Houseplans.com Hot Sheet

EYE ON DESIGN: Modern Marketplace

Contemporary Giving and Living 

With the graduation and wedding season upon us, I started thinking about how I like to give well-designed contemporary objects like bowls or architectural book-ends as special occasion presents, and that brought to mind Placewares, one of the best contemporary design stores I have ever visited. To my mind it rivals Conran's in London and New York because the objects on display are so well edited. Placewares and its adjacent Lyndon Gallery is in the tiny town of Gualala three hours north of San Francisco on California's Mendocino Coast. Browse for everything from Marimekko pillows and mid-century modern dishware by Heath Ceramics to artwork by Lawrence Halprin, America's most famous landscape architect, who designed the Roosevelt Memorial in Washington, D. C.

Luckily Placewares has an online store where this tempered glass trivet caught my eye: 

And here's a house that's quite affordable at $150 (drawback: it's only 8 inches-tall...) It's a plaster model of the house of Victor Horta, the Belgian architect who epitomized the Art Nouveau style of architecture...

It and a variety of other models, including miniatures of Jane Austen's house and architect Sir John Soane's house (Richards is from Bath, England), are for sale at Placewares.

   

The architectural bent isn't just a random act of architecural passion. It's in the air and perhaps even the water. Placewares is a mile or so from The Sea Ranch, the second home community famous for its environmentally sensitive planning and contemporary ranch-inspired architecture. Halprin did the landscape plan in the 1960s. The original condominum building at the southern edge of the community--with its central sloping courtyard and shed-roofed tower forms--was designed by award-winning architects Charles Moore, Donlyn Lyndon (the brother of Maynard Lyndon, who owns Placewares with his wife Lu), William Turnbull, and Richard Whitacker. It draws inspiration from area barns, the 19th century Fort Ross just a few miles south, the Bay Region Style, and the architecture of Louis Kahn. Here's an image of Charles Moore's own unit by photographer Jim Alinder.

You can read the history of The Sea Ranch and explore many important custom house plans through the sumptuous and critically acclaimed book The Sea Ranch, by Don Lyndon and Jim Alinder.

You can even rent a house here (many are by well known architects), which is an excellent way to test drive contemporary design as you plan your new Houseplans.com home. The rentable house shown below is from Rams Head Realty and should get you dreaming about summer vacation even if gas prices are making it impossible to actually go anywhere:

EYE ON DESIGN: Fire the Imagination

The Strength of Simplicity

Recent stints on two design juries reminded me that inspiration often derives from limitation: constraints in materials or budget have a way of freeing the imagination.

City College of San Francisco's ARCHISTRUCTERIOR competition celebrating the Architecture Department's 60th anniversary took the form of a happening in a downtown plaza. Each team of students was asked to design and build a full-scale construction representing the cultural, social, and ethnic diversity of specific San Francisco neighborhoods within four hours. Building materials: two kits of parts; one supplied by the department of architecture and containing things like boards and wire, the other containing "neighborhood elements" assembled by each team. Winners included the the following:

The team representing Chinatown created a dense mini-street under a canopy of Chinese take-out menus:

The team representing the Haight-Ashbury fashioned an evocative hilly landscape out of long-playing records melted in a microwave:

 

Both celebrated distinctive neighborhood qualities, features, or memories in vivid ways. In other words you can do and say a lot with just a few elements.

The strength of simplicity also became apparent in Atlanta where the Chrysalis Remodel Awards Jury reviewed more than 500 entries from across the country. Here's a photo of the entry binders burying Ken Canline, the organizer of the program:

Judges included yours truly (in the green sweater), Leslie Plummer Claggett (in white), Editor at Woman's Day Special Interest Publications; Oma Blaise Ford (in black), Senior Deputy Editor, Home Design, Better Homes & Gardens; and Louis Joyner, Photographer and former Home Editor, Southern Living:

Here the residential remodel projects that made it to the top of the heap often demonstrated an elegant simplicity: they didn't use too many different materials and they solved space problems in clear and uncluttered ways.

So how does all this relate to finding your perfect layout on Houseplans.com? By way of a little common sense advice: Stick to the basics: a well thought-out home plan should help you get the best out of where and how you want to live without adding extra complications. Simplify and savor!

EYE ON DESIGN: New Modern Plan

Modern Living for May Day

Modernity in home design is growing more popular as people look for simple, efficient layouts that still feel airy and bright. And with good reason: modern plans are all about creating a feeling of spaciousness by opening up rooms to the outdoors. For example, a good modern plan should have comfortable patios and terraces just steps away from the family room and kitchen. Here's one of Houseplans.com's newest modern designs that celebrates easy indoor-outdoor living.  (For more such plans click on Modern.)

Disappearing Walls

If I were building this house I would replace the wall of fixed glass in the living room facing the pool terrace with Nanawall folding doors in order to open up the room still more. Nanawall is an exceptionally well-engineered accordion window wall system that provides flexible openings up to 36 feet so you could easily turn a living room like this one into a summer lanai. Here's a Nanawall photo to demonstrate.

  If you visit the Nanawall website click on the Gallery tab and see the simple animations that illustrate standard folding configuations, they're addictive. Something to whet your appetite as the home building season gets under way.

 

EYE ON DESIGN: Green is Good Design

Green In The Air

You can always tell you're in a crowd of architects and designers because everyone's wearing black. But now another color is competing for attention, not in clothes but in concept: the green of eco-oriented design. Check the Build Green section at Houseplans.com to see current definitions of green and other green help. Good design should always make the most of limited resources, be as energy-efficient as possible, and enhance the setting. In other words, good design has always been green. I was reminded of this definition when I attended a wonderful Earth Day party given by Michelle Kaufmann Designs, the burgeoning modern prefab firm. It was held on the roof of the Airport Control Tower at the decommissioned Alameda Naval Air Station near Oakland, California, shown below.

It's now the office of Makani Power, which develops wind energy with sophisticated kites. Clearly, recycling a building is one of the greenest design things you can do. And this wind energy company seems a marvelous fit for the old control tower. Talk about a concept that's really taking off! ..."Air Gore, Flight 001, Departing from Gate 7, All Aboard Please!"...

I had the pleasure of working with Michelle Kaufmann on the Sunset Breezehouse when I was Senior Home Editor at Sunset magazine. Her fim continues to redefine the modern, green, prefabricated home.

MKD's most recent prefab is the two-story mkSolaire™, shown above. You'll be able to tour it at the Chicago Museum of Science and Industry starting in May.

Watch for new ways to build green at Houseplans.com in the coming months.

EYE ON DESIGN: No Dead End Rooms

Put A Loop In Your Layout

Houseplans.com

I always look for the exit when I enter an enclosed public space. My wife will tell you it's a little irritating. But more than one way in and out isn't just important for safety, it also balances light, promotes air circulation, and helps avoid claustrophobia. The same principle applies at home. My mantra is "No dead-end-rooms!"

 

Here's one of our newest plans that I think does the job very well, promoting an easy graceful flow between the foyer, great room, kitchen, dining room, and office. In other words, the main layout is a loop.

It's plan #48-250. Guests can move from room to room without being trapped. Kids can chase and be chased by the family dog (a favorite game in our house, anyway) without hitting a wall. Here the excercise room is a dead-end but it would be easy to fix that by opening a door to the porch. A looping layout is even more important in smaller houses to promote a feeling of spaciousness. Tell me what you think.

EYE ON DESIGN: House Numbers Count

Fire departments want house numbers to be easy to read from the street. I think they should also give your address a little zip. After all they're the finishing touch for your new house. A little research reveals that many  typefaces found in word processing programs are available as address numbers. Here's a sampling from WestOnLetters.

Times New Roman in white baked enamel.

 
Roman in green baked enamel.

Bodoni Condensed in oxidized bronze.
WestOn Letters offers easy instructions for attaching. Prices, which start at around  $30 per number, vary according to style, height, and finish.

EYE ON DESIGN: Walls

NEWS AND IDEAS ABOUT HOME from Dan Gregory, Editor of Houseplans.com, the largest online source of architectural stock plans

Spring makes me look more closely at the interior of my house. From the patches of peeling paint I now see here and there (how did they get there?! ) it's clear we have work to do. I'll probably put it off until the last moment but until then it's easy, and wonderfully inexpensive, just to think about new possibilities in colors and coverings for the walls. Here are some wall-related ideas for new and old houses to help you procastinate a little before spreading tarps and getting out the ladder.

ON A ROLL

I'm a big fan of Bradbury & Bradbury art wallpapers. This firm made their name by recreating richly ornamental wallpapers from the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Their Victorian patterns include intricate floral designs (one is shown here) that reproduce work by the English decorative artist and tastemaker William Morris.



Especially suited to Craftsman bungalows is Bradbury's series of mural-style papers dominated by images of nature. Here's an especially fine pine tree design often used along the plate rail in a dining room or above the fireplace.



Newest in the Bradbury wallpaper line-up is their Modernism series, emphasizing geometric patterns like this one. It's the sort of design that might work for a small accent wall or as a backdrop for a display area.



DIGITAL MURALS

Another way to go, especially for kids' rooms, is to create a photo mural. A popular approach to wall decoration in the 1960s and 1970s, especially for corporate offices, it's experiencing a comeback in homes thanks to the wide range of designs possible with today's digital imaging systems. Here's one from Target that might suit a family room.

Other digital mural resources include BlueRiver Digital, and Murals for Kids. Or google "Digital Murals."

EYE ON DESIGN #4: Coolest House in the West

Geoff LeGallais, Director of Designer Relations for Houseplans.com, lives and breathes home design even when he's out snow camping in California's High Sierra. Here's what he and a group of able-bodied men built above Lake Tahoe. They do it every March. This is the 15th anniversary of  the event  founded by Geoff's buddy Mike Queirolo.   

Geoff says: "Call it an exercise in structural design if you like. We just call it Snow Cave 2008."

He describes the process:  "We dig a 10-person snow cave and live like kings in our winter oasis for four days. Twelve hours of picking, shoveling and hauling ended with the largest cave on record for this event and memories that will last a lifetime."

Are there lessons here that can be applied to building a new house? Sure: teamwork, not to mention team-building, is essential. So are the right tools, proper insulation, and good food to keep the energy and interest up and of course something to toast each other's accomplishment at the end of the day. And in this house the well-stocked refrigerator-freezer is very convenient. Bravo, Snow Cave 2008 Team!

EYE ON DESIGN #3: Links and Lots

NEWS AND IDEAS ABOUT HOME from Dan Gregory, Editor of Houseplans.com, the largest online source of architectural stock plans

MEDIA COVERAGE

Zahid Sardar, Design Editor of the San Francisco Chronicle, reports on Houseplans.com's intention to develop a collection of plans inspired by mid-century modern designs like the one shown below, by Cliff May, which is included in my book Cliff May and the Modern Ranch House:

The article also describes our interest in providing more plans that explore the relationship between house and lot, like this one, for a sloping site. It's Houseplans.com # 64-166.

Other articles about the book have appeared in the following publications:

Architectural Digest

California Home & Design

C magazine

Men's Vogue

I'll keep you posted on future developments.

 

EYE ON DESIGN #2: Mid-Century Mod

NEWS AND IDEAS ABOUT HOME from Dan Gregory, Editor of Houseplans.com, the largest online source of architectural stock plans

This Just Out!

My book Cliff May and the Modern Ranch House, published by Rizzoli with photography by Joe Fletcher, who does a lot of work for Wallpaper, and foreword by film producer Joel Silver, is now available in bookstores.

Cliff May was the father of the suburban ranch house, a rambling, modern, romantic, outdoor-oriented house form that took the country by storm after World War II. He was not the only ranch house designer but he was the most influential, thanks to his gift for innovation, canny salesmanship, and flawless timing. He popularized a seductive and yet very practical concept of California living. Among the features he perfected were the slab foundation, the window wall, the vanity, the ridge skylight, and the whole-house intercom.

He personally designed more than 1,000 homes and commercial buildings, including the offices of Sunset magazine, built in 1951, where I was privileged to work for many years. Sunset's glass-walled lobby is shown below. You can see it and tour the extensive gardens designed by landscape architect Thomas Church (80 Willow Road, Menlo Park, California) from 9 to 5 Monday through Friday. Or subscribe to the magazine and learn about Living in the West. The corporate headquarters and the magazine remain vital extensions of each other. There's even a "Test Garden" where stories are developed.

Cliff also designed the famous Robert Mondavi Winery of 1966
in California's Napa Valley, illustrated here with a wine label showing the iconic arch and tower.

Rediscovery And Renewal

Builders and developers loved Cliff May's plans: you can find his houses in suburban neighborhoods across the country. Now a Cliff May renaissance is under way, especially in places like the Long Beach Ranchos in Southern California. Doug and Rochelle Kramer exemplify this trend: they're realtors who live in a Cliff May and specialize in restoring and selling his designs. See their current offerings at Rancho Style. Here are two:

 

For more evidence of May (not March!) Madness visit The Cliff May Registry, a labor of love by Cliff May homeowner Stephen Meade, who has created the largest online national listing of Cliff May designs. Mid-century modern tract house designs are also part of the general discussion groups at a website called Lottaliving. The Architecture & Design Collection at the University of California at Santa Barbara will soon be fanning the Cliff May campfire with a major exhibition on the ranch house tentatively scheduled for 2011.

A Book Stampede

The May revival is part of a larger renaissance of interest in mid-century modern home design of all kinds, prompted by such books as Alan Hess' The Ranch House and Forgotten Modern, Kathy Samon's Ranch House Style, Eichler: Modernism Builds the American Dream by  Paul Adamson and Marty Arbunich, and Michelle Gringeri-Brown's Atomic Ranch, which is a sister publication to Atomic Ranch Magazine.

Eichler houses have an important champion in the Eichler Network, which publishes an informative magazine called CA-Modern. 

Meanwhile Back At Houseplans.com

All this interest in mid-century modern tract ranch houses has made me want to start a Mid-Century Modern Collection at Houseplans.com. We're beginning to work on it now, so don't be a stranger; click on Houseplans.com to see our ever expanding inventory of architectural plans.