WOOD THAT IT COULD

Wood is a remarkable material--infinitely varied, easily workable, biodegradable, and renewable to boot. But it does have an Achilles heel: Compared to many other building materials, wood is quite perishable. Hence, using wood in architectural details subject to weather is really asking for trouble down the road. 

In spite of this, architects and builders love to lavish their designs with projecting wooden beams, brackets, and other stickwork--a practice that’s only increased with the current revival of woodsy Craftsman style architecture. But as beautiful as wood detailing looks on the day it’s installed, it’s only a matter of time before it gets walloped by Mother Nature. What’s more, since the quality of sawn lumber is not what it used to be, modern designs using wood are even more susceptible to decay than the original Craftsman buildings were. 

Still, if you feel compelled to use lots of wood detailing out of doors, here are a few ways to give it a fighting chance:

• Use generous lumber sizes for pergolas, corbels, projecting roof beams, and other exterior wood features.  Sun and rain will decay all wood eventually, but heavy timbers will look good longer than spindly ones will. And since anything smaller than a four-by-four looks like a matchstick in the scale of the outdoors, design proportions will benefit too.

• Don’t detail exterior wood structures as if they were furniture. This is a favorite technique of contemporary Craftsman fans, but a shortsighted one. A redwood pergola loaded with fancy joinery may look stunning when it’s brand new, but after a few years of exposure, all those lovingly fitted pieces will shrink, warp, twist, and generally start looking pretty tatty. Therefore, avoid miters and other joints that depend on high tolerances and fussy workmanship. Plain old butt joints, lap joints, tenons, or other beefy connections that use a simple square cut will hold up better over time.

• Don’t get too fond of the color of the wood you’re installing, because it won’t be around for very long. Heart redwood, for instance, has a beautiful pinkish tone when freshly cut, but in a few seasons will darken to a rather gloomy grayish black color. If this look isn’t your cup of tea, consider using a semitransparent or solid color stain from the outset (and where appropriate, save a little money on a lesser grade of wood). Using clear sealers or, worse yet, varnishes to try to preserve the color of fresh wood will only get you a bigger maintenance headache--you’ll be finishing and then refinishing from now until kingdom come.

• On horizontal wood surfaces such as decking, the best finish is probably none at all. Clear preservatives tend to wear out quickly in traffic areas, which then discolor in a most unsightly splotchy fashion. Once again, the only way to avoid this dog run effect is to recoat the whole deck every few years. Since most people have better things to do with their time, a more practical solution is to skip preservative treatment altogether and simply get to like the look of weathered wood. 

A WHOLE LOTTA NOTHIN'

Today’s city planners are terrified by the prospect of a blank wall.  They, along with their micromanaging brethren on civic design review boards, would much rather see a pastiche of meaningless fakery than an honest piece of wall with nothing on it. 

The horror vacui of planners and design review boards is a well-meaning but ill-informed reaction to modern architecture of the postwar era, which has long been pilloried--often quite rightly--for its mechanistic repetition, superhuman scale, and dearth of ornament.  

True, bad modernism could be bland, overbearing, and humorless. Yet the contemporary response to these shortcomings is just as troubling: It suggests that any amount of phony two-dimensional detailing is preferable to leaving some parts of a building blessedly plain.

Ergo, with planners and design review types all clamoring for the atmosphere of a halcyon past that never was, developers and their architects dutifully whip up increasingly hammy facades to oblige them. So it is that the strange bedfellows of city planners and big developers are behind the Disneyfication of suburbs and downtowns everywhere. 

The trend reaches a pinnacle of frivolity in commercial architecture, which is especially susceptible to both commercializing silliness and bureaucratic meddling. To disguise the large, monolithic structures developers find so vital to profitablility, today’s typical shopping street borrows a technique familiar to any mallgoer and turns it inside out. Individual storefronts are appliqued to a single megastructure and dolled up with cartoonish “traditional” detailing in styrofoam and stucco. The facades march along one beside the other like rows of wallpaper samples. In the very worst offenders, color is in fact all that sets apart one purported storefront from the next:--the surfaces are simply carved up with stucco joints, Mondriaan style, and painted in the colors of the moment.

One need only experience the commercial work of architects such as Florida’s Addison Mizner or Arizona’s Josias Joesler to see that it needn’t be so. Both men created lyrically comfortable shopping plazas--Mizner in the mid-1920s and Joesler in the late 30s--without resorting to the brazen facadeism typical of today’s work. They did so by creating a host of variations within a single overarching style, and by juxtaposing occasional exquisite detail against generous areas of plain surface. Neither feared the blank wall, because both understood that such contrasts only amplified the power of their work. 

In comparison, the sort of frenetic ragbag facades now favored by planners and design review boards seem more a means of flouting modernism than any sort of quest for timelessness. As New York Times architecture critic Herbert Muschamp put it a few years ago, 

“Horror vacui--fear of emptiness--is the driving force in contemporary American taste. Along with commercial interests that exploit this interest, it is the major factor now shaping attitudes toward public spaces, urban spaces, and even suburban sprawl.”

In recoiling from the long shadow of modernist failures, too many planners and design review officials are simply rushing blindly in the opposite direction. They’ve lost sight of the fact that something--anything!--isn’t always better than nothing.   

THE CARDINAL SIN

There’s only one cardinal sin in architecture, and that is not thinking. Though it’s seldom recognized, thoughtful architecture has little to do with style, taste, or the sort of inane aesthetic minutae that small-minded design review boards like to busy themselves with. 

Over the centuries, there have been hundreds of architectural works that offended contemporariy eyes, but are now seen as works of brilliance. That’s the point: Thoughtful architecture has nothing to do with the fashions of its time. Rather, what every great work has had in common--what all great architecture has in common, whether familiar or unfamiliar--is that someone has taken the time to think about it. 

But it isn’t just “great” architecture that’s worthy of thoughtful design. On the contrary, since dwellings make up the overwhelming share of architecture on earth, it’s all the more important that we think about them as carefully as we would some vast public project.  The additive impact, after all, is much greater. And what sets any dwelling apart from mediocrity is one simple quality: Its designer found it worthy of careful consideration, asking themselves not, “What style should it be?”, but rather, “Have I done everything in my power to make this a humane and comfortable place?”. 

To see what happens in the absence of such thought, you probably need only walk down your own street. Everywhere apparent is design done according to rote or reflex, blindly informed by what the neighbors down the street did, or by whatever style happened to be in the magazines at that moment. 

It doesn’t help that architects and city planners often engage in such groupthink as well, zealously advancing points of view that will inevitably fade from the professional canon in a matter of decades, just as all aesthetic ideals eventually run their course. The wholesale destruction of city cores under urban renewal during the 1950s and 60s, for example, was not an idea that came out of nowhere--it was promulgated by modernist architects and planners who sincerely believed they were carrying out the professional mandate of their time.

In contrast to the prepackaged solutions offered by groupthink, thoughtful design takes time. But in relative terms, the extra effort is minuscule. If the tangible result of your efforts will stand for the next fifty or a hundred years--perhaps more, who can say?--then a few hours, days or weeks of careful contemplation is nothing in comparison. Nevertheless, I daily come across projects being built--often at vast expense--that have, it seems, benefitted from a grand total of two minutes of thought. This window/door/siding/roofing is what everybody’s using now? Great, let’s install it.

The notions of style and taste are the great humbugs of architecture, the beloved preoccupation of architectural non-thinkers..They consume the lion’s share of attention while returning little in the way of human comfort. Yet ultimately, style is nothing more than a guarantee of imminent obsolescence, while the notion of objective good taste is simply a fallacy--what is tasteful in one place or in one era is sure to be reviled in the next. 

There’s only one absolute criterion for good design: It’s that any building we put our hands to, whether modest or monumental, this style, that style, or no style we recognize, has gotten the benefit of our utmost human insight.

DOWN IN THE DITCHES

If there’s one complaint I hear again and again from contractors, tradespeople, and anyone else involved in the practical end of building, it’s this: “Why don’t architects have to serve an apprenticeship in construction?”

My usual two-word answer is, “Excellent question.” It seems self-evident that a person entrusted with designing an entire building should have at least a passing knowledge of how that building will be put together.

Alas, this is far from the case. Unless they’re motivated enough to train themselves, architects come away from their professional educations with practically no understanding of field construction. Typically, after four to five years of academic training, they have to serve several years apprenticeship under a licensed architect, and must pass an exhaustive series of examinations before being licensed--a process which, necessary as it is, nevertheless contributes little to an architect’s practical knowledge of building. 

The American system of architectural education (and, in fairness, that of many other nations as well) not only accepts but reinforces the virtually absolute separation that currently exists between design and building. Over the past century, only a relative handful of architects--best known among them Frank Lloyd Wright, Paolo Soleri, and Christopher Alexander--have advanced the idea that hands-on experience is integral to the competent practice of architecture. Students of Wright’s schools at Taliesin and Taliesin West, for example, were expected to dig ditches, mix concrete, and perform myriad other unglamorous chores usually left to the lowest echelon of tradespeople.  

Why would a prospective architect benefit from doing such physical construction? For one, it’s probably the only way to gain a truly tactile appreciation for building materials--both for their innate beauty, and for their innate limitations. On a computer screen, creating a complicated design in poured concrete is neat and easy. Building such a thing in the field is usually another matter. When would-be architects find themselves obliged to produce work--perhaps of their own design--that’s needlessly complex or even impossible to carry out, they quickly learn to appreciate choosing the right materials for the job and the simplest means of putting them together.

Field work also helps focus the occasional meanderings of the creative mind on the real objective of the design process, that of realizing a project in four dimensions. Coordinating different phases of the work, not to speak of simply getting materials and equipment to the site, are routine construction challenges that can cost time and money, yet which architects without field experience seldom take into account.

Lastly, enduring the physical and mental demands of construction also brings an appreciation for plain hard work, and an understanding of just how much human effort is involved in raising a building. Whether for the laborers down in the ditches, or the contractor trying to juggle a dozen different scheduling requirements, practically nothing in construction comes easily.

Learning all these things firsthand might earn architects something we don’t always have in our profession--the genuine respect of those entrusted with building our creations. Now, once again, why don’t architects have to serve an apprenticeship in construction?

Excellent question.

OUR MISTER SUN

One bright morning almost a half century ago, my kindergarten teacher, Mrs. Gibbs, led us all out into the play yard. There, chalk in hand, she marked the edge of a shadow being cast by a nearby roof. “The sun,” she carefully intoned in kiddyspeak, “looks like it’s standing still, but it’s actually moving all the time.” 

After absorbing this statement without much effect, we filed back into the classroom again to play, forgetting all about the little mark until Mrs. Gibbs marched us back out a few hours later. This time we were all astonished to see that the shadow was now far away from the chalk mark. How about that--the sun really did move!

No doubt kindergarten teachers across the country go through a similar exercise year in and year out, but alas, for many designers, the lesson doesn’t seem to sink in too well. 

To cite a notorious example, the architects of one of San Francisco’s tallest buildings, 555 California Street, saw fit to place a grand outdoor plaza on the north side of their 52-story tower, yielding a supposed public space that’s shadowy and forbidding for most of the day. Now, if high-powered architects (in this case, Skidmore, Owings and Merrill and Wurster, Bernardi and Emmons) can make such a colossal planning blunder, imagine how easily lesser talents can bobble the assignment.

As crucial as good solar orientation is to the livability of indoor rooms, it’s absolutely indispensable to the “rooms” you create outside. An interior room that, for whatever reason, is not blessed by sunshine can at least be given the illusion of natural comfort by  being  heated. An outdoor space has no such recourse. If it’s not warm and inviting by nature, it simply won’t get used, no matter how elaborate its design.

Although this seems like common sense, hardly a day goes by that I don’t see projects new and old being outfitted with artfully designed patios, terraces, decks, or balconies placed on the shadowed north side of buildings.

Spend what you will on flawless workmanship and amenities like benches, hot tubs, or barbecues--it’ll all be utterly wasted unless the outdoor room you’re creating gets sunshine in every season and at every daylight hour that you plan to use it. 

Therefore, before you worry about fancy paving material, pergolas, and what have you, take a solar survey of your property. Which side of the house is sunniest? Is there room to put the outdoor space there? If not, is there a runner-up area that has sun at most of the times you’ll use it? How about access from inside? Your outdoor room should directly adjoin the house, because if it’s stuck out in some sunny but far-flung corner of the yard, no one will go there. 

All this applies equally well to places with hot climates. You can always reduce strong sun with shading or deciduous planting, but you can’t bring in sun where there isn’t any. Your outdoor space should be usable in winter as well as in summer, in the morning and evening as well as at midday. Remember, old Mr. Sun only looks like he’s standing still.

Oh, and Mrs. Gibbs--I know it’s been forty-eight years, but thank you.

NOT MANY OF THOSE LEFT...

How often have you told someone, “I  wish I hadn’t thrown out that old such-and-such, because now it’s a collector’s item. I could probably get big bucks for it.”

True, if you could put every trendy thing you’ve ever bought into a time capsule for fifty years, you’d have a pretty handsome retirement fund. No matter how cheesy a thing seems in retrospect, it eventually rises again. Just look at the current renaissance of pink plastic flamingos and Plymouth Valiants.

One of the interesting things about fashion trends is that the bigger they are, the harder they fall, and the bigger they are when they come back. In the mid-1950s, for example, cars with tail fins were the absolute pinnacle of style. Within a few years, finned cars were so ubiquitous that people got sick and tired of them, and they became an embarrassment instead of a fashion statement.  Today, of course, these same cars are valuable collectors items, and the more outlandish, the better. 

The same applies to architectural styles and domestic decorating trends. During the Sixties, for instance, no fashionable living room was complete without an ultra-square, ultra-uncomfortable sofa flanked by clunky table lamps with shades as big as garbage cans. Along with these went a sleek wooden cabinet combining a lousy radio, a lousy turntable, and four lousy speakers--an apparatus known as a “hi-fi”, for those of you weaned on iPods. By the Seventies, though, all of these swingin’ accessories were migrating to landfills by the millions.

This same holds true for every fashion cycle: Pretty much anything that’s coveted in one era will be despised in the next . We tend to think that our own time--that is, the present--has some kind of special immunity to bad taste, but that’s simply not true. What we find to be unassailably tasteful today will be hated kitsch soon enough. So, you Arts and Crafts aficionados--watch out.

Curiously, the same mysterious forces that create and then destroy fashions also invariably bring them back again, whether we like it or not. Hence, some of today’s hippest folks are outfitting Mid-Century Modern living rooms filled with just the sort of junk I was denigrating earlier. This means it won’t be long before my own particular nightmare comes true, and those incomparably clumsy, ugly and gross furniture designs of the 1970s start showing up in hipster magazines.

The fact that everything--even the stuff we hate--comes around again might suggest that we pack all our discards in Cosmoline and wait around for fifty years. Some of us might actually do this if we had the room. For the most part, though, we just learn to let go of things and assume that somebody, somewhere will keep a few examples.

Knowing this may help prepare you for the moment, fifty years from now, when you hobble into an antique shop and find that that crummy Ikea desk you took to the dump now sells for five thousand dollars.

NOT-SO-RADICAL RADICALS

As Berkeley goes, so--eventually--goes the nation. As frightening as this may sound to some, it’s a fact borne out by history. Opposing the Vietnam War, spearheading ecological concerns, mandating energy efficient buildings, banning smoking in public places, demanding equal access for the disabled--these causes were all dismissed as “Berkeley radical thinking” in their time. Today, they’ve all long since been integrated into mainstream America. While some might still quibble with one or another aspect of these ideals, in retrospect, most of us would now regard them as honorable and thoroughly American. 

Today there’s another revolution brewing in Berkeley, albeit a much quieter one. No matter where you look, the streets of this small university town are teeming with hybrid vehicles--most of them made by Toyota, with a lesser number from Honda (and very few, I’d point out, made by that blundering straggler, General Motors). 

If Berkeley proves as prescient in this “radical” trend as it has in prior ones, the environmental implications are vast. For one, it signals the beginning of the end for conventional internal-combustion powered vehicles--and many years sooner than auto industry analysts and other in-the-box thinkers would have us believe. Then again, these are the same folks who saw nothing shortsighted about GM cashing in on SUVs while leaving their advanced vehicles program to molder. 

What’s the big deal about hybrids, which, after all, still burn gasoline? It’s this: Conventional cars have huge engines sized to meet peak power demands which typical drivers use perhaps one percent of the time. Hybrids, on the other hand, use a small, high-efficiency gasoline engine to generate electricity onboard. This in turn powers an even more efficient electric motor that moves the car. The gasoline engine provides power for  average cruising, not for peak demand. When extra power is needed, as in climbing a grade or passing, it’s provided  by the batteries or by the gasoline engine, as appropriate. 

Hybrids also have a regenerative braking system that transforms braking energy into electricity instead of wasting it in heat as a normal car does.  The small size and steady running speed of the hybrid’s engine, the regenerative braking system, and other features let hybrids achieve about twice the mileage of conventional cars, while producing a fraction of the pollution. These advantages will only become more pronounced as the cars are refined over time. 

While hybrids have many of the same shortcomings as conventional cars--an inherently inefficient internal combustion engine that burns gasoline and spews pollution, and a relatively friction-laden drive train--they nevertheless represent a huge advance over the clumsy mechanical-drive cars most of us still own, providing an important stepping stone to true zero-emissions vehicles.   

The only bad news is that the American auto industry will likely be at the tail end of this revolution, watching foreign competitors write the conventional car’s epitaph. This is largely thanks to the monumental stupidity, shortsightedness and greed of General Motors executives who, prior to getting such a pasting by the Great Recession, preferred to wallow in the lucrative SUV trough while foreign competitors did their homework. Maybe those GM folks should’ve gotten out of their swanky boardrooms now and then, and taken a drive around Berkeley.