the Futuro of Austin!

Having been inspired after designing a polyurethane dome for the roof of a grain silo, Finland's Matti Suuronen designed the Futuro Pod in the late 1960s as an affordable, portable, and mass producible housing solution. Looking exactly like a flying saucer, complete with the retractable staircase, the design earned enough attention to go into production, including out of Philadelphia.

Once ordered, the Futuro would arrive in two halves that were bolted together. All that was needed for installation were four concrete piers, although utilities required additional work. A helicopter could be used for more remote or challenging locations.

The walls including insulation, and the manufacturer claimed the Future could warm up from -20 to 60 degrees Fahrenheit in 30 minutes once a fire was built in the center fireplace. The original came with built-in furniture, including spacey lounge chairs, as well as a kitchen and bathroom.

Ultimately, the Futuro didn't take off with fewer than 100 manufactured worldwide through the early 1970s. The first installations created an aesthetic backlash, and many cities across the world banned their installation. About 63 have been confirmed to still survive.

As it turns out, one of the 63 Futuros was installed just outside Austin in the Hill Country, and the bride and I were invited out to tour it. I had assumed the owner had bought one and moved it there more recently, but, awesomely, his family actually bought one back in the day directly from the Philadelphia factory. The owners elevated it by a few feet to be able to see downtown Austin from the Pod windows, back before the trees grew in to block the view. They also installed a round circular base under the main body to house the utilities, something Suuronen hadn't really addressed in his original design. The base makes this pod look a bit like a miniature converted water tower.

The Futuro is surprisingly spacious inside as well as bright and airy with windows around the full perimeter and several extras around the back. The original interior is long-gone after several renovations, but the current renovation retains the original open floorplan with only the bathroom (appropriately) enclosed.

 

 

Other Pods:

 

  The following photos are from here:

 

 

 

 misc photos:

 

 

 

SOM's Lever House and Mies' Seagram Building

You can't visit New York as a Modern architectural buff and not visit Lever House and Seagram Building on Park Avenue. The two buildings glare at each other from separate sides of the street, the glass-clad Lever House dancing in its luminescent green gown while Seagram stands back with its moody black striations reaching for the sky.

Lever House was designed and built first, finishing in 1952. Gordon Bunshaft and a former neighbor of ours, Natalie de Blois, both of Skidmore, Owens, and Merrill (aka SOM) designed the structure. It was the second curtain-wall tower in New York City after the United Nations Secretariat Building, designed by a Oscar Niemeyer and Le Corbusier, also finished in 1952. Mies van der Rohe's vision of glass-clad, curtain walled towers influenced both of these buildings. The Seagram building finished construction in 1958 and represented a continuation of the architectural language Mies started with the Lakeshore Apartments in Chicago.

The Seagram building is infamous for its huge setback from the street, creating a massive plaza. Both buildings have plazas and enormous setbacks for the primary structure. This was governed in part by the desire to have purity of form (one giant rectangle) and by New York's sun-saving building code, which required growing setbacks as a structure grew taller. However, if the footprint of the main building occupied less than 25 percent of the property, growing setbacks were not required.

To the uneducated eye, both of these buildings look competent but somewhat humdrum. But at the time, almost all the structures in NYC and the world were masonry. These buildings were a radical departure that were fully embraced by subsequent architects, especially in the US. Today, almost all of out skyscrapers look like these two buildings.

By my eyes, Lever House is more reflective of its time, evoking the feel and materials of mid-century modern, whereas the Seagram Building feels timeless in its minimalism and materials. Ultimately, the outcome of this across-the-street architectural call and response was a victory for Mies. SOM subsequently aped Mies' style in future projects, becoming the Stone Temple Pilots to Mies' Pearl Jam. Standing on Park Avenue and turning your head side-to-side, you can see for yourself why.

one brutal cup of joe

I loves me some Brutalism: the severity, rawness, and the wonder and awe it makes me feel. And I loves me some espresso: the severity, rawness, and the wonder and awe it makes me feel. So AnZa merging the two is simply brilliant, and, in a fit of caffeine-starved stircraziness (and a slowly failing baby-blue Francis!Francis!), we binged-bought one.

AnZa is the result of a design studio (studio montaag) and an espresso repair shop sharing the same space in Berkeley, California. Combining design chops with the engineering expertise resulted in a beautiful Brutalist prototype I first saw in 2017 at designboom. I loved it but wasn't obsessed. However, that baby-Brute was always there, percolating in the background. Unbeknownst to me, AnZa progressed to a Kickstarter project and then a production model. Suddenly, a couple of weeks ago, a production model popped up in one of the design blogs I peruse. "Honey," I asked the honey, weakened by tequila, "What do you think?" 

About a week later, the AnZa arrived. Holy crap that thing is piss-off-the-UPS-driver heavy, clocking in at 48 pounds! After carefully pulling it out of its careful packaging, my first thought was, "Dang: this thing is HUGE!" The AnZa's main body is about 15.5 inches tall, about 13.5 inches deep, and about 10 inches wide. My second thought was, "Dang: this thing is NICE!" High-quality materials abound, including concrete, Corian, glass, porcelain, brass, and powdercoated steel. The only material disappointment was the coffee scoop and tamper, both lightweight plastic.

I have to confess that I had a pang of buyer's remorse at the size, the cleanness of the concrete (the prototype was triumphantly harsher in appearance), as well as the cuteness of the baby-blue FrancisFrancis! which has been so perfect on the countertop (but also long out of production). However, after pulling my first shot and frothing my first milk, the remorse vanished: the AnZa is the real espresso deal. Well-designed and well-made, preparing a latte with this hunk of concrete is like slicing warm butter. Easy and warmly satisfying.

Once you flip the AnZa on, it has an LED in the overhang above the pressure gage that smoothly pulses as it heats up. The LED stops pulsing as it reaches the actionable temperature. In this way, the light cleverly acts as an indicator as well as a light for the deck. After pulling a shot and flipping the switch for steam, the light pulses again until you reach the proper temperature. Frothing milk with the Francis!Francis! was always kind of a pain in the glass, but it's easy-peasy with the AnZa. And the smooth profile for the steaming wand makes for easy-peasy cleaning as well, unlike the nook-and-cranny tip for the Francis. If you need hot water for tea (or are making an Americano), there's a hot water function.

Good espresso machines are expensive, and the AnZa is no different, coming in at about $1,200 plus an additional hunny to ship it. But if you're design-conscious and looking for a great latte, AnZa may be your savior. If concrete is not your thing, Anza makes a white Corian version accented with brass and wood.

The harsher prototype (from designboom)