SKYLIGHT DO'S AND DONT'S

AUTHOR'S NOTE: I'll be away this week, so I'm reprising one of Architext's most Googled posts below. 

“Won’t it leak?”  Those are the first three words I hear from clients when I propose using a skylight.   

South-facing skylights may work great in winter,
but beware overheating in summer.

Not to worry.  Today’s skylights are all but leak-proof when they’re properly installed and flashed.  Least troublesome of all are the self-curbing variety, which feature a one-piece welded aluminum curb in place of the old-fashioned wooden curb and its associated waterproofing headaches.  Even interior condensation problems have been eased with the use of built-in gutters which either drain away condensate or hold it until it evaporates naturally.  

However, while skylights may give you fewer technical worries these days, their aesthetics and functionality still demand careful thought.  Here are a few tips:

Integrate your skylights into the design, as seen here;
don't just have them floating at random in the ceiling.

•  Choose the skylight’s location carefully.  First, determine its solar orientation, so you’ll know how much light you’ll be getting.  Too little light won’t justify the installation cost, while too much can make a room intolerably hot.  South-facing skylights in sloping roofs are especially liable to overheat rooms;  north-facing skylights will admit a soft, diffuse light all day long, though they won’t give that sun-splashed effect.  

Most manufacturers offer a range of glazing tints, from clear to gray- or bronze-tinted to translucent white, to suit the skylight’s orientation.  The gray and bronze tints help reduce overheating but still allow direct light, while the translucent white diffuses the light as well. However, you should also plan on some additional form of shading, whether an old-style roller shade or a pleated fabric one on tracks.   

•  Consider the skylight’s appearance both indoors and out.  Inside, try to align the skylight opening with a door, window, or some other existing feature, so that it doesn’t look haphazard.

Mind the skylight's appearance outside.
If possible, avoid having them face the street.
Low-profile skylights or "roof windows"
may look better from the outside.

Outside, avoid installing the skylight on any roof surface that faces the street.  Front-facing skylights look jarringly out of place on traditional home styles, since they were seldom used in the original designs, and often yield a cluttered-looking roof even on Modernist homes.  Discreet concealment is the safest course.

•  Choose a skylight that’s as large as orientation and aesthetics will allow.  A large skylight is cheaper than small one per unit area, and the premium in labor is often marginal.  Frequently, a single large skylight is also preferable to an equivalent group of smaller ones, even if it requires minor reframing.  Multiple units admit less light due to the intervening mullions, require proportionately more labor to install, and have a greater likelihood of leaks due to improper flashing.  

Why complicate things?  Single skylights are widely available in sizes up to five by eight feet, and at least one manufacturer offer standard units up to ten by twelve feet.  

Lots of unusual shapes are available, too.

•  Take advantage of special skylight options.    If you’re not keen on conventional “bubble” skylights, for example, some manufacturers offer special low-profile models.  Some firms will furnish some of their standard skylights with flat glass in place of the usual acrylic plastic bubble.  However, make sure the glass versions will meet your local building and fire codes.

Unusual shapes such as circles, octagons, and pyramids are also available.  Many rectangular skylights can be ordered “operable” (hinged to open a few inches for ventilation).  They can also be fitted with an electric operator controlled by a wall switch--probably a waste of money if the skylight is easy to reach, but a great convenience if it isn’t.  

A GREEN GIANT

Author's note: Storybook Style, the 2001 book I co-authored with photographer Douglas Keister, is being republished by Schiffer in a renewed and expanded edition that will arrive next Spring. I've written on a number of the architects featured in the book, and in anticipation of its arrival, I'll reprint some of these essays in this blog from time to time. The following piece sketches the life of one of my favorite architects, Carr Jones.

If you think today’s “green” architects are pioneers, take a look at the work of Carr Jones.  An obscure engineer-builder, Jones clung stubbornly to environmental priniciples we’ve only lately come to cherish--and he started doing it back in the Teens.    

 Rear courtyard of the c. 1932 Hermans Residence
in Oakland, California. Jones both designed
and constructed his singular homes.
(Photograph by Douglas Keister)

Jones was born in Watsonville, California in 1885.  He attended the University of California at Berkeley and received a degree in mechanical engineering in 1911.  Around this time he designed and built a simple redwood cottage for his parents in Berkeley, kicking off a long and colorful career as what we’d nowadays call a “design-build contractor”. 

But Jones was ahead of his time in other ways.  He worked in large part with recycled materials--brick, slate, timber, scrap steel and bits of salvaged ornament--from which he managed to conjure lyrically beautiful homes that transcended their humble origins.  

Carr Jones homes were often wrapped around
an interior courtyard that provided a quiet
sanctuary from the street.

Jones’s houses are almost invariably built of roughly-laid bricks left unfinished to show their natural range of colors; many have a gently curving floor plan embracing a central courtyard.  His unmistakable elevations are graced by an array of turrets, dormers, and chimneys.

Interior walls in a Carr Jones home are of exposed brick as well, enlivened by a variety of arched openings.  Overhead, massive, exposed roof trusses of salvaged timber provide dignified drama.  The genius of these houses lies in their perfect balance of the familiar and the unexpected--on the sense of calm lent by an ancient palette of materials, played against the builder’s continual ability to surprise.  In a Jones house, every window frames a charming vista; every room is a spatial banquet; every corner holds architectural delight.

Jones combined salvaged timber and brick with
factory-sash windows and clay floors
to create a uniquely natural style.
(Photo by Douglas Keister)

Though Jones’s houses share many traits with the Storybook Style homes of the 1920s--aged appearance, serpentine curves, and whimsical details--in his hands these features are organic rather than superficial.  It’s a happy result of building in a true medieval vernacular, without undue concern for perfection or popularity.  Jones chose his materials and designs not because they were fashionable, but because he believed in their absolute fitness for domesticity. 

Just where someone trained as a mechanical engineer acquired these refined sensibilities, we may never know.   There’s no doubt, however, that Jones would have been quite comfortable working in today’s era of earth-friendly architecture.

In view of where green architecture is now headed,
Jones's designs are about as old as tomorrow.

Like many pioneers before him, building with an unwavering conscience brought Jones neither financial success nor even much recognition during his lifetime.  When Revival styles lost favor after World War II, the demand for his lovely and personal works became even more modest.  He completed a scattering of postwar commissions in the Bay Area and designed his final residence in 1966, dying on the morning that its foundations were being chalked out on the site.  Jones’s stepson, Doug Allinger, completed the project following his death, and has admirably carried on Jones’s building philosophy in his own work.

Alas, Jones didn’t live to see the birth of the ecology movement in the late 60s, nor the subsequent rise of green architecture--events grounded in the very ideas he’d been practicing for half a century.

LOTSA PANES, NO GAINS

Every so often, some moldering architectural idea rises up from the dead and come back for an encore.  It’s especially common these days, what with the revival of traditional architecture.  We tend to forget what brought these ideas to a merciful end, and why it sometimes defies reason to resurrect them.  Windows with divided lites—what architects call “muntins”—is one of them.

Medieval windows were divided up
with muntins because they had to be—
glass wasn't made any bigger.

I’ll say it right up front:  The new windows in any home remodel should match the originals, and that goes doubly for homes whose windows have muntins.  Yet for most new work, muntins simply don’t make sense.   

Dividing windows up with wooden muntins is a practice that harks back to the beginnings of the glass industry, when it was impractical to produce sheets of glass larger than about one foot square.  Only the wealthy could afford glass in their windows (the poor had to settle for parchment), and even these had to be composed of dozens and sometimes hundreds of individual panes.  

Medieval glass was so costly that it came to be flaunted
as a status symbol—such as here at Hardwick Hall,
Derbyshire, England (completed 1597).

Hence, window size became a status symbol by the late 1500s.  In England, the manor house of Bess of Hardwick became so renowned for its enormous, intricately leaded windows that the couplet “Hardwick Hall, more glass than wall” was immortalized in an English nursery rhyme.  

However, sheet glass manufacturing techniques progressed so rapidly during the Industrial Revolution that by 1851, the English were able to produce some 900,000 square feet of glass for a single building—the famed Crystal Palace in London’s Hyde Park—in the space of nine months.

Thanks to the Industrial Revolution, England's glass industry
 became mechanized, making it feasible to construct
buildings such as London's famed Crystal Palace.

Alas, American glass production lagged well behind England’s until mid-Victorian times, so the average Yank continued to make do with multipaned windows until well into the 1800s.  As such, muntins were not a decorative feature but a necessary evil which people would have been thrilled to be rid of.  In fact, they did get rid of them as soon as it was practicable:  that’s why the majority of Victorian home styles have windows with a single pane of glass.  

Only toward the end of the 19th century did the twin forces of Colonial Revival architecture and the Arts and Crafts movement resurrect the use of muntins.  Then,  that most bombastic of Victorian styles, Queen Anne, once again featured window muntins, albeit ones forming a narrow colored glass border around a large central pane.  

"Sandwich grid" divided lites are sealed between
the double glazing, producing a uniquely unconvincing
two-dimensional effect. Why bother?

A number of subsequent home styles featured divided lites after that—most notably, the California Bungalow.  Yet the arrival of modern architecture would soon ensure that great sweeps of monolithic glass would prevail for the next generation.

Architecture is nothing if not cyclical, however.  Today we can produce glass for a song, yet we choose to carve up our windows anyhow—or at least pretend to.  That may seem warm and fuzzy until a few years pass and homeowners realize just how much maintenance those muntins require.  A lower-maintenance alternative, the ubiquitous “sandwich grid” consisting of divider strips placed between the layers of double-pane glass, is even more pointless:  the look is two-dimensional, with none of the relief of traditional divided lites; while nevertheless obstructing any view.  

And so, the fundamental question:  Why bother?

OKAY, SO ARCHITECTURE ISN'T SEXY

Check out any visual medium, whether large screen or small, and chances are you’ll come across a show with fictional lawyers doing brilliant verbal sparring in court or in some shadowy back hall.  The law—at least as it’s portrayed in fiction—is pretty compelling stuff.  It must be, considering the parade of lawyer shows that have appeared since the dawn of television.

Gary Cooper (left) as the insufferable Howard Roarke
in The Fountainhead, perhaps the funniest movie
about architecture ever made. (King Vidor, 1949)

Lord knows we’ve also had enough medical melodramas during that time, from Ben Casey to E.R. And then there’s that whole slew of crime-scene investigation shows that make examining dead bodies seem action-packed.

And then we have architecture.  

Chances are you’ve probably never seen a show or a movie about architects, and there’s a good reason:  the preposterous histrionics of “The Fountainhead” aside, seeing an architect in action is about as thrilling as watching ivy grow.

Walter Pidgeon played a more likable architect
in Mrs. Miniver (William Wyler, 1942).
You can tell he's an architect by his jacket.

That, unfortunately, is one of the architectural profession’s biggest image problems.  It seems reasonable to pay your lawyer big bucks for slaying the enemy with a well-honed courtroom phrase.  And it certainly seems worthwhile to pay a hefty doctor’s fee when your gall bladder is at stake.  But it’s harder for many people to see the return on paying an architect thousands of dollars for a) talking in dreamy generalities about your project, b) sitting on his or her butt for three months waiting for inspiration to strike, and c) sending you a thumping invoice for the mysterious services rendered.  

You haven’t been spared from six months in the slammer, nor has your gall bladder been restored to making first-rate gall, or whatever it’s supposed to do.  Instead, all you’ve got to show for your hard-earned money is a few lousy sheets of paper.

I’d love to remedy this public-relations shortcoming with a comprehensive list of all the nitty-gritty things an architect does for his commission.  Unfortunately, I can’t.  The truth is that designing a building is in fact a vague and amorphous business, because the most valuable part of an architect’s service is purely intellectual.  But that doesn’t make the work any less valid—just less visible.  

Charles Bronson did some more great P.R.work
for architects playing a nutty vigilante in Death Wish.
(Michael Winner, 1974)

Architecture, alone among the professions, is a schizophrenic mixture of art and science—a lot more of the former, if you ask me.  And while an Einstein might be methodical in documenting his work, no one expects a Picasso to explain how he goes about producing great art. What’s more, it would be utterly unthinkable to ask an artist, brilliant or otherwise, to justify the cost of his work.  

"Your drawings are
going to cost me WHAT?!"

Yet it’s seldom that an architect, upon presenting his bill, doesn’t get a certain look from his client that says: Exactly what the *!%&! did I get for all this money? 

It’s perfectly reasonable that people want value for their design dollar. In architecture, however, value doesn’t consist of objects or even accomplishments, but simply of ideas. That’s a pretty tough sell, and it can lead to bad feelings on both sides.  Still, buildings last a long, long time, and I’d like to think that anyone who cares enough to hire an architect can also appreciate that the road to good design is bumpy and not well charted.   One hopes that, ultimately, the client will find it worth all the effort and expense.

We’re not prime time stuff, but we try.        

A "KINGS" RANSOM: Should Taxpayers Be Subsidizing Corporate Sports?

Sacramento's historic origins lie along the lovely American River.

Like so many American cities, Sacramento, California was long ago ravaged by the construction of an elevated interstate freeway that severed the downtown from its historic riverfront roots. In some places, U.S. Interstate 5 passes within a few hundred feet of the lovely American River, shattering a once placid riverside stroll with the sound of big rigs barreling overhead.

In later years, Sacramento’s city planners did their best to mitigate the disastrous effects of this mid-century freeway incursion, valiantly attempting to reconnect the city to its riverside origins via a pedestrian mall. Alas, this route necessarily dips beneath the vast breadth of Interstate 5, plunging hapless strollers into a dark tunnel while hundreds of motor vehicles roar past in the sunshine overhead.

The construction of Interstate 5 literally severed Sacramento
from it riverside origins.

Now another civic catastrophe is being visited on Sacramento, and once again it will seem familiar to cities across the United States. Despite the looming presence of Interstate 5, Sacramento’s pedestrian mall at least gave the city a semblance of a grand processional befitting a state capital. Not so any more: The vast Golden 1 Center now sprawls across this axis like a beached whale. 

Golden 1 Center is billed as a multi-purpose indoor arena, but its main brief is to house the Sacramento Kings basketball team which, in a familiar ploy, was threatening  to move elsewhere. The project was never subject to a public vote, even though taxpayers will foot nearly half the estimated $507 million bill, and even though this quarter-billion dollar investment of public money will serve mainly to keep yet another corporate sports franchise flush with cash. 

Golden 1 Center, a mammoth arena that serves mainly
to ensconce the Sacramento Kings basketball team,
now sprawls directly across the axis of
Sacramento's pedestrian connection to the river.

To this end, the arena will be fitted with an 84-foot-wide ultra HD videoboard (“the largest screens in the NBA”), a plethora of luxury suites, and all the other accouterments expected of high-rolling corporate sports. The fawning city council even agreed to rezone several parcels to allow the Kings to erect six digital billboards beside nearby freeways. One presumes that mucking up Sacramento’s downtown with this elephantine lump of a structure was just seen as a minor downside.

However, the root issue here and in other American cities is not just one of intelligent city planning. The real question is why any city should allow itself to be blackmailed into accommodating multimillion-dollar sports franchises at taxpayer expense.  

But the real question for big-deal arenas like this one is:
Should taxpayers be footing half the bill?

Following the Sacramento city council’s 7-2 approval of the Golden 1 project in May 2014, a local attorney and vocal opponent of the arena, Patrick Soluri, was interviewed by the Sacramento Bee newspaper. He framed a complaint that could be made against corporate sports arena deals across America:

“This action does not represent the will of the taxpayers and residents of the city of Sacramento. These officials have completely abandoned their duties to represent the interests of ordinary citizens.”

Sacramento’s mayor, Kevin Johnson—who happens to be a former NBA All-Star— has dismissed taxpayer challenges such as Soluri’s, saying: “We’re not going to let any sideshows or distractions steal our moment.”

SUNLIGHT

The late architect Louis Kahn, a man known for the exquisite ambiguity of his design philosophies, once began a lecture thus:

“Light. . .is .”

Rule No. 1: Living areas should face south or nearly so.

To which I might humbly amend, “Sunlight. . .is even more so .”  Sunlight is probably the single most essential ingredient of a livable, welcoming home.  Yet it’s staggering how many houses are built with precious little consideration of when and how sunlight will enter the rooms. And while home buyers are often particular about gimmicks like six-burner ranges and fridges with internet connections, they’ll blithely overlook poorly-oriented living spaces that will make their home unalterably dreary year-round.

The rules for good solar orientation are simple, easy to implement, and have been recognized for thousands of years.  If you’re house hunting, or especially if you’re planning a new home, pay scrupulous attention to solar orientation before you worry about built-in ironing boards and all that. 

•  The first rule of orientation:  The windows of living areas should generally face south.  Not necessarily due south, but close enough to get direct sunlight (or "insolation", in technical jargon). Southern orientation of living areas warms your home in the winter and brings in plenty of natural light.  Given identical floor plans, it can make the difference between a warm, inviting home and a dark and miserable one.

A Real Loser: Never, ever face outdoor living areas
to the north. They won't get used.
And by the way, the roof isn't helping any.

However, make sure that you have a means of shading, either with architectural overhangs or with window coverings, in order to control the amount of sun coming in.  Why bother facing south if you’re going to put up shades?  Simple—you can always keep sun out when you don’t want it, but you can’t bring it in if it ain’t there.

•  Minimize north-facing windows.  Since sunlight seldom reaches north walls, north-facing windows effectively contribute zero solar heat gain;  meanwhile, they radiate lots of heat outdoors, making for cold rooms.  All in all, a lousy deal.  So whenever possible, relegate north-facing spaces to utility areas like the garage, laundry, pantry, bathrooms, and so on.  

Mmm, I can smell the bacon frying.
Who could resist eating breakfast here?

Another caveat:  Never locate outdoor areas like patios and decks on the north side if they’ll be in thee house’s shadow.  You’ll end up with a space that’s chilly and unused for most of the year.  

•  Orient specialized areas according to their time of use.  For example, a breakfast room should face east or southeast so it’ll get plenty of morning sun.  A deck that you plan to use mainly in the afternoon should face southwest or west to get afternoon sun. Orient the kitchen according to the time of day when it’ll get the most use:  east for mornings, west for afternoons, south for general all-day use.  If bright sun helps wake you up in the morning, face your bedroom east, and so forth.  These rules may seem obvious, but you’d be amazed at how many homes have rooms that get sun at all the wrong times (or worse, no direct sun at all).

No one could possibly oversleep in a sunny
bedroom like this one.

•  Remember that the sun’s altitude isn’t constant during the day.  Morning and late afternoon sun comes in at a lower angle and requires special attention to shading to avoid uncomfortable glare.

 •  Finally, while real-life conditions like views, street access, and terrain may dictate some compromises in orientation,  don’t stray too far from the basics.  You might be left in the dark.

SURPRISE! Design That Makes For Double-Takes

Niches are a sure-fire
and very inexpensive way
to add interest to an interior.

It’s been said that the essence of beauty is a pattern containing fluctuations. In other words, the human mind likes to have a handle on an overall aesthetic pattern, but it also longs to be challenged by fluctuations or unexpected changes in that pattern. That’s where the element of surprise comes in. 

In architecture, surprise entails the use of unexpected spaces or elements. The real trick is knowing when to break the pattern—which isn’t as simple as it sounds. A design full of nothing but odd and unexpected elements won’t be seen as beautiful, but rather as simply disorienting or bizarre. Rather, a good designer gives us an unexpected fluctuation just when we think we’ve figured things out--keeping the expected pattern always at hand as a reference point, and only then deviating from it.

Here are some ways to add surprise to your own architecture:

An unexpected dormer window
adds new interest to what would have
been a standard-issue vaulted ceiling.

•  Add unexpected forms, recesses, or features. Something as simple as a niche in a hallway can provide interest to an otherwise routine space. For example, homes of the 1920s often featured a small arched recess off of the entry containing a set of doorbell chimes. These kinds of touches are inexpensive, but can go a long way toward making a space more memorable.

•  Vary floor levels. Break out of the two-dimensional mold of conventional floor plans by including raised or sunken areas. Overlooks from higher to lower levels are also an excellent way to add interest, for just as people like to explore, they also like seeing where they’ve been. Especially effective are overlooks where they’re least expected--from bedrooms or other upstairs spaces.     

A few steps can make a big difference. Imagine how
bland this room arrangement would be without them.

•  Vary ceiling height. Ceilings can also frequently benefit from breaking out of the two-dimensional doldrums. Once again, contrast is the key:  Very low ceilings can be intentionally oppressive and claustrophobic, while high ones give a great sensation of spaciousness and release. Hence, a narrow, low-ceilinged passage that unexpectedly open into a will a huge, soaring space wrings the maximum possible drama from this transition.  

•  Introduce unexpected views. Asian designers have long utilized the technique of “framing” a view from selected places within a room, rather than exposing the entire wall of the room to it as we often do in the West. They recognize that, just as we grow inured to the sound of ocean waves, we soon grow numb to even the most beautiful view if we’re constantly exposed to it. Framing a view has the effect of renewing our appreciation for it, so that it remains a recurrently delightful surprise to the senses. 

The "zen view" is a refreshing alternative
to the usual Western practice of
pounding people over the head with a good view.
The fact that it's limited renews our appreciation.

•  Use mirrors to make spaces look bigger and more dramatic. Integrate them into the architecture so they’re not just hung on the wall like a picture. Try using mirrors at the backs of niches, above high wainscots, or in places where they’ll reflect columns or other architectural features—that way, you get two features for the price of one. Just don’t place mirrors where confused people might run into them.  That’s not the kind of surprise you’re after.