In Pursuit of the Perfect Little House

I’m always looking for contemporary plans with a sense of history; that is, deft designs for modern living that also have warmth and character. Well, Eureka!  I’m very excited about the regionally-inspired designs by Peter Brachvogel and Stella Carosso for their Perfect Little House Company. These plans are the newest additions to our Exclusive Studio Collection. For example, Plan 479-6,  the Tower Studio,

is actually a 262 square -foot  “micro cottage” with a small kitchen/living/sleeping area and bathroom

over a compact one car garage. I think it’s an ideal home office/retreat. With its simple square shape, tapering shingled walls, pyramid roof, and band of windows at the top it recalls early 20th century forest fire lookouts across the rural West, from Tumac Mountain Lookout

near Washington’s Mt. Ranier (Bob Baldwin photo, above) to

California’s  Gardner Lookout on Mt. Tamalpais (courtesy California State Parks). What could be more fitting for a writer’s retreat than a lookout, anyway –  isn’t that right, Virginia Woolf?  I’ll take it!

Classic early 20th century cottages,  bungalows, and farmhouses — which were themselves usually built from stock plans — are important reference points for Peter and Stella. Their 780 square-foot Willow, Plan 479-9,

wraps a generous porch around a compact 1 bedroom 1.5 bath layout to make the house feel larger than it is. A starter home with architectural character — suitable for an infill lot in an older neighborhood or as a mountain or lakeside cabin — this plan

could easily be expanded at the stairway as the family grows and budgets allow. Upstairs,  windows on all four sides

flood the bedroom and bathroom with daylight. Now compare this modern design to the 1908 Wietzel House from Tukwila, WA, shown below,

(photo courtesy Nickel Bros. House Moving). The old bracketed eaves, L-shaped porch, and big gable (not necessarily the weedy front yard) are signature features of many old cottages and farmhouses.  Add a contemporary looking standing seam metal roof and crisp shingled corners and some color — not to mention a new open floor plan — and there you are: another Perfect Little House.  Or compare the Weitzel house to The Cove, Plan 479-2 –  shown below.

It’s even closer in appearance — as if the older house has simply been remodeled. In the  new plan

the garage is on an alley at the rear.

On a somewhat larger scale, the Perfect Little House Company’s 1,914 square-foot, 3 bedroom 2.5 bath Kingfisher, Plan 479-4

offers larger gathering spaces and cozy nooks for reading and relaxing,

and on the second floor each bedroom is designed as a large window bay

for views across the treetops. Note the free-flowing circulation pattern — you can walk through the bathroom to the closet and back through the master bedroom — which adds a sense of spaciousness.

The trellis, shed dormers, and simple gable (shown above in the rear elevation of Plan 474-4) echo features of early Craftsman style houses, like this example

in Gustav Stickley’s Craftsman magazine (courtesy Arts and Crafts Homes magazine).

Peter and Stella earned their architecture degrees from the University of Michigan and recently founded the Perfect Little House Company as an offshoot of their firm, BC & J Architects. Peter has extensive town planning experience with emphasis on project management and building technology, and teaches architecture at the University of Washington. Their Cottages on the Green at Roche Harbor,

shown here, create a strong sense of place: it’s a new community that feels as though it has always been there. Welcome to our neighborhood, Peter and Stella!

Contemporary Dinner Lighting

Because darkness is falling earlier these days, let’s talk about certain slants of lighting (with apologies to Emily Dickinson). I’m thinking of ways to brighten the dining area in time for the family gatherings that are just around the corner. The variety in contemporary pendant lamps, for example, is vast. Here’s a sampling. The 7- by 11-inch “Aura”

by Resolute from Surrounding Lighting, with its amber-hued whirl shape made from printed polycarbonate plastic, takes a compact fluorescent bulb and would suit a dining alcove. The “Moare”

mesh-covered drum-within-a-drum design from ylighting comes in small, medium, and large sizes (up to 24.8 inch-diameter by 24 inch-high).  It uses an incandescent bulb. The free form WillyDilly

pendant by Ingo Maurer from Stardust Lighting uses stiffened card and plastic, takes a halogen bulb, and is put together by the purchaser. These more dramatic pendants would suit larger spaces.

A more eclectic though still contemporary approach would be to mix a traditional fixture with modern furnishings, as illustrated here

by two “Jamison” chandeliers from Rejuvenation. Some classic reproductions of early chandeliers, like this one from

Conant Metal & Light, are contemporary in their simplicity. A friend has an antique candle chandelier on a rope and pulley so that it can be lowered and lit and then raised to the appropriate height — this might be the perfect solution for adding romance and a sense of history to your evening meal. Another friend scoured junk stores for old electric chandeliers, rewired several,  and strung them up on pulleys in the trees around the house for his daughter’s wedding reception. Now that was a magical evening!

As you browse pendant possibilities think about the kind of light you want and balance that with projected energy use: fixtures designed for compact fluorescent bulbs remain an important eco-friendly alternative to typical incandescent lights, though even more efficient LED (light emitting diode) fixtures are developing fast.

If  you want your light to be on the table itself — with old fashioned candle power — check out these intensely colorful glass votives

from GlassyBaby. They come in a great many nature-based hues. A recent GlassyBaby blog post

even matches a range of votives to a collection of fall leaves.

Candle holders are another way to go. The classic shoemaker’s candle stand

from Shaker Workshops, is ingeniously adjustable (up and down) thanks to the screw pole at the center. The  spare functional design gives it a contemporary look. Or consider a modern candelabra

such as this solid chrome example by Design Mango from Dutch by Design. I like the contrast between the minimalist base and the slightly wavery candles…it’s ultra-sleek and Shaker-simple at the same time.

So now that you have the lighting, what about the room? An open layout means the dining table is all the more important as a place to dine, work, play games, and relax. Thus flexible lighting — often complementing fixed downlights in the ceiling — is important. In this compact row house, Plan 469-2

the table is under the stair, which creates a feeling of intimacy so a small adjustable pendant would work well. For a more open area, either directly in front of the kitchen island, as in Plan436-1

or off to one side in a corner of the great room, as in  Plan 466-3, below

a more expansive and dramatic sculptural fixture would create a focal point to define the dining area within the larger space. For more dining area ideas browse our Thanksgiving Kitchens Collection.

As you explore Houseplans.com, think about how your ideal dining area will function at different times of day and try to imagine it in daylight and illumined at night. With the right lighting you should be able to create a variety of moods to match different occasions.

Hitting Home

The approaching World Series makes me think about connections between baseball and contemporary home design. Themed decor is an obvious overlap and a brief web search produces a wide array of examples. This novel wall clock by Pachi Paradice from Squidoo

uses baseballs for numbers, suggesting new ways of telling time, like “quarter-after first base” (4:15) or “half-past home” (6:30). I think the  hands should be centered on the pitcher’s mound, however, not second base, because time and the game really begin with every pitch. Baseball wall murals

like this 9- by 15-foot example from Classic Wallcoverings, Inc., might suit a media or family room. (Bring out the garlic fries!) Or what about a baseball bat lamp

made out of a recycled metal slugger from Rerun Productions. It’s an odd idea but the tapered shape seems to work rather well. And naturally every front doormat

is really home base. The one shown above is from Uncommon Goods.

Interestingly, the baseball diamond makes a useful house plan diagram. For example, if I rotate Plan 48-415 slightly,

home base becomes the front entry; first base: bedroom 2; second: the master suite; and third: the kitchen. The dining area makes a good shortstop — for a short stack? — and the great room is a natural infield. Of course the back yard becomes the outfield and maybe the garage is the dugout. (You can’t do this with football.) The point is that a simple way of organizing a home is to think of it as a malleable baseball diamond. The tricky part is adjusting the space between the major rooms, er bases. You can borrow space but there’s no stealing.

Teamwork

Baseball has other connections to home design. My wife and I were in Buenos Aires earlier this year, visiting our daughter on her semester abroad. She had a room in the elegant early 20th century house of a remarkable woman named Diana who had raised three children there after her husband suddenly died. A plant-filled front hall, high ceilings — some a little crumbly and patched but full of character and style — welcoming dining and living rooms, and a roof deck were key features. Diana spoke very movingly of the house as “my partner in raising the children.” The roof deck was especially important as a protected place for them to play in that particularly dense section of the city. In other words, like a dependable catcher, a good house is a team player, working with you as life throws new challenges, allowing you to live not just more comfortably, but more fully.

Outfields of Dreams

The roof deck-as-team-player is worth considering for houses on tight lots with little yard space. The deck can be at the top of the house

as in Gregory La Vardera’s Cube House, Plan 431-8, or to one side

shown here over the carport in Plan 472-7, or

above a detached garage as Plan 64-195 shows. In all of these cases you just have to be sure your decking is over a gently sloped, well drained, and permanently sealed (often with an elastomeric membrane) roof.

Another way to to make sure your chosen plan is a team player is to customize it by building in a little flexibility; for example, by making sure there’s a ground floor bedroom and bath for when stairs become a problem. A good house plan can accommodate the seventh inning stretch.

Drawing from Disney

Walt Disney was fascinated with the shaping of space both visually and physically, from the way he transformed the animated film to his invention of the modern theme park. I think architecture was always an important theme for him, like the shiny-bright suburb in the Goofy cartoon Motor Mania of 1950 or the suave contemporary ranch house in the original Parent Trap of 1961. I vividly remember touring Monsanto’s  House of the Future at Disneyland

(image fromYesterland.com) with its curvilinear white plastic pods

cantilevered over a central support and utility podium (Yesterland.com). Though designed not by Disney but by two MIT professors — who must have been channeling Buckminster Fuller

and his similarly central-masted Minimum Dymaxion house of 1929 — Walt had the sense to give the plastic Monsanto house a ten-year lease in Tomorrowland. The swoopy modern  furniture from fifty years ago

still looks contemporary today (Yesterland.com photo)

I was reminded of these images and Disney’s huge influence on design and our appreciation of it when I toured the superb new Walt Disney Family Museum in San Francisco’s Presidio, which opened last week. Two hours flew by. I felt I had stumbled into an animated autobiography, or rather, a compelling four-dimensional biopic.

San Francisco’s Page & Turnbull Architects have deftly inserted the state-of-the-art museum

into an historic 19th century brick row (photo by Cesar Rubio) along the Presidio’s parade ground — which is itself like a distant extension of Disneyland’s own Main Street. From the front there’s no hint of the wonderland within. And at the rear only an elegant glass skin

drawn across an addition (photo by Bruce Damonte) suggests a house of marvels. You experience the museum as a journey through Walt’s life with text blocks, still images, film clips, memorabilia, and narrations by Walt and others every few feet along a carefully choreographed and roughly chronological path. It’s a soft cacophony of sounds and images,  a “dark ride” that you walk, and even then it’s impossible to absorb everything.

Highlights for me are the multi-story “multiplane camera” that allowed Disney  filmmakers to create a realistic sense of depth within animations, the clever elevator that’s designed as a train car (the vertical naturally becomes the horizontal in this Looking Glass world), and the sleek modern terrazzo-and-glass mini-Guggenheim ramp

(image courtesy Walt Disney Family Museum) spiraling around a huge and meticulously detailed scale model of Disneyland.

In one sense it’s all a bit deifying, as if Walt were a latter day King Tut, but — as they say in Egypt — what a cool tomb! And here the hieroglyphics even dance to Silly Symphonies.

Beyond the Casino

I was also in Las Vegas last week, for a talk about Cliff May’s ranch houses at the World Market Center, which is another sort of  “ride.”

Well off the Strip on the north end of town across from City Hall (you can see the Stratosphere Casino tower in the background), this enormous furnishings marketplace is a contemporary landmark in its own right. The complex consists of a series of interpenetrating cubes and polygons that wrap around a 15 story tall central court that’s open to the sky,

like a box canyon from Red Rocks Park  reassembled as a building. It feels like the entrance to Oz. One of the great things about this design center is that it’s open to the general public, not just to professional designers. The Center’s Design Salon

offers consumers the ability to purchase designer furnishings previously offered only to the trade. Complimentary one-hour consultations with interior designers accredited by the American Society of Interior Designers are also offered. It’s a good place to get ideas for shaping or reshaping your home.

A short ride away is the new 180 acre Springs Preserve, Las Vegas’ answer to Tucson’s Living Desert Museum, and built on the site of the original springs for which the city is named (vega means spring in Spanish).

Here’s one of  the rotundas, recalling a sculptural sundial or open cistern. Part of the vast indoor-outdoor complex comprises a  sustainability hall where one gallery has  been turned into a model home — which puts a novel recycling spin on that overworked trademark phrase “what’s done in Vegas stays in Vegas.” One of the most effective exhibits here

simply shows how much water is used in a typical five-minute shower with and without a low flow showerhead. (Nothing about sand baths, however…) Elsewhere in the museum you can experience a simulated desert flash flood (perhaps the other side of sustainability?) which in this case is fun: inside one of the buildings you stand on a metal bridge across a boulder-strewn arroyo and suddenly the water surges around and under you.

So what does it signify, when Disney comes to San Francisco and resource conservation arrives in Las Vegas? That may sound like the resolution of some distant prophecy but I think it means that things are looking up.

In other news, check out Writer Tracey Taylor’s  fine article about about us and affordable home design in the Financial Times! Her website tktaylor.com includes a wide range of stories about design and is a must read.

Lights, Camera, Buildings!

You can learn a lot about how great architects shape space from the range of design documentaries now available.  For example, Checkerboard Films has just released Ray Kappe, California Modern Master: 40 Years of Modular Evolution, which explores the career of one of America’s most innovative and influential architects.

From the cover alone you get the sense that this designer is interested not just in thinking but leaping outside the box. See how roof planes, floor planes, and wall planes extend outward and upward as if reaching to infinity.  Stretching the mind is definitely part of Kappe’s approach — he was the founder of SCI-ARC (the Southern California Institute of Architecture), which has taught generations of talented architects  –  many of whom I covered for Sunset. Ray went to U. C. Berkeley and worked briefly for the Bay Area firm of Anshen & Allen, designers of many mid-century modern houses for developer Joe Eichler, before settling in Los Angeles.

The film explores in depth (or height!) the house he designed for his wife Shelly and their family in 1967: a series of seven interpenetrating trays suspended over a steep upslope. It’s wonderful to experience the house cinematically because, to my mind anyway, that’s how it was designed: as a kind of three dimensional film strip.

The warm wood-and-glass framed levels are supported on four 8- by 12-foot concrete, skylit towers that form the bathrooms and the kitchen. Cantilevers allowed him to get an expansive, multi-layered house on a very tight site. In the film Ray mentions his interest in the work of Paul Rudolph — whose Art & Architecture Building at Yale is a sculptural extravaganza of interpenetrating layers — and you can see Rudolph’s almost Baroque spatial sensibility resonating throughout Kappe’s design.

When Ray and Shelly kindly gave me a tour some years ago I marveled at how everything overlapped. Here’s an image of the living room,

(both photos courtesy of Kappe+ DU Architects) showing how the space overlooks a study and is in turn overlooked by the bedroom level. I asked Shelly how they brought up children in such an open interior where railings are either glass or just not there, and she said: “Oh they simply learned where the edges were.” There are no handrails in the stairway either, which, as Ray explains in the film, is a way to make people more aware of what they’re seeing. I might call it the power of the double take…or just plain fear of flying. Also the Kappe children always helped hand the groceries up. Living in the house must have had an effect: their son Ron Kappe is a distinguished architect in his own right.

Ray Kappe’s recent modular, LEED platinum-rated “Living Home” for prefab entrepreneur Steve Glenn is also shown in the film. The Checkerboard series includes documentaries on Yoshio Taniguchi (designer of New York’s Museum of Modern Art),  Philip Johnson, Sir John Soane and others.

Other design films for your Netflicks cue should include the following two. Infinite Space: The Architecture of John Lautner,

presents the work of another towering LA innovator. Lautner used concrete and glass in radically sculptural ways and his houses — no two alike — often became stage sets for Holywood movies, especially James Bond films. I met Lautner long ago when I was writing about one of his houses and he told me: “When you design a house you’ve not only got to design the house, you’ve got to design the site, and you’ve got to design the client.” Now that’s a custom house!

The other must-see is My Architect: A Son’s Journey,

the extremely moving exploration of Louis Kahn’s career and life by his son Nathaniel Kahn.  The Salk Institute in La Jolla, California is perhaps his most famous building, but he also worked outside the US. I saw this film with my recent college graduate daughter. At the end, when a man tells Nathaniel that Kahn’s Parliament Building in Dhaka, Bangladesh “gave us democracy,”  I couldn’t help dissolving into tears. My daughter recoiled at my emotional response: “Get a grip, Dad!” Well, what can I say? Good design can be affecting on the big screen.