Forest Fire Friday

A love of buildings and making them has shaped my life and my career, but in the end they are only as good as the people who use them and love them. A place is no good if it contains no love from it's inhabitants.

The Flying W Ranch is a place from my youth. Since 1953 they've hosted chuckwagon dinners with the songs of the Flying W Wranglers. On Tuesday, the ranch burned to the ground, a casualty of the Waldo Canyon Fire.

The architecture of the ranch, well, that I can barely remember. But the essense of  the place, and the memory of what was created there, is distinct in my mind. The place was alive with good times and an authentic western atmosphere. I am very sad for this loss, though the family has promised to rebuild.

Images from Amazon.com, The Gazette Telegraph, and The Flying W Ranch Website

Facade Friday!

Rocks!

I've always loved this facade. Such a basic idea, stolen from our friends the engineers over at hill-side management, inc. who use gabions to hold back and stabilize hills.

The neighborhood I grew up in was accessed by a winding road called Crystal Hills Boulevard that was protected by a tall gabion wall - sort of like this:

Image from gabions.net

Except in our case the rocks inside the mesh were the purple/red native rock of Manitou Springs. So the first time I saw the facade of Herzog and De Meuron's Dominus Estate Winery I was immediately drawn to their use of the gabion as a facade/exterior wall. Like my old roadway they used local rocks, uniformly arranged in wire cages.

These exterior gabion walls let filtered light and air through, and they add a cooling effect to the spaces inside. Quite clever. Textural and beautiful too!

Winery mages from The Republic of Less Blog

Facade Friday!

We're back after being camping on the coast last week. And by "we" I mean me and my dog and this here blog.
In honor of my upcoming birthday, I will feature a facade by an architect (and his partner) that shares my special day with me.

Eames House. Image from archpaper.com 

The facade of the Eames house is like a Mondrian painting come to life. What I love is that the patterns and color look so painterly and have such lovely proportions, yet they are also informed by purpose. The black panel with the "x" is a structural braced frame, opaque areas and colored areas obscure views into spaces that need to be more private, or they hide where there is just wall and not space beyond.

I also really like the way the facade slips behind the preserved eucalyptus tree...

All four sides of the house have this similar theme of proportion and function.

Images from Wikimedia Commons

Happy Birthday Charles Eames!

Facade Friday