Tag Archives: architecture

One new Miami building will “Be Home to Nearly 2 Percent of the World’s Billionaires”

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There are wealthy buildings and then there are ultra-wealthy buildings like this new condo tower in Miami:

Twenty-two billionaires—just shy of two percent of the world’s total—have purchased units in a condominium tower being built in Sunny Isles Beach, a small city in Miami-Dade County. The 60-story Porsche Design Tower features the normal super-rich perks, including units as large as 17,000 square feet, and swimming pool- and kitchen-equipped balconies as large as 1,600 square feet.

But the real draw is hinted at in the name: The Porsche Design Tower features three car elevators that will take residents and their rides directly to their units, where they can park their car in a glass garage adjoined to their residences (two-car garages for the “cheaper” units, four-car garages for the pricier ones). This feature allows car-obsessives to stare at their super expensive cars from their high-rise living rooms.

The tower, which broke ground in April 2013 and secured a massive construction loan in October, is the brainchild of car enthusiast and condo magnate Gil Dezer and Germany’s Porsche Design Group. As of mid-October, Dezer had sold almost 100 of the tower’s 132 units, the prices for which range from $4.2 million to $32 million. He reportedly spent part of November selling the remaining units at a gathering for Bugatti owners. There will be 284 robotic parking spaces in all. This is automated parking taken to the next level.

I know most of the buyers would rather not reveal that they live in this building but doesn’t this lift the profile of a new building?

The car elevator is pretty cool but I would also be interested in seeing how exactly this building interacts with the surrounding area. If you have this many wealthy residents, you don’t want normal people walking up or being anywhere near. Indeed, how could you construct entry and exit points so that people can’t simply wait for the wealthy to drive in and out? Leaving the transportation to cars leads to possible problems – and flying helicopters off the top of the building would help.

I can only imagine what the security will be here…

Review of the updated “A Field Guide to American Houses”

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The 1984 version is a classic and there is now an updated version of A Field Guide to American Houses:

Architecture buffs, decorators, historians and anyone who studies the built environment will have Virginia Savage McAlester’s encyclopedic update of her 1984 book “A Field Guide to American Houses,” (Alfred A Knopf, 2013) on their wish lists.

For example: For those who think “prairie palace” and “McMansion” are merely envious epithets for “house bigger than mine,” the author explores the 1980s birth of the Millenium Mansion style and explores the reasons for the wide criticisms (“These complicated roofs can be thought of as crowns, or, more satirically, as the Future Roofers of America Relief Act.”)

For fans of modern ranches, Savage McAlester breaks them down into submovements with different roots. For lovers of historic homes, this is a rich trove of not just details, but reasons for them.

And for those seeking a homeplace that makes sense, the new chapter on neighborhoods is nothing less than essential.

It is hard to find another source that combines the technical features of different styles of American housing architecture as well as good summaries of each architectural movement.It can be hard to keep track of all the different exterior parts that are associated with different architectural styles – keeping your Italianate from your Georgian to your Colonial straight – and this book has helpful diagrams and descriptions.

I’m looking forward to seeing the section on McMansions. If I remember correctly, the 1984 version had a section on more postmodern or eclectic housing styles and McMansions would have likely fallen into that category. But, a reference book like this has the ability to shape understandings of McMansions for years to come.

Once residents become more “architecturally aware,” they won’t choose McMansions

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An Australian architect says more residents in Perth would avoid McMansions once they become “architecturally aware”:

Designer homes are popping up across Perth as the city becomes more ‘architecturally’ conscious.

Aspects such as strong horizontal lines, cut outs and bold rectangular features are increasingly popular in new residential homes.

As Perth’s architectural style grows up, McMansions will be out and clean, simple modernist designs will be in, according to David Karotkin, the WA President of the Australian Institute of Architects…

“In more recent years there has been an increased awareness of architecture in Perth,” Mr Karotkin said…

“There’s awareness about the importance of the designs and the buildings we live in, work in and play in – it’s all architecture.”

There are several ways such statements might be interpreted:

1. Perth residents are finally becoming knowledgeable about architecture and are rejecting architecturally-deficient McMansions. There is an element of snobbery here: McMansions are for the less knowledgeable while the more educated pick homes designed by architects.

2. Perth is developing its own architectural style. Building styles might be drawn from other cities or countries but a new Perth School might be emerging. Having common design, particularly if it is recognized by outsiders, can become a mark of pride.

3. Architects are looking to increase the number of homes they design. In the United States, most homes are designed by builders and architects have just a small slice of the market. Educating people about the benefits of designed homes means more money.

I wonder what this architect would think if there are still some people who choose McMansions even with higher levels of education.

Panel: keep Washington D.C. building height restrictions, preserving height to street-width ratios

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A panel recently suggested height restrictions for buildings should remain in the older areas of Washington D.C.:

Building heights in the 68-square-mile (176-square-km) area are determined by the width of the street on which a structure fronts. The maximum height is 130 feet (40 meters), with some exceptions.The result is a distinctive low-lying skyline that showcases historic monuments and distinctive landmarks such as the U.S. Capitol, National Cathedral and the Old Post Office. The tallest structure is the Washington Monument, which stands at the center of the Mall and is about 555 feet (169 meters) high.

The National Capital Planning Commission recommended leaving intact the federal height rules for the part laid out in the 18th century. The area of wide avenues and traffic circles is home to the White House, National Mall and museums.

The commission left open the possibility that buildings in the area developed beyond the city’s original layout can be higher – but only after additional study and as long as they did not interfere with federal interests.

Another article I saw about this suggested this would restrict growth in Washington, a city whose suburban counties are growing in both population and wealth. Without opportunities for taller buildings in the city, money that could go to the city through property and sales taxes will instead go elsewhere.

But, taller buildings in or near the National Mall would change it quite a bit. These height restrictions are reminiscent of a more traditional kind of architecture. For example, New Urbanists often suggest linking building heights to a particular ratio compared to the width of the streets to create a more comfortable feeling. Contrast the National Mall with the experience of midtown Manhattan, a place busy and interesting but also full of concrete canyons and structures that tower over anything going on in the streets. These two areas serve different purposes but the experiences are quite different.

Imagining tacky uses for buildings designed by starchitects

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What if buildings designed by noted architects were turned into Walmarts or casinos or gas stations? Check out the images here.

While the proposed changes are unique, I’m more interested in what counts for potentially ruining these buildings. Walmart is a good store to pick as it stands for mass consumerism, big box designs, suburbs, and cheap goods. Imagine it another way: would any renowned architect agree to design a Walmart? Gas stations are a common part of the landscape but are rarely known for any great design as they hope to fit in as many cars as possible as quickly as possible. Casinos might be glitzy but they can have a seedy image, no matter how much glass and how many shiny objects are used. I’m a little surprised we don’t see more brands in these designs, perhaps a McDonald’s or a Home Depot or some other mass market company, as this would highlight the differences between well-known brands and their common lack of much architectural style.

Another thought: are there any big brands right now that are known for good or notable architecture? I’m not talking just about interior features but rather a company-wide ethos that would define numerous locations.

Architectural sociology approach to why Las Vegas residents don’t know their neighbors

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Sociologists looking at why Las Vegas residents don’t know their neighbors explain that the design of their newer subdivisions are partly to blame:

“So that means squeezing a lot of houses into small lots, and it also means an architectural design in many cases that doesn’t facilitate the flow of people,” UNLV sociology professor Robert Futrell said.In 2010, UNLV professors conducted a survey of neighborhoods and people living throughout the Valley. They found that communities built after the construction boom of the 1990s include narrow streets, concrete walls, short driveways and few front porches. All of these things impede social interaction.

“While many developers have tried to create these master-planned communities to be high-functioning, high-interacting neighborhoods, many of them are not working that way,” Batson said.

Professors point to neighborhoods with short driveways as an example. People drive up to their homes, open the garage and drive in without talking to anyone.

The article goes on to say that residents in these communities truly do want to interact with their neighbors. But, design holds them back.

Is it completely the fault of design? The beginning of the article also notes that Las Vegas has many transient residents. If it is truly the design, we should be able to look at neighborhoods with different designs and measure higher levels of social interaction. Is this what we actually find? New Urbanists argue it is all about designing neighborhoods in a traditional way but they don’t as often bring up the data that would show the neighborhoods do what they say they should do. Other might counter that even with some better home design, people are still distracted from social interaction because of cars, air conditioning, television, the Internet, and more.

Another thought: would the residents of these new neighborhoods be willing to trade the size of their homes or the interior features of their homes for some more neighborly features?

When Mediterranean McMansions threaten the local architecture

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An article about local Tampa architecture notes McMansions might define the city’s structures:

When one thinks of Florida architecture, if one thinks of Florida architecture, Disney World might come to mind. Or the ubiquitous Mediterranean McMansion in a gated golf-course community. Or the art deco hotels of Miami Beach.

Tampa architecture? Not so much. But there is more to the Cigar City than the iconic University of Tampa, the Museum of Science and Industry and some glass bank towers.

Tampa architecture, says John Howey, FAIA, himself one of the city’s architectural grand guard, is like Cuban bread, the kind served at the city’s landmark Columbia restaurant…

To summarize his city’s architecture, Howey returned to the Spanish/Cuban food analogy.

“It is so like paella,” said Howey. “When you put it all together, it is very tasty. Taken separately, you would think they would clash.”

My take on reading this article is that Tampa doesn’t have much of a unifying architecture style outside of some modernist structures. Perhaps this is because it is a relatively recent big city; it’s biggest growth period was from 1950 to 1960 when the population increased from 124,861 to 274,970.

Two thoughts:

1. What would it take to give a city like Tampa its own style? Could it be done through constructing key buildings, like civic institutions, in a particular style? Would it require a number of architects banding together? Styles don’t just come out of nowhere.

2. New Urbanists often argue that their developments should be based on local styles. Would they adopt a more generic Southern style in Tampa or perhaps a beach house type of design?

“Gated communities for the rich and poor”

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A sociologist who has studied gated communities in Puerto Rico discusses gated communities across the socioeconomic spectrum:

The concentration of class and racial privilege in suburbs, fortressed enclaves, securitized buildings, and private islands takes place alongside the spatial concentration of poverty in ghettos, favelas, and barrios. Residential gates for the rich have also led to the rise of gates for the poor—in favelas in Brazil, South African townships, peripheral urban migrant settlements in China, and even in some public housing developments in the United States. The built environment sorts and segregates people, physically and symbolically distinguishing communities from one another. Whether one is locked inside or kept outside is determined by one’s race, class, and gender. In both kinds of gated communities, controlled access points restrict movement in and out. However, living in gated communities of the rich and poor are vastly different experiences.

The privileged gates of Extensión Alhambra offer a retreat into a secure, idyllic community; newly privatized street and sidewalks are restricted to sanctioned, paying community members, who can decide who is allowed inside. In the impoverished community of Dr. Pila, in contrast, government and private overseers control the movement of residents. So while the gates of Extensión Alhambra permit their affluent residents to exert greater political and social influence over their home turf, in Dr. Pila they have the opposite effect, diminishing residents’ power. In privileged communities, gates lock undesirables out; in poor communities, they lock them in. In both cases, gates are erected to serve the interest of the upper classes, who are primarily white. In other words, gates reproduce inequality, and cement or—to use Michel DeCerteau’s term—“politically freeze” social distinctions of race and class.

The same types of structures, different purposes and consequences. This reminds me of the debate regarding the design of public housing projects in the United States: if high-rises hadn’t been the primary choice and public housing agencies instead went with low-rise buildings or New Urbanist type structures, perhaps major problem would not have developed. But, in the case of public housing and gated communities, they can exacerbate existing issues but it is more difficult to claim they cause the issues in the first place.

Designing parking garages for life after cars

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Parking garages can be designed in such a way so that they can be converted into other spaces if need be:

There’s a growing belief among architects and designers that all urban parking garages should be built with these “good bones,” which will allow them to be re-purposed in the future. For a variety of reasons, from higher gas prices to greater densification to better transit options, city residents will continue to drive fewer cars. As a result, we’ll eventually require fewer parking lots. The ability to adapt a structure rather than tear it down will save developers time, money, and material waste.

“As the auto culture wanes we’re going to have a lot of demolition to do, which is unfortunate,” says Tom Fisher, dean of the College of Design at the University of Minnesota. “If we’re going to build these [garages] let’s design them in a way that they can have alternative uses in the future. With just a few tweaks that’s really possible.”

Fisher says designing parking structures with an eye toward their afterlife is not only logical but rather simple. His three key elements to an adaptable garage design are flat floors, comfortable floor-to-ceiling heights, and enough loading capacity (in other words, strength) to support another structural use. Those types of changes may cost a tiny bit more up front but will provide enormous savings down the line…

New York isn’t the only place where this re-use is happening. During a recent talk, Fisher pointed out a few other examples from the Twin Cities and elsewhere around the country. In St. Paul, a developer is converting a century-old building from a garage into an apartment complex; in Miami Beach, a parking ramp is being used for retail and housing purposes.

While cars are not going away anytime soon, occasionally converting parking garages can happen. Yet, it would be interesting to see the money that converting requires versus tearing down the garage and building a new structure. I also imagine there are limits to what parking garages can be converted to.

I wonder if the fact that a building was formerly a parking garage is also part of the marketing. That might be a very different ring than saying it was a former factory or theater or church.

Scaffolding makes buildings possible

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Constructing large buildings and repairing them requires a somewhat simple yet crucial element: scaffolds.

Scaffolds, fundamentally and philosophically, allow for newness—but they are, in every other way, very, very old. The caves of Lascaux, home to paleolithic paintings thought to be the first evidence of humanity’s expansion into artistry, feature sockets in their walls—borings that suggest Earth’s earliest expressionists relied on scaffolding to do their work. There’s evidence of scaffolding—wood, secured with knotted ropes—in ancient Greece. And in ancient Egypt.

In more contemporary times, scaffolds have become ubiquitous. In cities, scaffolds are part of the everyday sightscape, so saturated that they become almost invisible. We duck under them on sidewalks. We hang signs on them, taking advantage of their impermanent platform. We sense their message: that building is happening, that things are changing, that progress is marching on. And we sense that, in their way, they are generous. They are with us, in large part, to help something else come into being.

They may be considered ugly by some but they are indispensable. With them, you can reach great heights without machines. Imagine cherry pickers tall enough to reach the top of the Washington Monument or using helicopters for such work.

While they are necessary parts of our infrastructure, I don’t know that I would go so far as to celebrate their presence on the Washington Monument or other great landmarks. Two quick examples where I have seen scaffolding in action:

1. When I was in grad school at the University of Notre Dame, the school undertook a regilding of the golden dome on the Main Building. This isn’t just a gold color; the school uses gold leaf on the exterior. However, this led to an outcry from seniors that they wouldn’t be able to take graduation pictures in front of the dome because of the scaffolding. If I remember correctly, the school removed the scaffolding for graduation weekend and then started up work again.

2. On a couple of Hollywood studio tours, we saw the interiors of the some of the backlot sets. It might look like a New York City street but once you walked inside, you saw that it was a facade with a bunch of scaffolding inside on the backside of the exterior walls.

In both cases, the scaffolding was a necessary part of the process but it is not the main point. The job of scaffolding is to get out of the way to leave a more impressive structure behind. Perhaps scaffolding at the Washington Monument provides a change of pace but it is meant to be temporary. Like a lot of good infrastructure, you shouldn’t have to consider its necessity if it doing its job.