architecture

From John King:

There’s a new design for the museum that Gap founder Donald Fisher wants to build in San Francisco’s Presidio, and it’s the antithesis of the icy box that caused uproar last year.

Instead of a sharp-edged stack of concrete and glass, it’s a low pavilion with a landscaped roof. The pavilion burrows into the earth and includes a public thruway, rather than rising up, as its predecessor did, to demand attention within the historic heart of the army base turned national park.

More: Fisher museum plan toned down to mesh with park


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From the New York Times:

DARMSTADT, Germany “” From the outside, there is nothing unusual about the stylish new gray and orange row houses in the Kranichstein District, with wreaths on the doors and Christmas lights twinkling through a freezing drizzle. But these houses are part of a revolution in building design: There are no drafts, no cold tile floors, no snuggling under blankets until the furnace kicks in. There is, in fact, no furnace.

In Berthold Kaufmann”™s home, there is, to be fair, one radiator for emergency backup in the living room “” but it is not in use. Even on the coldest nights in central Germany, Mr. Kaufmann”™s new “passive house” and others of this design get all the heat and hot water they need from the amount of energy that would be needed to run a hair dryer.

Read More: No Furnaces but Heat Aplenty in “Passive Houses”


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I read the San Francisco Chronicle, via SFGate.com, a lot. I like reading John King’s architecture column, and I like reading the articles about building design, but somehow hadn’t quite put together in my head that those design articles are a column called “Design Spotting” written by Zahid Sardar, the Chronicle’s Design Editor. I noticed “Design Spotting” in a prior post about a remodel project and went back and started reading some of the older articles this evening.

One of the prior articles by Zahid is about ground level separate structure additions to homes, as opposed to jacking up a home and adding a new first story underneath the exiting structure. He cites two examples by the same architectural firm, one in Berkeley and one in Mill Valley.

The Berkeley addition is a two story “tower” built in the backyard of an existing one story home, attached to that home. It’s a completely different architectural style in order to not look like they just tried to make the addition match the existing structure. Unfortunately I find the styles to be so different as to just look incongruous (consider that a nice way of putting it).

The Mill Valley addition, on the other hand, is a second structure alongside the original home. The addition is two stories, but built on a slope below the exiting home, so the roof line heights are similar. The architectural styles are similar and the whole thing ends up looking like two appropriately sized buildings that belong together. The architects designed an interesting “covered slatted-wood bridge” to connect the two structures, which adds an interesting design feature without being obnoxious.

Two’s the charm


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I’m a huge fan of car sharing. You join the car share service and that gives you access to cars all over the city. You just book one of the cars on the web site — even just a few minutes before you need it — and then you can pick it up, using a card key to unlock it. You pay by the hour (or by the day) and gas and insurance are both included.

For city dwellers like me car sharing saves a ton of money and aggravation (it’s awesome not owning a car!), we have access to a car when we need one and using a car becomes a fixed and predictable expense.

The large commercial car sharing company in cities across the US is Zipcar; an architecture company has created a design for what they call a “Zipcar dispenser.” It’s basically a giant Pez dispenser-like rack system that allows car share cars to be stored vertically in dense urban areas and popped out like pieces of candy when they’re needed.

Check out the picture here, and the Moskow Linn Architects site for more pictures and information.

Image: Moskow Linns Architects


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