blocks are being placed around me!

Inspiration can be tough. A common theme here is the question, Where the hell do I start? Do I begin by thinking about what a person needs in a particular house? Do I just sketch shapes and geometric forms and hope something neat pops out? Do I use an existing style and change it?

My recent stuff has been largely crap. But in that crap, a few peanuts have emerged. And peanuts are delicious sources of nutrients. So, I produce the following sentence meekly from the safety of my shell: I'm kinda liking this house I did tonight.

So on the topic of inspiration, where did this triangle house come from? When I first started, I asked what's important to me in a house? And the answer was, a view (which wasn't really an answer). But it worked. The entire design came from imagining that I was sitting outside the ground level sliding door.

I'm not sure if that's a weird way to do it. It seems awful weird to me. The house secondarily provides shelter to the resident who is primarily concerned about sitting outside and looking out. Seems backward. It's like placing a mouse on your rug and putting blocks around him. Twisted! Anyway, hope you enjoy these.

where have I been?

Playing basketball. Had a test too. A few tests are coming up also. But still yet... It's not that I haven't had the desire to write, but no real topic has popped up. And even worse, I've only sketched a few things and none of them have anything to do with anything.

But don't lose faith here, I haven't. Just been a little busy 'sall. OH! One thing though. I'm considering somehow getting a second hand digital camera. I've been taking these long walks from my dorm in the financial district to uptown and I've noticed a few modern buildings that may be worth seeing.

modern house deja vu

So I've begun to notice that modern houses look the same.

There are the stick variety with thin posts and light foundations. They remind me of Philip Johnson's Glass House. Open, visible, and almost universally able to sit in natural environments. Because they aren't autonomous structures, they work with their surroundings. They're minimal, and I like that.

Another kind of modern house is completely opposite. It's very bold with dominating features. Certain walls or roofs are heavily stressed. The California Dreams house that I wrote about earlier is a good example of this. Another good example is this one featured at Dwell.com. Even these have a certain allure in their strict, geometric forms.

To bring this down to the grassroots level, how does this all affect me? Well, it's given me a starting point. When I sketch, do I begin thinking geometrically and try to create beauty with appealing forms? Or, am I trying to create a different beauty? I have to be honest here, most of what I sketch is very easy to dream up and create. It's mostly those bold types of houses that stress specific elements for no real purpose. Sure it may look decent but it's pointless.

I really want to avoid the novelty of trends and fashion. But it's hard... So as a personal goal, I want to put beauty aside for my next house design and see if, out of function, comes beautiful form.

architecture, context, and fitting in

Earlier I documented some little dandies that I.M. Pei said in his movie that seemed particularly useful. One had to do with creating great art. And he said that the time and place must make sense. The artwork must fit in and capture the moment fundamentally. And in achieving that, the art will approach a certain essence and that's what gives it a quality of greatness.

So what does that mean for me when I'm just doodling on a legal pad? I think I need some context. I need to imagine a scene and then play it out. Is this doodle building going to sit on the edge of a cliff? Will it be hidden among aspens? By a creek or river? Will it be between two multistory apartments?

And that already suggests a reality or moment. Now the art can fit and capture the moment, it can express the essence of the location. It can attempt to enhance the area and then it can achieve some level of quality.

I am not positive that anyone reads this blog, but I'd really like anyone who does to find a picture and post it as a comment. I'll attempt to sketch and model some kind of house to sit in your picture and we'll see what happens.

For example, the Molokai sea cliffs pictured above could be a good exercise. They're the highest in the world!

from paper to computer troubles

A week ago I sketched the above building and was pretty excited about it. I imagined gazing out from the top (or middle) balcony out to sea. Then I imagined that I had friends hanging out around the pool grilling burgers. And it was a feel good image so I decided to cultivate the high and try it on SketchUp...

Below are the pictures... but before that, we need some narrative. We need some plebian, grassroots perspective!

Large buildings are complicated. And I find it hard to believe that an entire structure, every last tile and window and pipe and faucet and doo doo boy could be accounted for in the mind of one architect. It's possible... But knowing every square inch of my naked body seems hard already.

So the question is, do buildings evolve? When these large structures go from paper sketches to drawings do they morph into something that can actually be? From my limited experience which is basically this poor building, the sketch seems pretty foreign compared to the SketchUp models.

Disclaimer: I'm not very happy with these pictures below but I can't siphon the junk from the trunk. What I'm trying to say is you've gotta see me tone those pecs over time. No. Check that, what I actually mean is, you have to see me naked. Psychologically naked.

Not my best and hardly complete:

a tower in the morning

Listening to Pepper and the Ka'au Crater Boys this morning. Good fun!

The following is a tower I drew yesterday and recreated on the Bamboo tablet today. More good fun. In the second image, the mess in the middle is better shown in the third image. Well, not really it's still confusing but the idea is, if you're in that part of the tower you get to hang over and be scared.

I like to sketch buildings so they look sharp and bold. The problem I'm facing here is that my first sketch seems to accomplish this, but when I start to spin the sucker around those hard angles vanish.

a Wednesday sketch

I wanted to sketch something that wasn't so boxy. And even though it's still boxy the curves ain't bad right? Conceptualizing where these half circles should sit came from the idea of a flower and stem. More to come more consistently.

Click the picture to make bigger.

cranes, construction, drizzle castles and Lego's

Ask your parents or anyone when they realized that their job was the one for them. And if it's a depressing topic... mmm, don't ask.

Thinking back, here's how I viewed architect:

As a youngster big buildings fascinated me. How could they be so big and how do people build those? Something else, a sort of scenic image comes to mind. Cranes. Orange cranes, red cranes, yellow, white and blue cranes. Silhouetted in the distance. Rising above steel and concrete.

Building, construction yards like that always made me feel good. It made me feel like I was right in the action (even though I was just looking in). It's progress. It's something happening. And I never fully realized how significant this feeling was until I didn't see it. I'd visit some city or town that had no cranes and everything seemed duller and grayer and sadder. It wasn't happening there. Nah mean?

Kind of silly, but this isn't: drizzle castles. And the best ones (I don't know this for sure) are made in Hawaii. The sand is finer and so its globs are more precise and it makes for a wonderful castle. I used to do this quite a bit and those drizzle castles are probably some of my first constructions.

Then there are Lego's. My favorites were the tree pieces. I would make a tree that had living space inside but allowed for branch access up top. Then I throw in those leafy web ones and full sail! Sometimes I'd have Little John sitting up there waiting to ambush with Robin Hood's Merry Men. Throw in a couple babes and that tree was hoppin'!

So if you've read this far, why not comment? I'd love to hear about how your childhood may or may not have shaped what you're doing now.

I.M. Pei, my Batman and Steve Young in one!

The seed is growing! I'm beginning to fantasize about certain architects. Will this somehow define me in some intricate butterfly effect? I..I.. must.. resist! Stay tuned!

I can't put the old China-man to rest without nibbling him to the bone first. I.M. Pei is one of the most enjoyable people I've ever experienced. His own documentary may be biased but go bore someone else with that naysay!

Please watch "I.M. Pei" on netflix if you have it, or go to any immoral lengths, steal, murder, commandeer and pillage, to rightfully pay for this delightful film. In this post, and probably others, Grassroots Architecture will attempt to give greater justice for this wise sage. I can only say how sharp this fellow is in so many poor ways. So onto the man himself.

Note: Exclamations are used when Pei gets particularly excited and forceful! I use them often but only cuz' I'm often excited.

The following are his own words:

To have something that lasts, that means you have really come close, have gotten hold of the essence. The only thing that can last is the essence, otherwise it's transitory. It's fashion.

I am not an architect that has what people call a "body of theories." Be true to yourself, you have a signature and that signature will come out!

I like to think of Bach. Constant variations of a simple feat.

You have to learn to eliminate and come to the heart of the problem. You have to start at the complex and reduce it to the simple and at having found the simple solution, the heart of the matter, then you have to make it work!

I prefer to not use labels. To me, it's just architecture. Not modernism, post-modernism, constructionism, you can use all the isms you want I don't believe in any of them. They come and they go. The one that really survives is architecture.

There are many more and I promise to report on them to you in the future.

prefab buildings- these are neat

Most great 20th century architects have designed a house for the masses. Something cheap, sleek and beautiful, and universal for all. Frank Lloyd Wright called his design "Usonian" (above) and believed they could and should be built all over America.

On various blogs, the popularity of prefab houses has grown because they're often built...greenly. I know nothing of this greeny building but all the talk has provided plenty of neat pictures to steal.

This is a Kithaus. A really tiny prefab used as a home office or getaway shack. These little guys appeal to me because they seem doable. I'm a modern kid who knows little about practical building but I'd love to learn. Good way to gain experience?



Image source.