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SHELTER SCIENCE a primer on residential architecture: 04/18

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A primer on residential architecture. The lessons of 30 years of thoughtful practice. Originally prepared for the Whole Building Design Guide. Often, in the art of building, aesthetics is understood as a debate about styles. This is an unfortunately narrow, and nowadays, irrelevant reduction. It is the result of history. It’s hard to take all of this very seriously. Needless to say, aesthetics is a field full of great dispute. Despite endless attempts over thousands of years, we have not yet been abl...

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SHELTER SCIENCE a primer on residential architecture: 11/12

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A primer on residential architecture. The lessons of 30 years of thoughtful practice. You can break the rules but you must know you are doing so and why. Entries should present a memorable aspect of the house. Guests are ready to learn something about the residence and its occupants when they enter. You must take advantage of this opportunity. Reward them with some exceptional architecture – a special space or detail or view. Front doors are often disastrous! An overdesigned (whether well designed or not...

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SHELTER SCIENCE a primer on residential architecture: 01/10

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A primer on residential architecture. The lessons of 30 years of thoughtful practice. How To Build a Better City - notes for OLE Jan 15, 2010. How to build a better city. Write the books and the email addresses and the blog address on the board. 3:20 take it over from Ed. The following and last week of this course will be devoted to the special opportunities and limitations of building a sustainable city in the relatively far north. I hope you will not be offended if I cut you off if I think you are taki...

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SHELTER SCIENCE a primer on residential architecture: 01/31

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A primer on residential architecture. The lessons of 30 years of thoughtful practice. Originally an email to James Bowen on November 13 2009. What does fit mean with respect to an architectural project? In a general way, it describes the extent to which we make the project "what it wants to be." To me, at least, this “what it wants to be” is a surprising confluence of the mantras of Ian McHarg and Louis Kahn. Polyvalent design moves are often the very best way for us as architects to add value that our c...

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SHELTER SCIENCE a primer on residential architecture: NOTHING NEW UNDER THE SUN

http://housescience.blogspot.com/2006/11/nothing-new-under-sun.html

A primer on residential architecture. The lessons of 30 years of thoughtful practice. NOTHING NEW UNDER THE SUN. Michael Graves in Louisville (The Humana Building, 1982) on the left, Josip Plecnik (The Church of the Sacred Heart, 1932) in Prague above. Photo on left courtesy Humana Inc. Photo above courtesy John Morris Dixon FAIA. Mike Mense Anchorage AK USA. Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom). NOTHING NEW UNDER THE SUN. Rewriting Nature", Adam Gopnik, The New Yorker October 23 2006.

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SHELTER SCIENCE a primer on residential architecture: No Bridge to Nowhere

http://housescience.blogspot.com/2007/06/no-bridge-to-nowhere.html

A primer on residential architecture. The lessons of 30 years of thoughtful practice. No Bridge to Nowhere. Originally Published in the Anchorage Daily News January 10 2007. Don’t Stay This Course! Governor-Elect Palin has an opportunity to do great things for Alaska and her own political future – in one simple move. She should give back the Bridges to Nowhere monies. Although the public relations impacts are reason enough for this gesture, there are many other potential benefits. It’s a win-win-wi...

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SHELTER SCIENCE a primer on residential architecture: Aesthetics

http://housescience.blogspot.com/2010/04/aesthetics.html

A primer on residential architecture. The lessons of 30 years of thoughtful practice. Originally prepared for the Whole Building Design Guide. Often, in the art of building, aesthetics is understood as a debate about styles. This is an unfortunately narrow, and nowadays, irrelevant reduction. It is the result of history. It’s hard to take all of this very seriously. Needless to say, aesthetics is a field full of great dispute. Despite endless attempts over thousands of years, we have not yet been abl...

housescience.blogspot.com

SHELTER SCIENCE a primer on residential architecture

http://housescience.blogspot.com/2009/05/recent-article-about-anchorage.html

A primer on residential architecture. The lessons of 30 years of thoughtful practice. The recent article about the Anchorage Industrial Land Assessment (AILA) misrepresents the report and the availability of industrial land in Anchorage. This was one of the weakest attempts yet to revive the thankfully expiring Knik Arm Crossing project. AILA manages to suggest the possibility of a shortage by claiming the difficulty of developing 201 of these acres because they are in Eklutna, Chugiak and Eagle River an...

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SHELTER SCIENCE a primer on residential architecture: 05/17

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A primer on residential architecture. The lessons of 30 years of thoughtful practice. My Dinner with Lutherans. Thoughts on Place Making after a visit to Minneapolis. A version of this was originally published in Places Magazine in the fall of 2007. Does it start with us or our clients? The metal skin at the Walker, in the end, is not transparent at all. Though it presents some arresting visual reflections of the sky and the sun, it also provides a home for birds and insects and seems vulnerable to d...