TRANSCRIPT

00;00;00;02 - 00;00;05;13

Doug Pat (DP)

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

 

00;00;05;16 - 00;00;27;11

Tom Loftus (TL)

So we really had to be mindful of availability of product and the budget. So this is what started driving us to start playing with different bonding patterns. If we stack the brick one way versus another way, if we do a running bond versus a stack bond versus a Flemish bond, how can we play around with our stacking patterns and try to make something unique?

 

00;00;27;13 - 00;02;46;23

DP

This is my guest, Tom Loftus. I'll share more about him shortly. In this episode from the Design Vault, we highlight Tom's 389 Weirfield Project in Brooklyn, New York. 389 Weirfield in Brooklyn is a 12 story 50,000 square foot rental project consisting of 66 residential units, a common roof deck, library and cafe. The building was constructed along with a second at 378 Weirfield just across the street.

 

The building features a very unique singular masonry facade we'll discuss today. The sole decorative facade is done in undulating rail like bricks, which is in a creative vertical design. The bricks are dark and called Ebonite Smooth. They protrude in patterns at equally spaced cadence as the facade climbs. The windows are set apart from the vertical masonry bands with frames of varying height, which capture the windows between the horizontal spans. The singular brick facade was a unique way of setting apart a building that might otherwise be much like any other.

 

Hi, I'm Doug Pat and this is Design Vault. Tom Loftus has a bachelor degree in architecture from New York Institute of Technology. He also has a certificate in business management from Cornell University and is a licensed architect in New York.

 

Tom's first exposure to working in the architectural field came from a job in wood frame construction. After a number of years working in Westchester County, he brings over 20 years of project management experience to outgoing architects. As studio director, he has extensive knowledge and experience in project management, schematic design, design, development, construction drawings, design quality and project construction.

 

He's also a leader in building and maintaining client relationships, managing teams’ workloads, plus client and consultant coordination. So welcome, Tom. It's nice to have you with us today. So tell us a little bit about Aufgang Architects in Suffern New York. So where are you guys located in Suffern? What's the size of the firm? How long has it been around and what kind of work do you guys do?

 

00;02;47;01 - 00;03;37;20

TL

Great, first and foremost. Thanks a lot, Doug, for having me on the podcast today. I'm really excited to be here. So we're located here in downtown Suffern, right down the street from the train station pretty close to central Manhattan. So our firm is about 50 people right now. We primarily do residential work. I'd say about 90% of our work is in the residential field.

 

We do everything from low rise to high rise buildings, primarily in the five boroughs. But we also have projects in the tri state area and a few scattered around the country as well. A lot of those projects are mixed use with commercial on the first, second or few floors and then residential apartments above. The residential work that we do ranges in everything from luxury condos all the way to homeless shelters and really a range of everything in between.

 

00;03;37;22 - 00;03;39;28

DP

So how long has Aufgang Architects been around?

 

00;03;40;05 - 00;04;19;22

TL

Outgoing has been around. I think we're going about 50 years now. Ari is the third owner of the company, and when I started, I worked together with Ari and our former principal, Hugo, and they partnered for a while and he had also taken over the firm from someone else. So probably in the early seventies, if I have my history of the firm correct.

 

We started in Rockland County doing small scale residential rehab work and grew in time and in size with our clients and our work type from one partner to the next, and really have kept our foot in our roots in residential and then grown laterally in the industry.

 

00;04;19;25 - 00;04;27;22

DP

Tom, tell us a little bit about yourself. How long have you been practicing architecture and your role as studio director?

 

00;04;27;25 - 00;05;16;29

TL

Sure. It feels like forever. Honestly, every once in a while I wonder, am I still really doing this? But I've been in the architecture field now just a little over 20 years, and I started working in Westchester County. Small scale wood frame, residential. It was a natural stepping stone for me. After I got out of high school, I thought I want to be a framer.

 

And after getting really tired of carrying three quarter inch plywood up a ladder, I said, Nope, time to go back to school and study architecture. And from there I worked at a variety of firms in Manhattan, in Westchester County, doing a variety of different work. And when I found this firm, the scale work that we were doing, the residential work, it tied into something I loved with my single family housing experience.

 

It kind of stuck and I ended up staying here for quite a while.

 

00;05;17;01 - 00;05;23;25

DP

It's a long time practicing as an architect. I kind of say the same thing about or to myself about how long it's been.

 

00;05;23;27 - 00;06;23;12

TL

Sure, I've really grown in the company here. It's been a fantastic partnership with Ari. When I started, I came in really as an assistant project manager. A lot of my experience was not relative to the scale of the projects we were doing, although in other firms I was working in a bit of a leadership role running point on smaller scale projects, so it took a little time to learn the ropes, if you will, in the different construction types.

 

And I've moved up into the role of studio director now, so I work very closely with our senior management and the rest of our senior staff looking at our workload, our resource management, project proposals, client relationships and really stay involved with the team from the very start of the project until close out to handle the day to day operations of the office as a whole.

 

Ari, myself and our controller meet frequently to talk about some of the more boring business side of things and then the more fun happens working with the architects on the day to day and the projects.

 

00;06;23;15 - 00;06;33;19

DP

So let's dig in here and talk about this very interesting facade of yours. How did your office get the project, or is this a project that the office created?

 

00;06;33;21 - 00;07;57;02

TL

Yeah, this was actually an interesting project that came at a time when everything started shutting down right at the start of the COVID pandemic. And we had a really good recommendation from a long time client that we had worked with, and we had met a new client remotely who was involved on the construction side of things, and we hit it off.

 

We started talking and it was the first time ever that I met someone virtually and had meetings like this on screens, and we were trying to build a new professional working relationship. So it was very unique in the way that the project started. And again, we do a lot of our work really based on recommendations. We really pride ourselves in building good relationships with our client base, and that's really how the project got started.

 

They had this unique property in Bushwick and if you know the area in Brooklyn at all, it's a lot of small scale row housing, if you will, maybe 3 to 4 storeys and there really aren't too many open lots. And in this particular project it was unique. There was a large portion of the lot that had an easement that couldn't be built on it, and it provided a good amount of air rights which allowed us to follow the zoning path to do a much taller building than you usually would see in this neighborhood.

 

Most of the buildings were very close together, and that's really how it started and how the project grew and how we ended up with a 12 storey building in the middle of Bushwick.

 

00;07;57;05 - 00;08;04;19

DP

So did you guys know right away that you were going to be able to make a tall building there, or did it take a little bit of examination first?

 

00;08;04;21 - 00;08;48;13

TL

It took a little bit of examination. Usually what we do as architects is we really try to help guide our clients to bring their projects to fruition. This is the property I have. What can you build? How much can you build? There are two different zoning parts you can follow, primarily three different zoning parts in New York City that will help you establish the bulk, the height, the size of the building.

 

So we'll study that first and foremost with our clients and present them the different options. And based on the geometry of this lot, when we saw the potential to get a little height on this building, be separated from the other surrounding residential buildings, it gave them a nice opportunity to have a building with some great potential for views in an otherwise low height area.

 

00;08;48;15 - 00;08;53;12

DP

So what was the scope and the programmatic requirements for the project once you got rolling?

 

00;08;53;14 - 00;09;32;03

TL

Typically and specifically to this project, our scope was everything from working with the development team to help them flush out the parameters of their funding program. So when you work with different agencies in New York City and in the state and you're following certain guidelines to provide certain square footages and distribution of units, we work right at the very beginning with them to help them find the right mix and size of units, right with the development team.

 

From there, we work through design and construction administration all the way until the close of the project. So we really gave soup to nuts services here. Full scope on the building.

 

00;09;32;05 - 00;09;48;24

DP

So let's talk a little bit about the building design stylistically. So you guys designed quite a unique facade, while the other three facades, from what I can tell from the photos, are relatively subdued. Tell us about the main idea behind this.

 

00;09;48;26 - 00;11;17;22

TL

First and foremost, we love Brick. Brick as an architect, for us, it's really a timeless material and it's a durable material and it fits in really well to so many different urban fabrics in so many different places. In my opinion, what made 389 unique was the timing that this project was happening. It was happening at a time where the future was uncertain.

 

We didn't know what was going to come of this pandemic. We had to be incredibly mindful of the budget. Many times we like to create building facades that are two different materials having a nice dialog or different color bricks. So we really had to be mindful of availability of product and the economics, the budget, and really try to come up with something that would be unique but be something that the client could achieve.

 

So this is what started driving us to start playing with different bonding patterns if we stacked the brick one way versus another way, if we do a running bond versus a stack bond versus a Flemish bond, how can we play around with our stack in patterns and try to make something unique? So that was really what started pushing us in this direction of going with a single color brick and then really focusing on how to find a challenge enough for the mason that they don't hate us and say these are architects of the worst.

 

Have something be achievable for them. But that also will give a nice unique context to the neighborhood.

 

00;11;17;25 - 00;11;24;28

DP

Were there any aesthetic reviews of the building before you guys got rolling with the city?

 

00;11;24;28 - 00;11;49;21

TL

With the city for this particular project, there were no agencies on the city or state side that had any reason to opine on the design. We were not going for any variances. We didn't really have to go to the community board, although we did not need their aesthetic approvals. It is something that we're always mindful of working within the urban fabric and how it's going to lend itself to the context of the neighborhood is always an important consideration of ours.

 

00;11;49;23 - 00;12;01;09

DP

So let's back up just a little bit. So the building plan, are we talking rectangle, square, relatively straightforward. Then of course, there's parking on the site. You had said that there was a portion of the site that you could not build on.

 

00;12;01;11 - 00;13;07;01

TL

That's correct. So for this particular massing to make this building work, the footprint was rather small. It actually made a very efficient floor plate with a very tight core of stairs, elevator and corridor, and then apartments around all sides of that. So it really became a very compact, high efficiency floor plate with very little loss factor. And it was something that we were able to just work all the way up the building.

 

So there were quite a bit of revisions back and forth, variations that we had worked on to find the right mix and balance of that to fit within the envelope. The same thing then translated to the facade a bit earlier we were talking about what did the design iterations look like there, through the whole process of finding the right solution and the facade design that we felt was the right match for this building.

 

We did digital 3D models, plenty of sketches and even on site mockups working together with the Masons saying, We know you can do this, we believe in you, please don't kill us. And did plenty of mock ups there to really work it out.

 

00;13;07;03 - 00;13;11;25

DP

Was it a challenge finding a good mason, or did you guys have somebody lined up right off the bat?

 

00;13;11;27 - 00;14;04;09

TL

I think that's really one of the keys. You have to have really good subs. So whatever the type of work you're doing in this case, the Masons, you need to have a good working relationship with them. And often it's the architect working directly with the general contractor. But in these cases we invited the Masons into the architecture meetings, we invited them into the AOC meetings towards the end and said, Look, let's work through some of these details.

 

Let's talk through it. How is this going to work? It wasn't incredibly complex or challenging, but we wanted to make sure that the person who was directing their team to install the Brick really felt confident that they could achieve what we were looking for. We never wanted to come out on site and say, This is all wrong. That's not what we want to do.

 

And I really think engaging with those professionals early on is important to try to get the end result that you're looking for.

 

00;14;04;12 - 00;14;16;20

DP

Yeah, we try to bring in a contractor at schematic design. Once we wrap up schematic design, we have them price the project. This is in high and residential work that I do. So single family homes.

 

00;14;16;22 - 00;14;33;09

TL

Right? And in this case we didn't have a mason lined up. We didn't have a recommendation. The developer slash contractor, they were one and the same here. They had already had an existing relationship with this Mason and we started just working with them early on in the process.

 

00;14;33;11 - 00;14;54;17

DP

So could you do your best to describe the evolution of the design of that facade and then try to describe the facade? I'm going to encourage our listeners to go to the Glen-Gery site and take a look at some of these photographs because it's really striking. I've never seen anything like it. It's a great idea. The clients must have been thrilled when you presented the drawings.

 

00;14;54;19 - 00;17;33;18

TL

Thank you very much for that. We've seen a lot of example of brick facade that has quite a bit of movement in it, and these brick facades more often than not, are panelized prefab, and that's a way that you can achieve quite a bit of movement with brick using this idea of this undulation and this movement in the brick as an inspiration.

 

That's what triggered us to start thinking about how a brick pattern, the stacking pattern, really might help us achieve what we wanted to do here. So if our listeners are familiar with Brick parents, which I hope they are, we're in a brick podcast, we utilized a Flemish bond pattern and a running bond pattern. So the Flemish bond pattern has a standard brick with the long face.

 

The following brick is then rotated 90 degrees with the short face and the pattern is repeated. Taking this idea of combining a Flemish bond pattern with a running bond pattern, we now have these bricks that are half size, if you will, square proportion to create the movement and the undulation throughout the facade. We detailed a Flemish bond pattern with a large number of running bond, then a increasing increment of Flemish bond and a decreasing increment to running bond.

 

So we took the pattern and as you got closer to the center of the pattern we created, you had a higher frequency of Flemish bond. And as you moved away towards the end of the pattern that moved vertically up the building, it was stretched out with more running bond. So that's a lot of back and forth with different bond patterns.

 

Ultimately, by having that Flemish bond brick, we then protruded it out from the facade in the center of the pattern where the Flemish bond patterns are stacked very closely together. The bricks protruded the largest amount. And then as that pattern was separated and pulled apart from top to bottom, the brick became closer and closer to the facade.

 

So we basically created a formula that the mason can follow. For every increment, the brick would step out a half inch further, and this is what gave the facade that undulation, as you move up the bricks, steps out and back in by using this bonding pattern. It also created a really dynamic shadow which was something that we really loved.

 

When the sun hits the building the right way, you get a really fantastic shadow where you have that brick and it just really, in my opinion, created a beautiful cadence that worked through that pattern.

 

00;17;33;21 - 00;17;41;27

DP

So it really does remind one of Braille. So how far what's the furthest protrusion for one brick?

 

00;17;42;00 - 00;18;01;07

TL

I do like that description of Braille. You instantly have an image in your mind of these protruding points that they create the pattern. The furthest protrusion is about two and a half inches at the center of the pattern. And then as it works its way down in half inch increments, it goes back down to zero and the pattern becomes flush.

 

00;18;01;10 - 00;18;20;02

DP

So you guys said that you worked on this in 2D and in 3D. I would imagine if you did some sun studies, you got a better sense for how much shade and shadow was going to be produced by these protruding bricks? Did you do the project in BIM? Is it Revit? Because I saw 2D drawings of this?

 

00;18;20;04 - 00;18;42;25

TL

Yes. It isn't Revit. It is a BIM project. While we were in the design phase, we actually used a few different softwares SketchUp and Enscape and Revit along with AutoCAD, and we really did a series of 2D sketches, 2D drawings and 3D studies, partial facade studies. Just to get a sense of how this all might look.

 

00;18;42;28 - 00;18;49;26

DP

And how many iterations ultimately did you go through? I mean, big iterations, like is it two or three or ten or?

 

00;18;49;28 - 00;19;42;12

TL

Once we just came to the conclusion that we need to stick with a singular color brick here in the front, I'd say we probably had about ten different versions. It's a slim, tall building with very large windows, really trying to maintain a nice modulation of those windows in that spacing, but also then maintain a standardized brick dimension. So for a long time we were playing around with the inches of the bricks so that we were at a half size brick or full size brick.

 

Should we use a stack bond and emphasize the verticality of the building? How often should we introduce a horizontal element so that it's not looking like a stack of pancakes, for lack of a better expression? So really, we had a good amount of iterations here until we got to the point where we really like the running bond, Flemish bonds.

 

00;19;42;14 - 00;19;58;19

DP

I like the way you describe that. From what I remember looking at these photos, the windows are framed out differently. So you have a series of windows which have an individual frame, and then at one point in the building, that frame actually wraps a few stories of windows, right? So you break up the facade that way, too.

 

00;19;58;19 - 00;20;26;03

TL

Exactly. Playing with the verticality of the building, we did group a series of windows, two windows stacked vertically, three windows stacked vertically and created a frame around those windows. And this helped take that 12 story building and just give it a little bit of scale as it moved up the building. So these groups have two vertical windows that are now framed together.

 

Then also had the movement of the undulating brick happening between them.

 

00;20;26;05 - 00;20;28;28

DP

You guys really thought through it. It's a real beautiful facade.

 

00;20;29;04 - 00;20;29;29

TL

Thank you.

 

00;20;30;01 - 00;20;34;06

DP

So how big was the team that worked on the project? Just a few people?

 

00;20;34;08 - 00;21;17;08

TL

Every project is staffed with a dedicated associate director who are all registered architects, a project manager, and then the support staff. When we were in the design phase, we had the project manager working together with one of our designers. So we really had a team of to playing around with this and then bouncing the idea back off of the associate on the project.

 

Then once we really ramped it up into production, we would stack two or three people on the project. As you get closer to submission deadlines and trying to get into the Department of Buildings to get permits done, we would build the team up. Usually there was always at least two people on the project that were always there from day one.

 

They haven't left the project and they stayed on from beginning to end.

 

00;21;17;10 - 00;21;26;09

DP

So how long did it take to build the building? I would imagine it was pretty cool watching that facade go up. First couple stories. You must have been thinking, Wow, man, this is going to be something.

 

00;21;26;12 - 00;21;51;29

TL

You know, the construction team, they did a fantastic job. They had a really good crew out there. And around 24 months, the building went up and then all the fine details coming out of the pandemic. It was interesting. There were certain trades that just took longer because of materiality, distribution chain, supply chain, availability of product, which threw little curveballs here and there.

 

But all in all, the sequence and timing was fairly smooth.

 

00;21;52;01 - 00;22;01;13

DP

So it seems like I learned something new every project. Was there anything that you guys learned while you were out in the field or doing these drawings or dealing with the client?

 

00;22;01;16 - 00;22;48;06

TL

There certainly was. You know, I had spoken about the Mason earlier on, and that was certainly a good lesson. Building a good relationship with your Mason early in the project is really important and I joke about it. Sometimes they look at the architect's details and think, Are these guys crazy? We're not going to build this. There's going to be a better way to do it.

 

And I think that was really the big lesson we took here, establishing that good relationship and also giving the tradesmen the respect that they deserve. They're installing the work. They know some of the nuances of how this gets installed and taking that into consideration, finding that common ground so that you don't bring your ego into the conversation and giving them that professional respect and you're going to get it back.

 

That was definitely a good lesson here.

 

00;22;48;08 - 00;23;16;16

DP

That seems like a lesson I've learned over and over again throughout my career. When you're young, you go out there and you think you know everything and you've got an answer for everything, or you're going to fake your way through it, or however you choose to deal with it. But as you get older, you realize that these people that you're working with, many of them have an awful lot of experience, and it would be a good idea to sit and listen to them and actually ask them questions rather than tell them what to do.

 

00;23;16;18 - 00;23;38;10

TL

That's right. And I always find that working with our up and coming project managers and our younger staff, it's always those lessons that you try to instill in them. It helps them understand how to build those relationships because this industry is built on relationships and if we can do that, we're going to navigate successfully through any project.

 

00;23;38;13 - 00;23;58;03

DP

Well, you guys have been around a long time, 50 years. Goodness gracious. That's incredible. Congratulations, Tom. You've been an architect for over two decades. Based on what you know today about being an architect, do you have any words of advice for your younger self or maybe some young architects working their way up the ranks?

 

00;23;58;05 - 00;24;13;16

TL

Yes, don't worry. It's going to work out, if you love it, stick with it. It's a long road. And just when you think maybe you should change your major, you might still be out of college 20 years and asking yourself, Should I change my major? If you love it, stick with it. It's rewarding.

 

00;24;13;19 - 00;24;28;05

DP

That's really funny. I feel like I've changed my major all the time.

 

My goodness. So, Tom, it's been great to have you here. Thanks for your time. Where can people go to learn more about Wolfgang Architects and yourself?

 

00;24;28;07 - 00;24;38;19

TL

They can go right to our web site at Aufgang.com and they can find all the information about us there. They can follow us on LinkedIn and Twitter and all the different platforms.

 

00;24;38;21 - 00;24;45;21

DP

Well, thank you very much, Tom. It's been great. And I encourage people to go to the site and take a look at this very interesting building. Thank you.

 

00;24;45;29 - 00;24;50;18

TL

Doug. I really appreciate it. It was great chatting with you here today. I had a great time.

 

00;24;50;21 - 00;25;18;12

DP

Awesome. Thank you.

TRANSCRIPT

00;00;00;02 - 00;00;05;14

Doug Pat (DP)

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

 

00;00;05;17 - 00;00;30;22

Jeremy Iannucci (JI)

We like to think that the entire project comes from the community around it. We looked at a series of precedents in the Greenpoint neighborhood, historically in Greenpoint, specifically on the waterfront, to inspire the way that we detail these facades. We have a collection of different brick styles that help to break up the massing of the building, different articulations, as well as material breaks with the two precast towers.

 

00;00;30;25 - 00;03;22;21

DP

This is my guest, Jeremy Iannucci. I'll share more about him shortly. In this episode from The Design Vault, we highlight Marvel’s Project 1 Java in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. 1 Java is a mixed use residential series of buildings located in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. The project responds to the New York City housing market and owners' needs addressing sustainability, constructability, risk mitigation, tax incentives and marketability.

 

The Development Investment Strategy required a net zero ready design and maximization of floor area. The project includes the largest geothermal array in New York State. The building will participate in the 421A affordable New York and inclusionary housing program, which provides up to 261 affordable housing units out of a total of 871. The new architecture consists of two towers, of prefabricated concrete sheet panels and three lower buildings varying from 6 to 10 storeys with brick masonry facades.

 

All five buildings rise from Greenpoint in a U-shape plan to maximize light views and open space. Terraces on the east and west. Facades of the towers modulate the elevation while creating private terraces for units and amenity spaces. Retail, food and beverage and live workspaces are consolidated along West and India streets. Townhomes share setback stoops, and a small secondary convenience lobby for the low rise along Java Street.

 

Hi, I'm Doug Pat and this is Design Vault. Jeremy Iannucci is a registered architect at Marvel in New York City. He has a Bachelor of Architecture from City College's Spitzer School of Architecture. His portfolio encompasses a number of challenging endeavors at Marvel, including a mixed use project located in Brooklyn's Waterfront, which we will discuss today. Jeremy enjoys taking part in international design competitions, one of which was recently shortlisted in a competition to design a children's hospice center, and another was awarded an honorary mention in which he designed a house relying exclusively on daylighting for organizing spaces and form making.

 

Jeremy also serves as a design critic at the City College of New York and Pratt Institute. So welcome, Jeremy. It's nice to have you with us today. So tell us a little bit about Marvel in New York City. So where in the city are you located? What's the size of the firm? How long has it been around and what type of work do you guys do?

 

00;03;22;23 - 00;03;52;02

JI

Thank you so much for having me on. We are a New York firm. We also have offices in Puerto Rico, Richmond, Virginia, more recently, Barcelona. We're currently located in New York, in Tribeca, and around 200 people at this point. As far as projects that we take on, we like to say design everywhere for everyone. We don't try to limit ourselves to typology.

 

We take whatever comes at us. We measure everything against the values of the firm and we really just enjoy design.

 

00;03;52;05 - 00;03;58;21

DP

So tell us a little bit about yourself. How long have you been working as an architect and what's your role in the office?

 

00;03;58;23 - 00;04;08;27

JI

So in the office I really work through all stages of the project, through design, working on developing proposals, project delivery and currently in construction to administration.

 

00;04;08;29 - 00;04;13;06

DP

So this is a really beautiful project and it's extraordinarily large.

 

00;04;13;12 - 00;04;14;13

JI

Yes, it is.

 

00;04;14;15 - 00;04;17;06

DP

So how did your office get the project?

 

00;04;17;08 - 00;04;33;02

JI

So we were invited to participate in the RFP back in fall of 2020. So there was a few other notable firms in the competition. We were lucky enough to be awarded the project, and we've been working hand in hand with Lendlease in bringing it to fruition ever since.

 

00;04;33;05 - 00;04;37;27

DP

Did you know the clients before you entered the competition?

 

00;04;37;29 - 00;04;47;23

JI

We had some previous relations with the clients as a contractor, but they've recently started opening a development wing in the United States. This is our first project, working with them in that capacity.

 

00;04;47;27 - 00;04;53;19

DP

So this site is really large. Could you give us a little history of the location?

 

00;04;53;21 - 00;05;23;07

JI

The site is 200 feet in the north south and then between West Street and the East River. Around 600 feet with 40 feet reserved for a waterfront esplanade. We actually pulled back even a little bit further from that. And it's located right on the waterfront in Greenpoint. There was recently a rezoning that allowed for a whole redesign of the waterfront, and our project is one of the earlier projects in that redevelopment.

 

00;05;23;09 - 00;05;29;05

DP

So could you give us an idea of what the scope of the project is and the programmatic requirements?

 

00;05;29;07 - 00;05;49;14

JI

So it's a residential project, around 834 units, encompassing a total of around 800,000 square feet. This also comes with a series of amenity spaces, a series of retail spaces, as well as that waterfront park, and also a collection of rooftop amenities and green space.

 

00;05;49;17 - 00;05;56;11

DP

So let's talk about the building design stylistically. Were you guys borrowing from anything locally?

 

00;05;56;14 - 00;06;21;16

JI

We like to think that the entire project comes from the community around it. We looked at a series of precedents in the Greenpoint neighborhood, historically in Greenpoint, specifically on the waterfront, to inspire the way that we detail these facades. We have a collection of different brick styles that help to break up the massing of the building, different articulations, as well as material breaks with the two precast towers.

 

00;06;21;18 - 00;06;26;20

DP

So what was on the site before you guys ended up building the new architecture?

 

00;06;26;23 - 00;06;51;02

JI

Previously, there was a two story warehouse on the site and it really was kind of a beautiful space in its own right before we got the chance to tour around, before it was demolished. And I think walking around really inspired us just with these qualities of light and materials and things that were really native to the waterfront before all of this redevelopment.

 

00;06;51;05 - 00;07;00;18

DP

And the project, as I said, very large. Could you tell me a little bit about the zoning requirements and any challenges you guys had in terms of planning?

 

00;07;00;21 - 00;08;03;15

JI

So the project is as of right, it follows the zoning guidelines, the lot itself is actually split up into two different zones. So towards the inland it's mostly low rise. We had a height cap of 65 feet with portions that were allowable to go up to 100. And then towards the waterfront, the zoning actually got a little more complicated where there were a few different conditions that you could meet.

 

It opened up these different paths for how the building could be formed. One path was a one tower scheme, which would bring you up to 360 feet. And then the other was actually a two tower scheme where if one tower made it to 200 feet, the other would be allowed up to 400 feet. We took advantage of that in order to move more of the mass to the waterfront.

 

It helped gradually declined the building back into the fabric of the community and it provided more waterfront views overall, just a better experience and connection of the building, both to the water and to the community.

 

00;08;03;17 - 00;08;06;02

DP

So were there any floodplain restrictions?

 

00;08;06;05 - 00;08;49;21

JI

Yes. The floodplain has actually set one foot above the highest point of the site, which is the most inland. And then the site gradually slopes down another 6 to 7 feet towards the water. So much of the initial design strategy of the project was finding ways to transition from the ground to above that floodplain elevation. And we accomplished this a number of ways.

 

We actually set the building back the distance from the lot line as we get closer to the water, and this allows us to use landscaping as a way to gradually transition back up to that flood elevation, as well as moving all of our program spaces above and then moving more utilitarian spaces such as bike rooms down below the flood elevation.

 

00;08;49;24 - 00;09;12;26

DP

So I'm thinking about our listeners, how to describe the site because we have a series of buildings here. Is there a simple way for you to explain the building plans on the site? So first we describe the shape of the site and plan, and then if you could give us an idea about how those buildings are organized on the site.

 

00;09;12;29 - 00;09;40;18

JI

So the site's essentially just a rectangle. It's the size of a full city block and on three sides, on the north, the east and the south, we have streets and then the west side is the waterfront. It's the East River. So the way that we've organized the buildings around the site is in this U-shape, where they start up in the northwest corner, move around down West Street and then below, creating a view that opens up towards the water.

 

00;09;40;20 - 00;09;43;19

DP

So it's really all about the views, which it should be.

 

00;09;43;21 - 00;09;58;19

JI

Yes, it's something that it needs to be on the waterfront as well as it is about the views back into the neighborhood. We try to open up the view corridors from the building and leave as much view towards the water and towards the horizon from the rest of Greenpoint as we can.

 

00;09;58;22 - 00;10;08;12

DP

So tell us a little bit about the material choices. You've got a series of different materials and colors there. What were the decisions behind that?

 

00;10;08;15 - 00;11;00;05

JI

The building massing itself is broken up into five unique buildings and out of those we have two towers that are precast, and those are the buildings on the waterfront and then inland. There are three different buildings that range from ten stories to six stories. And those three buildings are brick. And that we really wanted to draw back from a lot of our inspirations in the Greenpoint community.

 

There's no shortage of brick precedents there. There's beautiful buildings such as the Astral, which is this Queen Ann red brick Terracotta building. There's St Anthony's Church, which is red brick and limestone trim. It's really beautiful, striking building. We looked towards kind of the history of the waterfront, those manufacturing, industrial buildings, and used that precedent to define these brick colors, these three different brick buildings.

 

00;11;00;08 - 00;11;28;28

DP

So interestingly, the facades. So we've got the shorter, or we've got the less tall architecture, which are brick buildings, and the facades are a series of what I'll call punctures with spandrel, it looks like spandrel brick in between each one of these vertically in between each one of the window openings, correct? Yes. So how many studies did you guys end up doing to decide what these facades looked like?

 

00;11;29;00 - 00;12;07;13

JI

Everything kind of melded together at some point. It's hard to break it down into a number because it was just this completely iterative process where we'd look at something, we'd make a model, we draw it, we'd look at it again, we'd make another model, we draw it. And this evolved from the concept schematic designs all the way through to the construction document development.

 

This idea of the different brick details that actually came from wanting to streamline the project. So we used the same details on each of the brick buildings, but we remixed them in each one. We use them in a different order to create a different identity for each of these.

 

00;12;07;20 - 00;12;25;01

DP

I think what's really interesting about these facades too, so you separate the facade these into squares or rectangles, and then they have this very, well, it looks subtle in elevation from far away, but it's actually a very large construction joint in between each one of these square rectangular panels, correct?

 

00;12;25;03 - 00;12;40;03

JI

Yes. We use that construction joint and we overemphasize it. We use this double soldier coursing reveal as a way to further break up the massing and kind of imply this subdivisions within the buildings.

 

00;12;40;06 - 00;12;43;17

DP

And how deep is that? Is that one brick thickness?

 

00;12;43;22 - 00;12;44;20

JI

It's two inches.

 

00;12;44;20 - 00;12;55;11

DP

Two inches. It's nice because when you look at the facade, I mean, it looks quite homogenous. But if you look at it a little bit more deeply, it's separated in these squares and rectangles. Very pretty.

 

00;12;55;16 - 00;13;14;27

JI

Yeah, that's the effect that we really want to go for in terms of how this fits into the fabric of Greenpoint. We like the idea of there being this large scale massing that breaks down and continues to break down the closer you get and it relates to more your scale relative to the way that you're viewing it.

 

00;13;15;00 - 00;13;22;07

DP

It really does scale the architecture nicely. So how about the building review with the city? Was that time consuming?

 

00;13;22;09 - 00;13;34;17

JI

Not at all. As I said, we were as of right building. So working through the construction documents, we were also working through permitting at the same time. It was a very easy flow from one stage to the next.

 

00;13;34;19 - 00;13;37;18

DP

Now, did you guys work in 2D and in 3D?

 

00;13;37;26 - 00;13;46;28

JI

Yes. 2D, 3D, physical models, sketches. Things were being passed around the office for a year and a half related to this.

 

00;13;47;01 - 00;13;51;00

DP

Do you work in Revit or AutoCAD or ArchiCAD?

 

00;13;51;02 - 00;13;58;26

JI

We're primarily a Revit office. We use Revit for our project delivery. We also do a bit of work in AutoCAD and in Rhino.

 

00;13;59;02 - 00;14;03;24

DP

So when you did presentation with the clients, did you show them three dimensional images and models?

 

00;14;04;01 - 00;14;31;01

JI

Yes, there is a lot of modeling. We actually very early on in the project, we built this eight foot long model of the Greenpoint waterfront, and we were working through just several dozens of iterations of the massing, the two towers, a one tower option, and we were all just spread out around the table, around this model, flipping through the different massings and trying to figure out what worked best with what else we were seeing on the waterfront.

 

00;14;31;04 - 00;14;33;00

DP

I bet the client really enjoyed that.

 

00;14;33;00 - 00;14;36;26

JI

It was a blast. Every office meeting was always a mini party.

 

00;14;36;28 - 00;14;57;08

DP

Yeah, clients love models. I mean, they love 3D images. I'm sure when you showed them these three dimensional images, particularly the towers, which are really quite beautiful, the way the facades step back and move forward. And they're just, the architecture is very interesting. So I'm sure they really enjoyed it, especially when they saw the first renderings.

 

00;14;57;10 - 00;15;12;11

JI

Yeah, again, it was a lot of fun and all these models were tactile and interactive, so it gave us a chance to move some of these blocks and figure out the correct portion, the correct distance that we'd want things to overhang to shift and slide past each other.

 

00;15;12;14 - 00;15;17;06

DP

So how many people worked on the project? How many people were involved in the office on the team?

 

00;15;17;11 - 00;15;44;07

JI

It fluctuated throughout phase. I think at the height of it we had around 12 people total, and that's assembling the full construction package, Through concept the team was a bit smaller, we maybe 4 to 6 and this is also spread out between a few of the different locations of our offices. So we had a team in our San Juan, Puerto Rico office and a team at our New York office, both working hand in hand on this.

 

00;15;44;09 - 00;16;06;15

DP

You know, as an aside, what's really pretty, the red brick that you guys use there, there are a lot of lighter bricks in that facade. And so it makes it look almost pink in color. But you get up close to it and you can see a lot of variations in these colors, in the red colored brick, a lot of like I'll call it value, but it's light and dark red brick.

 

00;16;06;18 - 00;17;10;16

JI

For that facade we're using a blended brick and we wanted that to echo some of the red brick buildings that you already see on West Street on the waterfront. That was kind of our launching point for coming up with this brick palette. We knew that there was going to be a red brick building. We knew that it was going to be relative to those warehouses and then the other two bricks were kind of an offshoot, based on how we wanted to frame this story of the building as you move around the site.

 

So to the north, there's a lighter brick. It's something that we see as a little more modern. We try to keep the tones of the brick and mortar and the sills and other materials a little more homogenous and then on the flip side of that, on the southern street of the building Java Street, we wanted to use something with a bit more variation.

 

We wanted a higher contrast between the grout and the brick, a higher variability within the bricks. And that's something that we saw as a little more nostalgic to some of those worker housings and the smaller buildings that you begin to see as you move more inland.

 

00;17;10;18 - 00;17;16;27

DP

Now the colors work very nicely together. So where are you guys in the construction phase on this? Forgive me for not knowing.

 

00;17;16;29 - 00;17;33;05

JI

Where currently pouring the concrete structure. We're up to the sixth floor now, I believe. We have gotten all of the brick pallets finalized. We've gotten all the precast facades cast. It's really kind of a game of assembly at this point.

 

00;17;33;07 - 00;17;41;28

DP

So, Jeremy, you're a young architect. I'm sure you're learning a lot. As you go along here, anything memorable so far?

 

00;17;42;01 - 00;18;01;06

JI

It's so hard to pick one thing. This entire project has just been an incredible learning experience. Admittedly, early in my career, there's so many different conditions, so much to consider with a project of this size that I really feel like I got a good breadth of exposure to so many facets of the industry now.

 

00;18;01;06 - 00;18;03;18

DP

Do you get to be out in the field a lot?

 

00;18;03;21 - 00;18;27;22

JI

Yes. Every week we have our owner and constructor meetings. We have bank walks on the side and really get to see the progress and it's moving so quickly, month by month. And also I live not too far from the site, so every week I try to make it out there and just see what's going on, see what's changed, and it's kind of humbling just seeing something come to life.

 

00;18;27;25 - 00;18;46;27

DP

I would imagine something this large, I've never worked on a project that's larger than a residential home. I mean, I've worked on schools early on, but working on a job that's this big has got to be humbling and profound and extraordinarily interesting all at the same time.

 

00;18;46;29 - 00;19;07;27

JI

Yeah, it's been challenging, but I think throughout all of it I've been extremely lucky just having in the support of a firm like Marvel as well as just an incredibly talented team of consultants, of engineers and clients who have really just been supportive and on board and actively participating in every step of the design.

 

00;19;08;00 - 00;19;12;29

DP

So I'd like to ask most of our guests, did you guys have any challenges finding a mason?

 

00;19;13;02 - 00;19;27;21

JI

No, actually, the mason that we've gone with bundling, we've worked on a few of our projects with them before, and the second that they came on board with the project, our confidence kind of skyrocketed. Just because we've had such a good experience with them previously.

 

00;19;27;23 - 00;19;37;24

DP

For all those young architects out there looking for work at a firm that they admire, how might you recommend young people find the right job?

 

00;19;37;26 - 00;20;22;06

JI

Well, the right job is kind of a hard thing to qualify. I think the best advice I could give on that is to just put your name out there wherever you can. Don't be shy in asking people for connections and asking people to kind of put you in a position that you think would be beneficial to you. With Marvel, actually, I had a friend from school who knew someone, and through them I was able to get my resume and I actually don't think Marvel was actively hiring. But I got the interview and it went very well. I loved everyone on the team and they loved me and I think I really landed in my right place. But I encourage everyone to really put yourself out to as many places as you can so you can see what fits for you and what works for you.

 

00;20;22;08 - 00;20;41;12

DP

I always kind of wonder is an older guy working in this field now to social media have a benefit in terms of finding work today? That is, is it easier to reach out to people that you simply don't know with your resume and thoughts about, hey, I'd love to work with your firm?

 

00;20;41;15 - 00;21;14;24

JI

Yeah, I think it plays a big part. It's playing an increasing part to Instagram as a way that I see a lot of firms work, a lot of firms putting out calls for applications for either positions or internships. It really increases the amount of exposure and it puts everything in one place where people might just passively see it.

 

And then there's also LinkedIn, where I get so many people messaging me about my experience at Marvel and kind of things that they're looking for, things that they would want to know about if they were to apply for a position or an internship.

 

00;21;14;27 - 00;22;17;12

DP

It's interesting, just as an aside, I never really thought about this, but when you said it puts things in one place, the web really does help them. It sounds really dumb, but to a guy like me who's 55 years old when I was young, you either have to see an architect work in a magazine, you visit their office and you get to see all the photos of all of their work.

 

But the web really does an amazing job of putting absolutely everything in one location, right? So you go, especially an app like Instagram, where you simply open it up, go to a page and you can see all 400 projects or 30 projects or whatever it is, and contact people at the firm in 2 minutes. It really has changed the paradigm for employment or simply for marketing and all these other things.

 

I know it all sounds very obvious, but as I sit here with a young architect, it makes me think that your world is simply very different than what mine used to be.

 

00;22;17;19 - 00;22;30;19

JI

I also think it's democratized in a way. It's given smaller firms a greater opportunity and platform to put their work out that it could be on the same level with the kind of content that you see from much larger firms.

 

00;22;30;22 - 00;22;40;06

DP

I love that. That makes a lot of sense. So, Jeremy, it's been great to have you here. Thank you so much for your time. Where can people go to learn more about Marvel and yourself?

 

00;22;40;06 - 00;22;50;03

JI

Yeah, thank you, Doug. You can visit our website, MarvelDesign.com or also please follow us on Instagram at @Marvel_is_design.

 

00;22;50;05 - 00;22;55;28

DP

All right well, Jeremy, thank you very much again for being here. It's been great to have you as a guest.

 

00;22;55;29 - 00;22;59;28

JI

Yeah. Thank you so much, Doug.

TRANSCRIPT

00;00;05;27 - 00;00;29;07

SN

It's a very faithful rendition of what's known as Collegiate Gothic. It is very much in step with this long-established tradition of higher education that goes back to the church in Europe and then institutions like Oxford and Cambridge. And then it comes over to the states with institutions like Harvard and Yale, who are doing very much the same thing. They were trying to identify with this established tradition.

 

00;00;29;14 - 00;02;24;07

DP

This is my guest, Steve Knight. I'll share more about him shortly. In this episode from the Design Vault we’ll highlight Steve's project, the Nicholas S. Zeppos College Building at Vanderbilt University.

The Nicholas S. Zeppos College Building is several thousand square feet, five stories with a large tower at one end. The building is red brick and limestone, designed in the collegiate Gothic style. The building has a slate roof, slate dormers, large brick chimney masses, limestone window frames and quoins, multi-story window bays, gable forms across the facade, and limestone gothic arches, a tall square picturesque tower with chamfered corners, polychromatic brickwork and limestone cap rounds out the building at one end.

Hi, I'm Doug Pat and this is Design Vault. Today we're talking to Steve Knight, who led the team designing the Nicholas S. Zeppos College at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee. Steve is a member of the American Institute of Architects and he's a principal with David M. Schwarz Architects. He studied at North Carolina State University, where he received his Master of Architecture. That same year, he joined David M. Schwarz Architects. Steve primarily focuses on his firm's performing arts venue projects. He served as project architect for the design of the Schermerhorn Symphony Center, the Palladium at the Center for Performing Arts, the Gilliard center, and most recently, an 8000-seat amphitheater in Huntsville, Alabama.

Among other projects, he's currently leading the offices team on the design of the multiphase residential college project at Vanderbilt University. The Nicholas S. Zeppos College Building is one of four residential buildings for DMS at Vanderbilt University. So let's get into the details. Welcome, Steve.

 

00;02;24;14 - 00;02;25;28

SN

Greetings, Doug. Good to be here.

 

00;02;26;08 - 00;02;30;09

DP

So, tell us a little bit about your firm, David M. Schwarz Architects.

 

00;02;30;20 - 00;03;04;27

SN

Sure. We're a mid-sized design architect and planning firm. We're based in Washington, D.C. We have about 35 design architects on staff. We were started in the mid-seventies by our founder, David M. Schwarz.

It was a really interesting time to start an architecture firm in Washington and in the U.S., really. And there are two pivotal things that happened in the late seventies. The first was the district passed one of the most stringent historic preservation ordinances in the country. And on the heels of that, the federal government enacted tax credits for historic preservation.

 

00;03;04;27 - 00;03;06;22

DP

Really? How fortuitous.

 

00;03;07;00 - 00;03;43;12

SN

So, we found ourselves, the firm at the time - this is before my time there, obviously - but we found ourselves working in newly established historic districts on landmark designated buildings, and it really informed how we think about architecture that architecture is - it's very important that it responds very carefully to the context around it. Each building is part of a larger ecosystem that creates meaningful places, beautiful places to walk, live, places that are memorable. That really is a kind of a train of thought that I think we've carried through all of our work to this day.

 

00;03;43;20 - 00;03;54;16

DP

So, the greater majority of the work that you guys do is traditional. Has that been challenging in any era over the course of the last 50 years when people were doing more modern architecture and...

 

00;03;54;26 - 00;04;42;08

SN

Well, it certainly is today. We never sought out to be traditional architects in that sense. One project begets another, and like many architects, we sort of get known for our buildings and what we do. And I think in terms of that stylistic leaning, if you will, it's a bit controversial these days, I think, particularly within the architecture design community, where I think there is a tendency amongst the majority to want to look forward in sort of the past is the past, let's look to the present and let's look to the future.

I think for us, architecture is primarily about communication. And what we mean by that is that buildings in their edifices say something to people and it's really important that they engage with the communities that they serve.

 

00;04;42;20 - 00;04;58;02

DP

Yeah, it's interesting talking about classicism, traditional architecture, having a kind of language and speaking to the community in a certain way. Right. It's kind of understandable language for many people. You see, especially in Washington.

 

00;04;58;10 - 00;05;02;25

SN

It is, it's a very legible language of building and design. Absolutely.

 

00;05;03;03 - 00;05;05;14

DP

So, tell us about your role in the office.

 

00;05;05;27 - 00;05;33;12

SN

I'm a principal in the firm. I've been with the firm since I finished graduate school back in the late nineties. I started out as an intern and then, as you could imagine, sort of worked my way up through architect staff and project architect and then project manager. I spend most of my time communicating and working with teams of people in the office. Design, for us, is a very collaborative sport. The office is a very collaborative environment.

 

00;05;33;12 - 00;05;33;28

DP

That's great.

 

00;05;34;05 - 00;05;59;17

SN

I think one of the most interesting things to me is the founder, David Schwarz. I have rarely ever seen David pick up a pencil and draw something, but he commands a great deal of influence and quality oversight of the firm's body of work, largely through talking to people, getting to know each of us. And I in turn try to do the same.

 

00;05;59;25 - 00;06;02;08

DP

Well, you've been there a long time. It sounds like you've got a great boss.

 

00;06;02;14 - 00;06;07;06

SN

He is a great boss. We got a great group of people around me. I consider myself very lucky.

 

00;06;07;12 - 00;06;20;27

DP

Oh, that's really cool, because, I mean, architecture is challenging enough, right? It's a challenging profession. Very difficult business. We're all architects, right? So, we're all a little self-absorbed. To find somebody you enjoy working with and for is wonderful.

 

00;06;21;02 - 00;06;22;01

SN

Yeah, it's very important.

 

00;06;22;04 - 00;06;34;02

DP

Yeah, that's great. So, let's dig in here. Let's talk about the residential college project at Vanderbilt and specifically the Nicholas S. Zeppos College building. How did your office get this project?

 

00;06;34;15 - 00;07;25;15

SN

Well, it goes back to a master plan study that we did. Oh, at least 15 years ago, we conducted a study. The university was interested in reorganizing student life on campus, and they struck on the idea of the residential college model, which grows out of a very well-established tradition that starts on the other side of the pond by places like Oxford and Cambridge.

And then it comes to the States in the early 20th century with the Ivy League institutions like Yale and Harvard and Princeton. And what they really liked about it was this notion of breaking down the larger student community into smaller communities of a few hundred people. So, we developed this master plan that sort of provided strategic opportunity areas on where these colleges could be located.

 

00;07;25;21 - 00;07;28;28

DP

So, they came to you with this idea. There would be four colleges.

 

00;07;29;06 - 00;07;38;02

SN

They came to us with a very broad idea of, “we want to rethink student life on campus,” and through conversation, the residential college model came out of that.

 

00;07;38;02 - 00;07;38;21

DP

Wonderful.

 

00;07;38;23 - 00;08;00;27

SN

And then opportunity areas across campus. We identified sites. They then constructed what they called the freshman campus, the freshman college, if you will. That's where all first-year students go to live and there was a bit of a lull. And then we sort of came back with this more defined project of the four colleges, of which Nicholas S. Zeppos is number two.

 

00;08;01;08 - 00;08;07;11

DP

So, had you been hired at that point or were you working against other architects to try to get the project?

 

00;08;07;16 - 00;08;17;01

SN

No, we had been hired at that point. We had done other work in Nashville, most notably the Schermerhorn Symphony Center, the Nashville Symphony's concert hall.

 

00;08;17;01 - 00;08;18;02

DP

So, they knew of you.

 

00;08;18;03 - 00;08;22;19

SN

So, they knew of us. And we just developed good, strong relationships in the community.

 

00;08;22;20 - 00;08;31;27

DP

That's great. It's a great way to get jobs. So, can you tell me a little bit about the history of the place, the town, the neighborhood, the buildings around the site?

 

00;08;32;04 - 00;08;52;00

SN

Sure. In Nashville, it's a fascinating city with great heritage and history. One of its monikers is the Athens of the South. They have a full-scale replica of the Parthenon on Centennial Park campus, which is actually just across the West End Boulevard from Vanderbilt.

 

00;08;52;02 - 00;08;55;07

DP

I'm sure I've seen photos of this and have forgotten. That's incredible.

 

00;08;55;17 - 00;08;59;15

SN

It. It really is. Every detail is fully, faithfully executed.

 

00;08;59;16 - 00;09;02;07

DP

I'd love to talk about that some time but go ahead.

 

00;09;02;17 - 00;10;17;15

SN

But that's not why it's called the Athens of the South. It's called the Athens of the south because of the number of institutions of higher learning that one finds there. So, you have Fisk, you have Vanderbilt, many institutions. And it just at a sort of a per capita level. It developed this sort of bookish, erudite culture. Another thing that helped reinforced it was there's a great deal of publishing that happens there, mostly religious, and musical publications.

So anyway, so it's the Athens of the South, so that's really neat. The Vanderbilt history is really interesting because it's basically it's founded as an outgrowth of the Civil War. The institution, it was basically viewed by its namesake who endowed the starting of the university as a kind of a healing moment between the North and the South.

Cornelius Vanderbilt. And he has a statue, obviously, in the heart of campus. The campus itself is - it's a really beautiful green garden-like setting. It does have the classification of being an arboretum because of the number of unique specimens of trees one finds there. The architecture is quite eclectic. Like most campuses, there's a kind of a historic heart of Victorian era buildings and some collegiate gothic buildings as well. And then it sort of evolves over time.

 

00;10;17;24 - 00;10;31;07

DP

So, you touched a little bit on what these college buildings are composed of. Could you give me a little bit more information about the programmatic requirements of each of the four buildings - or let's just stick to the Zeppos College building?

 

00;10;31;12 - 00;12;03;17

SN

Yes. So Zeppos houses 340 students. We typically say beds. It has 340 beds. So that's the lingo in that business, if you will. And it's viewed as a really holistic living environment for students. Not only are there places to sleep, but there are also places to study, places to gather. There are places to eat. There are even accommodations for some resident faculty. Each of the colleges, or at Zeppos, has a family - faculty member and their family has an apartment within the facility. And they help provide leadership and mentorship to the student community.

So, and all of those things are fully realized programmatically with dining facilities. There's a really great dining hall in Zeppos. There's a great room, as we call it, a large living room with wood paneling, courtyards. So there's nice quality, secure, defensible outdoor space for the students to use.

On each of the floors, it was a really interesting challenge because we're dealing with a lot, even within that reduced footprint of only 300 odd beds, it's still a lot of program, a lot of footprint to have to manage. So, to create a sense of place that's navigable and somewhat homelike and approachable and familiar, we did some interesting things within the student floors. There's a lot of articulation in the building massing, and we offset the double loaded corridors to create nodes and they tend to coincide with elevators and stairs so that we create places for students to naturally bump into each other.

 

00;12;04;00 - 00;12;16;08

DP

Well, I'm going to actually ask you about that in just a minute. So first, let's back up and talk a little bit about the site and the topographic features, if there are any. Or are they just completely flat?

 

00;12;16;19 - 00;13;04;06

SN

No, there is a bit of grade change from - I have to get my compass directions right - from east to west. I think what's most interesting about the site is it has kind of a two-sided nature to it. So, on one side is West End Avenue, which is a major east west thoroughfare that connects with downtown Nashville. It's sort of the public face of Vanderbilt. So, the colleges were a real opportunity to sort of enhance the university's image to the outward community.

And then on the other side, the opposite side is a very opposite kind of condition. It's a series of very low scale residential structures that house the Greek community. So, several houses, each one is a fraternity or a sorority. So, we had to respond to two very different contexts on each side of the building.

 

00;13;04;17 - 00;13;08;22

DP

So, tell us a little bit more about the building plan. You started getting into that.

 

00;13;08;29 - 00;13;29;25

SN

Sure. So Zeppos is a figure eight with two courtyards. What makes the figure eight is what we call a double loaded bar, if you will, on the upper student room floors. You have rooms on both sides of a corridor. And again, there's interesting offsets in those corridors and bars to help break down the massing.

 

00;13;30;04 - 00;13;32;25

DP

Does that create these large gables?

 

00;13;33;00 - 00;13;48;03

SN

Yes. And then and then some of the bars, we actually punch through to create Gables to help break down and articulate the massing of the building. It's basically a city block. So, all of those moves are really important to help make the building very approachable and friendly.

 

00;13;48;11 - 00;13;51;14

DP

Are all four college buildings a city block.

 

00;13;51;26 - 00;14;14;09

SN

About. They each layout a little differently from one another. The one immediately to the east of this one, Rothschild College. That one has three courtyards. Due to the particulars of that particular site and obviously what makes the Zeppos college most special amongst the four of them is this 300-foot tower at one end of it.

 

00;14;14;17 - 00;14;20;03

DP

So that's a great segway. Tell us about the style of this building because it's stunning.

 

00;14;20;12 - 00;15;02;06

SN

It's a very faithful rendition of what's known as Collegiate Gothic. It was really very much a communication and really a marketing decision by the university in terms of we looked at lots of different vernaculars. What should these things look like? And the entire team ultimately arrived at Collegiate Gothic is the appropriate response. It is very much in step with this long-established tradition of higher education that goes back to the church in Europe and then institutions like Oxford and Cambridge, and then it comes over to the States with institutions like Harvard and Yale who are doing very much the same thing. They were trying to identify with this established tradition.

 

00;15;02;13 - 00;15;04;13

DP

Really? I mean, it makes perfect sense.

 

00;15;04;14 - 00;15;05;02

SN

Absolutely.

 

00;15;05;13 - 00;15;14;25

DP

So, were there any specific buildings that you can recall that you guys were looking at? The tower looks like it could have been pulled from the facade from a church in Europe. Right? I mean.

 

00;15;15;02 - 00;16;04;01

SN

Sure, we're very eclectic in our approach. We spend a lot of time looking at examples in books. We try to visit places in person, and that was a really important tool at the outset of this project is we actually took members of the client team on a little whirlwind tour of residential college examples around the country. Some examples that we looked to for the tower would be the Harkness Tower at Yale.

A slightly more atypical one that we did look at. It would be the Nebraska state Capitol and I think one feature that we quoted from that one is towards the top of the tower. As it starts to step in, you'll see what we call a little lantern, a little limestone lantern on each of the four corners. That's a common type feature in this style of architecture. When you're creating a tapered tall form like this, we thought it worked very well.

 

00;16;04;09 - 00;16;11;29

DP

And you chose brick for the majority of the material for these exterior facades? Tell me a little bit about that.

 

00;16;12;07 - 00;16;45;17

SN

Well, we always want our buildings to have a really rich palette of materials. And that's true of the interior and, of course, the exterior. So here the palette is a combination of brick, carved Indiana limestone, and then an accent stone, which is called Crab Orchard. It's actually a stone that's native to Tennessee. And we thought that was very appropriate to sort of weave in a local material that one finds in and around Nashville. The brick in particular is really interesting because we knew we didn't want a stark read of just one color.

 

00;16;45;19 - 00;16;48;08

DP

Right. Like if the building was all limestone.

 

00;16;48;08 - 00;17;09;26

SN

Like it was all limestone. And even within the brick itself, it's not just one brick, it's actually a blend of three bricks. And we did lots of mockup panels with the help of a very patient Mason, and a very patient local brick distributor who gave us about an acre of their brickyard to do all these different experiments.

 

00;17;09;27 - 00;17;10;16

DP

That's so cool.

 

00;17;10;16 - 00;17;46;22

SN

We tried different blends and we ultimately settled on a blend of three bricks for the college, and then we further augmented that with what we call decorative bond detailing. So, if you look closely at some of the details, you'll see brick that's fashioned into basket weave patterns, sawtooth patterns, what's known in England as diapering, which is creating a sort of a diamond checkerboard pattern. And we use different bricks for that as well. They tended to be iron spot bricks that are really beautiful because they catch and reflect light in different ways depending on how the sun is hitting them.

 

00;17;47;06 - 00;18;26;25

DP

Yeah, so it's interesting. We've got this polychrome going on, so you guys have the red brick and then I see these diamonds which are made from a different color brick, and then you're taking that one step further. You're backing off the changes in color perhaps, and you're changing the direction of these bricks and the patterns on the interiors.

I mean, it just takes so much time and thought to do everything you guys are doing on these facades. How much time did it take? Just doing like the design work? And who was doing that design work in the office? How were you doing these drawings and how are they being reviewed? I mean, there's a lot going on here.

 

00;18;27;02 - 00;19;17;26

SN

There's a lot there. I mean, the process is really key and it's a very layered process. You don't start out drawing detail. You start out with a parti and then you look at the plan and then you study the massing and then you get to a point and that's schematic design and that was probably about five months. And then we launch into design development.

We are refining the details and that was probably another six months of design development. And within both of those design phases, it's hand sketching, physical study models - we still love doing old fashioned models, just cutting out of cardboard and matte board - as well as two-dimensional drafting. And then, of course, actually three-dimensional modeling and digital modeling in the computer. That was a really key tool.

 

00;19;18;06 - 00;19;22;26

DP

With all these bricks and all those patterns. Must have been an unbelievable process.

 

00;19;22;26 - 00;19;45;28

SN

Yeah. And then it all has to be documented. It's a beautiful project. The standards were very high at the same time we did have a budget and doing cost take-offs at each of the milestone levels of completion - at schematic design and design development - were very important and they caused us to have to do some recalibrating and some adjusting to keep the thing on budget and on track.

 

00;19;46;09 - 00;19;52;23

DP

Yeah, I mean, you sit down with the clients and show them some of this stuff and I'm sure the first words out of their mouths is how much is this going to cost, right?

 

00;19;52;25 - 00;20;12;01

SN

Sure. It's interesting. In the earliest design packages, schematic design, you just can't draw all the detail. So, we actually put photos of collegiate gothic buildings in the drawings to help the contractors really get their head around, okay, this is really complex here. This is not your typical...

 

00;20;12;14 - 00;20;19;14

DP

And there had to have been a lot of handholding in the field too. I mean, a lot of the detail, like the variegated quoins, the quoining on the corners.

 

00;20;19;14 - 00;20;23;19

SN

Yeah. Every one of those stones is actually laid out in the design.

 

00;20;23;27 - 00;20;30;16

DP

All the dimensions, the materiality, the color. Like everything. Wow. So, there's a lot of details.

 

00;20;30;27 - 00;20;39;27

SN

Yes. I mean, it's a phone book level – for anybody who remembers what a phone book is – a phone book thickness level of drawing and documentation.

 

00;20;40;04 - 00;20;51;19

DP

Tell me a little bit about the limestone work, because, again, the level, the detail and the wonderful intricate detailing, I mean, you've got to draw and then you got to find somebody to make that.

 

00;20;51;28 - 00;21;24;16

SN

It's southern Indiana is limestone country. Indiana limestone. It's where the stone is quarried and it's where it is still fabricated. To this day, it is grand tradition. It goes back to the mid-1800s. It had its heyday in the early 20th century with, one just imagines, the proliferation of limestone buildings one finds in any great city in the U.S. and then it gradually tapered off from there after the war in particular. But there are still a few very dedicated fabricator firms that do the what they call the cutting.

 

00;21;24;23 - 00;21;30;24

DP

It had to have been hard to find somebody with so few people doing this kind of - this level of detail work.

 

00;21;31;07 - 00;21;44;12

SN

Well, there's one firm we've worked with on almost all of our projects. And they’re still - this is what they do. They are perfectly set up to do it, Bybee Limestone. We know them very well. We love them and they know us. And they love us too.

 

00;21;44;12 - 00;22;05;24

DP

Yeah, it's stunning. So back to Brick for a second. Did Brick solve any particular design challenges for the architecture for the client? I mean, you touched a little bit on the color, on the exterior and the feel of the architecture, right? We talked about the fact that you make this building all limestone. You got a problem. I mean, it's just a monolith.

 

00;22;06;06 - 00;22;38;17

SN

Yeah, well, it's a very warming material. It's very appropriate, in particular, the way it's used here for what is essentially a residential place. It's a very approachable, it's a very durable material, obviously. And sustainability is very important. We think one of the most important aspects of sustainability is building very consciously, using resources very consciously and very wisely. And in building something that will hopefully be around for a very long time. This building will be around for a very long time.

 

00;22;39;05 - 00;22;45;02

DP

That's for sure. Were there any unique construction details that you guys developed as you were working on this?

 

00;22;45;12 - 00;23;50;11

SN

Yeah, as I mentioned earlier, architecture is a very collaborative sport, and we didn't do this all ourselves. We had a very dedicated architect of record Hastings Architects out of Nashville. They were very faithful in working with us to realize all of the technical detailing, achieve what we're trying to achieve aesthetically, and then a really good contractor late in construction. They were very on top of things the whole way.

I'd say a couple of specifics: one of the things, the details that makes the colleges really fun and interesting are these ornamental chimneys that you find on the roof. And the contractor hit on a really interesting idea because in particular after the previous college where they did not do this, they elected to construct the chimneys on the ground, and then hoist them into place with the tower crane. That allowed them to advance construction on the roof without tying up a huge amount of roof area with scaffolding and preventing them from drying in the building. It was just a much easier erection process down on the ground.

 

00;23;50;21 - 00;23;53;09

DP

You just have boiler flues going through these things. I mean.

 

00;23;53;16 - 00;23;58;06

SN

They're vents, They're flues. Yeah. So, they do they do serve a functional purpose as well.

 

00;23;58;07 - 00;24;05;00

DP

I think that's a wonderful touch. You wouldn't expect to see these chimney masses on a building like that. They really kind of set it apart.

 

00;24;05;07 - 00;24;46;07

SN

One other quick detail is it sort of goes back to the documentation. After we get even through CDs and in construction, there's then what's known as the submittal process where shop drawings are submitted and the contractor hired one firm, an engineering firm that was sort of the central documentation point for all of the masonry. Typically, you would have separate drawings for brick and limestone, and in this case, the Crab Orchard. So, we had one firm that was weaving all of that together. It really helped the coordination and adjustments that had to be made to some of the technical details because it was all in one place. You know, it's also this is modern cavity wall construction.

 

00;24;47;13 - 00;24;49;03

DP

That’s a good point. Okay. So how does that work?

 

00;24;49;11 - 00;25;23;18

SN

So, there's a concrete superstructure between the slabs. We span metal studs. And then much like any building, we pack insulation between the studs. There's exterior rated gyp. board and then a barrier coating that goes over that and then some additional installation in some cases to get the proper R-values. And then the brick is hung off the building. It's built the way modern brick buildings are built today. Cause it really had to be, because that's just how we build - that's how people know how to build. Yet, we're trying to achieve something quite different in the aesthetics.

 

00;25;23;25 - 00;25;26;07

DP

Did you guys use any brick on the interior?

 

00;25;26;18 - 00;26;01;09

SN

So far, no. But there's one last college that's under construction and we were using brick in the dining hall of that one. It'll be a thin brick that's applied to the inside wall surface, but it's been a fun opportunity and a challenge at the same time across four colleges, because we want them all to fit within this collegiate gothic vernacular.

But yet, we want each one to be slightly different, so it's identifiable and to the community that lives there in a larger community as well. So, finding subtle, fun, different things we could do from one to the next was always one of the most interesting and challenging parts of this.

 

00;26;01;21 - 00;26;10;17

DP

I was thinking about while we were talking about the general contractor that you worked with. Was it a bid job or did you guys go immediately to the GC?

 

00;26;10;27 - 00;26;31;26

SN

They were a construction manager. So, they were brought on board early in the process during design. We like working that way because we like getting the technical expertise and input during design. We can constantly be moving forward as opposed to taking three steps back if a contractor comes on much later and says, “I wouldn't have done it that way.”

 

00;26;32;01 - 00;26;37;09

DP

What I was getting at was whether or not you had any challenges finding a really good mason.

 

00;26;37;19 - 00;26;48;06

SN

You know, it's interesting. It's lots of masons. There was a mason subcontractor, but they in turn subcontracted. It would be interesting to ask them. I know it was a challenge.

 

00;26;48;08 - 00;26;50;21

DP

Finding the right people to do the work.

 

00;26;50;21 - 00;26;51;17

SN

The right skill set.

 

00;26;51;23 - 00;26;57;11

DP

It's always a challenge for every architect. So, Steve, what was your favorite part of the project?

 

00;26;57;22 - 00;27;36;01

SN

I really enjoy the design development phase. We're really getting in and figuring out details. It's a level of problem solving that I find really interesting because in the earlier design phase, we sort of setting up the game board and making the major moves, but then to go in and make each one actually work and really figure stuff out and all the tools that we used to do that and it's a really interesting variety of tools, whether it's a half inch scale model of a corbel that's sitting on my desk or a sketch or the digital model, I just find problem solving at that level to be really, really fully engaging and satisfying.

 

00;27;36;10 - 00;28;02;24

DP

It's great. It takes a long time for most people to find what they really love about the profession, right? I mean, some people end up doing everything they've small offices, some people end up doing one thing one or two things inside of an office. It's a challenging business. It's a challenging profession. I think it's really nice that you're as happy as you are doing what you're doing and as good as you are at it. That's wonderful.

 

00;28;03;02 - 00;28;24;05

SN

I think one of the other interesting things, I use the word ownership a lot with the teams in the office and in design development. It's a really great opportunity to give individual young designers pieces of the building to figure out and design. When it's all done, they can come with me to the site and they can look at that point and yeah, I did that. That's really cool.

 

00;28;24;05 - 00;28;30;16

DP

Oh, that's great. So, Steve Knight, it was great to have you here. Where do people go to find you and your firm?

 

00;28;30;20 - 00;28;41;29

SN

Go to our web site www.dmsas.com. And if you're in Washington DC, come by and pay us a visit. 1707 L Street

 

00;28;43;00 - 00;28;47;09

DP

You get to meet some of our listeners. That's wonderful. Well, thank you very much, Steve Knight.

 

00;28;48;00 - 00;28;49;12

SN

Thank you, Doug. It's been a pleasure.

TRANSCRIPT 

00;00;02;24 - 00;00;32;01

MN

We looked at references of Eastern European architecture that felt familiar to them in terms of their context. Right? So, they grew up in small villages in southern Poland, where a lot of the typical houses there are just built out of clay brick, and the clay brick is exposed. All the mortar is exposed. So, it's all load bearing. One could look at that and say, well, that's really utilitarian and reflective of the structure of the house and, you know, where's the cladding? But to me I find that really interesting. I'm like, Oh, that is the cladding. And how do we kind of represent that in a new way?

 

00;00;33;00 - 00;01;01;25

DP

This is my guest, Mateusz Nowacki. I'll share more about him shortly. In this episode from the Design Vault, we’ll highlight his project, The H-House. The H-House is a residential home. The name is derived from the shape of the home, in plan, with the two story central spine and flanking single story legs clad in brick. The building uses standing seam metal, a variegated red brick and large modern black windows.

 

00;01;02;17 - 00;01;51;10

DP

Hi, I'm Doug Pat and this is Design Vault. Today we're talking to Mateusz Nowacki, architect of the H-House in Manotick, Ontario. Mateusz is the founder of Everyday Studio. He received his Bachelor of Architecture from Carlton University and is Master of Architecture from the University of Toronto. He's been practicing architecture in Toronto for over eight years and is a licensed OAA member.

Everyday Studio’s work has been recognized in various architectural media, including Dezeen, Dwell, Ottawa Magazine and GOHB Housing Design. So, Mateusz, tell us a little bit about your firm, Everyday Studio. Where are you located? What's the size? What kind of work do you do?

 

00;01;51;17 - 00;03;02;00

MN

Yeah, so I founded Everyday Studio in 2019 after doing a few years of freelance work, small projects here and there. I got a kind of first larger residential project of around 3500 square feet. It felt like a good time to kind of describe the notion of a studio that looks at the practice of researching and thinking about different housing prototypes and using that first project as a case study for that.

And it was sort of a kind of deviation of the thesis that I worked on in 2015 that looked at housing prototypes as well. And so, the purpose of the studio was really to be a kind of collaborative space to work with clients or contractors or trades or researchers to kind of understand the possibilities that housing can take in alternative forms than the typical vernacular.

And those studies can be polemical or literal. So, in some cases they might just be research based or text based. In some cases, they might be full houses. So, the kind of idea being that this collaborative space is meant to bridge that gap between what's on paper and what's actually built. So, we're located in Toronto, my studio right now. So, it's usually just me, but sometimes I take on some seasonal stuff and we can kind of range from a 1 to 3-person office.

 

00;03;02;08 - 00;03;08;21

DP

Okay. So, tell me a little bit about how you got this current project. The H-House, and how you get work in general.

 

00;03;08;29 - 00;03;55;29

MN

Yeah. So as any startup office does, work comes from just networking and passing on of a name. So, one project turns into another project and into another project. So, this one came from a client that was interested in the property in Manotick, and started off as a conversation with that client. And I think he had seen some of the past projects that I had done in that area as well.

Interestingly enough, like in that rural area of Manotick outside of Ottawa, I did I think two other kind of full houses which started to breathe a little bit of attention and got this client’s attention. So, it started off as a conversation, which turned into a kind of concept design for the project and the initial sort of idea was to create a house that's better connected with the site and with nature than some of its neighbors. And I can kind of touch upon that in a little bit. But it started off from there.

 

00;03;56;05 - 00;04;05;00

DP

I mean, I think that's a great place to start. So, give me a little bit about the history of the place, the location, the town, the neighborhood, the buildings.

 

00;04;05;09 - 00;05;17;11

MN

Yeah, to that point, I think that's such an incredible and important part of the story of this project. So much of where we drive inspiration from is context. You know, where is this thing located and why is that important. In the case of this area, so, the town is called Manotick. It used to be flagged with a number of agricultural fields.

It was a really kind of agrarian farming village some 75 to 100 years ago. And it hasn't developed much since that. Manotick itself is a small little town, you know, with single family homes surrounded by kind of two rivers and the kind of external area of that, the sort of periphery is surrounded by still some farming fields and some kind of larger sort of developments for larger scale homes.

So, where this property is located, it's in a neighborhood that was developed called Rideau Forest. So, it's filled with these two-acre wooded lots. So, it's quite a heavily forested area. But interestingly enough, like there are still traces of the agrarian history of the site. So, when you kind of meander through some of the still available properties there, you can see some of the old kind of stone walls which divvied up different fields for different species of crop and things like that. So, it has this really inherent tied to farming and to that kind of nature of the site, even though it's evolved now to be this neighborhood of two acre properties in really large houses.

 

00;05;17;17 - 00;05;21;28

DP

Is it typical to have an architect in that neighborhood?

 

00;05;21;28 - 00;06;17;09

MN

I would say no. Most of the houses that are built in that neighborhood – they come from two kind of forms. They come from either the client looking to have a sort of full-fledged design build project where they contact their custom home builder, per se, or they come ready with a plan that they've found or purchased or something like that. So, although the houses are quite custom in nature, they follow a kind of similar and typical pattern. Whether these large houses with these kind of large wings and adaptations. And what happens is they get quite visually noisy, they have quite deep floor plates, and the amount of carving that has to sculpt the roof geometry becomes very intangible from a visual perspective. And the way that we wanted to approach this project was sort of an antithesis to that was how do we marry the former context in kind of a gray and sort of idea of this site and its history with the understanding of what the site is today and the kind of neighborhood context.

 

00;06;17;18 - 00;06;41;06

DP

It sounds to me like – I mean it's pretty challenging to get sophisticated clients and then in a neighborhood like that, to end up with a client that's really interested in making great architecture, right? And listening to an architect and working through these challenges. So that must have been a nice experience because it doesn't sound like you knew them per se, right? They found you through relationships that you had with other people.

 

00;06;41;06 - 00;08;00;24

MN

Well, well, wait Doug, there's more.

So, we definitely started the conversation, the cons design with this client and to kind of emphasize the story a bit further, he also contacted my father, who has a construction company in Manotick in Ottawa. So, he has basically a custom home building company. He's one of these custom home builders in this area. So, he wanted to kind of work with us together at one point or another in the project, the client kind of backed away, you know, had alternative plans and sort of wanted to go in a different direction, I think ended up moving to a different country.

And so, we had this relatively well-developed design that was at a good point, a good conceptual point, and we had already invested a lot in how to create this marriage between site history and current context of neighborhood and things like that. And so, because my father was attached to the project, he kind of inherited its journey and was like, you know, I still want to move forward with this project, whether it becomes the project that we just build as a sort of passion project and sell, or whether it becomes something that is tied to our living, then he’s game.

 

So, he inherited the journey of the project. And so, from then on, we started to really look at incorporating nuances of my father, my mother's kind of Eastern European history into the project and see how the context of Eastern Europe and the area that they had lived in could start to influence materiality and tectonics of the project as well. So, it had this kind of new layer that was thrust upon it afterwards.

 

00;08;01;04 - 00;08;04;01

DP

So, am I getting this right? This was ultimately for your mom and dad?

 

00;08;04;06 - 00;08;05;10

MN

Yeah. So, they live there now.

 

00;08;05;12 - 00;08;06;12

DP

Oh, that's so cool.

 

00;08;06;12 - 00;08;07;12

MN

Yeah, they live there now.

 

00;08;07;12 - 00;08;08;11

DP

Unbelievable.

 

00;08;08;11 - 00;08;23;02

MN

It was an interesting kind of story of starting off with someone else, you know, and then kind of transferring it over, but not wanting to abandon it because so much was invested in in the first place. And then, you know, starting to layer on this new level of thinking to the project as it became more about them and less about the previous clients.

 

00;08;23;02 - 00;08;25;05

DP

So, you get along with your mom and dad?

 

00;08;25;05 - 00;08;29;06

MN

I do. I mean, yeah, Eastern European stubbornness aside, you know, I do for sure. Yeah.

 

00;08;30;14 - 00;08;31;19

DP

Do you have brothers and sisters?

 

00;08;31;28 - 00;08;34;29

MN

I have one brother. He works for the company as well. He's like, Yeah.

 

00;08;35;02 - 00;08;38;29

DP

So, your interest in architecture was early on, right? Your dad was a builder?

 

00;08;39;04 - 00;09;42;03

MN

Yeah, for as long as I can remember, since I was ye tall – for the listener, I’m pointing very low to the ground. Yeah. I've been on construction sites with my dad. I fully attribute my interest in architecture to him and to kind of him putting me in a context of watching things materialize and happen. And so, I think as a child, I was just inherently interested in – what are we actually building? You know? Like, it's great that we're building it, but what does it look like? What does it form? What kind of space does it create afterwards? And so, I married that with another interest of mine, which was really kind of urban thinking. Though this project is in a rural context, I think my suburban upbringing really planted the seed in me to want to think about a kind of different way of thinking about architecture and living and urban qualities of sites and things like that.

And so, when you look at it through that scope, this project was sort of the evolution of those things of me being kind of surrounded in this type of, you know, suburban, rural kind of context as a child, being able to come back and work on a project with my dad was a sort of full circle moment.

 

00;09;42;06 - 00;09;51;23

DP

Yeah, it's an amazing experience. That's wonderful. You seem like a very intuitive, very curious guy. So, let's go through quickly what were the client's programmatic requirements?

 

00;09;52;02 - 00;11;14;12

MN

So, a kind of synthesis of space, really trying to tighten the space a lot so that there was no wasted space in terms of program. So, I mean, at its core of programs, there's a living room and a kitchen in the dining. There's no accessory spaces, there's not a secondary living or sitting room or a secondary nook for eating.

It's just a simple kitchen, dining, living space associated with that typical mudroom powder room, a small home office, a main bedroom, and then a series of bedrooms with individual on-suites upstairs, as well as a library kind of gallery space. But the idea was to kind of be able to synthesize all these into a very tight knit floorplan.

So, when you look at the plan of the project, it's actually only a bar, the kind of adaptations that come off of the ends, house a garage, kind of veranda, lanai space off of the back, another garage on the other side. We kind of broke them into two. And then the main bedroom is actually the only programed interior floor space that comes off.

So, the house is quite tight. It's all housed into kind of one bar, and that tightness allows for the program to kind of work its way around each other. So, there's this constant sort of voyeurism as people move through the house. They're seeing each other from multiple levels and multiple rooms, and it invites cross ventilation, which is really important to the way I approach projects. There's a certain depth to the floor plate, which allows you to cross ventilate the space and creates really good environments for living, quality of light wise and ventilation wise.

 

00;11;14;19 - 00;11;27;19

DP

Yeah, there's a lot to unpack there. I mean, I’m going to keep going and maybe we’ll come back to it. So, tell me a little bit about the site, the topographic features. Is it flat? Is there any change in elevation and how did that affect your plan?

 

00;11;27;25 - 00;12;03;29

MN

It's a relatively flat site. It's not a site that has really strong topography to it. It does drop off a little bit at the back. But we didn't see the design from the get go as something that could start to play with elevation because it would feel forced if we would do that, you know, if we were starting to carve out spaces out of the topography to create walkouts or things like that, we really looked at the site as something that we said, okay, this is a planar condition. It's quite nicely treed around. So really, let's emphasize the connection to the sort of natural vegetation on the site and create the sense of living within this forest condition, which is, you know, why the house is heavily glazed towards the kind of more rare private conditions.

 

00;12;03;29 - 00;12;11;01

DP

Yep. Not everybody is that lucky. Sometimes it's a little easier when you don't have a ton of topographic issues to deal with.

 

00;12;11;09 - 00;12;16;07

MN

It's certainly easier. You tend to seek out the challenges in other places… At least, I do.

 

00;12;16;07 - 00;12;29;28

DP

It's almost nicer, I find as an architect, to have a challenge because then it makes you really work at design, right? What about project restrictions? So, like zoning, building codes…was there anything that was challenged in regard to that?

 

00;12;30;09 - 00;13;58;13

MN

So, from a zoning perspective, not really, because in this area like that, the zoning is quite lenient for a neighborhood like this. Within the frame that we were building, the size that we were building, we didn't have to deal largely with zoning issues or setback issues or anything like that. From a challenge perspective, I think the biggest one is one that surrounds the way in which I approach all my projects, which is buildability.

With that I mean, I try to find a way to create really interesting and engaging architecture using really conventional methodologies. So, this is a stick frame house that limits its use of steel, and yet we see cantilevers and floor protrusions and things like that. It's like, how do we get there if you're not building a full house out of steel?

And largely like my kind of interest in that was trying to make engaging and good architecture available to both clients and contractors at a better price in a way that feels more approachable from a building standpoint. And because with this house – my father being the contractor working on it – I knew inherently how he likes to build things and what his limitations are as a builder.

I use that as a framework within which to start thinking about the design, thinking about the tectonics, thinking about really strategically, where we're using more costly steel, where we were using larger expanses of glass, but also where we were tightening them up. And so, though the house looks like it's tectonically a lot more maybe complex than it looks, if you peel all of it back to the bones, it's no different than all the neighbors, which are just typical conventional stick-built houses with wood trusses.

 

00;13;58;21 - 00;14;03;00

DP

Right. So, a lot of thought went into, I would imagine, how much this thing was going to cost.

 

00;14;03;11 - 00;14;50;19

MN

Certainly how much it was going to cost, and just the approach to how it was going to be built. So, I remember, you know, when we were working through the construction documents on the project, having weekly conversations with the contractor and with trades that were involved from the early onset of how do we want to actually make this thing materialize, how do we want to build this thing? Like, you know, how is this beam going to sit? What kind of posts is it going to sit on? And almost working through it with a really solid understanding of structural engineering without going right to the consultant and asking him what to do. Like, we had this really intimate relationship with how this thing was going to be built and in a way that sort of harkened back to the agrarian structures that it's influenced by was the individual who owns that property is going to come in and look at the timber he has and build it himself. And we're sort of creating a modern interpretation of that approach in some degree.

 

00;14;51;01 - 00;15;02;15

DP

So, a big question would be, in particular, if I was working with my folks, the style choice. So how did you guys end up doing a modern building? Was that something they wanted right away?

 

00;15;02;23 - 00;16;37;27

MN

Yeah, it started off as a contemporary project with the first client that we were working with, and they were interested in a sort of a contemporary expression of a sort of farmhouse condition, right, using sort of materials that were natural and kind of warm tone to work with the site really well. And so, we kind of kept in that vein, but certainly started to work more specifically once my father was on board with kind of continuing the journey of the project.

So, from a style perspective, the houses certainly a deviation from them like they used to kind of live in a house that was quite ornamented and detailed and things like that was a beautiful house. Right? But I think them seeing me continue to work on projects and the kind of projects I was working on, it really started to kind of have an effect on them and me coming on home at Christmas and talking about how important natural light is and that kind of stuff.

It really had an impact. So, they saw that as something that they could kind of work with themselves in terms of how to approach the house. And then on top of that, we looked at references of Eastern European architecture that felt familiar to them in terms of their context, right? So, they grew up in small villages in southern Poland where a lot of the typical houses there are just built out of like clay brick, and the clay brick is exposed, all the mortar is exposed.

So it's all load bearing. One could look at that and say, well, that's really utilitarian and reflective of the structure of the house and, you know, where's the cladding? But to me, I find that really interesting. I'm like, Oh, that is the cladding. And how do we kind of represent that in a new way? Hence where we landed with the materiality of this project, which is a kind of smoked darker tone sort of clay brick that ages really well and it has this kind of grace and it's a timeless quality. So, we looked at those precedents as a reference in terms of where the style of the house itself lands.

 

00;16;37;27 - 00;16;47;06

DP

So, your choice of brick masonry, really, you knew from the beginning that you were going to be using masonry there at some point, right?

 

00;16;47;16 - 00;17;53;28

MN

It was set out at a conceptual level, yes. Though the tone or the color or things like that were sort of up in the air. Then when my father and mother had, during the project, they kind of seemed interested in carrying on that idea. Specifically, I remember for my mother when I said, you know, we're thinking about this kind of clay colored brick and something that looks really natural.

She loved that idea. She really never understood why more houses in a kind of contemporary context didn't do that, at least in the context where they live. And to some degree because the house, you know, in its design, in its formal and massing quality, it can appear really stark compared to its neighbors. The materiality choices of it are meant to sensitize that approach.

So, this notion of really conventional brick is meant to appear familiar to kind of an onlooker or to the person that lives at that home. It has this really timeless quality to it. It's like I can understand that house because it's made of brick. It's made of a conventional thing that I know that's been around for ages and has its conventional color. That's the color that brick usually looks like. When you ask a child to draw a brick, they're going to draw a red brick, maybe with three cores, if the child is advanced enough. Right? There's this familiarity which helps make the architecture more digestible.

 

00;17;54;08 - 00;17;59;22

DP

So, set up the building materials in general for us because the palette isn't just brick.

 

00;17;59;22 - 00;18;09;04

MN

Yeah. So, the kind of two wings that ground the house at the base are a Smoked Tudor Velour modular brick. So, it has this kind of rusty sort of clay color.

 

00;18;09;10 - 00;18;15;10

DP

And those colors, I would use the word variegated. Right? So, we see a series of different colors in that red clay.

 

00;18;15;11 - 00;18;40;01

MN

Yeah. The specification of the brick itself has a variation in it. It's up to a good bricklayer to make sure they patronize it quite well. But a lot of that is just coming from like the brick looks like it's been smoked at its edges and some are more smoked than others, which is where you start to get that kind of differentiation. And we like that a lot because the house has these really monolithic large brick volumes. And so, the kind of variation, the slight variation in the tone really help to kind of break that monotony apart a little bit.

 

00;18;40;08 - 00;18;43;07

DP

Was it hard to find a mason?

 

00;18;43;07 - 00;18;44;05

MN

A good mason? Yes. It’s always hard to find a good mason.

 

00;18;44;06 - 00;18;45;25

DP

It is! It's crazy!

 

00;18;45;25 - 00;19;18;20

MN

Yeah. And so this is why, you know, as a studio, we think it's important to kind of collaborate with trades early on because they can help kind of understand or they can help kind of propose ideas about how to get the masonry right at these angles or at the cantilevers that we’re proposing, things like that. And then the other materials were using a black standing seam metal above. So conceptually the volume that hovers above these two things floats. So, metal felt more appropriate. And then we're using a composite wood system in between the windows. So that's meant to kind of be a homage to sort of old wooden shutters that kind of peel away from the window itself.

 

00;19;18;24 - 00;19;20;15

DP

Where did you find that?

 

00;19;20;15 - 00;19;35;08

MN

It’s a product – I think it's based in the States. I can't recall. It's meant to be a veneer, but it's made out of wood fibers that are infused with like fiberglass and resin. So from a durability perspective. There's no maintenance. And it retains its color over time really well.

 

00;19;35;12 - 00;19;41;03

DP

And you're using steel lintels over these large openings that you're then using this wood infill between the windows.

 

00;19;41;09 - 00;19;45;05

MN

Correct. With the main one being the cantilever at the front entry of the home.

 

00;19;45;14 - 00;19;47;25

DP

So how did you pull that off?

 

00;19;47;25 - 00;20;06;05

MN

So, you know, we're looking at brick as a simple material and it's execution that appears very traditional in the way that we're applying it. But we found moments where we could start to kind of give it a more contemporary execution, and the main one being the cantilever at the front entry, which is just upheld by steel beams that are cantilevering out and transferring their way back to kind of point loads in the house.

 

00;20;06;05 - 00;20;07;23

DP

So they're tied back into the walls.

 

00;20;08;00 - 00;20;20;19

MN

Yeah, correct. And that cantilever holds a terrace on the upper floor, so a dormer above the entry that opens out onto a south facing terrace that you can use. And even in the kind of cooler spring months, because the sun engages that terrace quite nicely.

 

00;20;20;25 - 00;20;23;23

DP

Right. And that's a clear glass guardrail up there.

 

00;20;23;23 - 00;20;24;08

MN

Just a butt joint across.

 

00;20;24;08 - 00;20;25;07

DP

No frames.

 

00;20;25;07 - 00;21;03;01

MN

No frames. Yeah. So that it just kind of appears really minimal and visually to kind of carry on the notion of this house being an antithesis, that's exemplified in this entry now. You know, just talking about it, so many of the houses in the context, you know, the entries are these large columnar conditions, you know, with very ornamented roofs and things like that meant to kind of evoke this kind of grandiosity.

And here I think we're trying to evoke a grandeur, but we're doing so in a more nuanced way, layered elements, a kind of a structural acrobatic of this cantilever, the brick kind of enveloping you, your eye moving vertically towards that dormer. It's creating that grandeur, but doing so in using kind of tectonic architectural elements.

 

00;21;03;11 - 00;21;08;20

DP

So, did using bricks of any particular design challenges for you or for your clients?

 

00;21;09;01 - 00;21;42;17

MN

From a design challenge perspective, I think you sort of touched on it before, but it was how to allow the house to bridge the gap between the history of the site, the approachability of this kind of architecture in this kind of neighborhood and this sort of nostalgia of materiality for the client's past. Right? When we looked at those three conditions, Brick felt like a very natural material to kind of start to solidify that.

So that was the challenge of how do you build something like this in this kind of neighborhood? And brick really started to provide an answer for that in terms of how to bridge those gaps and how to create an architecture that feels timeless.

 

00;21;42;25 - 00;21;50;11

DP

You've got these traditional gable forms and yet you have these modern flat roof forms. What are the neighbors think? Have you heard from any of them?

 

00;21;50;21 - 00;21;52;20

MN

From when I'm around the house and I've been there.

 

00;21;52;20 - 00;21;53;10

DP

Yeah.

 

00;21;53;10 - 00;21;59;23

MN

A lot of cars roll by very slowly, I suppose. Although, I haven't heard many words being spoken, right?

 

00;21;59;29 - 00;22;00;21

DP

Do your folks hear anything?

 

00;22;00;21 - 00;22;18;25

MN

You know, I'm sure they only hear the good things. No one's going to say their real opinions. But to me, architecture is not about pleasing everyone. It's a subjective, you know, discourse, right? So it's about creating something that feels specific to the client, but also feels like it's mindful of its context and of where it came from in a really intelligent way.

 

00;22;19;04 - 00;22;27;21

DP

That's well put. Besides the cantilevers with the masonry, with the brick, were there any other unique construction details that you came across as you were building this thing?

 

00;22;28;02 - 00;24;22;01

MN

Yeah. So I mean, you can see in one of the photos we're looking at here in the studio, the interior, we use the bricks in the interior as well on the main kind of fireplace wall. So, the interior planning is kind of regimented by these volumes. So, as I mentioned before, the kitchen dining and living spaces are sort of one holistic space and they're separated by these equal 16 foot wide, almost like objects, one being the kind of back bar of the kitchen clad in a kind of white oak, one being the sort of kitchen island, 16 foot long cloud, and of course the main one being the fireplace clad in the brick, and then the third one being a kind of double height staircase, which has these sort of steel slatted risers that link the two levels together.

So, the main rooting element was the brick on the interior. And so, from a kind of challenge perspective, we had to just understand how to reinforce that brick on a conventional concrete foundation system with two steel beams trying to look at how to do that in the most conventional and cheapest way that we can make it work from a size of a beam perspective. But in execution, we found when you lay brick inside, you have to sequence that really specifically with all the other materials that are going in the house of the all the other trades that are coming in the house. You know, when is the right time to install the brick?

And we had to perform a few acrobatics with there because there's a kind of linear expression of the fireplace that's clad in a kind of thin steel plate reveal. So, we had to kind of cantilever the brick around that as well and kind of find a meaningful way to transfer it down. And then to express the tectonics of the build – and thankfully, the good work of the trades – we have uplighting that shines up on the brick in the kind of evening moments which really help to kind of show its tactility and it's rough surfacing. This brick specifically has a really natural finish to it. It's not polished or anything like that. We really like to use materials that look like they're supposed to look what they are. Bricks should look like brick. It should feel natural, it should feel rough, it shouldn't feel metallic or shiny or things like that. And so updating it felt like a celebration of selection of the brick, too.

 

00;24;22;01 - 00;24;32;15

DP

So, who did all the drawing? I love to ask that question because I love to draw, and this must have been really a wonderful experience for you because you're working with people that you really know well.

 

00;24;32;26 - 00;25;13;12

MN

It was primarily me. Like, I was doing the drawing from kind of early concept design to the CD's – construction documents – and to the landscape design as well. We didn't touch upon that one either, but because of the H form of the house, it forms two courtyards, one at the front and one of the back of the house. You know, conventional front and back.

And then the orientation of the pool is actually perpendicular to the orientation of the house, which kind of pulls the eye out towards the backyard and then towards a kind of pool house which is not pictured on these images we're looking at. So that sort of tertiary structure, that pool house there, kind of completes the series of objects that encapsulate that rear design of the site. We looked at an execution of that as well when I was drawing this thing up.

 

00;25;13;21 - 00;25;20;04

DP

Did you create three dimensional renderings for your folks? So, this is 3D modeled and then what software did you use?

 

00;25;20;15 - 00;25;22;00

MN

A number of different software.

 

00;25;22;04 - 00;25;24;12

DP

Like Revit, ArchiCAD?

 

00;25;24;12 - 00;25;31;19

MN

Sketch paper to start. You know, trace. A lot of rolls of trace paper. And then software wise, yeah, I mean, it starts in CAD and then it moves to Revit and then--

 

00;25;32;00 - 00;25;33;13

DP

Revit was the main software?

 

00;25;33;13 - 00;25;36;24

MN

Yeah. And then some studies in Rhino and SketchUp, and some rendering--.

 

00;25;36;24 - 00;25;40;13

DP

So, you know your way around that whole suite of products.

 

00;25;40;13 - 00;25;45;04

MN

Like most things, architects know a little bit about a lot of stuff. So, I know a little bit about every program.

 

00;25;45;04 - 00;25;47;08

DP

That’s so well-put. It’s so true. I'm not an.

 

00;25;47;08 - 00;25;48;03

MN

But I’m not an expert at any of them.

 

00;25;48;03 - 00;26;02;19

DP

So, tell me, sustainability is something we talk a lot about and you talked a little bit about that. Could you expand on this notion, the idea that you used Brick because I guess partially because it is a sustainable material.

 

00;26;03;02 - 00;27;37;14

MN

Sustainability from the perspective of the material choice? Yes. That's exactly why. Like, we like that on this project, brick is long-lasting. It is a material that requires zero to no maintenance and only improves over time. The patina that it develops over time is a likable factor of the project. Thinking about, let's say in Toronto, downtown Toronto, a lot of the older buildings that were built in the late 1800s or early 1900s were built from brick that was made at Toronto factories. And it usually is just the clay brick, right? And the exterior walls are all masonry load bearing walls and the interior structure is usually heavy timber. A lot of those went down in a large fire like most projects in the Chicago, right? But the ones that are still there, which there are quite a bit of them, they're looked at as precedents of really good, timeless architecture.

And you think about why that is a big influence. That is the long lasting quality of brick. You lay it and it feels organically and naturally sustainable without having to look at other projects as a precedent, given that the manufacturing process of the brick and also have a pretty low carbon footprint. And if you're sourcing it from a plant that's close to the site itself, that all kind of engages in that sort of sustainable approach of the brick.

And then outside of that, as a piece of architecture, we talked about the tightness of the project, the tightness of the envelope, all to create forced air ventilation that feels really well rounded because the air doesn't have to move all through the house. The HVAC design of the project is really, really tight in terms of how, you know, air movement gets kind of forced into all these spaces.

And of course, in the summer months you can all but turn off all of your heating and cooling systems because the house is so naturally ventilated. So, it creates really cool environments in the hotter summer months as well.

 

00;27;37;27 - 00;27;51;08

DP

So, give me one thing that you guys learned. It doesn't have to be about brick, but something that you learned through this process of designing a house, having two different clients, and then getting to the finish line.

 

00;27;51;19 - 00;28;28;21

MN

Working with a family member can be challenging, but can also be very rewarding. It can be challenging in the sense that a family member like my father, who has years and years of experience of building houses already, right? So they're really ingrained in how they've been doing things and here comes this young’in that's trying to look at a new way of thinking about this.

So that butting of heads and that friction can be very challenging. So, it's important to kind of keep your eye on the ultimate goal that you're trying to achieve together from the outset and not lose sight of that and let cool heads prevail, essentially. Right? I think that was a big lesson learned and so much so that, you know, my father and I are still continuing to work on some projects together.

 

00;28;28;21 - 00;28;29;16

DP

You're still talking?

 

00;28;29;16 - 00;29;24;28

MN

Yeah, still talking and still doing this stuff together, which is fantastic. At the end of the day, we love and I particularly am really thankful that I get to leave this kind of legacy behind with him, you know, of doing a project together with him. It's really a great kind of thing to leave behind, you know, a physical thing.

And outside of that, we talked about it before, but getting trades involved early. You know, we had some hiccups, of course, on site, as every project does. But we did learn on this project that getting trades involved early in the process was helpful in terms of how we were able to execute exactly what we wanted because we could have those conversations and planting the seed in whoever is, you know, working on whatever the product may be that they're installing or are working on. They also feel like the project is partly theirs.

Getting good trades is a challenge from any project’s perspective, but I find when you get them excited about it, they feel like they can bring their best work, you know, in terms of trying to suffice. The challenge of presenting them and make them feel proud that they're part of the process. And I think that's a really important one.

 

00;29;24;28 - 00;29;49;12

DP

Yeah, it's interesting to personalize that. I always ask the clients to bring in our contractors in schematic design, right at the end of schematic design, so we can get a preliminary price on the job. But I like how you describe this as more of a kind of relationship with these people that then grows and they get excited about the job. They're in early, they get to look at the drawings and then they have something to say about the project.

 

00;29;49;18 - 00;30;59;03

MN

Yeah, it's a kind of evolution of the typical kind of architecture delivery methods. So, you've got your design bid build, which really can create a divide between the architect and the contractor and the client to some degree. Then you've got the design build model which tries to integrate the contractor or an architect to some degree and create a more holistic approach.

And so, this is kind of an evolution of that. It's a design build with integrated input from trades and from the clients so that everyone feels like the project belongs to each and every individual that's working on it. There's forms of that called integrated process delivery that can be really timely right? But because we're just looking at house design and house construction, we can still be really intimate and fast tracked about the process as well.

So, this project, from initial design to final conception and kind of move in was two and a half years. I've worked at offices on custom bespoke residential architecture where projects of a similar scale, but with much more rigor and structural acrobatics and things like that were 5 to 6 year process. Right? That's part of what I think is interesting to us as a studio is how do we deliver these projects in a timely manner as well and not abuse the sort of amount of time that these things take.

 

00;30;59;14 - 00;31;07;05

DP

Yeah, particularly important with your parents.

 

MN

Yeah, indeed, indeed.

 

DP

Well, Mateusz, thank you very much for being here.

 

00;31;07;05 - 00;31;08;10

MN

Yeah, thanks so much for having me.

 

00;31;08;10 - 00;31;10;14

DP

And tell everybody how they can find you.

 

00;31;10;17 - 00;31;24;22

MN

We're somewhat engaged on social media. So, our website is www.everyday-studio.ca. At Instagram where everydaystudio_ that would probably cover most of the social media, but yeah, we try to keep up to date as much as we can.

 

00;31;24;23 - 00;31;27;12

DP

Okay, well, Mateusz Nowacki, thank you very much.

 

00;31;27;12 - 00;31;28;05

MN

Yeah, thanks, Doug.

TRANSCRIPT

00;00;00;02 - 00;00;05;10

Doug Pat (DP)

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

 

00;00;05;12 - 00;00;34;05

Michelle Todd (MT)

So the whole idea was to fix the parapet and also to fix all of the step cracking within the facade. It was a beautiful building of brick in the front and the original status was that it had stucco on the very rear portion. We wind up finding out that this particular building, it wasn't brick behind it, it was actually wood.

 

So that therefore became more of an extensive project in which it wasn't just a renovation of the exterior facade, it was now a whole new addition and also an entire new rebuild.

 

00;00;34;07 - 00;01;01;23

DP

This is my guest, Michelle Todd. I'll share more about her shortly. In this episode from The Design Vault. We highlight Michelle's restoration project at 102 Bainbridge Street in Brooklyn's Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood. The Bainbridge Street renovation project is located in the Stuyvesant Heights Historic District. It was built within a row of buildings, which is a long group of houses planned to form seven freestanding architectural units.

 

00;01;01;28 - 00;03;46;13

DP

102 is situated at the end of the row. It's a modified Spanish residential style home with a triple arched loggia made of red brick laid in Flemish pond. The roof parapet rises at the center in an arch supported on concave shoulders. The restoration was begun to repair a buckling roof parapet, deteriorated walls, damaged pediment and cracking stucco facade.

 

Renovation work was extensive and a decision was made early not to replace the stucco, but rather leave and repair the natural brick masonry. The building scope also changed during construction from an exterior renovation to demolition and reconstruction due to construction material issues. Structural engineers were also consulted to create a necessary and unique wall construction method. The existing roof skylights, roof hatch and areas of limestone and bluestone were also repaired.

 

The project was also recently awarded the 2023 Lucy G. Moses New York Landmark Conservancy Award. Hi, I'm Doug Pat and this is Design Vault. Michelle Todd is an architect and principal of M.Todd Architects in Bedford-Stuyvesant, New York. Michelle has a master of science from Columbia University in architecture and urban design. She also studied at the École des Beaux-Arts in France.

 

Michelle grew up in Brooklyn's Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood in the 1970s. She knew she wanted to be an architect by the age of ten. Her interests today focus on urban planning and socially responsive architecture. After a brief stint at Perkins Eastman, she opened her own firm in 2008. Since then, she's worked for small and large corporations such as Snapple, the New York City Agency Office of Emergency Management, as well as private residential projects.

 

Her studio in Brooklyn, New York, focuses on historic renovations and additions, collaborating directly with clients and working closely with the general contractor during construction. Michelle's worked on Landmark designated buildings, bakeries, restaurants, schools and renovation projects. She's an adjunct professor at the New York City CUNY College and a licensed architect in New York State and Maryland. She's certified as a consultant with the International Institute of Building Enclosures, and Living Future accredited with the International Living Future Institute.

 

Welcome, Michelle. It's nice to have you with us today. So tell us a little bit about M.Todd Architects in Brooklyn. So where in Bed-Stuy are you located? What's the size of the firm? How long have you been around? And tell us a little more about project types.

 

00;03;46;16 - 00;04;19;19

MT

The firm is in the heart of Bedford-Stuyvesant on the whole Z Street. Been around since 2008 was almost 15 years as of March of this year, 2024. And basically the firm is small, is about three people, we specialize specifically in historical preservation, as well as residential private editions, commercial projects such as restaurants, bake houses and also schools. So basically you have a realm of achievement in different areas, which is commercial, residential and also business.

 

00;04;19;21 - 00;04;26;09

DP

So tell us a little bit about yourself. How long have you been practicing architecture and what's your role in the office as principal?

 

00;04;26;12 - 00;05;00;18

MT

I've been practicing architecture since 2008, when I received my license. However, I do have decades of experience before then in working at previous larger offices, in smaller offices to gain the experience I needed. Because, as you know, as an architect, you have to have at least three years working first in the field and then afterwards you're able to take the examination.

 

So once I did that, then just made initiative to just start my own practice. And basically I am the principal where I do a lot of marketing as well as clients in order to obtain business.

 

00;05;00;20 - 00;05;02;15

DP

And you said you have some employees?

 

00;05;02;21 - 00;05;13;16

MT

I do have employees. They're basically consultants. So basically I have a expediter. I have a drafts person. I have also my consultants, such as structural engineer, mechanical engineers.

 

00;05;13;19 - 00;05;21;08

DP

That's interesting. So you have an expediter that you guys use. And is that to make the process working with the city a little easier?

 

00;05;21;11 - 00;05;33;17

MT

It really does make it easier because as a person with a small firm, your hands are in everything. So to have somebody to be on the outside, to be able to do that type of work is appreciative and helpful.

 

00;05;33;19 - 00;05;46;05

DP

That's really cool. I mean, just as an aside, I hadn't really thought about the need for an expediter in a firm like that, but that makes perfect sense. So let's dig in here and talk about the home. How did your office get the project?

 

00;05;46;07 - 00;06;08;01

MT

I received the project in regards to as a dear friend, where I'm on the New York City Landmark Committee for Bedford-Stuyvesant specifically, and Community Board three, and he was a good member, Fred Jones, rest in peace. He had a friend who was in need of architectural services, so he recommended me to the client, which is the richest family, about this project.

 

00;06;08;03 - 00;06;10;01

DP

So you didn't know the clients before you got the job?

 

00;06;10;06 - 00;06;18;04

MT

I didn't know the clients. It was a friend of a friend, and he just talked highly about me and said that you should work with me in regards to this project.

 

00;06;18;06 - 00;06;24;26

DP

So give us a little history about the location. And was I correct in stating that the unit is an end unit?

 

00;06;24;29 - 00;07;08;00

MT

It is. It's in the beautiful, original, historic district of Bedford-Stuyvesant, which is known as Stuyvesant Heights, and it was established as a landmark district in 1971. So this set of buildings, it's literally between Stuyvesant and Lewis on Bainbridge. There's about 14 series of the buildings, and it's at the end row and there are Spanish style Renaissance buildings. That was created by W.f. McCarthy, who was an architect back in 1919.

 

And the unique thing about these buildings is that it's the only buildings I've ever been in with it has two staircases inside where there's one in the back and one in the front. So I guess back in those days they would have the servants come through the back and then the owners come through the front.

 

00;07;08;03 - 00;07;10;14

DP

Roughly, what's the square footage of the project?

 

00;07;10;16 - 00;07;13;09

MT

It's about 1200 square feet.

 

00;07;13;11 - 00;07;17;05

DP

And what was the scope and the programmatic requirements from the owner?

 

00;07;17;07 - 00;10;08;12

MT

Well, the original scope and program was that it was in terrible need in regards to the existing structure, the parapet was buckling. So on the north facade as well as the south and west facades, it was just crumbling. They were scared that it was going to fall down in some way. So the whole idea was to fix the parapet and also to fix all of the step cracking within the facade.

 

But then as we went along, we started to think also, it was a beautiful building of brick in the front. And the original status was that it had stucco on the very rear portion. Once we started to do the renovation was like, you know, we don't really need the stucco. It really looks beautiful with the brick itself. So we started to expose all the stucco, and by exposing all the stucco, we wound up finding out that this particular building, it wasn't brick behind it, it was actually wood.

 

So that therefore became more of an extensive project in which it wasn't just the renovation of the exterior facade, it was now a whole new addition and also an entire new rebuild. So we found out the history, and that was the nice thing about it. We really had to go back in the history of it. This is where the assistance of the expediter really came into play, because basically we found out that back in 1956, the building itself had a permit to actually do a addition because all of these beautiful houses.

 

What makes them so special in this neighborhood, too, is that they have their own private driveway, which many people don't have in that area. And also they have a garage. But then also on the second floor of each of these houses, they have a beautiful sunroom with a balcony. The person who owned the property at 102 Bainbridge, he basically wanted to make an addition.

 

So he eliminated that balcony and extended the whole square footage of the building so it can be enclosed. When we removed the stucco, we found out that instead of it masonry, he had it wood. So that was back in 1956. So we had to go back all the way to the building department to find out what the original drawings were, which we found out which were these beautiful blueprint drawings that you don't see anymore.

 

And it said that year they were legally supposed to have an addition, but it was supposed to be made out of brick, not wood. So that's where the whole expedition kind of came in. I had to go back to New York City building department, as well as the landmarks, because everyone was like shocked that it was wood versus masonry.

 

And we basically had to do a whole reconstruction. And that's where I guess the product of Glen-Gery came into play, because what happened to you is that on the back of the facade, all the bricks in the building weren't the same. The bricks in the front of the building were made out of Beldon, and it was a different type of color scheme.

 

But then when we removed the stucco in the back, it was a beautiful match with the Glen-Gery Kushwaha Calvert Plantation Middle Plantation, 52DD. It was a perfect match to it. Again, we had to go back to landmarks to make sure that they were approve of that brick to match what was in the rear facade that was being used.

 

00;10;08;15 - 00;10;17;12

DP

So what's interesting about the photographs that you sent is that the building looks as though some of these walls were completely taken down.

 

00;10;17;18 - 00;10;59;01

MT

It was because due to the fact it was stucco and I'm an architect that's very conscious about the environment. And stucco is something I concrete and it adds to the carbon footprint. So the whole idea was that this project specifically was to eliminate that process in really being more progressive and more enhancing to the environment. So that's why we didn't use stucco.

 

We wanted to just expose the beautiful masonry itself. And therefore, by eliminating the stucco, we saw the building was in need of much deeper repair than we expected. That was the thing, because in 1956 you figured that the contractors would be honest and they would do what they were supposed to do. But he wasn’t. And therefore that made this more of an adventure to get it right.

 

00;10;59;03 - 00;11;05;27

DP

So I would imagine there are a number of other buildings on that block that were also made of wood, that the interior wall construction. Is that correct?

 

00;11;06;00 - 00;11;44;10

MT

I don't know. That's the whole thing. What happened is, what makes this special is that this is the only house that has the addition. That's it. Everybody else has the sunroom. So this once in particular you thought that you would put it in masonry, but it's in it makes sense. First landmarks had to come and see it.

 

They were, like, shocked. Then I received the structural engineer, which was SOMA Engineering Firm, which is a great engineering firm. They came, they were shocked. The construction company that we work with, Naim Construction, all of us was basically shocked that this was behind the stucco because it looked like everything was fine. But when exposed, that's when we all gathered together as a team to like how we can resolve this.

 

00;11;44;16 - 00;11;52;22

DP

Interesting. Let's back up and talk a little bit about the plan of the building. I would assume it's just a large rectangle, two storey rectangle.

 

00;11;52;24 - 00;11;54;23

MT

Exactly. It was a two storey rectangle.

 

00;11;55;00 - 00;11;59;29

DP

And had you been contracted to design the interiors as well?

 

00;12;00;04 - 00;12;20;18

MT

I have for later date because what happens is based on the fact that now the photographs that you have here show of what it was existing. We went back to the premise of what it was back in 1919 when the solarium had these beautiful corner windows. So the design now is encompassing back the original style of that format.

 

00;12;20;20 - 00;12;25;05

DP

So you had to work with the city. How long did that process take?

 

00;12;25;08 - 00;12;53;21

MT

This is how it began. The project began in May 2020, during the pandemic. Then we actually had approval to start construction in April of 2021. Then all of these items, open issues about the facade not being what it was, and reconstruction, we basically spent about two years after that, and it was completed around October 20, 23. So it was back and forth with New York Landmarks as well as New York City Building Department.

 

00;12;53;27 - 00;12;55;09

DP

And the client had somewhere to live.

 

00;12;55;16 - 00;13;08;12

MT

He lived on the first floor. So the top floor. It was a blessing that he was able to live on the first floor while all this construction was going on. And in the top floor, basically, he had tenants, but then they moved out. When this major construction of us doing the rebuild.

 

00;13;08;15 - 00;13;09;07

DP

A lot of noise.

 

00;13;09;13 - 00;13;11;04

MT

It was a lot of noise.

 

00;13;11;04 - 00;13;11;23

DP

Very dusty.

 

00;13;11;24 - 00;13;15;00

MT

But it was fun.

 

00;13;15;02 - 00;13;24;10

DP

That's great. I'm interested as an architect about the drawings that you created in the very beginning. Did you work in 3D or just 2D?

 

00;13;24;12 - 00;13;33;28

MT

I worked in 2D, but then afterwards, when we started to look at what this condition that was taking place in the rear, I started looking at it in 3D and how it would be.

 

00;13;34;05 - 00;13;38;05

DP

And did you have to present drawings to a historic commission?

 

00;13;38;07 - 00;13;47;14

MT

Yes, we present it to Brian Blazak, is one of the senior preservationists on in New York City Landmarks. We had to show the drawings of what we planned to do.

 

00;13;47;16 - 00;13;48;26

DP

Exterior elevations?

 

00;13;49;03 - 00;13;50;24

MT

Yeah, exterior elevations.

 

00;13;50;26 - 00;13;58;25

DP

So again, backing up a little bit, you removed the stucco on one facade and replaced masonry on another. Is that correct?

 

00;13;58;28 - 00;14;25;03

MT

It's on the same facade. What happens is, is that the entire facade was placed in stucco. But then when we looked at the south elevation, so the windows were there, but it was infilled with wood. And that's what was shocking to everybody because basically it was really dilapidated and it also kind of made sense for the owner later on because he said his tenants always felt cold in that part of the room.

 

And it made sense because it was the wood and that masonry, there was no insulation whatsoever.

 

00;14;25;06 - 00;14;30;17

DP

So tell us a little bit about the new wall system that you guys had to create because of that condition.

 

00;14;30;19 - 00;15;17;03

MT

So the new wall system was still going back to what was historically done in regards to the rear facade was made out of three widths of brick, which basically is like three layers. And what we had to do is that we had to abide by what the actual, once we removed the stucco, what the actual pattern was, because it was a common bond, because as I stated in the beginning, the pattern in the front of the house was completely different than the pattern in the back of the house.

 

So once we established that, then we wanted to really make it structurally sound and we incorporated steel within the wall. So basically you have the three whiffs of brick on the outside, then you have the steel. It was stainless steel that made sure it was resource sustainably. And then we have our insulation and then our finishes in the inside.

 

00;15;17;06 - 00;15;26;25

DP

So the project sounds really interesting. Did you guys learn anything new about construction technologies or about building typologies in working on this project?

 

00;15;26;27 - 00;15;58;06

MT

Yes, the use of materials because again, was very selective about which materials we're going to use because since this building was already historically landmarked since 1919, we wanted to make sure that it lasts for another 100 years. So was very selective on who the steel came from, where the insulation came from, where the bricks came from. All of these were really mindful things and I think moving forward with other projects, I continue doing that, making sure that they are friendly to the planet as well as to the people who are going to live and utilize the buildings.

 

00;15;58;08 - 00;16;04;18

DP

So did the client bring the general contractor to the project or did you interview a number of contractors?

 

00;16;04;20 - 00;16;10;09

MT

We did interview a number of contractors, but then the client himself selected Naim Construction for it.

 

00;16;10;12 - 00;16;15;19

DP

And clearly there's a lot of masonry work. Did you have any challenges finding a good mason?

 

00;16;15;21 - 00;16;45;27

MT

Oh no. He has very excellent masons and they were very accommodating because we had to go back and forth with New York City Landmarks when we were selecting the bricks where we had to actually do a sample of the wall where the wood infill was of how the brick was going to look. So one of his masons, George, was really who's one of the oldest ones there.

 

It has most experience. He was very patient. We went on the scaffolding and it was a really cold day, but we did the whole mock up and it came out beautiful. And therefore Landmark said, Yes, go with it.

 

00;16;45;29 - 00;16;49;16

DP

So you did the mock up and the city came out and took a look at it?

 

00;16;49;19 - 00;16;56;05

MT

No, we took photographs and then afterwards they were like, because it was cold.

 

00;16;56;07 - 00;17;05;24

DP

So the city doesn't like to go out on cold days? I think we’ll leave that in there. That's good. So I assume the client's living there now?

 

00;17;06;02 - 00;17;09;17

MT

He is. He's living in the bottom floor still, but he's happy with the work.

 

00;17;09;20 - 00;17;12;25

DP

So is it complete? And he has a tenant on the second floor?

 

00;17;13;00 - 00;17;22;21

MT

He doesn't have a tenant on the second floor. And it's not quite complete yet because now we're just waiting for the historical windows to come in. So that is the last crème de la crème.

 

00;17;22;23 - 00;17;24;27

DP

And who is the manufacturer of the windows?

 

00;17;25;03 - 00;17;36;10

MT

It is Norwood Manufacturers, a Canadian company. And again, it was very selective on them because the way they use and harvest wood in order to make the windows, we're really mindful about that.

 

00;17;36;17 - 00;17;39;23

DP

Interesting. Are they double glazed? Triple glazed?

 

00;17;39;25 - 00;17;49;03

MT

They're triple glazed, low e glass index and they're quite beautiful. They're the original to what was there before of the windows? So they're replicating those.

 

00;17;49;05 - 00;17;57;00

DP

So I'm curious in terms of color, you were able to find a brick that you were happy with. You said that matched on the exterior.

 

00;17;57;02 - 00;18;12;16

MT

The contractor has suggested he was like, this will be a perfect break. I did research and was a Glen-Gery Kushwaha Calvert 52 DD Middle Plantation. That was the one that was selected. And when we put it in place, it was perfect to what was there from 1919.

 

00;18;12;22 - 00;18;15;27

DP

So do all these row homes, they all must look the same?

 

00;18;16;02 - 00;18;45;16

MT

They basically all look the same. And the other fascinating thing too, with the project, when we were doing the demo for the wood infield, all the bricks, I learned this like recently from my practice that the bricks that we were removing, that were there all had the names of the brick companies on there. And you don't see that anymore in which they were actually etched into the brick.

 

I was like, Wow, It's like, fascinating. So it was like an archeological project in the same way of doing something better for the building for another hundred years.

 

00;18;45;19 - 00;18;52;24

DP

So when you guys put these new windows in, what about the color? Can you do whatever color you want or the colors have to match the other homes.

 

00;18;52;26 - 00;18;57;13

MT

The colors have to match. It is going to be made out of wood, but they're going to be of a white finish.

 

00;18;57;16 - 00;19;00;10

DP

And they have to be traditional in style to match the others.

 

00;19;00;16 - 00;19;01;06

MT

Exactly.

 

00;19;01;06 - 00;19;11;17

DP

Interesting. So, Michelle, you've been an architect for some time. Based on what you know today about being an architect, you have any words of advice for your younger self or maybe architects coming up in the ranks?

 

00;19;11;19 - 00;19;41;21

MT

I would say don't quit on yourself. That's for me personally, as a woman and a woman of color in this industry, to always just believe in yourself, that what you find really interesting and powerful within yourself will just keep working at it and you'll get recognition. But it's not really about the recognition. I've always known I wanted to be an architect.

 

I feel architecture is like a stewardship. You are helping other people to obtain their desires and dreams and designs, but then also, too, helping the planet.

 

00;19;41;24 - 00;19;49;23

DP

So, Michelle, it's been great to have you here today. Thank you so much for your time. Where could people go to learn more M.Todd Architect and yourself?

 

00;19;49;26 - 00;19;56;06

MT

You can find me on my website at  MToddArchitects.com and then also I'm on LinkedIn.

 

00;19;56;08 - 00;19;58;10

DP

Well, thank you very much. It has been great to have you.

 

00;19;58;17 - 00;20;00;24

MT

Thank you so much. Appreciate the opportunity.