Topic

architecture

A collection of 157 issues

Delta Shelter.

So, Will and I are starting to catalog ideas for the eventual remodel of our current house-with-no-closets. The house pictured here is the Delta Shelter, a house designed for my dentist, Dr. Michal Friedrich, by Tom Kundig, my former landlord. It was featured last February in the New York Times

Wednesday, October 8th. The shoes I wore to meet the architect....

It is that time. That time of transition. That time when one must think about the meta and the micro. When one must start thinking about materials and textures. And Timelessness. And Visual Power. And designing a house that ages beautifully. Massimo Vignelli offers a manifesto: Visual Power We say

The shoes I wore to meet the architect....

were weathered white oxfords with robin’s egg blue wingtips. Shoes with a point-of-view. To design a house is an intimate, opinionated thing. For it is within houses that we are our most intimate: naked, raw, vulnerable and honest. It is within houses that we are our most opinionated: yelling,

On loving Frederick, part one.

Smith Tower, as shot from a friend’s loft in Pioneer Square, Seattle. Photo by Callie Neylan, 2006. On July 23, 2011, I recited these design stories at the Boston Globe for my friends at Ink, stories inspired by the work of Frederick Law Olmsted and the impact his legacy

The O'Shea Building.

I went on an architecture tour of downtown Seattle a few weeks ago. In an effort to learn more about my city’s history, I’m trying to pay attention to the names and stories of buildings downtown that I really like. Take the O’Shea Building, for example. Built

Friday, October 4th. The shoes I wore to meet the architect....

would have been these boots had I actually met him. I didn’t, though. Mark came by the house last Friday to take measurements while I was at work. Here’s what we learned: 1). Our foundation does not meet code and is basically worthless as far as this remodel

Worthy architecture.

originally uploaded by Neylano. "A development which spoils ten square miles of countryside will be the work of a few people neither particularly sinful nor malevolent. They may be called Derek or Malcolm, Hubert or Shigeru, they may love golf and animals, and yet, in a few weeks, they

On architecture, skeuomorphism, and "peopled" spaces.

Architect William J. Hirsch Jr, in his book Designing Your Perfect House, expounds on the necessity of the artisanal and the handmade in “peopling” spaces: …the inclusion of materials that indicate a human hand contributed to [peopled spaces]. Hardwood floors, tiles, carved wooden details, hammered metal door handles, and fieldstone

Saturday, March 26th. The shoes I wore to meet the builder.

Numbers are scary. Numbers signifying your weight, your blood pressure, your bank account balance, your age. Numbers, as it turns out, more often than not highlight more of what you don’t have than what you do. Numbers, as is often the case, focus on what’s left out rather

A Line in the Sand.

From a recent article in the New York Times, summarizing architecture’s role in creating the wall serving to cordon off the West Bank: In certain respects, the proposed 450-mile barrier is a model of planning reduced to its most primitive – the desire to divide black from white, us from