Did you miss Pecha Kucha night SLC two weeks ago? First off, shame on you. Second off, don't despair, video is now available. There were some fantastic speakers, and I highly recommend browsing through the rest of the videos after the jump.
A special thanks to everyone that made it out. Over $950 was raised to help with the Architecture for Humanity project. Donations are still being accepted online.
Salt Lake City Mid Century Modern Realtor Mony Ty listed this amazing home this month. I had a chance to walk through the amazing 4,660 square foot home a few weekends ago, and it was nothing short of amazing. The home was originally built in 1962, and had a tasteful pool added in 1982. The home was designed by one of Utah's most well know mid century modern architects John Sugden who drafted for and was mentored by Mies van der Rohe. The influence of Mies is obvious as the home has extensive use of steel and glass.
An open house will be held this Saturday from 10:00 to 4:00.
Another great modern house project in Salt Lake City has just wrapped up. The designer and builder was Geoff Tice, so you might notice a few similarities with the project he completed last year. The house is located at 360 East Herbert Ave, and is joining a few other modern homes as neighbors.
The original house was a 1922 brick bungalow, with two bedrooms and one bath packed into 851 square feet and a shelf basement. The new house is 3,049 square feet, with three bedrooms, two baths, a loft/study area, and a full-height basement. The second story was built on the rear half of the house, so the original bungalow still maintains its curb appeal and neighborhood feel. The photos after the jump show how much work was actually done to the house.
The house has already been handed over to the new owners, who have been busy settling in.
As always, Geoff is more than happy to share information and answer questions here, so post any questions you might have. If you want to contact him personally, you can send him an email at geofftice@gmail.com.
On the surface, Justin Fantl's images have a certain sterile quality yet there's an underlying humor that seems to offset the overall sense of isolation. It's a strange combo that makes for some interesting photography. Check out his portfolio through the link below and let me know what you think!
LINK: www.justinfantl.com
More pics after the jump!
We are big fans of the LEGO Architectural series. We were excited when they released kits for the Guggenheim and Fallingwater, but we are absolutely elated about their most recent edition.
Farnsworth House™ was completed in 1951 and the 1,585-square-foot (140 m²) house designed by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe is now widely recognized as an iconic masterpiece of the International Style of architecture.
PechaKucha is one of my favorite events to go to. If you have never been, I highly suggest you go. This Saturday's event is part of a global fundraiser for Japan.
“After the Haiti earthquake last year, the founders of PechaKucha Night organized a similar global fundraiser,” said local event organizer Tristan Shepherd. “With all the money that was raised for Architecture for Humanity, almost $100,000, they are now building a new school in Haiti. We are hoping to receive enough donations from this event to make a significant impact for the country of Japan.”
This Saturdays event will include speakers Mikell Stringham (Happy Birthday!) of Mondo Fine Art (previously featured on GRM) talking about her non-profit Mondo Art Project, Photographer Kim Guanzon (see House 2 post), Architect Dave Brach (of the Zevon house) among other fantastic local talents.
Making this event even more meaningful, many of the 400 cities from around the world where PechaKucha has taken hold will also be hosting events on the same date. The presentations will simultaneously stream live, and then be uploaded online to make a database of positive inspiration for Japan. Salt Lake City is proud to be one of the cities participating in this important event. Donations are accepted at the door (Brewvies is a 21-and-older venue located at 677 South 200 West) or online at http://global-day.pecha-kucha.org/. Reserve your tickets online at http://pechakucha-slc.eventbrite.com/, remaining tickets available at the door. Seating is limited to 160 guests.
We've featured a couple of kickstarter projects here at GRM, and all of them have been great projects. The Seed project however may be the one with the most meaningful impact. Salt Lake City based modern design team Imbue Design is heading to Tanzania. They will be living in the slums of Tanzania for three weeks to develop real methods and material solutions to combat the problem detailed by CNN just months ago. The donations obtained through the Kickstarter.com campaign will help them fund research and development while in Africa by paying for materials, tools, and labor.
This is such a great cause and Imbue has a very elegant design solution. If you can spare a few dollars, drop by kickstarter and donate now.
Last week I gave you a little peek of the completed House 2 project, and many of you were asking for more interior shots. I've pulled a couple off of the Modern Union Flickr page, and added a few off of my Flickr page as well. As is typical, the photos really don't do the space justice. The thing I'm most impressed with is how the house feels, not looks. The proportions are just so nice. All the VG fir woodwork by Modern Union really does a lot to warm the space up too. White walls and concrete floors can sometimes come across cold and sterile, but all the woodwork really makes the whole house feel very warm.
Builder Mark Haslam did a fantastic job with the entire project. I need to get over there and get some more photo's of the exterior too. The whole thing just turned out so nice.
See the whole House 2 project.
Lots more photo's after the jump.
Photo by Modern Union
Photo by Modern Union
I took the following photo's a while ago, before everything was totally finished.
Hallway with built in storage and desk niche.
Master bedroom. I love how the 12' run of cabinetry has no fillers. Perfect fit.
Master bedroom. Looking the other direction is a full wall of glass with two big sliding glass doors.
Kitchen looking towards the front of the house.
Kitchen with dining table in foreground.
This bookcase is 8' x 8'. That should give you a bit of an idea of the scale of the room. 10' ceilings feel perfect for the space.
If you are like me, and you haven't heard of Paul Rudolph, it's time to change that. Watch the movie above, then head on over to the Paul Rudolph Foundation to learn more, or visit the Paul Rudolph flickr group to see some of his work.
Alright readers. Are you ready for another inspirational DIY adventure? It all starts in this humble little 700 sf cabin you see above in the sleepy little town of Midway Utah. Inspired, or just crazy, Calder and Starr were able to turn a lot of hard work into a fantastic modern meets rustic home. But that was just the beginning. Keep reading after the jump. I promise this is one story you are not going to want to miss.
Downstairs is a simple, but modern kitchen/living room with a nice island. I really like the contrast of the clean modern lines of the kitchen with the log walls. You can see from this picture too that the space is not huge. I'm pretty sure this is entire width of the house we are looking at.
Upstairs is the bedroom and bathroom. Again, I love the contrast of the white walls and wood. I also love how minimal and clutter free the room is. It looks like there is good storage built in on the sides too.
Calder didn't mention much about the work that went into the cabin, but from the next part of the story, I think it's safe to assume it was a lot of DIY labor.
So, what do you do when you have a 700 square foot home, and you are looking to expand your little family of two? Get an architect.
This is basically what they had to start with. You can see the cabin in the foreground, and in the back is a barn. It should be noted that the barn wasn't originally on the property. The entire thing was disassembled, moved to the property, and reassembled. Yeah, that's right. This family moves barns for fun in their spare time. Hardcore.
This is the plan that architect Todd Drennan came up with. Todd also has a modern home in Midway. The new modern structure actually connects with the original cabin, keeping a nice separate but together juxtaposition.
Once construction began I have a good feeling that a family that can move barns is willing to pitch in and do a lot of the construction themselves. This DIY spirit and some resourcefulness I think is one of the keys to keeping construction costs down on modern projects. I love the fact that Calder seems like the kind of guy that doesn't know what the word impossible means. Want an example? A two story home needs stairs right? Stairs need stair treads right? So what's the obvious thing to use for stair treads if you are a guy that moves barns. Why reclaimed wood from a bowling alley of course.
Another example you say? Sure. Here is my favorite. What do you clad a beautiful modern home like this with? Some nice stonework would be a great choice, but that would be crazy expensive right? Not if you collect all the stone from a old city building that was torn down and cut it down to the right dimensions yourself. Yeah, that's right. I said splitting your own stone. I didn't even know that was possible.
This is the building the stone came from.
After what must have been an incredible amount of stacking, moving, splitting, the stone was ready for the house. For all the details, and some fantastic pictures of the process, check out this post on their blog.
The end result?
Impressed doesn't seem to do justice to the way I feel.
I don't have enough words in my vocabulary to tell you how much I love Neutra's work. Above is a short little video that begins with and excerpt of a video titled "Neutra's VDL Research House" and ends with a short documentation about the Los Altos Neutra House.
About the Los Altos Neutra House project.
In 2005, the City of Los Altos, the Los Altos Community Foundation, and a group of citizens interested in preserving architectural history joined together to save a small Los Altos house designed in 1935 by this renowned California architect and completed in 1939.
Between 1930 and 1940 Neutra did about a dozen projects in the San Francisco Bay Area. In 1935, he began designing three houses for two poets, Jacqueline Johnson and Clayton Stafford. Two small houses with identical floor plans were the residences of Stafford and his wife, and of Jacqueline Johnson. The house that was saved was Johnson's home. A third and smaller house was also built for Johnson. These residences defined a small commune in a prune orchard.
The Johnson house was moved to City-owned land and for the past three years has been carefully renovated for reuse as a community center for meetings, off-sites, and other similar activities. The completed facility has a large conference room, kitchen, bathroom, integrated landscape, and an HDTV audio/video system that on whick visitors can see videos on the history of modern architecture in Los Altos and the greater San Francisco Bay Area. This system will also serve the audio/visual needs of those using the conference room for meetings. Combining preservation and reuse has been at the essence of the Los Altos Neutra House Project.
Julius Shulman is a sort of legend when it comes to mid century modern photography. The breadth of his work over his 30+ year career is astounding, so I guess I shouldn't be too surprised to find out that he even photographed a building a few short block away from my loft. The Prudential Federal Savings and Loan building was designed 1 of 4 buildings in Utah designed by William L. Pereira. It was photographed by Shulman in 1964 a year and a half after construction was finished.
To learn more about the building, as well as it's imminent demolition, visit the fabulously thorough saltlakearchitecture.blogspot.com.
Ahh prefab, why must you always tempt us with affordable modern architecture?
The latest eye candy I stumbled across is this attractive modern prefab cabin by a Canadian company called Karoleena. This beauty will only set you back $129,000 which sounds great until you realize that it doesn't include site work, transportation and that it is only 630 square feet small. Still, $200 a square foot isn't bad, it's just not any better than a custom architect designed home.
More pretty renderings and info at Karoleena's website.
I absolutely love the idea of a community of modern homes. When you add in environmentally responsible and affordable I almost get all tingly with excitement. That is exactly what is going on 3 miles east of downtown Austin. The SOL Austin community of 40 homes range from 1,000 to 1,800 square feet and prices start at $190,000. Not surprisingly it looks like half the homes are already sold. Despite the fact that I'm very jealous of Austin modernists right now, it is encouraging to see attractive modern green homes being built that don't break the budget.
I've had a not so secret obsession with Airstream trailers for a long time now, and it's projects like this one by California architect Matthew Hofmann that motivate me to get my own. Matthew and his girlfriend completely remodeled this 1970's airstream into a mobile live + work space. It's currently parked on a beautiful view property on the southern coast of California.
$100 finders fee to the first person that can find me a really cheap airstream in Utah that I could buy. Emphasis on the really cheap part. :)
I was looking for some good footage of The Salk Institute today when I stumbled across this video. It made me smile, and then laugh out loud, even though I have no idea what they are saying. If you don't get the joke you may have to watch "yes we can" as a refresher.
If you still don't get it, or you were just really hoping for some Louis Kahn content, check out the Ted Talk after the jump with Nathaniel Kahn talking about his father and his film "My father, my architect".
I'm a big fan of Pecha Kucha and I'm so glad that SLC has finally gotten it going. This Friday in Salt Lake is Pecha Kucha vol. 4 and it's going to be a doozy. It is going to be at The State Room and music will be provided by the fabulous Jessie Walker. We're off to a good start already, but that's just the beginning. Amongst the lineup of fantastic speakers are my friends at Imbue, and my friend Scott Hinton.
We recently featured the work of Imbue with our post on 948 Mcclelland, and we covered Scott's work that he did with H Space a few years ago. Also of note is Hank Louis founder of Design Build Bluff who I'm very interested to hear speak. There are lots of other great speakers as well and it should be a fantastic program. TIckets can be purchased from The State Room here for $7. Doors open at 8. 21+ only venue. See you there.
Check here to see if there is a Pecha Kucha night in your town.
Next Saturday Modernism Week starts in Palm Springs and with it the 3rd Annual Architecture + Design Film Series. This year they will have an astounding 12 films showing over the 5 day event (many of which we have already featured here). Makes me very jealous I don't live a couple hundred miles closer. Trailers for the films can be seen at Designscreen.org and more information about Modernism Week is available at modernismweek.com.
I'm a big fan of pivot doors, but for some reason it seems like it's really hard to find an affordable pre hung pivot door. At least in the US. If I lived in Australia, I could pick the one shown above for $2,200. It's made by a company called The Door Keeper, and they have all sorts of options in standard and pivot doors. Something tells me the shipping wouldn't be cheap.
Anyone know where to buy a prehung pivot door stateside?
I think I just found heaven, and it turns out it's in Phuket Thailand. Designed by Hong Kong based Original Vision the home home is a combination of an amazing site and a thoughtful and thoroughly modern home. It's hard not to draw references to Falling Water when looking at the home.
Originally built in 2009 as a vacation home for a Hong Kong couple, the home is now rented out between their stays. $2,000 - $4,500 a night will get you an amazing home with 6 bedrooms (sleeps 12) and your own chef. While that price isn't cheap, for me heaven is just 11 friends and $166 a night away.
Who's in?
LOTS more photo's after the jump.
