Wow.

And so it is! Now in stands and zinnio, enjoy!

It also was important to respect the delicate lines and low profile of the existing mid century modern house designed by the late A.D. Stenger, one of Austin’s great modernist architects. From the street, the house looks virtually untouched. It remains a modest presence on the block.

The original house was taken back to the studs, the existing fireplace with its eccentric stone work was saved, and two previous unfortunate, mold infested, additions that made the existing house a black hole were removed.

A master bedroom and bath where added and the interior of the existing house completely remodeled and re-oriented around a long skylight and two interior courtyards. The skylight and courtyards maintain privacy and allow natural light into all parts of the house while providing a connection with the live oaks and changing sky.

Maple, tinted to match the tone of the pine flooring, wraps through out the house becoming cabinets, paneling, and flush doors. Traditional, earthy D’hanis “mocha” brick pavers become the surface in the courtyards.

Update: this project won a citation of Honor at the AIA, Austin 2010 Design Awards.

New additions are of wood and steel to contrast the existing raw masonry. Everything new is installed so that when removed, the integrity of the raw space is maintained for the future.

Careful allocation of funds and tricks like kerfing the ¾” plywood to provide the “poor man’s curves” where used to meet the extremely low budget of twelve thousand dollars. New materials are formaldehyde free plywood with a tung oil finish, cold rolled steel, and paint.

Update: this project won a Merit Award at the AIA, Austin 2010 Design Awards.

To find out all about it go to the AIA homes Tour site; this site, the brochure, poster and all other marketing materials have been designed this year by our incomparable friends at FODA studio.

photo by Jonathan H Jackson

El vino bueno: a Prado Enea Muga 1982 a Rioja Gran Reserva

THAT is a bottle of Prado Enea Muga 1982 a Rioja Gran Reserva that we’ve had for years. We had very good reasons to open it. We just won our fifth TSA design award! It was GREAT, both the wine and the winning:-)

Thanks, Texas Society of Architects. Jurors were Philip Freelon, FAIA, president of the Freelon Group in Raleigh-Durham, N.C.; Mary Margaret Jones, FASLA, president of San Francisco-based landscape architecture firm Hargreaves Associates; and Rick Joy, AIA, founding principal of Rick Joy Architects in Tucson, Ariz. (Rick Joy, oh man!)

The awarded project was, again, the Wolfe Den.

Only two Austin projects were awarded at this state level this year… what a tough, tough jury! It can really be a lottery… the rest of the awarded firms/projects were in Dallas, Houston, and San Antonio.

Let me tell you, we were not counting on this one. The Austin design awards were tough competition already and we saw oodles of nice work there, so we were not counting on a TSA award this year, especially with MR Joy in the jury, we know just how demanding he is! Because he can.

So we’re opening wine bottles and other things:-) We were also celebrating my upcoming exhibition in Palo Alto.

And we have great news on the horizon, I think. So stay tuned! Time to celebrate and smile after all the hard work and paltry times.

This video explores how the use of film as a research tool in architecture informed the students’ projects and changed them. The students achieved a completely different relationship to the site by the use of documentary filmmaking.

Film was also used as a creative expression medium and a presentation element but the emphasis was on it’s use as a knowledge base tool. All self-consciousness was left at the door. We wanted truth, passion, we particularly fought any “architect’s preciousness.”  Focus was on obliterating mythologies and keeping it real, to open them up and to make them reach the bottom of the reality of the site and the people that inhabited it.

All students shared a pool of footage and learned from each other, sharing their findings and drawing their own conclusions.

We are proud to be in this fine book and I’m particularly happy that my pictures are getting published all over the place. I’m enjoying photography more and more, as I have been mentioning in this blog. I’m preparing an exhibition… I’ll post about it soon.

Anyway, the focus of the book is sustainability. I encourage you to review the Texas Architect article by Richard Wintersole, AIA:

 Conserving energy is important to Neal, thus the SIPs serve as a thermal umbrella and air is encouraged to circulate through the building from end to end. The Farleys plan to add a large, low-velocity fan to improve the air circulation. When ambient air breezes through the home, the Farleys and their guests are truly in touch with the natural world.”

or by going to the Dwell article by Sarah Rich

In a climate like this, air-conditioning seems indispensable, but to cool the entire structure artificially would be inefficient and costly. Neal devised a solution by building a 540-square-foot box nested within the superstructure, which contains the bedroom, bathroom, and kitchen, as the only air-conditioned space in the building. The two-story plywood envelope has sliding walls on all sides that can be closed to keep cool temperatures in or left open to the fluctuations of the natural ventilation throughout the building.”

 

Enjoy, I am.

Cal Lane was exhibiting her exploded lace cars there, amazing stuff, not only it is beautiful art, but it is recycling too! Here’s a very interesting article on her by the NYT. I wonder if she’d let me do a short docco on her… 

From Blogger Pictures

A few images from the last site visit. Alex chats as John and Mike of Living Art Austin lean on the rift cut white oak guardrail just freshly installed. Dennis has the spoon tub installed and the shower running.