haiku for the book “The Architect’s Guide to Residential Design” by Michael Malone

Here’s an idea:

Let’s superserve the client

And then build a house

Holy bug butts this is a good book! Well written, well organized, and well thought out, it’s the best description of what happens and why when designing a house with an architect that I’ve found. Written by an architect for architects getting into residential design, I reckon it covers the stuff that doesn’t get covered in school, namely how to interact with clients during the process. Malone has clearly thought deeply about this part of his business.

As a (ahem) consumer of architectural services, I thought his description of the typical client was eerily spot on (it’s odd reading about yourself by someone you’ve never met…). And his empathic approach--putting himself in the client’s shoes when sh!t goes wrong and responding accordingly--is admirable (and greatly lacking in client services in general these days…). As a client, it was very interesting to read about the architect’s perspective of the design process and “appropriate” client feedback into that process. This is a book that needs to be read by architects and clients alike.

Malone states that it takes three qualities for someone to want an architect-designed house: Ego, patience, and money. We were surprised by the ego bit. Not that we don’t have ego (my bride has nearly none, but I probably have enough for the two of us… [step back from the car with your hands up!]), but that came out of left field. Malone equates the ego thing, in part, to thinking that there’s not a single house out there to fit your needs; therefore, you feel the need to hire someone to design and build the “perfect house” for you (probably applies us; we attribute our desire to build a house to wanting to go green and particularness in material choices and color). Or it could, in part, be to beat the Joneses (definitely not us; Malone practices in Dallas—there’s a lot of Jones-beating up in Dallas). Patience is needed to work through the drama of the design and building process (yep!). And, of course, money. Building an architect-designed house is typically a rich man’s (or woman’s [or couple’s]) sport.

An interesting insight into this critter called “architect” is how they (or at least Malone) react to client design preferences: “During your initial interviews [the 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.” This sentence made me go “hmmmm” and pull my earlobe three times. I had thought that showing architects precedents was a good thing (and swear I read that somewhere). From a client’s perspective, it lets the architect see what your general design preferences are and lets the architect respectfully decline if those preferences don’t align (“Sorry: I don’t architect houses that look like Burger Kings.”). I certainly understand an architect not wanting to deal with an exhaustive listing of required elements: The architecture at that point is driven by design elements rather than use and program.

Malone’s description of a residential architect’s potential client base is spot-on. He notes that the client base is a small world that either knows each other directly or have contact through social and business networks. Indeed. For example, one of the architects we considered and then unconsidered was because a pal of ours had had a terrible experience with him. Some sentences that resonated with me for some reason: “Bad word of mouth can hurt you, especially if you are terminated by a client who has been paying fees for work she or he considers unsatisfactory, without you being able to finish the project.” and “They will now be faced with selecting and hiring another architect and moving forward from scratch, a potentially devastating charge to be leveled against you.” Just saying…

Malone advocates that architects use what amounts to basic business communication strategies (which, admittedly, even businesses struggle to employ). Namely, using agendas for meetings that clearly describe the purpose and goals of the meetings, written communication following meetings, and ongoing written summaries of decisions. One thing I’ve learned in my professional and personal life is that communication is key. Not surprisingly, that also applies to designing and building a house.

Malone notes how design and material choices and preferences of the architect can cause a budget to go awry just as design and material choices and preferences of the client can cause a budget to go awry (and Gawd forbid if both run amuck!). And Malone is clever in noting that an architect’s vision is much more likely to be realized if the architect is attentive to budget issues up front. If not, the client or builder will “fix” things to fit the budget (true, true: a couple builders told us during the dissolution of Round 1.0: “Just get the plans from the architect and then we’ll fix everything in the build.”).

As mentioned in an earlier post, Malone advocates that architects use a questionnaire to survey the needs and preferences of clients. And he provides an example. A great idea, methinks. Gets the clients thinking about what they want and documents it in writing. Another interesting section of the book focuses on “soft bidding”: getting estimates from builders before working on design. Malone notes that he has “…a consistent history of projects that, when priced, come in over budget, making everyone unhappy and uncomfortable when they do. No amount of careful planning or candid disclosure of your thoughts regarding the cost can prepare the clients for a project that has a price they cannot afford.” He goes on to note that he tries “to do the maximum possible with every design opportunity”. Although admirable (design is good!), this pressures the budget. Something to keep in mind about architects…

Later in the book, he addresses bids over budget (“and they always are”) and notes that this is when most residential projects die (can’t tell you how many folks we’ve talked to that have worked with an architect only to have their project suffer a whimpering got-run-over-by-the-bidding death). He notes that this is where the client is often disappointed and angry (uh-huh) and the architect needs to exert leadership to ensure the project moves forward. Malone describes that leadership as leveraging trust earned earlier in the relationship into a discussion of value engineering and, if needed, changes in design. For his firm, he will often redesign and adjust the plans at no cost to the client.

It was real interesting reading these bits given our experience with Architect 1.0, which was, in short, a perfect storm of bad. He lost our trust as a good steward of our resources early in the design process; when things went wrong, he blamed us for things that he did (which were provable via written documentation [remember, putting things in writing goes both ways…]); and his leadership at the end was to try and save design elements and material choices he wanted over our program needs. That’s not to say we weren’t part of the problem. There were design choices we made that certainly added to the cost. And after reading this book, perhaps we had a misunderstanding of what an architect does.

About that misunderstanding: Malone suggests that architects provide a “service for fee” similar, say, to an attorney. Along those lines, you are hiring expertise to advise you, but you are making the decisions and hence the outcome, ultimately, is yours (hence Architect 1.0 stating that he was not obligated to design a house we could afford). From a consumer standpoint, this is there’s-a-monster-hiding-in-the-amply-sized-master-bedroom-closet scary if it’s not clear up front (and it isn’t clear up front) and if it’s not clear during the design process. When we hired an architect, it was not only to hire expertise to design a functional thing of beauty that met (most) of our program needs but also knowledge of general construction costs. The lawyer-service-thing comes into play because a lawyer will typically discuss your legal options and the implications therein (perhaps with a recommendation), but you ultimately choose the option and, hence, your fate. The same thing applies with an architect. If you want a $100,000 negative edge pool and the architect explains that it will bust the budget, you shouldn’t be surprised when the budget is busted when the project finally gets bidded.

On the other hand, be watchful for design decision traps where you are making critical decisions that impact budget without knowing it. For example, the architect might ask “What do you think about putting a negative edge pool off the back patio? It would look great juxtaposed against summer skies!” And you might reply “Yeah, that would be great!” assuming the pool fits into the previously discussed budget. But it probably doesn’t. This is an extreme example, but it happens with lots of little and medium sized design decisions that add up over time. If budget is a concern, always spew the phrase “Can we do this on our budget?” and “How are we doing on budget?” (although, as we learned earlier, that doesn’t guarantee anything).

We’ve received criticism that we were unreasonable in our upsettedness with Architect 1.0 because he designed a house we loved. Although I’m not an architect, I’ll go out on a limb and say that it’s pretty damn easy to design a house a client loves. There are lots of houses out there we love. We would love to live in about 90 percent of the houses we see on the AIA tours. One little problem: We can’t afford them. The true talent of an architect is designing a house the client loves within the budget. Although Malone notes the service-for-fee bit, he also notes that clients expect the process to produce a design that fits the budget and he runs his business accordingly. This is a case where reality (expectations/perceptions  of clients) trump the theory of the service an architect provides.

Malone goes on to discuss contracting, construction administration, and the building process. He also includes case studies at the end of each chapter. At first, the case studies are rather rosy; something I was going to ding the book for (what do you learn from rosy case studies?). But then he describes, toward the end of the book, some particularly nasty situations and the lessons he learned from them.

This book is, quite simply, fantastic. I can’t say enough nice things about it. I have to think that it’s invaluable for practicing or soon-to-be-practicing architects. And it’s certainly invaluable to clients hoping to get a better understanding of the process and the inner workings of this critter called “architect”. 

did Modern come from mud?

“Vernacular architecture” is essentially a fancy term for “traditional buildings not designed by architects”. A more sophisticated definition might be “architecture that uses locally available resources and traditions to address local needs and circumstances.” Since anything developed as “new” always rests on the shoulders of something that came before, it’s not surprising that the Modern movement was influenced by certain architectural traditions of the deep and not so deep past. I’ve often wondered if the Modern movement was in part inspired by the earthy edges of southwestern adobes and the ethereal white blockiness of seaside hovels in the Aegean sea. As it turns out, it was!

Although he denied it (“Resemblances are mistaken for influences.”), Frank Lloyd Wright was clearly influenced by traditional Japanese architecture. He saw the Ho-o-den, the Japanese building at the 1893 Columbian Exposition in Chicago. He was an avid collector of Japanese prints (his design depictions were clearly influenced by these prints). And he most likely read Edward Morse’s book “Japanese Homes and Their Surroundings” published in 1886.

Wright was likely inspired by the horizontality of Japanese architecture as well as the large eaves and open spaces, elements that appear in his Prairie and Usonian phases. While in Japan overseeing the construction of the Imperial Hotel, he experienced the Korean tradition of heating a room through pipes in the floor, something he would employ later in his Usonian homes.

Photos of the Ho-o-den at the 1893 Columbian Exhibition

Wright, as well as many of the Modern masters, were either directly or indirectly influenced by the Arts and Crafts (also called the Craftsman) movement, a movement characterized by simple forms, local and natural materials, and hand-made (vernacular) craftsmanship intended to rebel against the machine-age and over-indulgent Victorians. Started in England about 1860, Many Craftsman houses included built-ins and furniture meant to compliment the architecture, traits picked up by the Modernists.

Indirectly, Wright, through the publication of his Wasmuth Portfolio in Germany in 1910, introduced his Japanese influences to the germinating Modern movement in Europe. However, vernacular architecture also played a more direct role in the development of Europe’s modernism. While prospecting for marble, Adolf Loos, he of “Ornament and Crime”, happened upon the architecture of the Cyclades Islands in the Aegean Sea (Skyros in particular). Cycladic architecture is cubic and blindingly white (sound familiar?). These buildings are blocky and flat-roofed to resist strong winds and white to reflect the hot sun. And herds of these blocky white buildings huddling against the mountainside is nothing short of breathtaking. It’s easy to understand how buildings on these little islands greatly influenced Loos’s architecture.

Scenes of Skyros. Catch your breath!

Interestingly, about the same time, Mediterranean architecture from a different shore and continent was being planted into the early Modern movement in California through the work of Irving Gill and Frank Mead. Gill worked for Adler & Sullivan in Chicago the same time Frank Lloyd Wright did before moving to San Diego (Louis Sullivan advised employees to “look toward the silent walls of Africa”). In 1900, Gill worked to stabilize the ruins of the Mission San Diego de Alcala and became impressed with its straightforward simplicity, economy in the use of materials, and emphasis on utility, elements he began to include in his own work. In 1907, he teamed up with Frank Mead to design what many consider to be the first Modern homes in California (or, at the very least, the first protoModern homes). Mead, as part of a commission to photograph Bedouins in Northern Africa, documented the vernacular architecture of northern Africa and the Mediterranean, something that clearly influenced the simple white structures the two designed during their brief one year collaboration.

Mission San Diego de Alcala.

Rudolph Schindler, a student of Loos, traveled the western United States in 1915 including Taos, New Mexico, writing that he had found "the first buildings in America which have a real feeling for the ground which carries them". Schindler was smitten by the native pueblo architecture and even designed an adobe-inspired house while he was there. In a letter to Richard Neutra, he wrote “When I speak of American architecture I must say at once that there is none. . .The only buildings which testify to the deep feeling for soil on which they stand are the sun-baked adobe buildings of the first immigrants and their successors — Spanish and Mexican — in the south-western part of the country.” 

Later in the trip, Schindler traveled to California where he saw (and photographed) several of Gill and Mead’s houses. He later worked for Frank Lloyd Wright before heading out on his own in 1921. His first project out on in his own post-Wright was his own house, influenced, in part, by the New Mexican pueblos. The El Pueblo Ribera Court Apartments in San Diego are also influenced by pueblos and sometimes described as Pueblo Revivalism.

Schindler knew how to ride a horse (photo'd in the Land of Enchantment).

Taos Pueblo (photo by Schindler).

The country home Schindler designed (unbuilt).

Similar to Loos, Le Corbusier was also influenced by the architecture of the Aegean Sea, but he was also influenced by vernacular architecture of a more recent vintage and purpose. As illustrated in his 1923 book “Towards an Architecture”, he was smitten with grain elevators! At first this might seem ludicrous, but grain elevators tend to be geometric, unadorned, and purely driven by purpose. The photos of grain elevators in Corbusier’s book came from an article published in 1917 by none other than Gropius, another fan of Midwestern grain elevators.

These grain silos are totally hot.

And finally, Wright, whether he liked it or not, was later influenced by Loos, Corbusier, Gropius, and even Schindler. The development of Modern architecture was a beautiful hot mess of cross pollination with each architect observing, learning, assimilating, adapting, and processing as they each developed their own style. All of it, as it turns out, has Organic roots, re-employing what was learned long ago by ancient builders and adapting lessons to modern living, a process that continues today.

open house at Sol Austin March 4th

Sol Austin is this little cute development on the east side of modern green homes, and one is available for viewing tomorrow from 1 pm to 4 pm! We saw this house during EAST (East Austin Studio Tour) and we hope to make it by to see the finished product which, from the photos, looks fantastic (we're totally digging the cooper-horizontal subway tile in the bathroom and those concrete floors!).

a home for us, our cat, and 4,753 maggots

Off and on I've alluded to our "worms”, a more socially acceptable term for our colony of Black Soldier Fly maggots (thank you, Devon). Yes, you read that right: Maggots. Big juicy Cheeto-sized ones, AKA “my babies”. I don’t know how many we have (a [potentially] hyperbole-infused guestimate is in the title) but there’s a large writhing pile of ’em in our composter. And boy do they eat. A lot.

Truth be told, I’m quite fond of them. So much so, we moved them from the old house to the lot. The movers, at first intrigued by the novelty of maggot moving, were not impressed (4,753 maggots and their accouterments are heavy and [ahem] a little messy; don’t be surprised if you see a special fee if you want your maggots moved in the future).

I didn’t start out loving maggots. My initial goal was to (organically) kill them all after finding them squatting in our composter for a second time (see ancient post from MySpace [remember the promiscuous days of MySpace?] below). But due to the miracle of Google (I’m convinced Google will become the center of a future religion), I immediately saw their value and now cherish them (no hyperbole there: I was really worried about them during the move).

Black Soldier Fly maggots, hipster vegans that they are, love coffee grounds and watermelon (you have never seen a happier pile of maggots until you’ve seen ours doing the “Folgers Boogie”). Among certain circles, I’m even known as the “Maggot Whisperer”, having saved other colonies from impending destruction by revolted (but uneducated) composters. And I even got my first request for a maggot transplant: Moving some of my babies to a new home!

We haven’t talked to the architects about the maggots (yet). We don’t want to press our luck. We’re already fortunate they haven’t hiked because of our special requests for the kittycat (thank Gawd for a down real estate market!).

I wonder if the vet chips worms?

"mmmmm: Watermelon!!!"

I love my maggots

Late one night, I collected the clippings and whatnot from the to-be-composted bowl and carried them deep into the backyard to the compost pile. After I dumped them onto the pile, I could hear the pile come alive with writhing and rustling. "Bwahhh!" I hooted as I jumped back. I nudged the composter frame and heard the writhing and rustling again, but it was too dark to see what was there. After returning from the house with a flashlight, I nudged the composter frame again and was horrified to see a contorting mass of maggots. "BWAHHH!!!!" I hoot-yelled this time. As I ran back to the house BWAHHing the whole way, my father-in-law (father-in-common-law at the time) was greatly amused.

"Maggots?" he asked, "All that hooting and hollering for a few maggots?" He didn't say the words, but I could read them in his eyes: "Girly. Man."

"These maggots aren't normal maggots," I replied, "Go see them yourself."

Out into the backyard he marched with the flashlight. I watched him go behind the garage to where the compost pile was. "BWAHHH!!!!!" he hoot-hollered while running quickly back to the house "Those are the biggest and creepiest maggots I have ever seen!"

This all happened 10 or 12 years ago. After the maggots appeared, I lost my appetite for maintaining a compost pile. A couple years ago I got the urge to compost again, this time mostly for leaves. As I fed the composter, I watched for the maggots. Fortunately, they didn't come. We then began feeding kitchen scraps into the maw of the composter being careful to not put meat into it, convinced rotting meat had attracted the maggots all those years ago. Last month, when I opened the lid to the composter, the maggots were back. A big, juicy, boiling mass of worms, these maggots were each an inch long and as thick as a Cheeto. Interestingly, they loved coffee grounds, squeezing out from the goo below in the hundreds to have a writhing caffeine-fueled orgy.

A couple days ago, after witnessing another frenetic maggot dance upon a week's worth of ground coffee beans, I shook my fist at the sky and yelped "BWAHH!!!! I WILL GOOGLE A SOLUTION TO MY MAGGOT PROBLEM!!!"

After googling "maggots" and "compost," I learned that these large, pasty-skinned wigglers are the larvae of black soldier flies. It turns out these maggots are not uncommon, love food scraps, and are a welcome addition to a compost pile. They are also high in protein. Freakily, when the maggots pupate, the resulting fly doesn't have a mouth. The only purpose of the fly is to mate, something it needs to do quickly as it only lives for a couple days. The black soldier maggots are very active, process a lot of organic matter quickly and are even used industrially to break down tons of manure at hog and cattle farms. One entomologist noted that they love coffee grounds (those're my boys!). One posting string started off with "How do I get rid of these maggots?" and ended with someone else asking "Can someone please send me some maggots?" after an entomologist explained the innocuousness and helpfulness of black soldier fly larvae.

I'm fortunate, I now understand, that I've got a few hundred maggots I can call my own...

Maggots on the move.

floorplan evolving...

Last Friday Architect 2d sent us more detailed floor plans from our Option B choice from a week or so ago, and it's real neat to see how he fleshed out the simplified floor plan and addressed our comments.

There really isn't much for us to say: There's a lot to like here. The bump outs for the bookshelves in the living room and the sink in the half bath are clever (and the book bump will add interest to that part of the house, methinks). The bride is happy to have a peninsula in the kitchen (she shall be cocooned; the peninsula will keep dinner partiers [or partiers in general] to the stools rather than in the middle of everything). A cute little pantry makes an appearance (yay! we have a place to put our wine!). The stairs to the second floor curl around a "bonus" open square area that's prolly open to the second floor (library? sculpture display? mini-disco floor?). The laundry room is roomy. And the second floor looks grand (with the mechanical closet appropriately centrally located in the house: excellent). We can see initial thoughts on window locations and size (lots of cornerish windows!) and can also begin to see roof drainage direction with the location of parapets.

Minorish quibbles: We miss the wall in front of the house (you can see it here; this might actually be a largish quibble). We're hoping to have the oven and microwave in a wall (not sure that will work without losing the pantry or a sizable part of the pantry). A bigger window in the sink area? We are also avid grillers, so we're looking for how outdoor cooking fits in with this lay-out (not sure at this point...). I'm guessing the square footage has increased a wee bit (the floor plan looks/seems bigger).

All in all a great leap forward. We're hoping to navigate through our wacky schedules to meet with the architect this week.

explosions in the night

Had this excitement last night!

Modern Home Tour Houston on March 3rd

We won't be able to attend (boo! hoo!), but if you can make it, make it! Features a 1960 Usonianish house designed by a Wright disciple, urban meccas, and oh my gosh look at those gorgeously intersecting cubes (and that [plywood?] floor)!!! Mo info here.