Premised simply, “maximize your gains, minimize your losses”, a Passive House building optimizes the envelope with air-tight construction, high insulation values, and the elimination of thermal bridging (for more information visit www.phalliance.com). The efficient envelope coupled with controlled ventilation, offers the opportunity to significantly downsize the building’s mechanical system and puts a building steps away from achieving true “net zero” energy-use without the use of expensive equipment.

Our commitment is integrated in our current projects, where we have collaborated with architects who follow the Passive House performance standard. And now our in-house commitment has greatened after graduating Devin as a Certified Passive House Consultant as of January 2012!

Passive House principles seem to be a perfect fit for our studio as we continually seek to holistically and harmoniously integrate sustainability, building performance, and aesthetics into the experience of inhabiting our buildings.

But, in retrospect—here on the dawn of the Year of the Dragon—we look back for just a minute to realize it’s been an incredibly stimulating and productive year. Projects take on a life of their own, and with the aid of all the great collaborators with whom we’re currently working, much is accomplished.

Weeks from completion is a major renovation in Pacific Palisades, turning an undistinguished 1960s house into something with character befitting its incredible site. Along the way, we deepened our understanding of Spanish mission architectural prototypes in California.

Well underway in design and construction are two new houses in Maine that have taken our practice to a new level in sustainability expertise (one of the houses, a large one, promises to score a near-zero energy footprint), while allowing us to study the line between tradition and modernity in architecture. This study—inherent to the roots of this firm—has been enlivened with the perspective of thinking about architectural details and materials as grammar in a language that conveys meaning. Our search, on every project, is to find the architectural language appropriate for this client, site, and team of collaborators.

Looking ahead in the Year of the Dragon (power, strength, good luck. . . . .), we will continue with projects mentioned; start the design of another new house using Passive House energy standards; and have been invited by the eminent Farnsworth Museum in Maine to participate in an exhibition that re-imagines the commission to design the 19th century Farnsworth House (at the heart of the museum grounds) for the same family in 2012, reflecting 21st century parameters and aspirations.

Meanwhile, back here on Rochedale Road—our home and studio—we only have to look out into our garden to see that much happens in a year, if we allow nature to take its course. . . . . .

We’ve decided to create a new forum for discussion of all things DESIGN this fall by hosting a series of lunches right here on the long table in the garden at Rochedale Lane. We’re not academics, but we don’t have our heads buried in architectural sand, either, and we love talking about design—from architecture to art to writing and everything in between. This is not intended to be too structured, and sometimes the conversation may stray to favorite restaurants or must-read books, but we do see these lunches as opportunities to bring together design-minded people. If we have our act together, we may announce conceptual generators for discussion beforehand.

We’re inviting anyone who wants to drop by for lunch on alternate Thursdays. E-postcards will go out to some of our friends in the Los Angeles community, but all are welcome. Simply email us by Tuesday (devin@noreliusstudio.com or bruce@noreliusstudio.com), and we’ll make sure there is enough of whatever super-simple lunch we have for everyone. Because we recognize that everyone is busy, we invite you to arrive at 12:30, and leave promptly by 2.

Hope to see you.

SMMOA has the advantage and disadvantage of being in the tumble of art-filled industrial buildings that make up Bergamot Station. Bergamot has a scruffy energy, but it was difficult to identify the museum as distinct from all the other entities there, especially because it’s located on a pedestrian alley with other galleries around it.

Our concept was to create a gradual densification of “signs” as you approached the front door of the museum, much like the gradual magnification of musical sound as you approach and pass by that urban gospel church on Sunday morning. Quick crescendo, quick decrescendo. How could we do it without too much architectural self-consciousness or too much money? And how could we reinforce the museum’s image of being vibrant and unexpected?

Jay Griffith, landscape architect, part of the collaboration, advocated for elimination of extraneous details, and repetition of a simple red color in all major elements. Three red perforated metal screens, each L-shaped, define three edges of the space.They’re built with sculptural precision by Cortney Lofton, of Lofton Contracting, Inc. Jay contributed a series of planters, each painted red. These moves bracketed the space well, but we still didn’t have anywhere for people to pause and dwell in the space. It needed another level of scale that was more human.

Elsa smartly saw a way to accomplish several things at once. Steve Keene, a New York artist known for his ability to explore several themes simultaneously at a truly galloping pace, had been invited for a resident week of painting pieces to be sold to the public to benefit the museum. Could we design a suite of furniture that he could paint, with the theme of “SMMOAsis”? We quickly came up with a number of pieces, to be built simply out of plywood, with lots of surface for paint. They’re designed to be caricatures of furniture, intentionally a little aesthetically awkward. The concept was fine tuned by museum registrar Santy Wang and furniture fabricator Brian Briggs, to make them easily stack for storage.

They complete the space: further “densification” as one approaches the front door, and a place to pause to think about that gorgeous Beatrice Wood exhibition you just saw, before you are thrust back out into the real world of trying to turn left onto Pico at rush hour.

These are the principles we established:

1. Document the existing house thoroughly.
2. Understand it as much as possible: its place in an experimental community, its specific geographical and cultural context, the architectural concept and intentions, its construction execution, and modifications made over time.
3. Stabilize and rehabilitate the house, but don’t expect to return it to a pristine condition that doesn’t express its age and story.
4. Do nothing to the house that can’t be easily reversed in the future.
5. Ensure the renovations respect the original design fabric, but remain distinct and expressive of today.
6. Move toward net-zero energy use, i.e., producing enough renewable energy to offset the carbon-based energy used.

Easily said. But more complex in reality. Each design decision raises questions, can seem contradictory or inconsistent, and must be balanced with the realities of budget and time. Still, we’re moving ahead. In simple terms, our goals are to paint, install a new kitchen and bathrooms, replace outdated systems for heat and hot water, and develop a garden that works for the way we live. Many possibilities never even crept onto our table for discussion: we don’t need an addition, we don’t need to reconfigure interior spaces, and there are no structural deficiencies that need remedies. We live in a mild climate, so we don’t need air conditioning, and we just need enough heat to take the chill off in the winter.

The first two principles—documentation and understanding—were relatively easily accomplished in this house. We were given original 1948 construction documents as part of the sale of the house, and they were very complete. We can see how the vertical and seismic structural loads are resolved in the house, where underslab plumbing lines run, etc. Everything was very carefully detailed. And, since this community has been well-documented in articles and books, we now know a lot about the house. My previous writing entry about getting to know the house by drawing its details is another layer of understanding that I now have for the house.

The third principle—stabilization without reconstruction—was also an easy and intuitive one for us. The house had no significant problems to be fixed, and it wasn’t in our budget to restore it to a pristine state, even if we wanted to, so we have quickly come to love the sagging eaves and wood posts with the marks of thousands of tricycles and new puppies. We did, however, remove paint from the originally-bare concrete block and take out the thick-pile carpet, cracked vinyl asbestos flooring, and miscellaneous light fixtures.

The fourth principle is where, perhaps, it gets interesting, and interpreting “easily reversed in the future” may be quite subjective. Still, this can be reduced to a fairly simple strategy. The kitchen and bathrooms are tired, and the bathrooms especially a bit stingy by today’s standards. We don’t intend to enlarge any of them, but we do feel it’s fair game to strip these three rooms to the walls and start over again. No windows or doors will be moved, and certainly no walls, but we will start with a clean slate, recognizing that the next owner will probably do the same, appalled at the decisions we made way back in 2010. This strategy dovetails with principle five, ensuring that new work is expressive of the time.

Regarding the fifth principle, we will try our hardest to stay away from trendy architectural gestures and materials. Our intent is to tweak the palette of materials already in place. The concrete floors, concrete block, and gray-stained douglas fir plywood walls are neutral and unrefined, and they could all be examples of the concept of wabi sabi. They are imperfect and show wear; they are lovely in shadow, and work together to create warmth and quietude in the house. We have painted all the beams and columns a very dark gray/brown to strengthen the shadows, and have exposed and polished the concrete floors. New cabinetry will be faced with oil-rubbed steel— a material that certainly wouldn’t have been present in the house originally, but in our minds a continuation of the celebration of raw, slightly industrial materials. We’ve used it successfully at our house in Maine.

So, the messy process begins: dumpsters, an assault on the house from all directions by contractors, and much deconstructing before any reconstructing can begin. Nevertheless, the house holds its own: it doesn’t have the feeling of a home stripped down to its bones and with its dignity violated. Instead, it feels like a traditional Turkish massage: abrasive, aggressive, and little uncomfortable, but invigorating and restorative.

In a state with hundreds of miles of coastline and numerous harbors full of expensive sailboats and grand cottages, Corea Harbor is about something different: it maintains its humble, authentic, and downright scrappy look. This is an active fishing community that has long coexisted with an annual influx of summer visitors, often seeking a place off the beaten path to write, paint, or think. My clients own an inn there, and asked me to design a simple summer house that felt at home amongst the backdrop of modest and volumetrically simple gabled buildings that comprise the village.

The site sits across the street from the harbor, and has a huge, arching granite outcropping next to the road. There are panoramic views out to the harbor, encompassing a foreground of multiple small buildings in various states of repair and power lines directly in the line of vision. Right from the beginning, it was decided we would treat all of these elements as part of the view composition, deliberately participating in the non-precious landscape instead of fighting it. Rather than build on a pristine, secluded lot at the edge of the village, they wanted to build IN the village, to literally and architecturally participate in the close-knit community.

The view and the solar orientation are in alignment on this site, and it was decided that each living space should take advantage of these assets. Out of three initial concepts, the one that quickly won out was a long bar, just sixteen feet wide and ninety feet long, with living spaces in the center and two bedroom suites at the ends. Because this is primarily a summer house, the living space has a pavilion-like quality with extensive windows toward the north as well as the south. The house is raised up on a pedestal, allowing better views to the harbor to the south, engagement with a pre-existing septic system to the north, and an ability to hover above an area between granite outcroppings that didn’t drain well.

The diagram of the house is very simple, with experiential complexity introduced through circulation patterns which move asymmetrically through a mostly-symmetrical form. Entrance to the house is at one end, via a staircase that is intentionally pinched between two concrete walls, and only hinted at from the approach. Moving up through that staircase, one emerges at the top, with focus toward the north, into a fir and birch woods. Once in the house, visitors move naturally diagonally through the main living space, and back toward the south and the view.

Compositionally on the exterior, the façade is influenced by simply solving the solarbalance equation: How do you keep the sun out in the heat of the summer, but invite it in between the equinoxes? There developed a suite of solutions for that challenge: a roof overhang to protect clerestory windows; horizontal awnings to protect the biggest expanses of glass demanding uncompromised views 24/7, and slatted, rolling horizontal screens in places where options for privacy, solar protection and glimpse-vs.-broad views of the panorama are desired depending on season and time of the day.

The budget was restrictive, and we used a few techniques to keep costs as low as possible. First, it was designed to use familiar construction techniques and a simple wood structural system, and a talented local builder was contracted to build it. Second, we used simple materials: exposed concrete with standard forms, local white cedar shingles, prefabricated windows, and a metal roof on the exterior. On the interior, we utilized a two-inch concrete slab with radiant heat, gypsum board walls, and painted MDF cabinetry. Awnings, cantilevered “dock”, rolling screen frames and railings were all fabricated by a local commercial dock builder out of standard aluminum; the robust, simple details of the components seem at home in the village. Although the allure of prefabrication calls me, as it calls many architects, I continue to find that it still can be economical to build custom-designed houses—at least in this area—with clients willing to value space and light over luxurious finishes.

I drove away smiling: I find these modest-scale, modest-budget houses very satisfying exercises. Don’t get me wrong—I like the expensive, complicated ones, too. But the smaller ones demand a concise concept, construction system, and execution, and their finite nature is very rewarding.

The simple description of the house is this:  It’s barely changed from its original 1950 condition, it’s a modest size that feels manageable, and it has a floor plan that is perfect for us.  In 1200 well-choreographed square feet, there is a spacious living/dining room, a kitchen more functional than anything we’ve previously experienced, three bedrooms, two bathrooms and a gracious entrance hall.  For Los Angeles, it sits on a large lot and has several mature trees.  There is a strong visual and physical interior/exterior connection.  None of this, however, describes the essence of this house.  Why does it feel so good to be in it?  Why does it appeal to architects and non-architects alike?

I believe it’s because the design of the house is a studied, conscious collaboration of intuition and intellect, two concepts that are rarely successfully integrated by one architect.  Both aspects of a house can be appreciated by anyone, but in general, I define intuitive those physical aspects of a house that might be found in any good space from any era, may or may not bear the mark of a specific designer, and are typically appreciated more universally.  Christopher Alexander’s A Pattern Language was an attempt to catalog those aspects in the built environment.  Intellectual aspects typically come with the territory of design education, and they are initiated in a desire for consistency and reason.  They may be appreciated by non-architects (and are high on the list of what makes life worth living for us architects), but they can be obscure and hard-won.

I’ve recently visited several houses by prominent architects built within 5 years of this one, and each one leans toward the intuitive or intellectual end of the spectrum.  Included in that group is the Payson House by Chermayoff (1952), the Potter House by Breuer (1950), the Farnsworth House by Mies van der Rohe (1951), and the Glass House by Johnson (1949).  Each of these houses is an investigation of larger tenets of modernism and specific interests of its architect.  Each has its own character.  Breuer’s Potter House may be the “earthiest” of all of them, with its robust stone walls and informal massing techniques exemplifying an intuitive manifestation of modernist principles.  The Farnsworth House, on the other end of the spectrum, is a fastidious intellectual exercise, gets an A for its flawless logic, and was, unfortunately, a difficult house for its owner to live in or appreciate.

In this house, there are several aspects which simultaneously enhance the intuitive and intellectual experience.   Transparency through the section of the house is one example.  Many visitors notice this right away—“wow—it’s so airy—you can see right through it.”  Which is true, and oddly remarkable, since it seems so simple, and yet so little architecture accomplishes this.  (A Pattern Language, Pattern 159, “Light on two sides of every room”.)  Upon closer examination, that is indeed what’s happening, but it’s happening in an usual, sophisticated manner:  diagonally through the section of the house.  On the private side, there are large panes of glass at a human scale, extending up to 7’-0”; on the street side—which is incidentally uphill—the large windows start at 7’-0”, bringing in light, maintaining privacy, and drawing one’s eye up the hill from inside the house.  This ability to “do” several things simultaneously—bring light and views in, mark private and public, develop a section that responds to the specific topography of the site, and solve it with a reductive, rational architectural solution—is the result of the hand of a sophisticated designer who can simultaneously solve multiple design challenges.

Another aspect bridging both intuitive and intellectual realms is in the structure of the house, which is based on a post-and-beam concept. Its visual expression is something that almost everyone notices and responds to.  In a built environment predominated by vast surfaces of gypsum wall board hiding any and all expression of what holds the building up, there is a structural revealing to post-and-beam which is appealing, as well as being visually complex.  Here, the post-and-beam system has been reduced to a very economical assembly.  Columns are built up of smaller pieces (typically a 2” x 7 ½” core with 1 ½” x 3 ½” stiffeners on each long side).  But the consistency in this system, along with how it is adapted for particular joints on the house is quite remarkable.  Nothing is wasted.  At doors, for instance, the stiffeners are also the jambs for the French glass and screen doors.  Every column assembly is integrated perfectly into doors, windows, cabinetry, wall finishes and concrete block walls.  The mental process of the architect, working many hours to refine these details to make them consistent and economical, is evident.  Indeed, it is an elusive look into the mind of a talented and fastidious detailer.

A third example of intuitive and intellectual success of the structure is evident in the big, compositional gestures of the house.  A desire for complexity is typically a common interest of my clients, although it’s defined differently by each client.  For architects, the desire for consistency can sometimes conflict with a desire for complexity.  I believe architects are accused of desiring emptiness and reduction simply because they love seeing the architectural concept when it’s clearly expressed, without extraneous details obscuring it.  In this house, they both coexist:  Order reigns, in the insistent structural grid, the clear expression of shear walls, the use of a specific material always perfectly suited for the task, the form of the house never arbitrary.  These attributes would be clear to a second-year architecture student who had learned to diagram building concepts (and to other architecture fanatics).  But still, there is much complexity that appeals to others, as well.  In a limited palette of just a few primary materials—including concrete block, redwood post-and-beam, douglas fir plywood, tongue-and-groove redwood siding, and glass—a matrix is created with a seemingly infinite number of intersections occurring, each one perfectly resolved.  Similarly, an interior division of space with a very limited number of partitions yields a rich suite of spatial experiences:  contained, open, ambiguous, defined, et al.

Still, the house continues to reveal its wonders in layers.  As I learn one aspect of its logic, I discover another to be examined.  The essence as well as a comprehensive understanding of the design remains elusive.  And in the intuitive realm, each season interacts with the house in a different way, imbuing the various spaces with evolving moods depending on the quality and angle of the light.

Next:  the demands of living with perfection