An old friend of mine sent me this link for a story that our local TV station recently did. It features a passive house designed by local architect and Assistant Professor at the University of Utah Jorg Rugemer.  I think it's important for a couple reason. First it's great to see modern architecture featured in local mainstream media. Second it shows the growing movement for passive house designed homes in Utah. Lastly, it's amazing to see that you can get good design and energy efficiency all for only slightly more than current construction costs. What's not to like?

I have had the pleasure of being on the Salt Lake Modern committee for a couple of years now. As a part of Utah Heritage Foundation, Salt Lake Modern is dedicated to preserving and promoting the region's mid-century modern architecture and design. I'm excited to announce that we now have our own official website, full of great information about local MCM architects and buildings. Make sure you check it out, join as a member, and register for our upcoming modern homes tour. We have some amazing homes lined up.

SLModern.org

I always love Pecha Kucha, and I have a good feeling that this Fridays is going to be one of the best yet in SLC. Some of my favorite people will be speaking and it's at a great venue. If you have never been to a Pecha Kucha night before, it's time to repent and go. If you've been, you know how much fun they are. My only regret is that I'm going to miss this one due to my trip. I expect all of you to fill in for me.

Pecha Kucha SLC

Pecha Kucha SLC on Facebook

Tickets available from the State Room.

While many people think of the iconic egg chair or swan chair when they think of Arne Jacobsen, he also enjoyed a successful career as an architect. One of his earlier commissions was the Århus City Hall in Denmark. Even if you haven't heard of the building there is a good chance you would recognize a picture of the amazing staircase.

One of the little known details of the building has recently been resurrected. Arne created all the typography for the interior signage in the building, and you can now have a little piece of it in your home. These Alfabet Cups can be ordered with the Arne Jacobsen designed letter of your choice.

Alfabet Cup EUR 14

As a bit of a fan of architecture I already feel like I am constantly annoying my friends with useless facts about "famous" architects that lived in the golden age of modernism. You can imagine how excited I am to now be able to annoy them and assert myself as the ultimate geek by playing The Modern Architecture Game. Bwaahaaahaaa. Game night anyone?

Video at the end.

The Modern Architecture Game

I love a good t-shirt, especially when it's about modern design. This one from True Modern hits the nail on the head.

Thanks Edgar for the heads up.

Modernism For Life T Shirt $22

Long time readers may remember how I started the blog. My wife at the time and I had just bought a 700 square foot home in Salt Lake, and we were determined to ad a 600 square foot modern addition on a shoestring budget. (If you missed the story the first time, it starts around here..) It was a lot of hard work, but it was literally one of the best experiences of my life. In fact I'm ruined now because all I want to do is design and build houses, more on that later.

Anyway, getting to the point. Just as we mostly finished up the home we sold it. The new owner did an amazing job finishing up the remaining projects and really bringing it all together. Flash forward a few years, and he is moving on and the house is back on the market. Priced at $249K it's hard to find a comparable modern home for the price anywhere in Salt Lake.

Check out the MLS listing for all the details.

I love architecture, so it almost goes without saying that I love architecture related art work. Delaflamant on Etsy does an amazing job of detailed making architectural drawings even more interesting by connecting several thousand lines together and adding a pop of color. Each print is hand silk screened on 80# French speckletone cream stock paper and measures 24 x 36.

Square by Delaflamant $60

I mentioned a while ago my recent trip to Colombus Indiana to check out the Miller House as well as all the other fantastic architecture. The weekend before I was there CBS was filming for this Sunday morning edition that featured Columbus. It does a decent job of showcasing some of the greatness of the little town. If you want the real day to day scoop however, make sure you follow my friends blogs Atomic Indy.

Anyone want to move to Columbus with me?

I mentioned earlier this week that DuPont™ Corian® sponsored a trip back to Chicago to look at some new things they are doing with DIRTT.  While I was fairly familiar with Corian, I had never heard of DIRTT before. Put basically, DIRTT is a modular wall system that can be used in interior spaces. Because it is modular, it can be reconfigured in the future if needed. The big news was that you can now get it with Corian panels.  I have a bit of a design crush on Corian lately, so for me this union translated to some really nice looking spaces.  Check out my DIRTT photoset on flickr for some eye candy.

I also had a chance to do an architectural river tour and snapped some pictures of the city. You can see those photos HERE. If the trip doesn't sound amazing enough yet, I haven't even touched on NeoCon. I'm still sorting through those photos. Icing on the cake? The crew I was hanging out with was the best, and I'd like to give a shout out to fellow bloggers from Dwell, Core77, DsgnWrld, and Talkitect. I had a fantastic time hanging out with all of you.

I ended up on a sort of last minute whirlwind trip to Chicago over the weekend too look at some new things DIRTT and Corian are doing (more on that later). I snapped the pic above while taking a quick dip at the Hotel Palomar before dinner. The Marina City buildings are some of my favorites in Chicago. I have a whole camera full of other ones I need to get to, but I'm heading  out the door right now to check out NeoCon. I'll be updating the Grassrootsmodern Facebook page all day, make sure you check it out. I'll get around to the official recap later.

Salt Lake has its fair share of hidden modern architectural gems, but perhaps one of the best is virtually unknown to locals, let alone the rest the world. The recently completed Saint Joseph The Worker Catholic Church is in my opinion, one of the best examples of modern architecture in the entire state. In fact, it's one of the better projects built anywhere in the last couple years.  The background story to the project is just as interesting to me as the building itself. The original parish was a relatively conservative group, in a conservative state. The found an unlikely partnership with Sparano + Mooney a local architectural firm known for its modern aesthetic. Sparano + Mooney was able to connect with the client by infusing the design with symbolism until the parish felt a sense of ownership and pride in the design.

From specific details like the 12 amazing color windows that infuse the chapel with light, representing the 12 apostles, to broad but perhaps more subtle things like a material pallet of board formed concrete and cedar appropriate for Saint Joseph The Worker.

My favorite space is a small intimate chapel separate from the rest of the buildings. The interior is lined with cedar and light is funneled down into the space by a skylight positioned over the altar.

LOTS more photo's after the jump.

Sparano + Mooney

View from the parking lot looking into the main courtyard. Small chapel to the left, administrative area straight ahead and the main chapel to the right.

The small chapel with the cedar interior.

Inside small chapel.

Looking towards the back.

Main Chapel.

Projected color windows.

The two large concrete panels are from the original church that was built in the 60's.

1st photo courtesy of Sparano + Mooney. Additional photo's by Grassrootsmodern. See the entire photo set in HD here.

I think I ran across the build blog a few years ago, but I forgot all about it until this weekend. I was researching some details for an upcoming project I am starting on, and Build LLC's blog was a virtual goldmine of useful information. Build LLC is a Seattle based company that has been building wonderful modern environments for decades.  My favorite thing about them is that they are more than happy to share all of their secrets, right down to the architectural details for different construction solutions. I bookmarked their baseboard detail and door jamb details to look at later.  While I don't know that they are the ultimate solution, they are a good jump off point.

Build LLC

Build Blog

On the way back from ICFF last week I had the opportunity to spend two days in the small but wonderful town of Columbus Indiana. I spent a day at a symposium about the Miller House, and the following day I had the opportunity to tour the home. Amazing would be an understatement. I don't think there is any way to truly appreciate it without being there, but you should watch the video above and check out the photos that dwell took for their article a couple months ago. While you are at it, make sure you add a visit to your bucket list.

The Miller House

IFIrst off, thanks to everyone who offered up suggestions on places to go on my way home from ICFF.  There were so many fantastic suggestions, but unfortunately too little time. I ended up spending the better part of yesterday in Mill Run, PA looking at Kentuck Knob and Falling Water. It was absolutely incredible. I'm still digging through all of my photo's, but I'll get them uploaded next week.

This morning, I'm sitting at Hotel Indigo in Columbus, IN surrounded by all sorts of great MCM furniture. This is definitely the place for design geeks to stay, and this town is a sort of architectural goldmine. I still have over 24 hours of driving ahead of me, including the push across Kansas today, but I'm going to see as much as I can before I head out.

So in the next couple of days I'll be taking a road trip back from NYC to SLC. I figure I'll drop by Falling Water on my way, but I'm looking for any other amazing must see ideas on the way. Any suggestions?

Thanks to Emmas Designblogg for these gorgeous photo's by Stockholm realtors Fantastic Frank.  Not only do they represent some truly fantastic properties, they have a knack for staging a house as well. I'll take the home in picture number one please.

Fantastic Frank

More pictures after the jump.