cool houses on the Cool House Tour

Herded the bride into the Element and ventured out into an overcast Sunday to snoop and snaggle several five-star rated homes showing themselves off as part of the Cool House Tour. We've been on this tour before, so we're not spring pups when it comes to touring green houses. The homes on the tour this year were more standard architecture-wise (the city of Austin and the solar people seem overly concerned that people associate green with calm [and cool] Modern). For us, admirers of calm (and cool) Modern, this made the tour a bit less interesting. Nonetheless, we did see some interesting homes and green features.

What we learned:

• The coming code for solar will make it much more difficult to get city-subsidized solar (this from a solar installer).
• You can get solar panels these days that have the power converter at the cell. This is more expensive, but saves having to run thick wires all over the place. You can also monitor the performance of each cell.
• The city requires walking space around the solar cells (you have to be able to clean the bird poop off them thar panels!).
• Cabinets over elevated washers and dryers are nice.
• The bride doesn't want fossils in the limestone cladding on our house (the things you learn about people on a tour...). I consider that a lack of respect for our Cretaceous elders, but Queen trumps Joker, so creamy limestone (something we saw in the landscaping at the Spring Builders house) it is.
• Cool cats like cool houses (see the cutie-pie below).

Unique for this tour was a house completely on rainwater even though city water is knocking at the front door (now allowed under a state law passed last year) and a straw bale house (with a "truth window" see what's inside the wall). The Barley & Pfeiffer house was nice, with wonderful views and wonderful breezeways. Although not our architectural style (and the interior design was busy-busy-busy), it was quite the nice place. The breezeways combined with the humidity created the weird sensation of being a wee bit chilly while sweating. The Spring Builders house was nice: much cozier than the B & Pf house (being smaller and more efficient helps). But the right-sized AC was struggling to keep up with the crowds and constant opening of doors. This house had the nice touch of champagne in the master shower (I like that!) as well as a having countertop material on top of the beauty bench (which held the champagne). We liked that as well.

We hope to have our house on the tour in the future (to give back, as they say).  

Bohn House for sale

Here is a chance to own a piece of Austin history for a mere $1.7 mil! The Streamline Moderne Bohn House! If we had all the money in the world, this would would already have a "SOLD" signette attached to the agents's "For Sale" sign, because this is our most favorite house in town. 


There's a nice article about the house in today's Austin American-Statesman (the photos below are lifted from the real estate posting). Designed by Roy L. Thomas and built in 1938, the house was inspired by the futuristic castle in Frank Capra's movie "Lost Horizon" which in turn is based on the science fiction novel by James Hilton of the the same name. A trip by the homeowners, the Bohn's, on the Queen Mary sealed the deal (think of Le Corbusier here...). The current owner had hoped to lovingly restore the house, but now has it on the market and says he will insist on someone restoring the house. 


The house is simply a stunner. Although I doubt there will be one, here's to hoping for an open house!

From Capra's "Lost Horizon":

April 15, 2012: Just found this era photo of the house:

Precedents Day

We’ve yapped about precedents in various blog posts, so it seems appropriate to present our precedents on Presidents’ Day. A precedent is “an act or instance that may be used as an example in dealing with subsequent similar instances.” So in architecture, a precedent is a building, a finish, or a solution that came before that can be used to guide a solution in the here and now or in the future. In our case, we used precedents to define our stylistic preferences. It’s unclear to me whether or not architects like to see client-provided precedents or not. Michael Malone, in “The Architect’s Guide to Residential Design”, suggests the answer is “No”:

“During your initial interviews [potential clients] will usually tell you up front what they are looking for; some may even have books or magazines with specific houses or, even worse, various elements of houses they fully expect to see incorporated into their new home.”

I’m fixated a wee bit on that “even worse” bit, which suggests architects don’t want you lugging your books and magazines into their offices, thank you very much. Ultimately, I think every architect’s preference is to have a (book-less, magazine-less) client walk in their office, slap a pile of cash on their desk, and yelp, in a Zsa Zsa Gabor voice, “Design me a house!”

We assembled and distributed our list of precedents to potential architects for our project before we read Malone’s book. But truth be told, we still would have done it after reading Malone’s book. The Zsa Zsa Gabor approach would make me nervous unless I knew that I would love whatever the architect came up with. And even then, that’s a risk. What if Mr. Cubist Architect was having a mid-life crisis and decided all his projects would now be Beaux Arts, and you were the first “beneficiary” of this revelation? On the other hand, what if you were courting International Style architects with what you were expecting would be a gothic castle with a Minnie Mouse themed landscape design? It seems to me getting the broad style questions and expectations settled early, before contracts are signed, is important.

What Malone may be concerned about is the potential specificity of a client’s request. If you go into an architect’s office with a photo of a house and state “I want my house to look exactly like this house”, that’s a problem. That house may not fit your program, your site, your orientation, or your budget and may trample on the creativity of the architect you’re talking to as well as the architect who designed the house you like (not to mention the folks who built a house they thought was unique).

We provided a herd of precedents (14) with some carefully calibrated additions (one with a curve and one with a shed roof) to indicate what we were open to. We also included a few notes of what we liked and didn’t like about each house. If you do this, I strongly suggest you use “weasel words” (‘We “prefer” a side entry.’ versus: ‘We require a side entry.’) unless you truly have a deal-breaker in your design vision. Speaking of side entries, we have a preference for them (but didn’t demand one); however, note that our current design doesn’t have one. This was a case where the architects had the flexibility to present a non-side entrance solution as part of a broader plan, a plan we ultimately adopted.

Usonian architecture

In 1927, in an article written for Architectural Record, Frank Lloyd Wright introduced the word “Usonia”  into the architectural lexicon, Usonia meaning the United States because “Canada and Brazil are America too” (James Duff Law is credited by some with creating the term in 1903 [Wright credited the novelist Samuel Butler]). Wright dedicated his career to creating an architecture for the United States, one divorced from European influence. Starting in 1936, in the midst of the Great Depression, and until his death in 1959, he designed 308 homes he called “Usonian”, 140 of them built.

Wright cut Usonian homes from the same cloth as his Prairie School houses, but with a sharper pair of scissors and into much smaller pieces. Modernized to the times and much cozier than his previous houses, Wright aimed to design homes for the middle class.

Usonian homes were typically characterized by single stories; a horizontal demeanor (of the land, not on it); cantilevered carports (Wright coined the term “carport” with these houses); native/natural materials; flat roofs (no attics); large overhangs; depth of massing; radiant heating (something he called “gravity heating”); open living areas with the kitchen combined with the dining area; natural lighting (clerestory windows); typically L-shaped (to create a private courtyard); slab on grade (no basements); a strong connection between indoors and outdoors; built-in components; walls extending from the interior to the exterior; large windows; and little ornamentation. Bedrooms in his Usonian homes were often small to promote the congregation of the family in the open living spaces. Wright didn't provide garages or much storage space to promote a more spartan, less materialistic lifestyle.

Wright’s Usonian homes were green before green was cool, at least for their time. Large overhangs controlled thermal loading, windows were arranged for cross ventilation, local and natural materials were used instead of manufactured materials or “dishonest” materials (manufactured materials posing as natural materials). Some greenie grumps point out that his homes weren’t really green (single pane windows, little to no insulation, concrete), but that's unfairly evaluating his work in the context of modern mores and technology (ain’t no HVACs back in 1936!).

In the 1950s Wright introduced a special category of Usonian homes called “Usonian Automatic”. An affordable version of his earlier textile block homes built in California, these homes were made of inexpensive three-inch thick modular concrete blocks designed to be assembled by homeowners (Legos for adults!). However, these homes proved complicated to assemble and partakers often hired professionals to put their homes together.

I’m writing about Usonian architecture because we included one of Wright’s Usonian homes on our list of precedents (still need to post those: sorry...) and expressed a strong preference for horizontality (we got the horizontals bad!). We showed it because we love the horizontality and the fact they were progressive yet “affordable”. We also appreciate “touchstones” toward history, a curtsey to those that came before us.

While we like many of the tenets of Usonian homes and Wrightism, we don’t like them all. We lean towards the ethereal whiteness of houses from the golden age of Modern architecture. Many of Frank’s houses seem dingy and dusty to us because of the Earthy tones. Brighter and lighter strike us as more uplifting. Along those lines, Rudolph Schindler is perhaps our true touchstone: A fusion of what’s Wright with architecture with the Loos morals (ha!) of Modern.

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The Jacobs House (1936-1937), considered to be Wright's first Usonian Home. Its 1,550 square feet was built for $5,500 (~$85,000 in 2010 dollars!):

The Rosenbaum House (1938-1940; one of my faves--love that street presence!):

The Pope-Leighey House (1939-1941):

The Winkler House (1940):

The M M Smith House (1949; that's freakin gorgeous, mo photos here [check out that pendant!])

The Turkel House (1956; a Usonian Automatic):

The McBean House (1957; a prefab version of the Usonian Home):

The Sunday House (1957):

The Gordon House (1957-1963):