More Maneuvering in the Quest to Protect the Alice Ball House

A settlement of a lawsuit between the owner of the Alice Ball House, which Philip Johnson designed, and the Town of New Canaan has been scuttled by neighbors of the Alice Ball House who don’t want to see the part of the property near them developed.

(I’m paraphrasing much of this from a very hard-to-understand story in the New Canaan Advertiser, here.)

The decision by the neighbors – William and Linda Powell – means that Cristina Ross, the owner of the Alice Ball house, will reapply to do exactly what the Powells don’t want: namely, to build a house behind the Alice Ball house and convert the Alice Ball House into its pool house.

Presumably if Ross applies to the Town, and specifically to the Town’s environmental commission, to build what they agreed to in the court settlement that the Powells’ scuttled, the Town will approve Ross’s application.

Now bear with me here. This is fairly convoluted but I’ll try to get the background right: Ross applied to build a house on her property behind the Alice Ball House. The environmental commission said no, so Ross filed a lawsuit appealing the decision. The Powells live behind the Alice Ball House and as adjoining neighbors, they had the right to join the lawsuit on the side of the town.

Ross and the Town subsequently agreed to settle the suit. But it takes three to tango, and without the Powells’ signature, the court was not able to approve the settlement.

So essentially the Powells are forcing her to go through the process again. Presumably they are hoping that Ross, knowing that the Powells will appeal if the Town approves the application, won’t want to spend the money or the time defending the appeal.

Or perhaps they’re hoping that if they continue to stretch out the process, a buyer will come along who wants to preserve the Alice Ball House but not build near the Powells.

Ross probably would prefer that too, but thus far there are no buyers. In the meantime, her permit to demolish the house is still valid, I think. I'm told, by the way, that the Alice Ball House has been rented for the next three months, so it won't be coming down any time soon, if indeed that's still a real threat.

There's plenty of background on this issue here. -- ta

0357T - Timber Case House, Construction Prints Done!

This plan set has been kicking around on the back-burner for a few years now. I had created the Design Prints and started on the Construction Prints, but set it aside to develop other designs. Its nice to have four variations on the Steel Case House, but getting other designs published took priority. But I'm in spring cleaning mode now and it was time to finish this and get it online.



The Timber Case House differs from the rest of the Steel Case line in that it substitutes an engineered timber frame for the steel frame that gives the line its name. The SIPs entry wall and roof increase the performance of the building envelope making up for the vast glazed area on the back side of the house. If you have not studied this design in while now is a good time to take a second look.

0357T Timber Case House

A few more plans sets to go and the initial collection will be complete.

Technorati Tags: house plans, modern design, modern house, Steel Case House

Letters from Sweden - plumbing the prefab

In our last "Swedish Prefab" installment we looked at the innovations in electrical wiring and compared the round Swedish outlet boxes and plastic flexible conduit with loose conductors to the American system of square boxes and shielded wire cables (Romex). These Swedish products are not in the US ... yet.

Plumbing is another area where there is noteworthy innovation in Sweden. However this innovation has made it the USA and is something that is rather common: Cross Linked Poly Ethylene or "PEX" tubing.



click the link below to continue reading

A brief history: German chemist, Thomas Engel, invented the process for making this tubing in 1968, which he licenced to the Wirsbo Co. in Sweden. Wirsbo introduced PEX floor heating in Europe in 1972, and for potable water supply in 1973. The US market didn't see PEX until Wirsbo set up an office in Minnesota in '85 to market their technology. In Sweden today PEX is used in almost every job – and radiant floor heat is installed in 50% of the houses. While becoming more popular radiant head is not nearly as common in the US. Wirsbo is now part of the Upnor company, and numerous other manufacturers make and market PEX tubing systems. More info can be found:

http://www.uponor.com/about/about_6_1.html

http://www.theplumber.com/plumbinginventions.html

http://www.ppfahome.org/pex/faqpex.html


While numerous qualities account for PEX market share growth in the US and elsewere, our concern is how this new kind of plumbing facilitates off site construction.

One way to look at this is to consider how traditional systems make off site construction more difficult. Rigid pipes, such as soldered copper tube, must be cut to very exact lengths and turns made with soldered elbows that can be unforgiving during handling. If a pipe was hit during handling joints hidden behind finishes could easily be damaged. Field joints in the pipes would either have to be stubbed out of panels and fed through adjacent work without damaging them, or left cut off within the wall panel, and that wall panel left unfinished in order to make the plumbing connections. All of which makes the process more difficult.

With PEX, the flexible plastic piping can simply be left in a small coil where it exits the panel and easily passed through a hole in adjacent work to be connected later. It is a very rugged mateial, and it flexibility contributes to it ease of installation and durability during handling. Because of this it is possible to plumb and ship the walls with the plumbing in place, and to easily connect the the piping after the panels or modules are installed.



Although the US didn't see this technology until 15 years after it was invented, almost every plumber is familiar with the system, as are inspectors – and the uphill battle of changing standard practices in construction was undertaken by Wirsbo who saw the reward of gaining sales in the US market. The nature of product vs. system type of technology is interesting to note here - since pex tubing can and is often connected to standard copper fittings for the final connections in US plumbing fixtures.

The Swedes also have a distinct approach to plumbing fixtures. This might not at first seem like an area that has anything to do with prefab construction, but in reality, the rationalization of the pipes and fixtures all fit within the "off site" and "low labor" model of Swedish building systems.

In Sweden plumbing fixtures are treated more like appliances than built in work. For instance bathroom sinks are commonly surface mounted, with the supply and drain pipes serving them all exposed underneath. Bathtubs typically don't have the filler spout and valves mounted to them - they are on an adjacent wall. The tub usually is not connected to a drain pipe either - rather the tubs which are often on legs like an old fashioned claw foot tub simply dump out the bottom to a floor drain located under the tub. They have no hard connection to the house plumbing at all. Home owners shop new tubs te same way we might bring a frig or microwave into our new house.



So a bathroom in a Swedish prefab when its delivered is typically an empty room with the various plumbing connections ready to receive fixtures. This greatly reduces the complexity of the finished product. No cabinets to install, no tubs to set, no tile to fit over the plumbing fixtures, no shower pans with numerous angles and intersections. There are none of the fussy rough framing issues, built ins, and other work that usually make bathrooms the most expensive part of completing a house. There is nothing in this method that would prevent a bathroom from being finished out in a way that was more familiar to Americans. But what is key is that in Sweden it is customary for the builder to prepare the house to receive the bathroom fixtures which the homeowner can select in a "plug and play" fashion from the range of possible products.



When you look at the foundations for a Swedish house you see a slab with pipes located at the planned locations ready to connect using the flexible Swedish system – indeed the plumbing has been rationalized for prefabrication. As with the windows, wiring, and other systems we've looked at, everything is designed to work in concert with the prefab process.

With our slab ready to receive the walls, the next step is to deliver the house and connect all the parts on site.

Thanks to Scott for photos, links, and cross editing with me.
Previously:
Letters from Sweden - wiring zen
Letters from Sweden - a windows tale
Letters from Sweden - panel building in Sweden vs the USA
Letters from Sweden - Europe is different, Sweden is not, sort of..
Letters from Sweden - land of modern, land of prefab
Letters from Sweden - conversations with an expatriate builder

Technorati Tags: modern design, modern house, prefab house

I can't stop thinking about this house

Eggleston Farkas Architects in Seattle designed the Methow Cabin which I first saw on wonderful below the clouds. I just can't get it out of my head! – GF

Colorado Plat House - house complete

We have not seen any photos of the Colorado Plat House since last August, so you can imagine my surprise to see a bunch of photos of the finished house in my inbox this week. I was blown away - what an amazing setting! There may be a few loose ends that we can't see, and there are no furnishing yet, but all the same its an amazing sight. Have a look below.



continue for more photos by clicking the link below.

In the photo below, which appears to be shot from a plane or helicopter, you can see the wrap around porch roof which is a unique feature of this build.



The owners have really had some fun finishing the interior - its like no other Plat House we've seen before. There is a corrugated metal ceiling and what appears to be cork floors. Look through the photo browser below to see some interior photos.

Technorati Tags: house plans, modern design, modern house, Plat House

The Cape Cod Modern House Trust

The town of Wellfleet, MA, voted to give $100,000 toward restoration of a Modern house, one of 17 that The National Park Service owns there but doesn't have the money for their upkeep.

The Cape Cod Modern House Trust, which promotes the documentation and preservation of significant examples of Modernist architecture on the Outer Cape, wants to use the money to restore what is known as the Kuegel/Gips house with the hope of eventually preserving more.

The Kugel/Gipps house was designed by Charlie Zehnder who built over forty highly original houses, all on the Outer Cape. He also was one of the prime movers behind building the local drive-in movie theater on what was once an asparagus field . . .

The web site’s overview explains how this concentration of little Moderns came to be: In the late 1930s, on the isolated ‘back shore’ of Wellfleet, a group of self-taught architecture enthusiasts began building experimental structures based on the early Modern buildings they had seen in Europe. Through mutual friends they invited some of the founders of European Modernism to buy land, build summer homes and settle . . . In the three decades that followed, these architects built homes for themselves, their friends and the community of internationally influential artists, writers, and thinkers that took root nearby. Though humble in budget, materials and environmental impact, the Outer Cape’s Modern houses manage to be manifestos of their designers' philosophy and way of living, close to nature, immersed in art and seeking community.

I liked reading the bios of the architects who built on the Cape, and the section called “others” which has stuff like, “Serge Chermayeff and Aero [Saarinen . . . you knew that] were sometimes seen rowing a small boat around Slough Pond with a rock and string, making a chart of the bottom and arguing about architecture.”

In addition to the predictable but necessary plea for monetary donations, the CCMHT is also seeking drawings, photographs and narratives – even in the form of loans – pertaining to these buildings to digitize and archive for future scholarship and publication. Donations of art and furnishings connected to mid 20th century modernism on the Outer Cape, however modest, are also being sought to recreate environments in the renovated houses.

We'll try to keep up on this as it would be a nice summer excursion: the CCMHT, in collaboration with Truro Center for the Arts at Castle Hill, will be hosting a Modern House Tour in August 2008. – GF

photos from the top: Jack Phillip's Bug House - Photo courtesy of Florence Phillips; Charles Zehnder's Kugel/Gipps House, photo by Mark Walker; Breuer's Wise House - Avery Architectural and Fine Arts Library, Columbia University, NY, NY, photo by Joseph W. Molitor

A Modern Story from Dallas

There's a terrific story in the Dallas Morning News about a modern architect named Harold Prinz and his wife, Jeannette, and the future of the house the built in 1950, now that he's dead and she's 86. I like it because it's really a sweet love story about a couple who worked together on every aspect of their living situation, even though he was an architect and she wasn't. They shared the same modernist sensibility and persisted until they got the house they wanted.

In a way it reminds me of my in-laws, who were exact contemporaries of the Prinzes, similarly steeped in modernism and collaborated on their house here in Pound Ridge, even though neither were architects. Here's what the reporter says about the future of the Prinz house:

In an age of bulldozers and zero-lot-line McMansions, what will happen to this one-of-a-kind home?

"Regardless of its pedigree, the Prinz residence could turn into a teardown scenario," warns Peabody. "The very fact this is a midcentury home, of smaller proportions than most, makes it more of a target for an insensitive renovation or demolition."

One of Prinz's contemporaries shares Peabody's concern.

"O'Neil Ford once told me there will come a day when you outlive some of your buildings. He was absolutely right," says semi-retired architect Ralph Kelman, now in his 70s, and best known for his design of the Hilton Inn (now Hotel Palomar) and Willow Creek shopping center.

"Things are more flamboyant now," says Kelman. "I think midcentury design was, comparatively, more honest."

It's an ideal description for the Prinz home, and a quality Jeanette hopes someone else will appreciate about her husband's design.

"It's time to let this place go and let someone else love it," Jeanette says. "I just hope they don't paint over my redwood walls."

One interesting aspect of the tale is that the Prinzes wanted financing from the Federal Housing Authority, but the FHA wasn't interested in anything but a conventional house. The reporter writes:

The FHA had four chief complaints against Prinz's design for his Oak Lawn Heights residence:

1. The lack of windows on the west-facing front of the house

2. The large expanses of uninsulated plate glass

3. The nonconventional heating system

4. The unlevel lot

Ironically, all of the elements the agency cited as not fitting in with the era's design standards were the very components Prinz used to make the house literally fit in to its site and region.

The west-facing front – red brick wall, solid and demure – was designed without windows to avoid interior heating from the afternoon sun.

Conversely, large expanses of glass on the home's south and east walls beckon in the rays, open views to the side garden and lush ravine out back, and help warm the home with sunlight in winter.

The dramatic windows in the living room stretch to the ceiling rafters and follow the peak of the high-pitched roof. Plate glass works fine here, thanks to strategic overhangs, which help to moderate the elements. ...

I also commend the Dallas Morning News for its use of photos (I'm sure my commendation will make their day). I've complained a lot about how lame newspapers can be: over and over they write about modern architecture and include no picture. The Dallas Morning News created a slide show of a dozen black and white photos from the 1950s, here (photo 6 caught my eye because of the Jens Risom chairs).

The story also includes a link to PreservationDallas.org. One of our loyal readers is in the Dallas area. Maybe he can do a drive-by of the Prinz house and tell us what it looks like in 2008. -- ta