New Category: Cool Stuff

From Sonos.com:

Sonos is the first wireless, multi-room digital music system that lets you play all your favorite music all over your house—and control it all from the palm of your hand. With a wireless Sonos® Controller in hand, you can find and play millions of songs—from select online music and radio services, your personal digital music collection, or all of the above.

And, with Sonos ZonePlayers™ in the rooms of your choice, you can play the same song in different rooms, or different songs in different rooms. To start listening, just grab the full-color Controller and simply pick a room, pick a song and hit play.

Cool Stuff: Sonos

The Maine Deck Bracket

The Maine Deck Bracket provides a nice solution for hanging a wood deck. This structural T6 aluminum bracket allows for a nice strong connection with minimal penetration. An air space between the deck and the house is created, which will keep the structural wood free of insects and water.

From DeckBracket.com:

Maine Deck Brackets are rugged aluminum extrusions, specifically designed for proper attachment of stairs, decks, signs, porches, or any other appendage to buildings or other structural uses. Maine Deck Brackets  allow attachments without creating openings for water, debris, or insects to enter. Our system design is so unique, it’s protected by two patents!

For more installation photos, click here.

Thanks John.

Coffered Ceilings

Coffers are a nice way to break-up a large ceiling. This Fivecat Studio project has 10+ foot ceilings and this room is about 30′X30′. It’s a very big space. It will be used daily as a family room, but will also be a great place for entertaining friends and business associates.

In order to reduce the scale of the room and add some texture to the ceiling, we designed a coffered ceiling with stained mahogany beams and painted drywall coffer panels.

The town requires us to provide a fire sprinkler system for this project and since the beams are not structural, they make a convenient place to hide the CPVC piping. Located at beam intersections, the sprinkler heads will almost be invisible once the flush covers are installed.

Check out the craftsmanship on that mitered joint. Its nice to see a finish carpenter with passion and pride in his work.

Tip: Click the images for high-resolution.

A Message to Manufacturers

My friend Peter is a branding consultant. He’s been contracted by several large corporations (names we all know and love). He is developing a structure in which they promote their many brands to us consumers and design professionals. Occasionally, he’ll stop by the studio to pick our brains.

What makes us specify one product over another?

Well, after we contrast and compare all our options and create a shortlist of the products we like most, we look for CAD files and PDF product specs.

My message to manufacturers… make your products simple to spec. Give us CAD files. Give us cut sheets to share with our clients and give us a simple specification that we can email or print for the contractor. Don’t hide it at the back end of the site. Make it easy to find and make it easy to use.

If our short list includes two products and one gives us CAD file and the other doesn’t. Which do you think we are specifying?

Want a few examples of companies doing it right? Check out Kohler and Subzero/Wolf.

Centerbrook Architects

Ever since my days in architecture school (its been a few years now), Centerbrook has always been one of my favorite firms. They design few homes these days, but I still love what they do. Their whimsical design style and attention to detail is always inspiring.

And they were green, way before it was cool to be green.

Centerbrook uses its own office as a laboratory for sustainable design. Hydro power and solar power generate approximately 30% of its annual electrical needs, a green roof covers a portion of its office, and the building itself was recycled from a nineteenth-century mill building.

Favorite Firm: Centerbrook Architects

Castles of New Castle… and Pleasantville

Last week, Annmarie and I joined the whole Fivecat crew for the 6th Annual Castles of New Castle house tour organized by the New Castle Historic Society. It’s always a great show, but this year was even better.

In addition to several local historic homes, we enjoyed a walk through a 1960’s glass house inspired by Philip Johnson’s iconic glass house in New Canaan. White and black with glass walls from floor to ceiling, it was pure modern minimalism. Very cool.

As great as the glass house was, it did not compare to the Reisley House. Designed by Frank Lloyd Wright in in the early 1950’s, this Unsonian house was truly inspiring. Every view, every detail, every space was intentional. From the turned up roof on the carport welcoming you home, the small scale entry, the tall ceilings of the living room, the 6 foot high fireplace (with NO soot on the ceilings), to the visual and physical connection to the outdoors, it was just amazing.

How about a modern yankee gutter system hidden in the roof with no down spouts (see photo above – yes, they’re yankee gutters)? We all spent several minutes trying to figure out where Wright hid the drain pipes.

Last April, the New York Times published a great article about the Reisley House.

Look for a guided tour of Usonia in October. Mr. Reisley personally guides a tour of the famed Frank Lloyd Wright community each autumn.

***

Photo by Suzanne DeChillo/The New York Times (no photos on the tour)

The Nicest Person I Know

After 25 years of working as an elementary school library clerk for Paramus Public Schools, my mom is finally retiring. Yippee!!! I was asked to speak at her retirement party this afternoon.

Here is what I said,

My mom is the nicest person I know. And I think everyone in this room would agree that my mom is one of the nicest people they know. I don’t mean nice like, “yeah she’s a nice person”. I mean she is truly a special, caring, honest, dedicated, loving, nice person.

Throughout my entire life, people have been telling me how great my mom is. I always knew they were right, but I never knew just how great, until I looked back at my childhood through the eyes of an adult.

The way I see it, my mom’s life goal has been to give my brothers and me a strong foundation of love, and memories that we carry with us forever. She taught us to dream big and to reach beyond what is assumed to be possible.

And we have.

My younger brother Craig is a successful entrepreneur down in Charlotte, North Carolina. My older brother Scott is certainly living his dream, building NASCAR racecars not far from Craig. My wife Annmarie and I own our own residential architecture firm that is quickly growing beyond what we ever imagined it could be.

My brothers and I are each successful because my mom (and dad) taught us to follow our passions, to do what we love and above all else, to be nice people.

I think the greatest legacy one can leave is to raise children who contribute to society in a productive way, who are caring, sensitive people and who, at their core, are nice people. My mom has done that.

My brothers and I are very proud of my mom and I’m sure that my dad too is very proud. But I am most certain that my Nana who is here with us today and my Pop Pop, who I’m sure is smiling today as he looks down upon us, are very, very proud… because they raised my Mom, and she is a nice person.

I want to thank you Mom for all you have done… for all you have sacrificed, for us. I know that retirement will be more than you ever imagined. You deserve time for you. Time to stop, and rest, and enjoy your life. To do the things you have always wanted to do. To reach beyond what you assume to be impossible.

My prayer for you is that you dream big and that you enjoy every day of your life.

I am very proud of you Mom… and I love you very, very much.

It’s Official… I’m a LEED AP

After an immersive two-day training workshop and weeks of intensive studying (which explains the lack of posts), this past Monday I passed the official USGBC exam to become a LEED Accredited Professional. I’ve learned more in the last two weeks than I have in the past two years.

Although, the LEED Green Buildings Rating Systems are an energy and environmentally based program, I feel that, having gone through the training and accreditation process, LEED simply helps one be a better architect. From site selection through indoor air quality, LEED addresses each critical element of a well-designed building.

Be sure to visit Westchester Green early and often. I will be posting much more about the LEED process and how you can benefit from participating in the LEED for Homes program.

Planar House

From Steven Holl Architects:

This house is to be a part of, and vessel for, a large contemporary art collection. Great 20th century works by Bruce Nauman, Robert Ryman, Jeff Koons and Jannis Kounellis are part of the collection which includes important video artworks. Constructed of tilt-up concrete walls, the flat and rotated nature of the walls merges with the simple orthogonal requirements of the interiors for art. Shape extensions and light and air chimneys connected to cooling pools articulate the planar geometry. From a courtyard experienced at the entry of sequence, a ramp leads to a rooftop sculpture garden – a place of silence and reflection.

Living Well House of the Week: Lanar House by Steven Holl

via Modern Residential Design