Design Vault Ep. 6 Guildford Court with Peter VanderPoel

TRANSCRIPT

00;00;00;00 - 00;00;05;13

Doug Patt (DP)

Let's go inside the vault. The design vault.

 

00;00;05;15 - 00;00;30;15

Peter Vanderpoel (PV)

Even though it wasn't important at the moment, but with COVID, the idea of having a prominent place or office in the house also came to the fore during the design process, three car garage, the expectation of a pool, some sort of flattened area for a deck around that pool, and then we've got the very steep hill in the back that turned into this terrace for someone could lay out there and get sun. It's fairly private there in the center of that spot.

 

00;00;30;17 - 00;02;15;21

DP

This is my guest, Peter Vanderpoel. I'll share more about him shortly. In this episode from The Design Vault, we’ll highlight Peter's project, Guilford Court. Guilford Court is a luxury home in a suburban area of McLean, Virginia. The lot is angular and located on a cul-de-sac with narrow street frontage. It's also quite steep, rising 20 feet as it extends back from the street.

Peter uses three separate virtual axes to inform the floor plan and programmatic organization of the house. The garage, located on the south side of the property, is clad in wood, while the private portion of the house, which resembles a kind of modern Tudor facade, is enclosed in fiber cement siding. The middle semipublic spaces are enclosed in a dark brick veneer.

The landscape also reflects the same three axis grid with sculpted geometry that level out the site.

Hi, I'm Doug Pat and this is Design Vault.

Today we're talking to Peter Vanderpoel, registered architect of Vanderpoel Architecture. Peter is a practicing architect, licensed in Maryland, Washington, D.C., and Virginia. His practice focuses on residential and small commercial projects in and around Washington, D.C. He received a Bachelor of Architecture from the University of Kansas and a Master of Architecture from Virginia Tech.

He's a certified Passive House consultant and has taught architecture at the university level for over ten years. He's currently an adjunct professor at Virginia Tech's Washington Alexandria Architecture Center, located in Alexandria, Virginia. So, let's get into the details. Welcome, Peter.

 

00;02;15;26 - 00;02;16;14

PV

Thank you.

 

00;02;16;16 - 00;02;27;21

DP

Thank you very much for being here. So first, tell us a little bit about Peter Vanderpoel architecture. Where you guys located? What type of projects do you take? And what have you been working on lately?

 

00;02;27;23 - 00;02;55;18

PV

The practice is located in Arlington, Virginia. If you're from the area, it's not far from the courthouse metro. Arlington used to be part of DC before receded back to Virginia a few hundred years ago. So we're right near downtown D.C. The practice is mostly residential and some small commercial projects. I'm trying to expand some of the commercial portfolio just to have a better balance in the marketplace. But I've been practicing - I've been on my own now for about 20 years now.

 

00;02;55;20 - 00;03;02;01

DP

Wow. So, tell me a little bit about the office. So how many people do you have working with you? Is that pretty consistent?

 

00;03;02;08 - 00;03;27;04

PV

So, the studio is in the backyard of my house, but it is off grid, so I have solar panels to run it and huge battery and a room in the back. It's not a passive house quality in terms of the exterior envelope, but it sort of leans those ways in response to the site. But it's very small. It's not much bigger than a garage. And I have two employees there, one full time, one part time. We can spend most of our day in there in a pretty comfortable fashion.

 

00;03;27;06 - 00;03;34;18

DP

That's pretty cool. Let's dig into that a little bit. So when did you decide to have an office or a building on your property that was off grid?

 

00;03;34;20 - 00;04;16;26

PV

Well, we used to have a garage. It was doing self-demolition over time. It used to be – it was not a Sears and Roebuck house, but it was a kit house from the 1980s. Yeah. And I forget the name of the company that made it. And it was one story. So, when my wife originally bought the house and then when our first child came, we decided to add the second floor.

And then I was working in the basement for a long time. But as the practice progressed, decided that I needed extra space. So, we finished off the demolition where the garage was essentially put it in the same location. But it's a story and a half. There's one floor and then there's a mezzanine above. Both my wife and I paint and so we have a couple easels up there on that second level. But the lower floor is all architecture.

 

00;04;17;03 - 00;04;19;19

DP

That's so cool. How long has your office been there then?

 

00;04;19;21 - 00;04;28;19

PV

Physically, for about five years. I started doing my own residential work in about 2001 when I was in graduate school, evenings and weekends.

 

00;04;28;22 - 00;04;31;16

DP

So, your first client, was that somebody you knew?

 

00;04;31;18 - 00;04;52;05

PV

No. It's a woman and I – she had a house not too far away, and she wanted to make it more energy efficient. So, we worked on that together. It went very well. And she decided that she wanted to do a more robust project. She bought the house across the street from her. Kind of a long, interesting story that goes with that. But then we built a new house for her and that was sort of my first big project.

 

00;04;52;12 - 00;04;57;02

DP

So, have you always been interested in energy efficiency in architecture and building?

 

00;04;57;08 - 00;05;29;16

PV

No, to be honest, it doesn't come up as often as you'd think and conversations with clients. But it's something that I'm trying to push now. As a passive house consultant, I can see the value of it, and it's not that difficult to get to. That's kind of fussy when it comes to construction, but in terms of the cost, it's making a much better envelope.

The tail on idea is that the mechanical systems, they don't need to be that special because you're not using them that much. The idea is not to be clever about producing energy, it’s to avoid using it in the first place. So, keep what you have.

 

00;05;29;18 - 00;05;34;26

DP

So, is it gotten less expensive over the last five or ten years to do energy efficient homes?

 

00;05;35;02 - 00;05;38;16

PV

I don't think so, because all of the construction costs have gone up after COVID.

 

00;05;38;22 - 00;05;39;10

DP

Oh wow, interesting.

 

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PV

Everything associated with construction is – most of its up. Some things are starting to come down now. There are some materials that sort of lend towards that or lean towards the passive house and they're expensive like everything else. So, I don't think so.

 

00;05;54;18 - 00;06;02;28

DP

Interesting. Well, I’d love to talk more about that, but we're here to talk about Guilford Court. So, let's dig in here. How did you guys get the project? How did you get Guilford Court?

 

00;06;03;05 - 00;06;25;10

PV

I used to belong to a business networking group, and it was there that a friend of mine who was an insurance agent had met somebody who did construction. He wanted to do some projects and I went and had coffee with him one time, and then he had some backers who wanted to do a luxury home, and they found a lot in McLean. So he gave me the call and then we got started on the project from there. So, it was through business networking.

 

00;06;25;13 - 00;06;40;08

DP

Okay, so you didn't know the clients initially. Interesting. So, let's talk a little bit about the site. Tell me a little bit about the architecture around the site and I guess I should ask, was there a house on the site before you guys got there?

 

00;06;40;14 - 00;07;13;14

PV

Yes, there was. So, most of the houses there on that cul-de-sac were built, I would think in the seventies, the split-level brick. And over time – so when I first saw the site, all the houses on the cul-de-sac were like that. And during the design and construction process, I think at least two of them now have been torn down and rebuilt. There are a lot of tear downs in Washington D.C. because a lot of people come into the neighborhood – Amazon and whatnot – so it's not too hard to sell a house in that area at this moment. The houses that were on the lots were McMansion. I mean, I want to say-

 

00;07;13;17 - 00;07;17;05

DP

Sure. So stylistically, colonial stuff?

 

00;07;17;07 - 00;07;37;24

PV

Yes, colonial, stucco, no modern leanings at that time. That was sort of just before things were starting to get modern in the general building industry in D.C. So, it was typical suburban, large suburban houses. McLean's a wealthy community, so they're large and very nice but kind of standard stuff.

 

00;07;38;00 - 00;07;44;19

DP

Sure. So, it was kind of goofy when your client was like, hey, I want to do something modern. You're thinking, oh boy-

 

00;07;44;21 - 00;07;47;09

PV

Oh no. That's what I want to hear! I mean, the nice thing is I-

 

00;07;47;09 - 00;07;58;01

DP

No, I meant for all the neighbors – potentially for the neighbors. Sure. Right in the back of their mind. Did they ever talk about that? Hey, do you think, you know, we're going to put something modern here? We're excited about that. We don't really care.

 

00;07;58;05 - 00;08;09;10

PV

I think there's enough new things in that market, and new neighbors and so on that it's not as tight as it might be in terms of styles. And I think that's okay.

 

00;08;09;13 - 00;08;11;00

DP

How long has the house been finished now?

 

00;08;11;06 - 00;08;12;18

PV

It's been a couple – three years.

 

00;08;12;19 - 00;08;15;08

DP

Okay. So, you would have heard by now through the clients?

 

00;08;15;15 - 00;08;17;20

PV

Yes.

 

00;08;17;22 - 00;08;26;01

DP

So, let's see, programmatic requirements. So, you guys had your first meeting and they said, this is what we want. What was that?

 

00;08;26;03 - 00;09;25;17

PV

Well, the program was fairly standard, in that, the expectation to be a family, a number of bedrooms, a studio – if there was an artist, that would be sort of back on the site, but even though it wasn't important at the moment, but with COVID, the idea of having a prominent place or an office in the house also came to the fore during the design process – three car garage, the expectation of a pool, some sort of flattened area for a deck around that pool, and then we've got this very steep hill in the back that turned into this terrace for someone could lay out there and get sun. It's fairly private there in the center of that spot. So, in terms of the programmatic elements, they were more luxurious than some, but nothing out of the ordinary.

And then it was mostly dealing with the site that I think the interest started to come into the project because the first time I saw it, there was a house on there. We went out the back door and I went, ‘Oh my.’ In school you always go, ‘Oh, this will be challenging,’ but then in real life it's like, ‘oh, how are we going to do this?’

 

00;09;25;19 - 00;09;36;00

DP

So, did they talk about square footage in the beginning too? We want a house that's going to be 5,400 square feet, 3,000 square feet, 8,000. They have an idea because of square foot costs. Did they think about the house-

 

00;09;36;00 - 00;09;45;23

PV

No. As it was built – so, the contractor made some changes as the project was built. So, there was square footage added between permit and occupancy.

 

00;09;46;01 - 00;09;47;28

DP

You can do that? Don't you have to re permit?

 

00;09;48;03 - 00;09;56;08

PV

Different jurisdictions. Like they don't have an FAR in McLean. That's Fairfax County. Alexandria does and it's a-

 

00;09;56;09 - 00;09;59;09

DP

Yeah, I know. I deal with FAR like, it never ends.

 

00;09;59;09 - 00;09;59;19

PV

Yeah.

 

00;09;59;23 - 00;10;05;28

DP

And then you start thinking about renovating the basement and then FAR comes back in and you're working on the house and it's crazy.

 

00;10;06;01 - 00;10;08;29

PV

Yeah, it's just lot coverage there, and that's never a problem.

 

00;10;08;29 - 00;10;10;27

DP

Okay. What size is the house?

 

00;10;11;01 - 00;10;13;03

PV

I think it's 7,000.

 

00;10;13;03 - 00;10;29;18

DP

Okay, so let's talk a little bit about the building design. So, we already discussed the fact that you've got a site with some challenging topography. Talk a little bit about the unique geometry or the geometries that were generated based on what's physically out there.

 

00;10;29;18 - 00;12;18;03

PV

So, the lot as it looks in plan, in the site plan, it kind of looks like the state of Georgia and the Atlantic coast of Georgia, which just a little bit to the northeast of Florida is what's on the cul-de-sac. So, there's a very small entrance circle for the cul-de-sac, very small entrance onto the site, and then very steep as it goes up in the back.

And then these two angles that almost describe 60 degrees from the two property lines that go away from the cul-de-sac. And so, my first inclination was, well, that's almost 60 degrees. And so, a hexagonal plan would work on a plot like that. So, then I started looking at precedents for that. I know Frank Lloyd Wright had done the Hanna house in California that was based on the hexagon. He had done a whole series of projects based on geometry. So, I had looked at those, but it was through that less hexagonal forms and more towards three axes rather than we normally think of two axes that X and Y. But this now has these 120-degree rotation that with a hexagon you have three axes that are involved in describing that geometry and that was essentially the same geometry we had on that site. So that became the basis for the design.

And there were three geometries. We've got three programmatic elements of getting the cars on and off the semipublic and then the private. And then we also have this dramatic rise in height. So, we could also do the same thing vertically. We had the garage at the lowest level so the cars can get on easily. The semipublic now faces the street on this very narrow frontage and then the private is up highest and essentially resting on top of the semipublic block and runs back. But because the site is so steep, it touches ground. It's a grade at the back of the property, even though it's sitting on top of the lower level at the front.

 

00;12;18;06 - 00;12;35;05

DP

So, you did a lot of thinking about this project. The clients must really love that. I mean, you sit down with them, and you start talking about these three axes and three levels, three buildings, three heights, you know, the whole thing up there must have been like, “wow, man, this is really cool. This guy knows what he's doing.”

 

00;12;35;07 - 00;13;15;20

PV

You had mentioned that I teach, and one of the things that I find the easiest way to engage with clients is to talk about ideas rather than just areas and square footage costs, because everybody wants to be on board with that because thinking is the fun part of the design. The best compliment I get is somebody says, I never thought of that. I feel like, well, so I'm bringing value to this.

I have proposed several different designs. I think I had three different options. I had pinned them all up in the office and had wine and cheese for some people come in and just talk about it, and the design that is there right now was not my first choice. But then someone had said, “well, you know, this has all these things going on with these three axes.” And then it was like, ‘yeah, I think that is the best one.’

 

00;13;15;26 - 00;13;18;12

DP

When you're talking about people, is that the clients or other people?

 

00;13;18;12 - 00;13;20;18

PV

No, no. Other people in the office.

 

00;13;20;21 - 00;13;27;19

DP

Oh, that’s so great. So, you had a kind of design charrette in the office. Everybody's looking at it. You stand back and you kind of go through all the design options.

 

00;13;27;26 - 00;13;36;09

PV

And then the same thing will happen with the client. This was a speculative house, so it wasn't dealing with the final client, with the person who's going to move into the house.

 

00;13;36;11 - 00;13;42;15

DP

Oh, it was a spec house. Interesting.

So, local zoning codes and issues there.

 

00;13;42;18 - 00;14;08;29

PV

Fairfax County isn't that onerous. The usual, there's lot coverage. There's no aesthetic review. They do have those in Georgetown, in D.C., and in Old Town, in Alexandria, Virginia. But most of the other jurisdictions don't have an aesthetic review. And so, we didn't have to worry about that. The FAR, which happens in Alexandria, but not in Fairfax, we didn't have that. It's just lot coverage. It's rarely a problem.

 

00;14;09;02 - 00;14;10;25

DP

There wasn't anything too challenging.

 

00;14;10;28 - 00;14;11;17

PV

No.

 

00;14;11;19 - 00;14;12;15

DP

And building codes, IRC?

 

00;14;13;11 - 00;14;19;18

PV

Yeah, well, it's - Virginia has a uniform state building code, which is based on the IRC, and they have a couple of tweaks in there. But yeah.

 

00;14;19;24 - 00;14;26;27

DP

Right. Of course, they do. So, describe the building plan for us. What did you end up with?

 

00;14;27;00 - 00;16;50;09

PV

Well, one is getting the cars on and off the lot. They can't – just the nature of cars – they can't be going up and down hill. So, we need to get them on the shortest route and the lowest route so that if you think about the site as a state of Georgia, the Florida borderline was where the cars came in. The semipublic faced the cul-de-sac. It addressed through there and then we had stairs going up this series of stones, because one of the concerns was that's a long way up to get to that first floor just because it's so steep. So, we have these stones on the site that are shifted. So, you're sort of walking across these lily pads and then a diagonal that goes up and then a set of stairs. So, there's a variety of experiences moving towards the front of the house.

We also had the office portion and that was right inside the front door. So, if someone in the house decides to set up office there, they have a client come by. They don't have to go into the main house just in and out the front door, take care of business.

And then from there, a few more steps go into the main house. So that opens up in a very large open space. There's the fireplace, dining, living, kitchen are all in that area. And then behind the kitchen is sort of the pool deck area for showers and changing and so on. And then there's a large circular stair that's the pin.

So, if you think about the semipublic and the private, they splay out at 120 degrees and the stairway is the pin that holds us together to do that rotation. So, there's a very large grand sculptural stair up to the second level, and it comes up between the master bedroom and the additional bedrooms so that when you move towards the cul-de-sac, you're now in the master bedroom suite that is like this big diving board looking over. It's a tremendous site of this that was very challenging. But being in that master bedroom and looking out over the trees, away from the site, it's a dramatic view. Going the other direction, there are the other bedrooms, as I said, eventually gets back to grade because it gets so steep in the back. And then there's also the stair continues down.

So, there's a family room in the basement, a large television there as well. And then on the other end, we have that same rotation with the garage, and that's a much more modest stair coming from the garage into that living space. But it's based on those three axes and those two hinges to turn it on to the site, both in plan and in section.

 

00;16;50;15 - 00;17;00;28

DP

Yeah, that's really cool. So, tell us a little bit about the building materials. We’ve already discussed the house is modern and you use a series of different materials for the house.

 

00;17;01;01 - 00;17;31;29

PV

Right. There's fiber cement boards for the bedroom space and then the semipublic was a brick, and then the garage was - I think there's a wood on there. So, we have a couple of different faces. There's a brick facade for the semipublic. I think there's some brick as well on the garage. And we also brought some of the brick inside in the living spaces. We wanted to have a variety of materials to represent because everything's now being divided into threes with the garage, semipublic, private spaces.

 

00;17;32;01 - 00;17;38;19

DP

So, tell me a little bit about why you guys chose to use brick and in particular the dark brick.

 

00;17;38;22 - 00;17;55;25

PV

The dark brick. That was not my selection. I did not select the colors on that element, but it would also be contrasting. You could see the dramatic change in color because as I said, it's about these three elements and so they read differently everywhere you cut it.

 

00;17;56;00 - 00;18;02;21

DP

And it would seem to me that you chose to use brick as a differentiated design element, right?

 

00;18;02;23 - 00;18;13;08

PV

Right. It's also very common in this part of the country. In Old Town, Virginia, and just all up and down the East Coast, brick was the way to do durable construction and still is.

 

00;18;13;10 - 00;18;17;13

DP

Are there any houses around this one – are masonry as well?

 

00;18;17;17 - 00;18;36;11

PV

Yes. So, the houses that were there in the neighboring lots, most of them were split level with a lower with brick on the first floor and siding on the second floor. The houses that have come in their place, the two I can think of are stucco, but there's a lot of brick in the neighborhood.

 

00;18;36;14 - 00;18;53;12

DP

So, this is, as we discussed, it's contemporary. I wanted to talk a little bit about the unique construction details. I'm looking at these two facades that come together at the corner, and we've got two completely different building materials. That must have been a challenging detail. And you got a window, you got a corner window there. So how did you guys do that?

 

00;18;53;20 - 00;19;59;16

PV

There's steel in there to handle that opening on the corner. The reason why that angle is the way it is – something else that we hadn't discussed is that I used to play the drums, and still do. And for a long time, I used to play actually, in a bagpipe band. More sophisticated than you think – but, so, rhythms is something that I've been dealing with since I was ten years old.

And one thing that came up is what called polyrhythms, where you have overlaying rhythms. You take two rhythms that may not be so interesting on their own, but when they're overlaid with each other, then it creates something more interesting than either of them were to begin with. And that's how I view this project that this overlay, the reason why that window angle is there on the corner is because the geometry of the private portion has been thrust through the semipublic and so there's an angle that goes through. The chimney was rotated along that as well, and the contractor turned that back. But it was that slot that pushed through that mirrors the same access that the private portion is on.

 

00;19;59;19 - 00;20;05;03

DP

Is the chimney also masonry? And that's supported by steel. Doesn't run straight through the building.

 

00;20;05;06 - 00;20;07;19

PV

Right. There are portions of it that are supported with steel.

 

00;20;07;19 - 00;20;11;06

DP

Did you guys end up using any brick on the interior?

 

00;20;11;08 - 00;20;29;24

PV

Well, there is you can see it on the lower portion there. There's brick for the fireplace surround, which is in the lower left photograph there.

And there were also two trees on the site where we ended up pulling those up, but the contractor had those milled and use them for the trim. The wood that's above the fireplace there is from those trees.

 

00;20;30;00 - 00;20;31;13

DP

Do you remember the species?

 

00;20;31;15 - 00;20;34;16

PV

My recollection will be black locus, but I'm not sure.

 

00;20;34;18 - 00;20;47;06

DP

I was going to ask you what some of the historical precedents were for the for the architecture, but clearly were into much more modern architecture here. However, as you said, we see brick in the area.

 

00;20;47;08 - 00;20;52;08

PV

Yeah, there's brick. The material is common in Northern Virginia. The building forms.

 

00;20;52;15 - 00;20;54;02

DP

Yeah. I was going to say we've got gables here.

 

00;20;54;02 - 00;21;01;21

PV

Yeah, that's pretty common as well. So, the basis of it is traditional, but the implementation has become modern.

 

00;21;01;24 - 00;21;12;26

DP

And tell me a little bit, what I call this modern Tudor aesthetic. Where did that come from? And I know it's not modern Tudor but describe that for our listeners.

 

00;21;12;28 - 00;21;22;15

PV

So, from this view, the division of the fiber cement is accomplished with these vertical elements that come proud of the exterior finish.

 

00;21;22;18 - 00;21;28;16

DP

Okay, so they're not set back into the fiber cement. They're actually proud. So, it's applied.

 

00;21;28;18 - 00;21;44;00

PV

Yeah. And so that could be considered a reference. It was not the intention, but the half timbers that was common with timber houses would use expressed wood materials and then with stucco in between those and then the angles for the roofs are fairly standard.

 

00;21;44;05 - 00;21;44;24

DP

Are those 12:12’s?

 

00;21;45;07 - 00;21;51;25

PV

Tudor style, yes, they are. The contractor ended up putting living space up there as well. So, you made good use of that space.

 

00;21;51;25 - 00;21;59;28

DP

Oh, of course, that's great. And you had no issues with having a third or fourth story there, right? So, were there any height restrictions on the site?

 

00;22;00;04 - 00;22;06;12

PV

There are, but Fairfax County, you add up, it's an average the way it was in the back. We were okay on the front.

 

00;22;06;13 - 00;22;10;19

DP

Right. You said the third story, which was the basement was set down into the site.

 

00;22;10;22 - 00;22;18;04

PV

Yeah. You can see it on the left, the lower right image there you can see the window for the basement below that large corner window.

 

00;22;18;08 - 00;22;23;25

DP

So, did you learn anything new about brick dealing with these details, even with this cantilever?

 

00;22;23;27 - 00;22;37;29

PV

Well, no, it's just with steel implemented in there, it's fairly common. If you go through D.C., the urban renewal period of Georgetown in the seventies and eighties, there’s brick everywhere. And so, everybody knows how to work with brick in D.C.

 

00;22;38;03 - 00;22;55;19

DP

Well, it's clear it solved a design issue for you guys because you were looking for a series of materials that all went together, and I love the color. It goes so well with everything else. It really just works. I think it looks great. Now, who did the drawings for the job and did you do them in 2D and 3D, 3D, BIM?

 

00;22;56;11 - 00;23;14;28

PV

No. Well, we did a sketch up model. I was renting some space with the firm down, and Alexander at the time had a woman helping me out to do most of the construction documents in AutoCAD. And then we had the sketch up models for presentation just to talk about the design. There was originally, that's when I used to draw with my hands. I used to do it on sketch paper.

 

00;23;15;04 - 00;23;33;05

DP

You and me both. It's so great. I got so lucky, I worked in an office in Baltimore, and they got so slow that they trained me on CAD. This was 97, 98. Thank God. I would have been completely unemployable for the rest of my life had I not learned how to draw and, you know, how to use sketch up, which is great.

 

00;23;33;05 - 00;23;39;09

PV

Well, yes, I do. When I started though, we had a product called GDS, and it was McDonnell Douglas.

 

00;23;39;11 - 00;23;42;03

DP

Okay, So airplane software. You’ve gotta be kidding me. That’s great.

 

00;23;42;03 - 00;23;49;24

PV

It was their software. And there was a manual that was about two inches thick. And yeah, once you read it, you were fine, but it wasn't that friendly.

 

00;23;50;01 - 00;23;54;10

DP

Oh my gosh. So, sustainability and this house.

 

00;23;54;12 - 00;23;55;07

PV

Not a concern.

 

00;23;55;12 - 00;24;01;03

DP

Not an issue with the GC? Just wasn't something that you were going to push as part of the design build aspect of the house.

 

00;24;01;16 - 00;24;03;15

PV

No, that wasn't a concern for this project.

 

00;24;03;16 - 00;24;08;03

DP

No, I get it. I always ask all our guests; did you have any trouble finding a good mason?

 

00;24;08;05 - 00;24;11;22

PV

They're easy to find in Alexandria. If you see – I tell you what-

 

00;24;11;22 - 00;24;12;25

DP

Right. There’s so much brick in Washington.

 

00;24;12;27 - 00;24;26;16

PV

There's one project I can think of where they didn't get a good mason. I was down in Key West one time and they said, “you know, Hemingway did this wall.” And I said, ‘it looks like a drunk author did it.’

 

00;24;26;19 - 00;24;33;03

DP

That’s great. Oh, my gosh. So, before you go, I'd like to ask people, what's your favorite part about being an architect?

 

00;24;33;06 - 00;25;18;21

PV

It's in two phases right now. So, I used to teach full time. When I was teaching full time, I would say, I'm not making anything and I'm - that's what I'm trained to do. When I'm making things, often times I'll say, but this isn't about ideas. And so right now, the balance between those two is very gratifying. And being able to talk about ideas, which I like to think, is one of the benefits that I have in the office, because we'll talk about this stuff. I think everybody's more energized when that happens.

So, it's the camaraderie of the office. I know a lot of people are doing the remote work. We're in place and the studio. It's a fun place to be. The schematic design is my favorite part. You know, when I get close to retirement, everything else is going to go to somebody else.

 

00;25;18;21 - 00;25;19;02

DP

Oh, that's great.

 

00;25;19;10 - 00;25;21;19

PV

But I continue doing the schematic design.

 

00;25;21;21 - 00;25;27;13

DP

Yeah. So, I was going to ask you, what's the one thing you like least about being an architect? And it's probably all the other stuff.

 

00;25;27;13 - 00;25;32;03

PV

Site surveys. Yeah.

 

00;25;32;05 - 00;25;34;29

DP

You don't mean like existing condition stuff.

 

00;25;35;05 - 00;25;36;25

PV

Yeah, I haven't done that. We’re small enough, I’m not still doing that.

 

00;25;36;25 - 00;25;52;05

DP

It’d drive you nuts. Yeah, I get it, man. I've done many at home. Peter, you talked a little bit about Frank Lloyd Wright. Are there any architects that are usually in the back of your mind when you're designing that you really admire their work?

 

00;25;52;08 -00;26;35;17

PV

It more has to do with admiring the ideas because that's an inexhaustible font of information, whereas the projects they've done, they're done it does these certain things, but they're ideas that live inside of there that can apply to whatever project. So, depending on materials, depending on geometry, depending on what the site is telling me, that will determine then who I'll look to for references.

Like, for instance, as I mentioned, Frank Lloyd Wright did a series of houses based on a simple geometry that grew from one element that expanded. Corbusier, there was a lot of ideas in how he dealt with space, sort of the modern aesthetic, but it wasn't so much just this look. It had to do with accomplishing something he wanted to do intellectually.

 

00;26;35;20 - 00;26;41;29

DP

Yeah. Interestingly, Wright used brick in some of his work. Pretty effectively.

 

00;26;42;07 - 00;26;43;13

PV

Indian red.

 

00;26;43;15 - 00;26;52;26

DP

Yeah. Indian red. Well, Peter Vanderpoel, it was very nice to meet you today. Could you tell me how we can find out more about you and your architectural firm?

 

00;26;53;02 - 00;27;04;12

PV

Well, I have a website pvanderpoel.com P-V-A-N-D-E-R-P-O-E-L dot com. That has some samples of my work. And other than that, I'm pretty quiet.

 

00;27;04;14 - 00;27;07;00

DP

Well, great. The house is beautiful. Congratulations.

 

00;27;07;00 - 00;27;07;09

PV

Thank you.

 

00;27;07;16 - 00;27;09;13

DP

I'm sure it's been a big success.

 

00;27;09;15 - 00;27;13;22

PV

It's very gratifying to see that - to see ideas that happen.

 

00;27;13;24 - 00;27;15;18

DP

Yeah, I think it's the best part about being an architect.

 

00;27;15;18 - 00;27;18;14

PV

Marriage of the two things – having an idea that actually gets built.

 

00;27;18;21 - 00;27;45;25

DP

Yeah, that's great. Congratulations.