Recent posts
New Graphics.
We have been busy this year expanding our expertise with some in-house projects. In this post, new office signage that also serves to reduce morning solar heat gain and to minimize distractions from the busy sidewalk and street while still embracing the openness of the storefront windows.
Fall Equinox.
It’s 2:18 PM PDT – happy Fall Equinox, also known as: Alban Elfed, Autumn Equinox, Autumnal Equinox, Cornucopia, Feast of Avilon, Festival of Dionysus, Harvest Home, Harvest Tide, Mabon, Night of the Hunter, Second Harvest Festival, Wine Harvest, Witch’s Thanksgiving, and the first day of autumn among other names. Welcome Fall!
ArchiCAD Helps Create Home for Urban Arts.
Graphisoft, maker of ArchiCAD, the preferred B.I.M. software application of Open Architecture Workshop, has published an article coinciding with the release of ArchiCAD 13 and their new website and marketing campaign, highlighting our work with Sushi – A Center for the Urban Arts:
San Diego architect, Scott Glazebrook, is using Building Information Technology (BIM) to create a cutting-edge performance “laboratory” for creative exploration for a local performing arts group…
Please read more here.
De•mys•ti•fi•ca•tion.
Demystification. Thus begins a new regular series in this blog to demystify what it is we architects do and why and how we do it.
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Re:Visioning the Transitional.
What does one call immediately post-WWII residential architecture other than “transitional”? These houses no longer exhibit traits of Craftsman-style, Queen Anne, American Four-Square, or any number of other architectural styles thriving prior to WWII; but yet they often retain some of the bungalow sensibilities of these previous genres. They are not Modernist, Ranch-style, or Mid-Century, either. They were borne out of the period of the birth of modern suburbia and growth of manufactured housing. New efficiencies in housing design and construction, the burgeoning middle class of Americans, and an influx of “new” workers lead to a rapid outward expansion of American cities as the economy and culture rebounded from years of war. This new way of building and housing was being explored coast to coast, and efficiency did not leave much time for aesthetics or planning. These structures are today time capsules representing the values of the period; not necessarily of art or architecture, but of expediency and optimism looking to a bright future.
Here is a typical San Diego version of a transitional-style residence in an older suburban development that rapidly developed immediately following the end of the war (note: within each pairing of images in this post the second image is a brief GIF animation that may take a second to load).
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Where did my summer go?
That’s what we all used to ask before school started again in the Fall. Summer always seemed to loom large in the wide-eyes of our youth at the end of the school year – little did we remember or prepare for. After college we realized what “real” life is like, with each Summer passing faster and faster year after year; and the brief Summer vacation becoming more and more precious (unless of course one never leaves academia or returns to teach).
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Aural Sushi.
We just found this link to a KPBS Radio interview with Anne Marie Welsh by Tom Fudge. Thought you might like it (< 5 minutes).
“…gorgeous new space…”
“…big industrial space…made quite elegant…”
“…malleable space…”
Logic Gates.
Capitalism OR Environmentalism. Why?
Logic gates are key components of a digital circuit. A logic gate helps to define a logical sequence of actions that take place under given circumstances with primary operators “and”, “or”, and “not”, plus their inverses. The typical logic gate will generate one output of either “true” or “false” with two inputs separated by an operator in the logic sequence.
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Selling Short.
Some have sold Building Information Modeling (B.I.M.) as a panacea tool to solve all the embedded and inherent problems perceived in the architectural profession: to streamline a firm’s productivity, to reduce errors and omissions, to better coordinate the work of the design team, to create more thorough visualizations of a project, among many other promises of such applications. Architects have in turn passed this vision on to our clients, our consultants, and to the general public; some of who now believe we have the option of just pressing the “reglet” button to automatically remove (or add) all the necessary and desired reglets in a project on a whim. The same is presumed true for walls, windows, flashing, and every commonly and uncommonly known building component. While this may in part be true (assuming you have very strict layering and can turn-off a “reglet” layer and the parametric objects “heal” themselves), what is missing from the equation is what happens then. Was the deleted reglet separating dissimilar materials to protect from differential expansion and contraction, was it part of the weather-resistant building envelope, was it an aesthetic device, or all of the above?
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What’s next?
We all know the economy has slowed down. It effects us all in different ways. Here at Open Architecture Workshop we are creating ways to keep our brains stimulated, our hearts fulfilled, and hopefully generate some alternative income streams along the way as we transit this recession.
Furnishing design is at the core of the founding of O.A.W. with our goal to produce holistic design solutions that enhance dwelling at all scales and with all senses; and now that we have a little time on our hands we have an extraordinary occasion to explore design at a slightly smaller scale. One previous furnishing project already posted here was a custom bathroom mirror. While designed specifically for the Re:House, it was intended to be a production-worthy design. Future plans include posting design documents under Creative Commons licensing to permit anybody to build their own. This is also the case with the new range of furnishings in design by O.A.W.
Creative Commons