TRANSCRIPT

00;00;00;02 - 00;00;05;12

Doug Patt (DP)

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

 

00;00;05;14 - 00;00;33;10

Jay Valgora (JV)

So, it's very complex. It's two residential towers and it's mixed use. It has retail at the base with a series of astonishing amenities and public spaces that link them together, including a fantastic pool deck overlooking the ocean, overlooking the roller coaster, and a whole series of public spaces. Because, you know, there's a social life to a building, too.

 

00;00;33;17 - 00;02;02;09

DP

This is my guest, Jay Valgora. I'll share more about him shortly. In this episode of The Design Vault, we highlight Jay's project 1515 Surf Avenue. It is a two tower, 26 and 16 story residential building complex in Coney Island, Brooklyn, designed by Studio V Architecture. This street corner project will span 470,000 square feet and yield 461 units 139 designated for affordable housing and 11,000 square feet of ground floor retail.

 

The building facade is variegated white to cream colored brick, with the main building podium facing Surf Avenue, featuring a soaring ground floor elevation with several diagonal columns, its sloped roofline is further defined by a stepped series of wooden platforms the design team calls the vertical boardwalk. The building features curved glass lined balconies and amenity deck heated pool and green roof.

 

Residents have panoramic views of Coney Island Amusement Park and the Atlantic Ocean. The total outdoor space will span over 20,000 square feet. The building includes a fitness center, lounges, co-working spaces, indoor basketball court, handball court and accessory off street parking. When completed in 2024, the property will be the largest geothermal heated and cooled building in New York City.

 

00;02;02;12 - 00;03;17;08

DP

Hi, I'm Doug Pat and this is Design Vault. Jay Valgora is the founder and principal of the architectural design firm Studio V Architecture in New York City. Jay grew up in Buffalo. He tells the story that it was the steel mills where his father worked and the historic grain elevators of Buffalo that influenced him to become an architect.

 

Jay received his Bachelor of Architecture at Cornell University and his master's degree at the Harvard Graduate School of Design. He was also a fellow in the Fulbright program to the United Kingdom. At Harvard, Jay studied under Pritzker Prize winning Portuguese architect Alvaro Cesar. Mr. Valdora is on the forefront of urban design with nine projects on the New York City waterfront.

 

He works closely with entrepreneurs to create innovative designs and programs, collaborates with government agencies to address policy infrastructure, environmental issues and approvals, and is deeply engaged with communities through innovative public space design. Welcome, Jay. Nice to have you with us today. So tell us a little bit about Studio V architecture in New York City. Where are you guys located? What's the size of your firm and what type of work do you do?

 

00;03;17;11 - 00;04;07;23

JV

So Studio V is right in the heart of Manhattan. You know, we're right in the middle of the island. I like to say that we live in a city of four islands and a peninsula, and we're right in the middle on 32nd Street and Park Avenue. Actually, by the time you broadcast this or soon thereafter, we've even purchased a small building, which we're currently redesigning right now, and we'll be moving to 111 East 29th Street, where we've created our own studio, which is currently under construction.

 

I guess the only other thing I can tell you is that Studio V is really all about the people. We have a really incredible range of people that work with us. We're about two dozen, and so we really see ourselves as a boutique architecture firm, but we handle tremendously large and complex projects because we have a really wonderful team and very diverse clients and very diverse projects. So we really pride ourselves on doing things that are a little bit different.

 

00;04;07;26 - 00;04;13;20

DP

So tell us a little bit about the firm. When did you get started and what's your role in the office now?

 

00;04;13;27 - 00;04;57;04

JV

So I began the firm and founded it in 2006. So I guess we've been around about nearly eight years and I'm the principal and the founder of the firm, but I have seven senior staff. They collaborate with me on all the projects. It's really an open atelier. I intentionally always call it a studio. It's not really an office, it's not really a firm.

 

It has the whole atmosphere and character of a studio. We have no offices, we have entirely open spaces. We have huge collaborative areas. So my role really is to work with and inspire the great designers and talented architects with whom I work and to provide leadership. But really they play an essential role. It's not Valgora architects, it's Studio V, and the studio really comes first.

 

00;04;57;08 - 00;05;10;16

DP

It's really interestingly described. I haven't heard somebody talk about their office like that. So tell me a little bit about how you get your people to pull mostly from New York City? And do people hear about your office and they want to work for you?

 

00;05;10;20 - 00;05;59;16

JV

We have a really diverse range of people, but there's sort of a running joke in Studio V that isn't really intentional, but somehow it proves to be true. I would say that many of the people at Studio V come from two places. It's really not intentional. It's not a policy. But many come from the heartland of America. I myself grew up in Buffalo and I consider that really secretly to be part of Ohio, not New York state.

 

It's completely part of a midwestern kind of ethos. And many of our talented architects come from around the American heartland in the Midwest, but the other half come from all over the world, throughout Europe, Asia, South America. And so I'm very proud of the fact that we really are part of New York City and kind of represent the diverse talents that come from New York City. And yet I think we're also grounded in certain optimistic ideals that come from my upbringing.

 

00;05;59;18 - 00;06;08;03

DP

Well, it's really great to hear. So let's dig in here and talk about your buildings. So tell us a little bit about 1515 Surf Avenue. So how did your office get the project?

 

00;06;08;05 - 00;06;58;14

JV

Well, first, we really can't do great projects without having a great client. And LCOR is our client on this. And they approached us with the building and it was really a breakthrough building for us. So Anthony Tortora, who is the partner at LCOR, knew me from another firm at which he had worked before, and he decided he wanted to give us a try.

 

But they did a competition and they put us against some really other serious architects, and we were really proud of the fact that we were able to prevail in that. I think it's all about the power of our ideas. It's about the design concepts that we bring, but also about solving our client's problems. And I think Studio V is really about those two things.

 

It's about maintaining ideals and an optimism about what a great design could be, and at the same time solving our client's real problems about bringing a project in on budget and doing something creative that they can actually build and that meets their needs.

 

00;06;58;17 - 00;07;01;28

DP

So how many people were involved in the competition to get the job?

 

00;07;02;04 - 00;07;45;09

JV

There were a handful of us. I put a couple of my best designers on it. It was a paid competition, albeit a small amount. Yes. And so we were up against these other serious firms. And really, I'm sure we spent three times the amount, but I was determined to do something special for it. And also I was inspired by Coney Island.

 

The principal, the partner, Anthony, actually grew up near there and he really was committed to the idea of remaking this neighborhood and that also fit studio visit. Those were really interested in transforming communities, rebuilding communities. And Coney Island has an incredible history and past and yet has suffered terribly under urban renewal and other elements. And so now we see this as one of the signature projects that's helping reestablish this really important and historic neighborhood.

 

00;07;45;17 - 00;07;51;07

DP

So that's a great place to start. So tell us a little bit about the history of the location where this building is.

 

00;07;51;14 - 00;08;49;12

JV

So this is right at the corner of Surf Avenue there, these great street names in Coney Island. You know, it's between Surf and Mermaid Avenue, and it's between 15th and 16th Streets. As a matter of fact, it's right across the street from a roller coaster and sits right on the beach with stunning views of the iconic Coney Island Beach and boardwalk.

 

So to me, I don't know if I'll ever get to work on a site again that is next to a roller coaster overlooking the Atlantic Ocean with stunning views of the historic parachute drop. It looks diagonally right down at Nathan's Hot Dogs. And it's catty corner to the iconic cyclone. So really, it's a fantastic site. Historically, all of these elements that I just described were part of it.

 

And historically it was part of the whole Coney Island landscape. But by the time we got there, it was a parking lot. There was nothing there. And so really it's an opportunity on this major avenue that had so much historic importance in Coney Island to really help rebuild one of the essential centers of this community.

 

00;08;49;19 - 00;08;55;18

DP

Yeah, you must have been amazed when you got out there and stood on that property and looked out, thought, wow, this is going to be really cool.

 

00;08;55;25 - 00;09;17;26

JV

Even now that construction is going along very well and it's fully tapped out and they're adding all the facade elements as we climb up through the building. It's stunning the relationship it has to the Manhattan skyline, to the ocean, to these iconic architectural rides and amusements and buildings. It really sits in the landscape and kind of draws these elements into it in a way like no other site I've ever had.

 

00;09;17;28 - 00;09;21;24

DP

So what was the scope of the project? What were the client's programmatic requirements?

 

00;09;21;27 - 00;10;02;00

JV

So it's very complex. It's two residential towers and it's mixed use. It has retail at the base and one of the towers is market rate and the other is affordable. And yet they wanted us to treat them both with the highest degree of quality, with a series of kind of astonishing amenities and public spaces that link them together, including a fantastic pool deck overlooking the ocean, overlooking the roller coaster, and a whole series of public spaces.

 

Public spaces, meaning spaces for the residents to share because, you know, there's a social life to a building, too. And I think this is one of the key elements of the building that we were inspired by the social life of residential buildings in New York and how we could create spaces that would bring people together.

 

00;10;02;07 - 00;10;14;15

DP

So let's talk a little bit about the building design. So we already discussed the site. There weren't any unique topographic features raised, just a giant flat parking lot. Was it a parking deck or was it just a giant lot?

 

00;10;14;21 - 00;11;14;17

JV

It was an open parking lot, and I guess the geographic features would just be these iconic buildings and structures that surrounded it and the ocean itself. The ocean is one of the key elements that did really influence the project, though, because there's a topography to the project, even though the site was flat that responds to the ocean. And that, of course, is resiliency.

 

You'd mentioned earlier, Doug, that we do a lot of waterfront projects. And one of the things for me is that this sits in the middle of a vast floodplain and we're creating 461 new residences, and we're really at the forefront of dealing with resiliency and climate change. We're very proud of the work we do there, including pro-bono work.

 

So one of the things we had to do is elevate the entire building and yet still really engage the streetscape. So as a matter of fact, this led to the main design concept, the vertical boardwalk, the idea of elevating the building with a series of step platforms that protects it, and major storm events such as Sandy, and yet also creates a series of spiraling public spaces that work their way up through the building and create these stunning views of the surrounding landscape.

 

00;11;14;24 - 00;11;23;13

DP

So that's a good way to segue. Tell us a little bit about the project restrictions, the zoning codes, how far off the ground to the building have to be raised?

 

00;11;23;16 - 00;12;56;02

JV

Sure. So of course, like most buildings in New York City, it's an as of right building. So we worked within the existing zoning ordinance. And so in a sense, some of the massing of the towers was pre-established city planning had done a rezoning of this community a few years before, and that actually led to this development and has helped catalyze the transformation of Coney Island.

 

But then within that, there are certain requirements from FEMA and from flood requirements. But I'll tell you also that the client was very supportive of this. We exceeded those requirements. We didn't just meet the code, we added additional feet of elevation. We did three feet of free board. On top of that, we really pride ourselves on exceeding the code requirements.

 

As a matter of fact, after we finished the initial permitting of the building, the city amended the code partly in response to advocating that we had done in order to allow buildings to increase their height, to allow extra elevation for climate change and have that not count against the development because it's a positive thing to lift the building up.

 

The other thing we did that was also important though, is not just lifting it up, it's still engaging the street. So for example, at the corner of 15th Street and Surf Avenue, we created this great porch as the client had this idea that we really need to bring back the streetscape, the retail streetscape, and that would be a fantastic site for a restaurant.

 

So we created this wonderful porch that has multiple levels that actually allows it to engage the street instead of being too far elevated seven or eight feet up. That's only three feet up. And we allow that to flood in a storm event. But it doesn't go into the building. And that way we can have these series of stepped platforms and public spaces that activate the streetscape and bring Surf Avenue back to life.

 

00;12;56;05 - 00;13;01;23

DP

So how do you do that? How do you make these objects that can flood and yet they're still functional?

 

00;13;01;29 - 00;13;53;26

JV

So we really worked with a great team of people, the overall residential levels and all the habitable levels are well above the floodplain. So they're really up to about elevation 13, which is three feet of freeboard above. These are NAVD 88, which is the datum that's used in New York City. And then for the lower areas, really the lobby is accessible.

 

So we're using flood barriers there to protect one tiny small area, which is a grade which allows the full lobby to be accessible. But all the areas are elevated and then the retail spaces are also elevated. But we stepped it down with this outdoor porch, and that's designed very specifically so that the floodwaters can come in, but they won't enter the building.

 

They just enter this kind of lower porch level that really engages the street. There's also a parking garage and that does go a bit below grade, and that is allowed to flood. But it has special vents and special technical requirements for the materials that allow it to be flooded and to drain out. And that's the right way to do it.

 

00;13;53;29 - 00;13;57;10

DP

So tell us about the building plans. We've got two buildings out there.

 

00;13;57;13 - 00;15;41;24

JV

So the building plans were really interesting. And this is one of the things we did in the competition. It's a little hard to describe, but there are the kind of inside corners of buildings where it's difficult to put residences, the kind of the reentrant in corners when you have large, complex residential buildings, it's difficult because you can't put windows there.

 

And so we came up with a really, I think, creative scheme, and that's actually what helped us win the competition. What we did is we took the left over the dead spaces where you could put windows and we created double height amenity spaces, public spaces for the residents, and we created the coolest, craziest collection of these spaces. There's a media library with a basketball court overlooking it and an elaborate kitchen and a pool deck and a gym.

 

All these different elements weave together and overlook one another. So we took the kind of hidden corners and places that you normally can't use in the development. And we created instead vast, soaring two story spaces overlooking one another, creating this almost voyeuristic experience where one space in one activity overlooks another. We find today, too, in a post-COVID environment or whatever environment we're in now, that more people are living and working in more creative ways, sometimes they're working from home, sometimes they're going to work.

 

And we think the idea of having this fantastic residence right on the Coney Island beach, but then you can work within the building. We created many different spaces for people to interact socially, for co-working, for living, for entertaining. And so these staggered multilevel spaces work their way all the way up through the plan. And it's even kind of telegraphed under the facade with this series of folded plans that you referred to earlier that really bring you all the way up to the rooftop and to the pool deck. And so this was really the big move on the plan. And the client was so excited about that that they awarded us the project.

 

00;15;41;27 - 00;15;45;04

DP

So how long was the design process then?

 

00;15;45;04 - 00;16;36;15

JV

Overall to do a building of this complexity, the complete design probably takes about a year. One reason why I think this was also a great client is we really collaborated from the beginning. We didn't just do a design and then hope it would work out. We worked with them at every step with their marketing people, their technical people, their construction people.

 

We did budgeting throughout, which is really important to me. As a matter of fact, it's critical that if we're going to do a creative design, we have to work with the client in order to figure out how we're going to hit their budget exactly, which I'm very proud of with this project. For example, we have a whole series of highly sculptural elements that are made of GFRC, glass fiber reinforced concrete, and they really wrap around the brick elements, which we'll talk about a little bit later and kind of create these wonderful transitions.

 

These are very complex forms, and we really had to work closely from the beginning to make sure we could meet budgets. Same thing on the brick. We're using some really unusual and more expensive and more fine forms of brick and custom brick that we'll talk about. And we had to make sure that we could really work within budgets and yet maximize the impact and create something that would be really special that hadn't really been done in this neighborhood before.

 

00;16;51;25 - 00;17;02;12

DP

So that's a good segway to style choice and the style that your office works within and the style that you chose for this building. Can you tell us a little bit about that?

 

00;17;02;18 - 00;17;58;10

JV

Well, I believe I'm an unrepentant modernist. I believe that we live in an astonishing time in the 21st century when we're redefining so many things technologically, socially. So I believe very much in creating works that are of our time and that are contemporary. But I love to combine that with traditional understandings of urbanism, of the way people live within cities and materials.

 

So, for example, a project like this really combines both of those where we're really using first we're creating very unusual forms, complex shapes. We're working with special computer technology in order to model these. We're working with computer numerically controlled bills and robots to actually build components of the building. And on the other hand, we're working with Brick, which is one of the most ancient materials that we have, one of the most enduring and beautiful materials.

 

And I love the idea that we're combining these different elements together to create something that is both timeless and of our time.

 

00;17;58;12 - 00;18;06;26

DP

So you said design was about a year long after that. What about city review? And then ultimately it's still under construction right?

 

00;18;06;28 - 00;18;59;24

JV

So I would say the total design process to complete all the technical documents and we did this project in Revit, we did it to the highest technical standards and construction documents, which is really helpful to figure out the different components takes about a year overall for the full design, but really at the same time as we're doing that, we're working on the permitting.

 

And so the permitting was really ready to go right at the conclusion of that. And because the project was as of right as we were developing the final technical documents, we were already going through the process of doing permits and then obtaining the foundation permit and then moving directly into constructions that really allowed us to facilitate the schedule and go quickly.

 

I would say one of the challenges on the design, which is really one of its greatest features, is the geothermal, because that required a lot of planning up ahead and doing a geothermal project of this scale in New York was very difficult in the construction because it required coordinating all of the geothermal wells with the foundation elements and doing that right from the beginning.

 

00;18;59;27 - 00;19;02;25

DP

So whose idea was it to do geothermal?

 

00;19;02;28 - 00;20;13;23

JV

I have to give the client credit again, like we really do a lot of projects that address sustainability, and I was very excited to do the largest geothermal project in New York, but it really required the commitment of the client and they had a great partner in Eco Save who was the engineering and geothermal firm that actually helped develop the geothermal systems and also work out the financial models that would allow it to work.

 

So this was really a terrific thing, but the client gets the credit and that's really also due to the changing codes in New York City, which are so stringent that the client felt it was worth the investment in new sustainable technologies. Well, actually, geothermal is a very old technology, but applying it in new ways, in ways that aren't typically done.

 

One of the things I'm most proud of is the second largest geothermal project in New York today, after this one's finished, is called St Patrick's Cathedral. So really doing geothermal on this scale for a residential rental building is the bread and butter of New York City, that kind of makes up the fabric of neighborhoods for me as groundbreaking. And also one of the buildings is an affordable building.

 

So the fact that we could do that level of sustainable design and help combat some of the future issues we're dealing with energy and climate change with this kind of building, I think is the extraordinary thing.

 

00;20;13;25 - 00;20;33;07

DP

So you said that you brought in the contractor early, so as a high end residential architect, we typically bring a contractor in right after schematic design to take a look at the project and help us determine whether or not we're going to be even close in terms of price, did that help you guys working with the contractor early on?

 

00;20;33;14 - 00;21;24;10

JV

Absolutely. And again, L Corps had a partnership with LRC Construction, So they're the construction manager doing the job. And really we worked with them on a pre-construction basis closely with the client. You know, often it's described as sort of a three legged stool with architects, you know, the architect, the owner and the contractor and really if one leg of the stool doesn't hold up, you know, it falls down.

 

And so really all three of us worked together intensely from the beginning. And this was critical, for example, with some of the brick elements, because we wanted to work with this beautiful format called Roman Maximus, very unusual format. We really found that very compelling. It was something we wanted to do from the beginning of the job and we had to work out how would we meet budgets, what would the cost of that be, how would we integrate that with the other elements, how much of it would we use? And so we really worked out those elements of the pricing very early in the schematic phases of the design. Instead of waiting till the end.

 

00;21;24;13 - 00;21;28;01

DP

Did you ever think about using another material rather than rrick?

 

00;21;28;03 - 00;21;56;05

JV

You know, we looked at different things for the building and we looked at GFRC at first for the whole building. But I love the idea of brick because I think it's such a classic material and in the end we ended up doing a hybrid where the brick is the majority material for the building, which I think works very well.

 

And the GFRC elements, these kind of sculptural concrete pieces are sort of the transitional pieces around the front entries and around the main amenity spaces and public spaces of the building. So I think it's very balanced by having both of them, although brick is the main material.

 

00;21;56;07 - 00;21;58;20

DP

So how did you end up dealing with Glen Gary.

 

00;21;58;22 - 00;23;19;27

JV

So Glen Gary really was very special for the project because they had this really unique product we've been looking for actually for years before I'd even heard of Glen Gary, I loved Roman Brick for my own studies. Even as a student at Cornell and at Harvard, I would travel extensively around the world. I would travel through Europe, and I loved the old Roman brick, which of course is a longer thinner brick.

 

And I saw in contemporary brick manufacturing they were starting to return to that. As a matter of fact, for years I tried to use it and so few manufacturers would really work with it. Then we found Glen Gary was doing something even more special. It was a longer thinner brick, what they call Roman Maximus, if you will. It's even more elongated and there's something special about that proportion.

 

It doesn't just stack up in the way that regular bricks do, which is fine too, but it almost creates a beautiful surface. And then we also did the detailing which was very important, where we created deep reveals along the horizontal edges of the brick. It's an old trick that Frank Lloyd Wright used to use. And so by creating a raked joint at the horizontals, it kind of creates this beautiful texture, almost like corduroy, and that along with the long, thin proportions of the brick, gives it a kind of a beautiful surface quality that's much more monolithic and much more beautiful.

 

And so we use this material all around the base of the building in order to really accentuate that and create a very strong presence to the street.

 

00;23;20;00 - 00;23;22;05

DP

So you had a good mason from the get go.

 

00;23;22;11 - 00;23;33;08

JV

We had to work very closely with our Mason and work out all of the details. Let's just say that there were a lot of mockups and a lot of reviews in order to make sure that we would maintain the quality of the project.

 

00;23;33;10 - 00;23;40;07

DP

So did you do drawings in house? First of combinations of brick or colors or you worked most of that out in the field?

 

00;23;40;09 - 00;24;06;17

JV

We actually worked extensively on all of that, so we had to work out special brick shapes. We did do curved bricks because they're a series of curves throughout the project, which were critical and we had to do specials for that. We work closely with the technicians at Glen-Gery as well as with the masons in order to work out how to do the specials.

 

We also had a great facade consultant, Frank Seta & Associates who were really integral to helping us work out the different components of the brick, the attachment, the waterproofing. They're really terrific.

 

00;24;06;24 - 00;24;16;10

DP

Interesting. We had talked a little bit about geothermal and sustainability. Was that a larger issue for some of the wall systems, insulation, etc.?

 

00;24;16;14 - 00;24;30;23

JV

Absolutely. I mean, the building has a very, very robust energy envelope and again, as I say, helped us with that as well as we did full energy modeling with IMG Engineering of the building in order to make sure that it met and exceeded really all the sustainability standards. Absolutely.

 

00;24;30;26 - 00;24;34;23

DP

So you talked a little bit about Revit. How long has your office been on Revit?

 

00;24;34;25 - 00;25;44;26

JV

That is a great question, Doug. So really, I guess we probably did our first Revit project ten years ago, and it was pretty early for us. We've always embraced new forms of technology and always embraced tools that help us be better designers. But I would say in the last several years, we've really moved towards using Revit on all of our larger projects.

 

We don't use it on every project yet, but more and more, even in our own office building, even on our own studio building that we're building out now for ourselves, we're doing the project and Revit, so we're moving towards using it now on smaller projects as well as definitely on all of our larger ones. I have to tell you what I like about it, in addition to the technical aspects, the way it helps you with construction takeoffs, integrating different components in real time of the architectural drawings, having them refer to each other, updating drawings. But I love it as a design tool. And in this project where we had this whole series of really interesting, complex spaces, Revit was terrific for actually allowing us to really make cuts through the building and understand the relationship of all the different components, relationship of inside to outside, relationship of one space to another, relationship of one material and how it meets another. Revit was fantastic as a design tool and really helped us do this building in particular.

 

00;25;45;04 - 00;25;57;23

DP

Yeah, I would imagine clients. Well, I already know this. I mean, clients love looking at three dimensional renderings. They come in and or you send them drawings by email and they're blown away right? I mean, it's like the building's already done.

 

00;25;57;25 - 00;26;53;19

JV

Renderings are a big part of what we do. And it's interesting here we were talking a little bit earlier because to me, one of the things I'm impressed by is we work really hard to make the renderings reflect the final design, but it's almost impossible to convey ideas of color and lighting and in renderings. People often think they represent reality, but you can manipulate it.

 

One of the things we did in the renderings for this project was we really tried to convey the color and character of the brick, where you could really sense the warmth of it when the light hit it and how it changes color and becomes a little bit more neutral and shadow. And it creates a real modeling for the building in sunlight, which I think is really critical.

 

And something I'm proud of with the renderings that we did is I'm amazed as the brick goes on now, I can see that it really reflects exactly how the brick is operating and how it takes on different colors and textures in changing patterns of light. It's especially important on a site like this, which is open and facing south directly overlooking the ocean. So it really gets tremendous light.

 

00;26;53;21 - 00;26;58;00

DP

Did you guys end up with any masonry on the interior? Any brick on the interior?

 

00;26;58;02 - 00;27;51;25

JV

So I love the idea of bringing inside and outside together. And so there are a few key places where we brought the brick into the interior. Actually, in the lobby we're doing something very special where I brought the brick right into the inside and actually made it a major feature right behind the front desk, kind of the entry point and I even pushed and pulled that great Roman Maximus brick to give it fantastic texture.

 

And we lit it beautifully. We're working with Susanne Tillotson, a remarkable lighting designer who's going to light up the texture of that. We're going to put artwork there too, and we brought brick into a few other places in the interior. Also, it's at the rooftop space that we call the Skydeck, where it folds in and becomes the base for some of the seating.

 

There's an area that we call the living room with the kitchen that overlooks a giant garden over the parking garage. And we pulled the brick in there too. It's in a few places in the entry sequence, going up to the gardens from the lobby. So I like the idea of referring to the brick. It's mostly on the outside, but there's a couple of key places where it makes its appearance on the interior.

 

00;27;52;02 - 00;28;10;29

DP

Might be a dumb question. You do a lot of projects along the water. Of course it affects the materials and the choices you make, but is it a large consideration for you in most of the buildings that you do? I see a lot of wood on the interior at the front entryway here. What are you guys doing? Are you treating those materials differently?

 

00;28;11;01 - 00;28;42;01

JV

Absolutely. So it's very important when doing projects on the water that we have to address that it really probably affects other things more. It certainly affects our window specifications. It affects the coatings used on the windows, which have to be to a higher standard. Again, this is where FSA was a great help to us. Brick is a great material for the waterfront because it's really a rain screen.

 

Brick doesn't really stop the water. The water barriers are behind the brick, but the brick itself is so durable that it does really well in, you know, difficult environments such as Coney Island where we really have a maritime environment and a lot of salt in the air.

 

00;28;42;03 - 00;28;44;22

DP

So how big was the team that worked on the job?

 

00;28;44;24 - 00;28;51;07

JV

Gosh, it's hard to say because there were so many different people. I would say, you know, a dozen people. And then, of course, there's a really wonderful team of consultants that we worked with. So a very large number, probably 12 or 15 consultants who really played a key role. And then the client too. It was really a tremendous team and a really great group effort.

 

00;29;06;26 - 00;29;16;01

DP

So did your office or you in specific learn anything unusual or interesting along this journey of making these two buildings?

 

00;29;16;07 - 00;30;10;16

JV

You know, I learned things from every project. My favorite thing about my job today is that I feel like I'm certainly teaching a great deal and hopefully working hard too, if I can lead and inspire. But I find my younger staff are teaching me every day. They're showing me how they're using the technology, they're showing me better ways of doing things.

 

So I learned a tremendous amount in this. I certainly learned a lot about and I thought I knew quite a lot about brick detailing, doing special bricks, some of the special fabrication we're doing, the robotic fabrication with the GFRC. And to me, every project is really an opportunity to figure out how can we do that even better? How can we apply to the next job, how can we build our body of knowledge?

 

I also love the fact that all of our projects are different. Our real signature at Studio V is that each design is really unique to that site, that client. So for example, we're doing another building with this client now on a different site in New Rochelle, and it's a completely different look and feel, even if the program is somewhat similar.

 

00;30;10;22 - 00;30;23;20

DP

It must be reassuring for the client, right? Because they feel a lot more special because the building you're designing every time the program changes and the site changes, you change with that, right? So that must be great for them.

 

00;30;23;25 - 00;31;20;04

JV

Exactly. Doug I don't believe in the idea of like the architect as an agent where they kind of put their name on it even. That's why I said it's not Valgora Architects, it's Studio V, it's a collective of people. And to me what's really important is that we find a solution for each project. We definitely have obsessions and themes that I think work through our work.

 

For example, we were just in the Venice Biennale early this year and we're still up actually, it's up through November and we showcase this project along with four other projects. And so one of the themes of that show was called On Edge, where we talked about all of our work, which is about edges, gaps, interstices, kind of repairing the frayed edges of our cities.

 

And Coney Island is one of them, both literally and figuratively as a community, as well as an oceanfront site. And so to me, the idea of instilling a series of social spaces within that and yet kind of repairing the edge of this community, remaking Surf Avenue and really helping be an agent for transformation is really what our work is about.

 

00;31;20;07 - 00;31;28;17

DP

So you've been an architect for some time. If you could give your younger self some career advice, can you think of something you'd tell yourself many years ago?

 

00;31;28;19 - 00;32;50;11

JV

I guess I've certainly made many mistakes in my career, and although those have been things that I've learned greatly from. But the other thing that's driven my career is optimism. Where I would often go from project to project, place to place, city to city early in my career, I actually found myself going from San Francisco to London to Toronto and eventually ending up in New York.

 

And really I feel lucky about that. So I guess in terms of advice, I'm wondering if there was a kind of serendipity to that kind of an unplanned nature to that, and I would almost hate to interfere with that. I think the freedom that I had in my youth to try different things, learn from different people, live different places, was actually the most transformative thing.

 

So I guess I would say that to myself, but I guess I was lucky enough just to fall into that. Maybe some of it came from where I grew up because I guess I couldn't really stay in Buffalo when my dad worked in the steel mills when I was part of those industrial buildings. That was just at the point when that was all failing and they were getting ready to tear it down.

 

Now, the mill where my father worked is no longer there, but now my greatest inspiration is to go back and try to reinvent those communities. One of the things I'm most proud of is that I'm going back to Buffalo and doing work there now to bring back my hometown and to create transformative buildings there, including at the old grain elevators at Silo City are other projects in the heart of Buffalo, like where we're doing projects over in the Elmwood District, our wonderful historic district where we're doing a new building now.

 

00;32;50;13 - 00;32;57;07

DP

Wow. Well Jay it's been great to have you here. Thanks for your time. Where can people go to learn more about Studio V Architects and yourself?

 

00;32;57;09 - 00;33;23;22

JV

Well, they can certainly find us online at StudioV.com. They can find us at our Instagram site. And most of all, you know, if you're ever in New York City, we'd encourage you to come see us. Come visit us at our studio itself, which is going to be at 111 East 29th Street. Or visit some of our projects, such as the Empire Stores, one of our most iconic projects in Brooklyn that's been very popular with people. We'd really welcome to have people get in touch with us or please come by the studio.

 

00;33;23;26

DP

Thank you very much.

TRANSCRIPT

00;00;00;02 - 00;00;05;08

Doug Pat (DP)

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

 

00;00;05;10 - 00;00;25;28

Lorne Rose (LR)

They wanted a spacious two car garage with mudroom, and then they like to entertain. So a combined living room, dining room, and then a kitchen. They love to cook. And then a beautiful two-story family room. That's all done at hundred-year-old occupied a beautiful room that some people think looks like a small chapel.

 

00;00;26;00 - 00;02;37;16

DP

This is my guest, Lorne Rose. I'll share more about him shortly. Today, we're going to talk about Lauren's Tudor home in Toronto. The neighborhood has a number of esthetically diverse architectural gems from the turn of the century, including a traditional Tudor that served as inspiration. Lauren's Tudor home features a variety of signature Tudor brick patterns from diagonal and herringbone to basket weave.

 

The traditional half timber board work has been replaced with stone and a carved stone belt course that runs across the front facade, separates stone veneer at the base, a steep gable stance across all facades, giving it order and magnifying the Tudor style. The roof is cedar shingle and the overhangs are traditional. The rear of the house has a spacious covered porch with wonderful wood.

 

Details, and the opposite side features a carved stone entry and a large wood and glass front door. The front landscape is organized, yet slightly whimsical, with a U-shaped drive. The backyard, in contrast, has an oval shaped lawn area surrounded by garden walls, apple trees and a vegetable garden.

 

Hi, I'm Doug Pat, and this is Design Vault. Lorne Rose Architect was established in Toronto in 1995 as Rose Pegasus Architects Inc. In 2000, his firm became Lorne Rose Architects. Lorne had an idea long ago at the age of ten, in fact, that he wanted to be an architect. He eventually attended the Ohio State University, receiving his Bachelor of Science in Architecture and his master's degree from the University of Michigan. In his practice, Lorne prides himself as hands on and intimately involved in every residential architecture project that comes through the door down to the last detail.

 

Lorne’s firm has completed many projects, including work in the United States and Canada. Lorne lives in Toronto with his family. He also coaches hockey travels and loves photography. Welcome, Lauren. Nice to have you with us today. So tell us a little bit about Lorne Rose, architect in Toronto. So where are you guys located? Toronto? What's the size of the firm and what type of work do you do?

 

00;02;37;22 - 00;03;07;16

LR

First of all, thank you for having me. So we are a small critique firm, the architectural side. We are myself and two others. Right now we do have an interior design firm called Empress Design and have recently taken on my side partner who is going to be a partner at the architectural firm. So the architectural side right now it's three of us and that interior design side there is probably about seven, and that supports jobs counting receptions.

 

00;03;07;18 - 00;03;09;27

DP

And to do only residential work.

 

00;03;10;00 - 00;03;36;03

LR

We're known for our residential work, but we do do some commercial work, some community work in terms of residential neighborhoods. Oftentimes, it's my residential clients who ask me to do some of their subdivision work or commercial work for them. We are located in Forest Hill neighborhood. Our office is kind of unique. It's really just like a house, except in this case, the kitchen is on the third floor and offices basement ground in second.

 

00;03;36;05 - 00;03;46;25

DP

So tell us a little bit about yourself. Your original firm was started in 1995, then transitioned in 2000. Tell us a little bit about that and then your role in the office currently.

 

00;03;46;27 - 00;04;31;15

LR

So I made the job was turning 30. Just got pregnant with her first son and decided it was time to leave. The firm that I was at. Enterprise just set me up in business. Taught me a lot. Worked together with him for many years. He was specialized in new work, high rise work. But I specialized in the residential, and it's really my passion that's dealing with the clients hands on.

 

The turnaround of projects is a little quicker and not working on a condo for two years or less. So we sort of finally decided that he had no interest in the small residential, which was my passion. So we just separated the first store out of the same office and still I wrote to my new office about six years ago or so.

 

00;04;31;22 - 00;04;33;24

DP

He's still practicing architecture as well.

 

00;04;33;26 - 00;04;44;14

LR

Andrew has actually, I think, retired. Some of his associates have taken it over. That first couple, Rafael Augustus, and they're quite successful still friendly with him.

 

00;04;44;16 - 00;04;56;29

DP

That's great. Now, you had mentioned residential contracts. I'm always curious, most of the jobs that you take on residential projects, how long do they take from kind of start to finish Client walks in the door to they got the keys to the front door.

 

00;04;57;04 - 00;05;23;01

LR

Right. So typically, I'll tell a client the municipal process in here is quite long. So from the day they hire me to the day they put a shovel in the ground, could be anywhere from 6 to 12 months. Used to take 10 to 12 months to build a house. But since COVID hit, Toronto may be different than other cities that exploded here, we've never been more busy than we were during COVID.

 

So you're looking at 12 to 18 months to build a home here now.

 

00;05;23;08 - 00;05;31;11

DP

I mean, it's kind of surprising. As a US citizen, I always hear about how expensive Canada is. And Toronto's extraordinary, isn't it?

 

00;05;31;17 - 00;06;23;17

LR

It is extraordinary beyond belief. It's surprisingly the fourth largest city in North America. I've been wrong about everything. During COVID, we thought the market would crash. Interest rates were extremely low and people were just buying up homes. People were tired of their own homes. They would renovate or they would actually, surprisingly, they left their neighbors. They decided to tear down their perfectly good house because the cost of getting it aged what we have here called land transfer tax and buy a new home, a tax on new people, said, you know what, I love my street, my neighborhood.

 

I'm going to tear down this somewhat good home and build a new home. So the industry exploded it very, very expensive to build a house in Toronto because the trades had actually good for too long. It seems to be slowing down a little bit now. But as I said, I'd be wrong about everything. Sure.

 

00;06;23;19 - 00;06;24;04

DP

You're not.

 

00;06;24;04 - 00;06;26;20

LR

Alone. I'm not going to make predictions.

 

00;06;26;23 - 00;06;34;19

DP

Yeah. So today we're going to talk about a Tudor home project that you did. What was the year that it was built and approximately where is it?

 

00;06;34;23 - 00;07;10;21

LR

So it's in the neighborhood. It was 13 years ago that my clients are again. So we probably started it 15 years ago. It's in a neighborhood or a street that did not have many houses on it. The owner moved a block east. They elected a tutor house that they renovated and decided to do a new Tudor house on this lot.

 

Since that time, the street has exploded and there are probably six or seven houses under construction on the street, many of which I am doing, which is nice. I don't do also.

 

00;07;10;25 - 00;07;13;24

DP

So there was nothing on the property when you built that house.

 

00;07;13;26 - 00;07;30;29

LR

There was an okay Tudor style home in Toronto. Land is at a premium and people are buying perfectly good homes and tearing them down. The home that was there did not meet the client's needs, so tore it down and designed a new house.

 

00;07;31;01 - 00;07;32;24

DP

And how big was the lot and truck?

 

00;07;32;24 - 00;07;40;19

LR

So we go by frontage which is very different states. So it was a 64 foot lot by 175 feet.

 

00;07;40;22 - 00;07;45;21

DP

That 100 foot dimension. Is that the entire length or just the street front?

 

00;07;45;23 - 00;07;48;05

LR

175 feet long.

 

00;07;48;12 - 00;07;49;08

DP

Front to back.

 

00;07;49;09 - 00;08;07;00

LR

Yeah, 64 feet wide. The street is predominately 50 foot lots, so this is probably the widest lot on the street. Right. You went to other 60 footers decided. I think there's a few fourth graders. That's how we call them here. 50 footers for this region.

 

00;08;07;02 - 00;08;09;22

DP

What were the programmatic requirements for the clients?

 

00;08;09;24 - 00;09;42;03

LR

Most important things were a two car garage with that mudroom attached garage. Previous house, they had had a detached garage and they never park your car in the back. And as you know, we deal with a lot of snow here, clients. So shoveling the driveway, all that. And then people put junk in there in their garages. So they wanted a spacious two car garage with mudroom and then they like to entertain.

 

So a combined living room, dining room, the living room here is going a little bit to where a general over these days we're finding people are using them. You have the most expensive furniture and nobody sits in them. They sit in a family room or great room. This family needed a combined living room, dining room because they like to have dining parties, so they could expand their dining table into the living room.

 

Living room has a piano, just table. That's it. It's mostly dinner just to expand for family occasions, holidays where they host large parties and then a kitchen. They love to cook a great inventory. It's very five feet by 14 feet long, very well organized with an extra fridge, whole wall of spices and sauce charged space, and then a beautiful two story family room.

 

That's all done at our hundred year old time. There was a dream of the homeowner to do a room out of 100 year old, not a pine. So it was all party boards carved and played down to create a beautiful room that some people think looks like a small chapel.

 

00;09;42;05 - 00;09;44;08

DP

So how many square feet is the house total?

 

00;09;44;16 - 00;09;57;06

LR

The home is about 5000 square feet, four bedrooms for best two children. The wife was from the States, so they often have family ties to the business suite at all. Work lunch.

 

00;09;57;09 - 00;09;59;27

DP

That's awesome. A homework, lunches get used.

 

00;10;00;01 - 00;10;07;21

LR

It did before the kids moved out. And now she's fighting the headstone for doing some of his hobby work.

 

00;10;07;23 - 00;10;15;22

DP

So in plan. Then when I looked at the elevations of the building, it looks like a large rectangle set, Correct? Or is it way more complex than that?

 

00;10;15;24 - 00;10;38;17

LR

It is. The floorplan is garage on the left side looking at the home office across the front door and then the window that is the piano area in the living room. There's actually a garden shed at the back which is attached to the house strip and turn into a cabana the car in order to have a pool because they need it.

 

So it's a garden shed. They like to garden.

 

00;10;38;19 - 00;10;42;24

DP

So is the site completely flat? No. Unique topographic features.

 

00;10;42;26 - 00;10;55;08

LR

Pretty much flat. So much so that the homeowner had to do two huge drainage pits to ensure that drainage worked. The area has a lot of clay in the soil, so it doesn't drain that well.

 

00;10;55;10 - 00;11;04;18

DP

So this next question is going to be interesting because I'm sure it's at least a little different from the U.S. What were the project restrictions like zoning codes, etc.?

 

00;11;04;20 - 00;11;35;22

LR

There were variances to the bylaw. We were required to have five front side yard setbacks. We have four foot sideboard setbacks. The density in this neighborhood go by 35% of the lot area is what gross floor area we were slightly over. Not very common in the area to go over 35 is antiquated. Most homes are going to be few across the street.

 

We did renovation on a smaller block, but we were at 90%. It's not uncommon to get the variance for the density.

 

00;11;35;24 - 00;11;36;24

DP

And how many stories?

 

00;11;37;01 - 00;12;12;21

LR

Two stories lot of people thought it had for its story. It could have had a third story, but the family didn't need more space. The covered porch was another very important requirement for the family and served them very well during COVID. Like some parts of the United States where people worked as servants of the rules, Canadians, I can say, were quite observant.

 

So it was a great place. Covered portraits, heaters for entertaining in the fall. Even in the winter, on a warmer day, family could entertain outside with guests, nice barbecuing area, a dining area sitting here.

 

00;12;12;24 - 00;12;22;29

DP

So tell us a little bit about the style choice. You had said that the neighborhood had a Tudor style home that you really liked before you designed this one.

 

00;12;23;06 - 00;13;56;28

LR

Yeah, there were some Tudor, a lot of postwar architecture. Toronto is very much influenced by English architecture, especially at the time. But the home that was an inspiration for this one was a much smaller home for us. So village near where my office is, it was a much smaller home that had beautiful brickwork and the Midband was a homage to that house in Forest Hill, where you describe it, is it orange segment carving it would have been done out of wood on the original house.

 

These beautiful brick patterns which you would see on other homes or so village that really caught my eye. And nobody really replicates properly these days in addition of spores that were carved, details like that on the old Tudor homes from the turn of the century in the revival of these styles are always left out. So we really wanted to do it correctly on this home, and the homeowner spent extra money to do it properly and more authentic.

 

Subsequent to that, there were quasi replicas of this house that popped up. People chortle when they see something they like. We started emulating it, but I don't take it as a sense to take it as a form of compliment. I didn't invent anything here. I was borrowing from collecting borrowing details from architecture styles in Italy, and I do it with any style in modern or Georgian or French provincial.

 

I like to use the most authentic details that clients will allow us to afford.

 

00;13;57;00 - 00;14;02;20

DP

So was there ever any question then in your mind that this House could be something other than brick?

 

00;14;02;22 - 00;14;29;19

LR

There were examples that I looked at as well, where the second floor rather than brick, you could use some of these patterns in stone, but red brick was dear to the owners liking, and I don't think there was really another option in this item where the house is a stone skirt, the rocks around the house, but the rest of the house's brick.

 

And while many people do a out of all stone sites and red brick, it allowed us to tie to breaking all the way around the house.

 

00;14;29;21 - 00;14;39;07

DP

What I think is really pretty when you look at the exterior gables, the half timber construction has become stone. Talk a little bit about that and where have you seen that in the past?

 

00;14;39;09 - 00;15;13;00

LR

There were some examples I've seen in the city, but for the most part, even on a lot of houses, we knew that our Tudor will have a cornice, detail are winters are harsh or weather is harsh or summers are hot, sticky and we have extremes. The thought of painting wood timbers, half timbers every now and then was not something the homeowner wanted to do, so we suggested doing them out of stone.

 

There's no way. So we've done that a couple of times. Just to cut down on this. There are some parts that are would not allow this house the stone.

 

00;15;13;00 - 00;15;26;17

DP

Details on this home are absolutely stunning. This carved front entry left and right. They did this little custom rose after your name. Now, where did you find somebody that does that? I mean, unbelievable.

 

00;15;26;19 - 00;16;35;22

LR

Funny enough, little story about the limestone on this house. It came from Indiana and were horrible. What I learned during this house is that Indiana supplies great stone. But in the future, I would never let them cut the stone. We have some great stonemasons in Toronto. We actually had to have some of them fix up the stone that was originally carved in Indiana.

 

But nowadays we ship the blocks out from Indiana and everything is carved here. I learned that on this house. So we have tons of great carvers here. The guy who did this house is Romanian and he worked for a school back in a communist Romania. And so a lot of great talent from Europe. Toronto is a melting pot, as is Canada, people from all over the world.

 

So there's no shortage of great transport, although I shouldn't say that as they're aging those artisans, the children do not want to follow in their parents footsteps. So I hope it won't be a lost art. But that's where the C and C machines of today computers are allowing us to still allow for those carved rosettes.

 

00;16;35;24 - 00;16;39;26

DP

So did you have any challenges finding a good brick Mason No.

 

00;16;39;26 - 00;16;56;08

LR

In fact, shared signature digitally had always been one of the best masons in Toronto, and I asked to take care of during makes my hair usually mostly stone. He didn't really want to do the brick, but when he saw the intricate brick patterns, it grated your brickwork as well.

 

00;16;56;16 - 00;17;03;26

DP

So Lorne, we were just talking about the brick. Could you tell us a little bit about the color and whether or not it was a special mixture?

 

00;17;04;02 - 00;17;51;11

LR

Yeah, at the time I was dealing with a gentleman named Isaac Raposo from King Masonry. Now he had an idea. We worked with Isaac for years. It came straight out of the company's work that he was passionate about brick and Stone. So he said to me, Lord, I have this special brick that's being used in university states, and it's Glengarry brick, and it's 85% Shenandoah and 50% Colt 50 3dd It's been used at the university.

 

It had a nice tonal range, some fire bricks in there, so it wasn't all flat coloring, a great deal of variation on the brick. And I said, Great, let's do it. Isaac was instrumental in suggesting that Brick and other clients have used a similar mix.

 

00;17;51;18 - 00;18;01;07

DP

So were there any unique construction details using masonry or brick on the home? Anything that you had never done before? Anything that you do a lot.

 

00;18;01;10 - 00;19;27;06

LR

This was the first time that I used the stone boards at six feet to bring, and it was the first time, I believe, that these different brick patterns on a house. So it was challenging for the Masons. I remember calls about how do you want to do this? Even on the stonework, we had some smoother blocks, but I wanted them chiseled with different patterns on them, really authentic stuff.

 

I didn't want perfectly aligned joints. I wanted it a little bit. I called it messy, but when it's done perfectly linear, you can spend the money on a real stone. It doesn't look real because it's so perfectly laid up. Bellies were put on a lot of the stones chopping the edges off. It's a little bit of a mess.

 

Your joint, Chino. I like to call it a rock joint. I was particular about the laying of the stone brick and quite happy with the way it turned out. The chimneys are quite detailed with different patterns as well. And limestone caps. One of the things I like to do is put superior clay chili pots on jumbo ones. One of the details I loved in traveling in England and there would have many chimneys and different clay pots on top of each.

 

Normally on our homes we put two of the same. I wanted to do something a little more British and mix them up. So each chimney has two different pots on it just for fun.

 

00;19;27;09 - 00;19;42;15

DP

So when it comes to a lot of these details, brick coursing, etc., do you guys end up doing a lot of a variety of drawings, series of iterations, looking at different patterns and then go out into the field and look at examples that the Mason puts together? How do you guys do that?

 

00;19;42;22 - 00;20;03;08

LR

That sounds a little more romantic than how it actually happened. I do have some great books on brickwork that I get to reference, but it was more the Mason gene and I just sitting out there and discussing them and looking at what we could really do. Not quite as romantic as drawing it all.

 

00;20;03;10 - 00;20;11;15

DP

Yeah, but it's a little more authentic in terms of how we used to do things as architects, right? Walk out onto the site, you tell people what to do so.

 

00;20;11;17 - 00;20;21;15

LR

That Gino is up for the challenge. We laid them out on the ground just to verify. I had ideas of what I wanted, but we did actually draw on that.

 

00;20;21;18 - 00;20;26;27

DP

So when you drew the building, are you guys using CAD? Are you drawing in 2D or are you drawing in 3D?

 

00;20;27;04 - 00;20;49;23

LR

I'm a little bit of a dinosaur. I'm going around my office. Who doesn't use AutoCAD? We now use Revit as well. I know how to use it, but every time I come to the computer, that stuff, you get away with it. I have two very talented staff, one staff member with me 23 years. They sort of know how I think that makes the office much more efficient.

 

00;20;49;26 - 00;20;59;19

DP

So I'm sure Toronto has rules about energy efficiency. Was sustainability an issue when you built the home in terms of the wall cavities, etc.?

 

00;20;59;21 - 00;22;19;19

LR

There were some things that we did here differently. I think our energy efficiency rules came into play a little bit more after this House would interconnect. But one of the things differently down here, it's normally called psychiatrist's insulation in the walls. In this case, we did two inches of £2 spread foam against the plywood, more airtight and a higher insulation lets you go over four inches a spray for the added impact of going to six inches is not necessarily worthy.

 

So we did two inches a separate fall and then three and a half inches of fiberglass insulation to give us a little bit higher our value at the time the spray fall thing was relatively new. The building department wasn't sure if there was still a void, how to deal with it still needed paper barrier. You don't necessarily need it anymore.

 

We did a blended version and built it. Department accepted it, still liked the system. It was cost effective way to get the air tightness and fill the void. Insulation nowadays where champ moving more to at least one inch exterior insulation and air space. Then Brick, our next building code will probably make that mandatory. And that way you don't lose as much thermal value through the stud cavities.

 

00;22;19;22 - 00;22;28;06

DP

So I know you do a lot of homes. Was there anything that you or your team learned during the process of building this one, designing it and having it built?

 

00;22;28;09 - 00;22;53;19

LR

Yes. When you specify certain forgeries dressed, let the lumber yard use a different kind of floor choice. There is a few problems with that. But aside from that, things went relatively urban innovation at home and did a great job. One of the things we did that was unique here. I like skylights a lot, but I don't like looking through a skylight well and seeing the clouds.

 

00;22;53;21 - 00;23;19;21

LR

So we do these lenses, frosted lenses, they look great, except they can get irksome. So there's a mechanical room in the roof here. So through access, through the mechanical room, it's a little boardwalk where the homeowner can't actually open up a door and vacuum the box off of the skylight. Let's just get rid of this box and we'll have the box get in there.

 

But they do look up. You know, I see books. That's great.

 

00;23;19;21 - 00;23;28;25

DP

Very creative spoken just like an architect. So you've been an architect for a long time. If you could give your younger self some career advice, what would it be?

 

00;23;28;28 - 00;23;29;24

LR

Wow.

 

00;23;29;27 - 00;23;31;21

DP

We're always learning as architects.

 

00;23;31;23 - 00;23;40;27

LR

That's a great question. It's not an uncommon question, but I've never really thought about it. I'm passionate and love architectural history and I learned a lot from it.

 

00;23;41;02 - 00;24;13;09

DP

You know, when I went to college, architectural history was a class I had to take, and it wasn't something that I really enjoyed. And ultimately I ended up with a YouTube channel. And all I do, or most of what I did for many years is make videos about historical architecture, right? So you never really know when you're going to use that information and how passionate you might become about something would seem to me, looking at the breadth of the work that you've done online, that you've got a really nice historical background that you're utilizing all the time.

 

00;24;13;09 - 00;24;21;17

DP

And it would seem to me if I was the younger you, I'd say to you, Look, man, pay attention, because you're going to be using all this information someday.

 

00;24;21;19 - 00;25;35;13

LR

So it's interesting. It's an architecture school was great. And the worst part about architecture history, which I loved, was that it was an 80 year class which any college students thought was awful and it was like three times a week. And you'd go to this class tired as can be, and the first thing they do is turn off the lights and show you slides.

 

So it was hard to stay awake, but I never anticipated the stuff that I did see, which was influenced by Peter Eisenman, who was there at the time, was nothing traditional. And just like I say to anybody, architect, just pay attention to trigonometry. Yes, you do use it. Toronto's a very traditional city. If I had lived in another city, I might have done more modern architecture in my career.

 

Now we're doing a ton of it and I love it. But just like, you know, Picasso was a classical painter before he did, where he did the traditional architecture and studying the masters in scale proportion, that's the talent that somebody gave me that I can see a proportion. I learned it through architecture styles, and then you can apply that to any style.

 

So I think that's paying attention in those classes as hard as they were when the lights were really made a difference in my career.

 

00;25;35;15 - 00;25;42;10

DP

Lauren, it's been great to have you here. Thanks for your time. Where can people go to learn more about Lorne Rose, Architect Inc and yourself?

 

00;25;42;17 - 00;25;52;14

LR

Lorne Rose dot com And it's not a popular name in the United States. It's very popular Canada the sixties it's aloha Annie RC dot com.

 

00;25;52;17 - 00;25;53;28

DP

Are you guys on Instagram.

 

00;25;54;01 - 00;26;09;21

LR

We are. I have to say I'm terrible at social media and I should be doing more because a lot of Americans have reached out based on some of the social media I need to concentrate more on. Yes, I am on Instagram and learn search. So yeah, please look us up.

 

00;26;09;27 - 00;26;14;02

DP

Well, it sounds like you're very busy. It was wonderful to have you here. Thank you so much for your time, Lorne.

 

00;26;14;04 - 00;26;18;02

LR

Thank you for having me. It's fun.

TRANSCRIPT

 

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

Doug Patt (DP)

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

 

00;00;05;15 - 00;00;28;26

Christa Waring (CW)

It's only exterior work. Right now, we've just mobilized to start the brick restoration. We had great assistants getting a perfect match to the original white glazed brick that they have there. You want to make sure when you're doing this much brickwork that your spackle is right, and it doesn't stand out in the end. And Landmarks approves the work very easily.

 

00;00;29;03 - 00;03;30;29

DP

This is my guest, Christa Waring. I'll share more about her shortly in this episode from The Design Vault. We highlight Christa's project in New York City, 650 Park Avenue. 650 Park Avenue is located in the Upper East Side Historic District, built in 1963 and designed by Emery Roth and Sons Architects. It's a 21-story apartment building with a white glazed brick facade and setbacks above the 16th floor.

The base of the building maintains the building line of Park Avenue. Recent façade examinations revealed a deficiency in the wall tie system that connects the face masonry to the backup concrete block masonry. CTA designed a program of facade repairs that include face masonry pinning in addition to the restoration of all shelf angles across the façades. The original construction features have finished glazed edge over all the window lintels, which has an impressive impact on the esthetic of the building. Thus, the project entails an extensive masonry rebuild where matching the existing brick is of paramount importance.

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

Christa Waring is a principal at CTA Architects, P.C. in New York City. She's been with the firm since 1994. She received her Bachelor of Architecture from Pratt Institute. She's passionate about sustainable design and has a keen understanding of building code and zoning issues.

Christa drives her office's environmental research and implementation of green technologies, which includes adherence to lead and certified passive House design standards. She's worked on some of CTA's largest projects, including the 90,000 square foot mixed use Lower East Side Girls Club, Arabella 101, and the Grand Street Guild. Her recent projects include the award-winning exterior Preservation of the Cast Iron Facade at 54 Bond Street.

She also recently oversaw the completion of the conversion of an illegal SRO into low-income housing on the Upper West Side. One of her current projects includes a building rehabilitation project that's part of the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority's Retrofit New York pilot program. Christa taught at Pratt Institute and lectured for the New York City Urban Green Council and the Northeast Sustainable Energy Association.

She's also a member of the New York City Department of Buildings Construction Requirement and Materials Committee, and the New York City Energy Conservation Code, Commercial Advisory Committee. So welcome, Christin. It's nice to have you with us today. So, tell us a little bit about CTA architects, P.C. in New York City. So where are you guys located in New York. What's the size of the firm? How long have you been around and what type of work do you do?

 

00;03;31;02 - 00;04;46;14

CW

Well, thank you for having me today. CTA Architects. We're located down in the Flatiron District, just a couple of blocks from the Flatiron. We have 60 plus employees at this point, including support staff. We do a variety of work in New York City. All of our work is focused in the five boroughs, frankly, mostly Manhattan. We do have Brooklyn and Queens, some in Staten Island, a couple in the Bronx.

But we originally started out in 1987 or so. We came into being around the time that the first facade laws came into effect. And so, it was something that we naturally fell into. And we have been doing that work ever since I've been there since 1994. Our founding partner, Doug Cutsogeorge was my professor at Pratt and hired me as an intern in my second year there, and I have been there ever since.

So, I was an intern. I typed envelopes that when we had typewriters, I fax things and then went out and did field measurements and climbed around on ladders and hung on scaffolds. And 29 years later, still there. And I've been a partner since 2014.

 

00;04;46;17 - 00;04;49;16

DP

Real quickly, tell me about these façade laws. What is that?

 

00;04;49;23 - 00;05;55;20

CW

You know, my business partner Dan, could give you, like, every single date and iteration, but I'll give you the gist, which is that terracotta fell off a building at Columbia University and that initiated a city response, which was at that time called Local Law ten, which mandated that all buildings over six stories have to be inspected every five years by a registered professional and a report submitted to the Department of Buildings.

So, at that point, all of the buildings submitted on the same day, February 21st, every five years, and as the law developed, it keeps developing based on things that have happened in the city. At that point, it was just the street elevation and you just had to look at it with binoculars. Now it's the entire building and you have to look at it from a hanging scaffold or a bucket truck. And depending on the construction type, you have to open probes through the face masonry to expose what's in the cavity.

 

00;05;55;25 - 00;05;59;20

DP

Wow. So, the incident at Columbia was that in the early eighties?

 

00;05;59;21 - 00;06;09;27

CW

That was in the early to mid-eighties. So first it was Local ten and then it was local Law 11. And now it's called the Façade Inspection Safety Program.

 

00;06;10;05 - 00;06;14;05

DP

So, it sounds like a good thing. They're now inspecting buildings for this very issue.

 

00;06;14;12 - 00;06;25;23

CW

Right. And now they broke up the buildings. There are three sub cycles, so not every report for every building in the city is due on the same day. So now it's broken up. So that makes it a little easier.

 

00;06;25;26 - 00;06;32;12

DP

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

 

00;06;32;19 - 00;06;53;26

CW

I got my license in 2003, But, you know, obviously I was working for the nine years before that. Currently, as principal, I do a lot of things. I wear a lot of hats. I yell at contractors, I hold clients’ hands and bring in work and put out fires where I need to.

 

00;06;53;28 - 00;06;55;02

DP

Do you like your job?

 

00;06;55;04 - 00;07;08;05

CW

I do. It is challenging. It's a lot. You have to really want to buy into it and invest. My partners, I've been with them almost 30 years. They're family and it's a good place to be. They're good partners.

 

00;07;08;12 - 00;07;11;15

DP

That sounds like a really interesting niche market.

 

00;07;11;17 - 00;07;33;01

CW

It is. And it's funny because, you know, there are a few firms in the city that do this, and we all know each other, and then we all get offshoots from employees have left and hung their own shingle and proceeded to sell focus and exterior restoration work. I would say it's about 70% of our work is exterior restoration.

 

00;07;33;06 - 00;07;38;04

DP

Gotcha. Let's talk about 650 Park Avenue. So how did you guys get the project?

 

00;07;38;06 -00;08;21;11

CW

So, I think, like everything in my history at CTA, it was word of mouth. It's kind of a tangled web. So, we use a consulting engineer who was working on a project out and Garden City, Long Island, and they needed an architect. So, he referred me to the owner, and the owner liked us and then brought us on to some of the more buildings that he owns in Brooklyn.

And then they were going around and around with their facade issues at the building that he lives in. And so, then he brought me in over there. So, it was all this chain. I always say, you never know who you're talking to when you're going to run into them again, who they are, who they end up being. To you and professionally. So that's how we got brought into the building.

 

00;08;21;18 - 00;08;29;07

DP

That's really interesting. So, could you give us a little history of the location? So, what was there prior to 1963, if you know?

 

00;08;29;13 - 00;08;43;23

CW

I do not know what was there prior to 1963, but it is a typical white glazed brick building of that era with the wedding cake setbacks. Also, during that construction period, the kind of problems that you find typically in that construction.

 

00;08;43;26 - 00;08;50;06

DP

So, the scope of the project then was only exterior work. Do you guys too any renovation work on the interior?

 

00;08;50;13 - 00;09;05;21

CW

It's only exterior work right now. We've just mobilized to start the brick restoration and we are going to visit with landmarks, redoing the ground floor, the base of the building as well.

 

00;09;05;23 - 00;09;07;20

DP

So, the project is currently underway.

 

00;09;07;26 - 00;09;08;24

CW

It's just started.

 

00;09;08;24 - 00;09;09;06

DP

Just getting rolling.

 

00;09;09;06 - 00;09;11;04

CW

Just getting rolling. It's exciting.

 

00;09;11;11 - 00;09;18;05

DP

So stylistically, the setbacks on those building that's due to the new laws in New York City at the time.

 

00;09;18;09 - 00;09;21;25

CW

Yes, those were due to zoning.

 

00;09;21;28 - 00;09;35;22

DP

Project restrictions - so when you guys are working on an exterior facade, what are the rules of the road? How do you guys end up doing a project like that? I would imagine that the exterior is all scaffolding at some point. What does the city make the contractor do?

 

00;09;35;24 - 00;11;06;28

CW

Okay, so first we started this project with, I would say, upwards of a hundred probes through the face masonry to really define what the issues were, because there was some debate over the extent of the repairs that were necessary. So, I spent a lot of time on the scaffold in the summer of 2022 looking at all the probes and really identifying the same repetitive problem over and over again.

We're just getting mobilized with hanging the rigs and part of all that entails is we had to file drawings at the Department of Buildings to get our permits and landmarks. Landmarks has to approve first, and we had great assistance getting a perfect match to the original white glazed brick that they have there. You would be surprised at how many iterations of white glazed brick there can be, but you want to make sure when you're doing this much brickwork that your speckle is right and it doesn't stand out in the end.

And Landmarks approves the work very easily. We didn't have any issues. I submitted to them the chip that we had custom made for the building. So that was great. To mobilize, the contractor has to pull scaffold permits, so he has to file with the city to install hanging scaffolds. There was already a sidewalk shed in front of the building to protect the pedestrians on the street. It's a corner building, so a lot of sidewalk shed that's been there for a while.

 

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

DP

So, let's back up. How did they know they had a problem? There were bricks falling off the building.

 

00;11;11;26 - 00;11;24;06

CW

It originally came up in a small exterior restoration project before our time that someone identified that they had a problem, and then it just kept developing from there.

 

00;11;24;10 - 00;11;29;05

DP

And how many sides were that exposed? Two or three. I understand it's a corner. Does it have a back side?

 

00;11;29;10 - 00;11;35;18

CW

Actually, it's L-shaped in the back. It has a number of large façades. It has the two large corner facades.

 

00;11;35;20 - 00;11;39;26

DP

So, the building's L-shaped and plan to then open up to a courtyard and-

 

00;11;39;26 - 00;11;40;05

CW

It does.

 

00;11;40;06 - 00;11;44;26

DP

Okay. How long does the project then take? Start to finish on a building this size?

 

00;11;44;28 - 00;12;12;26

CW

So, we're looking at completion in February of 2025. So, it's going to be about a year and a half on the ground. We have to install all of the pins. We have to pin the face masonry back to the backup block, which is a retrofit wall tie and first they pin and then we're going to strip all the shelf angles above and below the shelf angle and address the flashing and repaint the shelf angles.

 

00;12;12;26 - 00;12;22;12

CW

And sometimes we'll have to replace some of the angles and rebuild the masonry. And we have some parapet work to do, parapets that are not in good shape.

 

00;12;22;14 - 00;12;35;16

DP

So just so I understand that. So, they put up the scaffolding. Then you end up spending a bunch of time out there. I would imagine your partners are also out there. What I'm getting at is who identifies the structural issue? Who's the expert? Is it the architect?

 

00;12;35;24 - 00;12;36;27

CW

Oh yes, I did that. Yep.

 

00;12;37;03 - 00;12;45;06

DP

Interesting. You then document those issues in drawing form, like two dimensional drawings or 3D drawings and present them to somebody.

 

00;12;45;11 - 00;13;13;02

CW

Yes. Two dimensional drawings and photographs. I think the photos really speak a thousand words on this one. I presented it to the board. It's a condominium, so they have a board of directors and we met with them. I went over what I saw and the resident manager there was also very helpful, and he understands the situation and saw some of the probes that were open, that were closer to the ground and could confirm what we were telling them.

 

00;13;13;05 - 00;13;25;13

DP

So, you put together a set of drawings and is that priced like a typical architectural set of drawings by a GC? Is it then bid out and the lowest bidder is chosen? What's that process look like?

 

00;13;25;19 - 00;14;52;03

CW

So, we put together a set of drawings and construction details because we had opened so many probes, there were no questions. A lot of times when you work on a building and there are no existing drawings, which is probably 90% of the time for us, you're making assumptions about how things were built in the period of the building, right?

So inevitably you open it up and there's a surprise, sometimes a minor surprise, sometimes not so minor surprise. But this one, because we had had so many probes opened, we were able to really pin down what was behind the wall. So, we put together elevations, construction details and written specifications. We put them out to bid like the architects having a niche market in exterior restoration in New York City, there are also contractors who are a niche market for exterior restoration in New York City.

So, we bid to five or six or seven of those guys, the majority of whom I've known for many, many years. You know, we all work on the same stuff, and they select the bidder. Because it's private, it doesn't have to go to the lowest bidder. You know, we usually have an interview process so that the board can meet the contractor and get their feel for if they're a good match, that they're going to be a good match with building staff. So we go through the bidding process and then the contract is awarded and they do all that legal stuff on the side that I don't have to worry about.

00;14;52;08 - 00;14;58;04

DP

So, you guys do two dimensional drawings, details, any 3-D stuff? Not really necessary.

 

00;14;58;04 - 00;15;00;03

CW

Not really necessary for this type.

 

00;15;00;03 - 00;15;03;21

DP

And how many people end up working on one of your projects like this one?

 

00;15;03;24 - 00;15;11;00

CW

So, on this project, it was myself, our project manager, Freddy, and his staff member Arefa.

 

00;15;11;06 - 00;15;24;25

DP

So, let's get into the details. How does this work? Like, how do you do what you're doing? Are you just replacing bricks in specific areas? Are you replacing entire facades? And what does that detail look like?

 

00;15;24;28 - 00;15;33;29

CW

So, in the scope that we settled on, we are replacing the bricks along every shelf, angled the building, and this building has shelf angles that every floor.

 

00;15;34;02 - 00;15;36;11

DP

Explained to us what that is, a shelf angle.

 

00;15;36;13 - 00;16;11;02

CW

This is a concrete framed building. So, it has a concrete structure, and a shelf angle is a continuous steel lintel basically that holds up the masonry at every floor and it's bolted back to the concrete slab at regular intervals. There are shims and bolts, and it holds the slab in there. It holds the brick at every floor, provides the gravity support, and the wall ties provide lateral support. So, the shelf angles that this building were in very good condition. There are a few issues here and there, but nothing terrible.

 

00;16;11;02 - 00;16;11;20

DP

They’re all steel?

 

00;16;11;25 - 00;16;18;08

CW

They are steel like three by three, 4x4 angles. Some of them were shallow. So, we're making them a little deeper.

 

00;16;18;14 - 00;16;20;04

DP

Were they galvanized or painted?

 

00;16;20;09 - 00;16;46;03

CW

The original ones were not. They were painted. But when we go back, we go back with galvanized and stainless-steel bolts, and then we replace the shims and the bolts, obviously. And where we find a length of deteriorated shelf angle, we will replace that. We have an allowance for that in the contract to deal with that because there were some areas higher up on the building where they get, you know, more weather exposure that we're in worse condition.

 

00;16;46;05 - 00;16;49;10

DP

Tell us a little bit about the brick. How did you get the matches?

 

00;16;49;17 - 00;18;25;21

CW

Fortunately, this building hasn't had any huge projects on it, so it was fairly easy to identify which white glazed brick was the original brick, which was good because there were maybe three different bricks on it, different color, white base. You know, one was a little pink, one was a little white, or some had a brown speckle, some had a fine speckle, some had a varied speckle.

So, because there are so many setbacks, we were able to go to somebody's terrace where there hadn't been any work high up on the building because at the base at stone. So, I'm not comparing it at the base of the building. We also walked along the sidewalk shed because that gets you up higher. And we selected - we were like, okay, this is the original brick.

And then I reached out to King's. They are brick distributors in New York City, and the folks there were super helpful and made me all sorts of custom samples and they have little brick chips and brought the brick chips up to site and went through everything with the resident manager and decided on our brick. And then you mentioned in your intro the finished underside of the brick at all of the window lintels.

So, when you have a shelf angle you don't see in the field of the masonry, you don't see the underside, the clay body of the brick. But over the lentils you can see like the little yellow clay body of the brick. And I really got into the fact that it was finished on the underside. I think it's just a little bit like a perfect little thing that I really liked. So, we asked for that as well.

 

00;18;25;23 - 00;18;29;11

DP

Is that like a space that's about a half hedge, three quarters of an inch wide?

 

00;18;29;14 - 00;18;43;10

CW

Yeah, it's about a half an inch. If you have the right amount of bearing. And so, they put the glaze on the underside. So, the Masons have to be aware, obviously, when they're rebuilding to look for that. I'm sure I'll catch some in the beginning before they get used to it.

 

00;18;43;18 - 00;18;45;13

DP

Is it going to be hard to find a good mason?

 

00;18;45;19 - 00;18;51;10

CW

We have the contractor on board, and he has good masons on hand, so I'm not very worried about that.

 

00;18;51;16 - 00;19;01;08

DP

So, did you guys learn anything interesting through the construction process, through the inquiry process, anything unusual, Anything you'd never seen before?

 

00;19;01;14 - 00;20;11;10

CW

Not anything I've never seen before, thank goodness. Because those are never good surprises. I was happy, given the lack of wall ties, that I was happy to find that the backup masonry was still in good condition. We didn't have to worry about the backup masonry because that can also be an issue. We decided to pin the columns, which I was surprised actually worked because I had never pinned columns before because you're pinning into the concrete.

So, when you do the retrofit wall tie, you can call the manufacturers rep and he'll come out and do a test. He'll drill in the wall tie, and then he has like a crank to see what the force is, to see if the tie actually holds. And I had originally planned to strip all of the column locations in the building and rebuild that as well.

But on another project of mine, we had had pull tests done for retrofit pins on that building and they went into the columns, and I was like, wait, what? I didn't think that could happen. So, we called them out. We had had him do the tests in the field, in the masonry before, but we had him come back and do the pull tests and the columns and the pins drilled right in. So, it was great news.

 

00;20;11;17 - 00;20;15;13

DP

So, these are columns on the exterior facade behind the brick masonry.

 

00;20;15;16 - 00;20;31;04

CW

Right there, directly behind one wythe of brick behind the masonry. So, the backup concrete block goes right to the column. And then if you were to take all the face masonry off the building, you would see a grid of the columns with the backup block in between.

 

00;20;31;06 - 00;20;38;00

DP

And all the residents there. Do they get to live through the construction process?

 

00;20;38;02 - 00;21;04;06

CW

They do...Yeah. It's never pretty. It's just not. I feel bad, but there is going to be a lot of saw cutting, which is dusty. There is going to be a lot of drilling, which is loud. So, I hope that people at 650 Park, if you're listening, maybe you go back to working in the office for a while. What we do is loud and not anything that anyone wants to have to hear all day long if they're home.

 

00;21;04;08 - 00;21;08;02

DP

Back to the building for a second. I'm really surprised there were no drawings.

 

00;21;08;03 - 00;21;13;06

CW

We did have some the building super. The resident manager had some drawings.

 

00;21;13;08 - 00;21;21;10

DP

Yeah. What's always amazing. I mean, to go back further than that, people-built buildings from so little information, right? I mean, it's crazy.

 

00;21;21;14 - 00;22;05;26

CW

Yeah. So, we didn't really find any wall details. We had elevation drawings and then there's always elevation drawings, probably some plans and lots of plumbing drawings and mechanical drawings, which I don't need and are never accurate because they never built it that way anyway. And it was sixty years ago. So, lots of things have changed. So, we did go through the resident manager's giant bin of drawings in the beginning and got what we could use and it was helpful.

I mean, it helped us locate all of the columns along the facade, right? We wouldn't have had that if we didn't have the original drawings. It would have been more of a guess. But like in this project I said was knock wood a lot of guesswork so far.

 

00;22;05;29 - 00;22;16;02

DP

Yeah. And you talked a little bit about existing conditions and drawings. Is that something that you still do, do some existing condition sketches when you're out there and then somebody'll draw it up for you or.

 

00;22;16;09 - 00;22;56;00

CW

Oh absolutely. That's part of the process. You know, I went to site one day with my notebook and my pen and the contractor said, well, the girl who came last time had an iPad. And I said, I don't have an iPad. I have a notebook and a pen. They tried to give me an iPad, but I'm just more comfortable sketching it.

I feel like there is a connection between pencil and paper that makes you understand what you're looking at and what you're drawing. I don't know. When you go to architecture school, you don't really know anything when you start. And I started to understand through drawing, and I went to school in the era where there was no computer drafting.

 

00;22;56;00 - 00;22;56;16

DP

Yeah, I experienced the same thing.

 

00;22;56;21 - 00;23;13;25

CW

Yeah, I feel like there's a real connection and I think, you know, a lot of times there's an assumption that the computer program is the be all, end all. Not that just a tool and people don't really sometimes don't understand what it is that they're drawing because the computer's creating the detail.

 

00;23;13;28 - 00;23;15;14

DP

They miss it in the learning process.

 

00;23;15;19 - 00;23;35;24

CW

Yeah. And because we do what we do, that's not something that they teach. They don't teach that at school. I actually didn't have to take construction documents in school because I got credit for my job because I was doing actual construction documents. I worked full time. I went to school part time. So, it took me a very, very long time to graduate.

 

00;23;35;26 - 00;23;37;09

DP

Wow, that's impressive.

 

00;23;37;11 - 00;23;37;22

CW

Yeah.

 

00;23;37;29 - 00;23;42;20

DP

Christa, was sustainability an issue for you guys when you took on the project?

 

00;23;42;27 - 00;24;46;20

CW

Unfortunately, with this project, given the parameters of the scope, we could not really accomplish the integration of additional insulation in the cavity or something to that effect, moving forward, but in our office, we really focus on the concept of maintaining existing buildings and doing rehabilitations as sustainable practice. We have a sustainability coordinator that we brought on about two years ago.

She's fantastic. She keeps us honest. She's always regulating things, making sure we're composting, taking things out of the garbage can and putting them in the compost. We did a full led switch over on our lighting in the office pushed by her. She's changed our specs, you know, she'll give me and my partner Dan markups on the specifications with suggestions and we integrate that into our specifications. We do have a sustainable component in every job and some jobs, we can take it to a whole other level.

 

00;24;46;27 - 00;25;03;03

DP

Yeah, it would seem to me that have to go to the interior, right, and rip out all of the plasterwork and drywall and then reinsulate. So, I'm curious, a building like that, it gets a new facade, but it's not going to really change the R-value of the walls and it's still probably going to be a cold building.

 

00;25;03;06 - 00;25;28;21

CW

Right, there is that. And then a lot of times people say, well, I can put in these super-duper windows. And I'm like, Yeah, but your walls are not insulated at all. And you have a PTAC unit, which is basically a hole in the wall. So, you have to look at the balance of how to accomplish what it is you need to accomplish. But we look at the materials and the VOCs, and the location where things are made as well plays into sustainability.

 

00;25;28;21 - 00;25;29;29

DP

Yeah, it is what it is.

 

00;25;30;00 -00;26;06;06

CW

Yeah. I was on the Energy Code review Committee, as you mentioned, the advisory committee, but one of the reasons I signed up for that is because it does not answer existing buildings to the extent that I think it should, given that it's the New York City Energy Code and there's still some gaps in there. But, you know, we're conserving these buildings, we’re restoring them, we're not tearing down and building new ones.

And so that's good for the environment. But then how can we make a realistic energy code that you can apply to all of these existing conditions that we can't just change?

 

00;26;06;09 - 00;26;09;13

DP

I think it's wonderful. It's something most people don't think about.

 

00;26;09;20 - 00;26;38;04

CW

They don't know. And I lectured for Urban Green on the Energy Code. I gave a scintillating seven-hour long lecture. I ran out of words, though, during COVID, I couldn't do it on a screen. So, I tell my kids I ran out of words because there are a lot of words, but I think even sometimes the people that I was lecturing to depending on, you know, like you said, a normal architecture firm isn't thinking about this stuff because they're not dealing with existing building. They're dealing with a plot of land.

 

00;26;38;06 - 00;26;59;27

DP

So, Christa, you've been an architect for some time. Based on what you know today about being an architect, do you have any words of advice for either your younger self or young architects coming up? Because what you do is a little different - the 70% of the work that you guys do - is really very different from what many architects end up doing when they get out of school.

 

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

CW

One word of advice is not to be too married to the thought of what you think you want to do and to try different things, and you might really find something that surprises you, that you do. I've found along the way I've done some projects I would never imagine when I was in school that I would do something like that, and I really enjoyed it.

When you go to school, you have a vision, I'm going to do this. I want to do this. And if you just open yourself up to different projects and you might find something that really makes an impression on you.

 

00;27;33;11 - 00;27;35;23

DP

Yeah. What clearly worked for you?

 

00;27;35;25 - 00;28;13;05

CW

Yeah. And to my younger self, I don't know that I have advised my younger self because I don't know how much I've changed, but I always felt like if you're doing what you enjoy and you're with people that you enjoy doing it with, then little things that might be irksome to contemporary youth don't really register. They're not important in the long run, and you have to see the big picture.

I mean, did I think when I was hired, did I think when I was 23, someday I’ll own the company? No, I didn't think that, but it happened. So you never know. Hard work and a lot of luck is what gets you where you want to be.

 

00;28;13;10 - 00;28;19;29

DP

Christa, it's been great to have you here. Thanks for your time. Where can people go to learn more about CTA architects and yourself?

 

00;28;20;02 - 00;28;44;21

CW

We have a website. It's www.ctaarchitects, all one-word dotcom where we showcase all of our finest work. Sometimes people look at our website and get a little, oh that's very fancy, but I always say it's your portfolio, it's your best, but there's everything in there. There's all this stuff that we do that doesn't make it to the portfolio level that's necessary.

 

00;28;44;24 - 00;28;46;15

DP

Well, thank you very much. Been great to have you.

 

00;28;46;19 - 00;28;51;09

CW

Thank you for having me. It was nice talking.

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;20;14

Shane Neufeld (SN)

I think what was special about this project was that the clients were able to generate a lot of input that forced me out of my comfort zone, think about things in new ways, and take some of the systems and strategies I had in place, but to create something completely different than had been done before.

 

00;00;20;20 - 00;02;47;11

DP

This is my guest, Shane Neufeld. I'll share more about him shortly. In this episode from the Design Vault, we highlight Shane's project in Brooklyn, New York, called The Z House. The Z house, named for the shape of its stair is a renovation, providing a unique model for the urban domestic experience. At the Project Center is a new switchback stair that integrates the house vertically and horizontally, carving out the existing structure in order to shape dynamic sightlines that connect inhabitants in new ways.

 

The stairs drama is heightened by the placement of large windows punctuating the rear facade. These allow the vertical space to open to the exterior directing views from the stair through the house and to the yard beyond. Descending from the rear of the parlor floor is a smaller stair slotted between a steel guardrail and oak millwork. This connects the living room to the new horizontal additions below.

 

Here, the added square footage accommodates the kitchen and dining room in a single dramatic double height space that visually unites the rear yard and the parlor floor above. A green roof located above the garden level helps to buffer sightlines and cultivates a natural intimacy for the residents inside.

 

Hi, I'm Doug Pat and this is Design Vault. Shane Neufeld is an architect and artist born in Brooklyn, New York.

 

He received his B.A. in Fine Arts from Amherst College, where he studied painting and literature and his master's degree from the Yale School of Architecture. He is a registered architect and the founder of Light and Air Architecture and Design in Brooklyn. The firm's work has been widely published and completed projects include the Z House, Switchback House, Sterling Place, Skylight House and Nassau Street Loft.

 

After graduate school, Shane spent three years with Rogers Marvel Architects in New York, working on a variety of projects that focused on urban, residential, commercial as well as institutional architecture. Additionally, he was a project architect at Christopher Fernyhough Architecture. Shane is also served as a faculty member at the New Jersey Institute of Technology's School of Architecture. So welcome, Shane.

 

Nice to have you with us today. So tell us a little bit about Light and Air Architecture in Brooklyn, New York. So obviously you're located in Brooklyn. What's the size of your firm and what type of work do you do?

 

00;02;47;13 - 00;03;42;19

SN

It's great to be here. Thanks for having me. Our office is 2 to 3 people. It varies from project to project. We do mainly residential work in Brooklyn, although we have done apartments as well in the city. We're trying to get beyond residential for institutional projects, so we're very open minded about the kind of work we want to do.

 

But we see a lot of potential spatially, in particular with residential work and in townhouses here in New York. For us, the townhouse is rich with opportunities to explore, and in a city that tends to maximize every square foot, we kind of take a more artful approach where we want places that people want to spend time in rather than maximize.

 

And so we pursue clients and tell clients this off the bat so they know what they're getting into. And it's a different type of work in our mind than what new people normally see and people are used to.

 

00;03;42;21 - 00;03;44;11

DP

So how long has a firm been around?

 

00;03;44;17 - 00;03;55;15

SN

We were founded in 2017. I founded the office on my own house, the Switchback House, which was a derelict brownstone in Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn, and I used that as a starting point.

 

00;03;55;20 - 00;03;59;01

DP

So that's your home? Yes. Oh, that's so great. It's beautiful.

 

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

SN

Thanks.

 

00;03;59;25 - 00;04;01;28

DP

It must have been a great project for you.

 

00;04;02;04 - 00;04;28;12

SN

It was intense. I was working still at an office, so I was drawing the plans at night and eventually left my job to work on it full time during construction. It was an incredible learning experience. I hadn't really worked with Townhouse in New York before. I'd work on the Louisville Museum of Arts and Craft, which was a masonry building that would use steel. So I was familiar with the kind of means and methods are getting into, but not in Brooklyn itself.

 

00;04;28;14 - 00;04;32;13

DP

So you have a family and you all lived through construction.

 

00;04;32;16 - 00;04;45;05

SN

I actually had a loft in Bed-Stuy, what I call Home Depot Heights, which wasn't so nice at the time. It's loud, but we lived there at the time. My son wasn't born yet, so it worked for us.

 

00;04;45;07 - 00;04;54;03

DP

So tell us a little bit about the history of the location, the building. How long has it been there? Was it always three stories?

 

00;04;54;06 - 00;05;33;01

SN

Yeah. So with the Switchback House, my work got out there pretty fast and a young couple came up to me interested in exploring ideas of a new house for themselves that wasn't traditional, that had aspects and qualities that they saw in the Switchback House. And so they had purchased a derelict brownstone in Clinton Hill. It was two stories and a basement, so I guess that's three.

 

But it can be confusing, but parlor with one above. Basically it had a kind of 1960s faux concrete facade at the time. It was split up into multiple units. They had a big vision for transforming this house entirely from the get-go.

 

00;05;33;03 - 00;05;39;14

DP

So let's back up a little bit. So you explained how your office got the project. Did you know the clients?

 

00;05;39;16 - 00;06;31;22

SN

I did not. And so that's something that I've tried to be, you know, getting clients in architecture is very, very difficult. It's very much word of mouth. Obviously, people are spending lots of money. They want to work with someone they're comfortable with, someone they know will provide a product that they're happy with and that works. But it's a catch 22 at the very beginning.

 

Those connections don't exist. And so what I've really tried to do, and I think this originates from my background as a painter, is that I try to make work that's evocative and I want people to see the images. I want them to say, Hey, that's what I like, that's what I want, and kind of bypass a lot of the other stuff.

 

That's the hope at least. And so I think thus far I've been able to do that. And so they saw my projects online and had that reaction. And through a series of interviews and get togethers and walkthroughs, eventually they felt comfortable with me through other recommendations, obviously, as well.

 

00;06;31;26 - 00;06;36;06

DP

So what was the scope of the project? What were the clients’ programmatic requirements?

 

00;06;36;09 - 00;07;54;17

SN

That's pretty interesting as well. So I mean, there was this idea early on that we sketched of a kind of grand public floor on the stoop level. Basically, they knew they wanted to add to the building horizontally. We weren't yet sure about vertically, but the original building, it was wider than most townhouses, 22 and a half feet, but it was only 32 feet deep.

 

So the addition was necessary in order to function, basically. Then the idea of the living space on the parlor floor and with bedrooms above and originally, as I've done in other projects, I thought of the adult level on the second floor with the kids above. They pushed me to invert this, which created a very interesting programmatic and spatial result.

 

Basically with the vertical addition on the rear, you end up having a terrace on the top floor off the master bedroom. I think what was special about this project was that the clients were able to generate a lot of input that forced me out of my comfort zone, think about things in new ways and take some of the systems and strategies I had in place, but to create something completely different than had been done before.

 

So in that respect, when I first started this project, I thought about it as, you know, Switchback House 2.0. I like this idea of the Switchback as a typology that offers a multitude of spatial outcomes depending on the family's needs.

 

00;07;54;19 - 00;08;04;07

DP

So it can't be easy getting a new addition done in Brooklyn, right? I mean, what do you go through in terms of project restrictions, zoning codes, etc.?

 

00;08;04;10 - 00;08;27;29

SN

That's a very good question. I mean, luckily this building wasn't landmarked, so we didn't have to go through landmarks review. We were given kind of free range to do what we wanted. But a horizontal and vertical submission is significant. It requires an old one change of use. We went from a two family or three family to a single family.

 

It was significant time for approvals. We did not do SOE. We we didn't dig out the cellar in the rear.

 

00;08;28;02 - 00;08;30;18

DP

So the building plan, straight rectangle?

 

00;08;30;20 - 00;08;47;05

SN

It's actually staggered slightly in plan and the addition and that has to do with the lot line itself. So you can see that in the kitchen, the area where the sink and window are that that actually pushes out slightly beyond where the sliding doors are that defined the end of the dining room space.

 

00;08;47;11 - 00;08;48;12

DP

Do they have a backyard?

 

00;08;48;13 - 00;08;49;15

SN

They do.

 

00;08;50;39 - 00;08;52;12

DP

So they were encroaching on it when you put the addition on?

 

00;08;53;29 - 00;08;54;03

SN

Slightly but 30 feet to the rear is the code.

 

00;08;54;09 - 00;08;56;11

DP

So they still have a backyard. They've got room.

 

00;08;56;18 - 00;08;57;25

SN

Oh, yes, significant room.

 

00;08;58;02 - 00;09;04;27

DP

So how long did the planning process take? City Review design to construction? Like start to finish? How long were you on the job?

 

00;09;05;03 - 00;09;17;15

SN

Well, I started the project. I started designing think it was the end of 2018. It took about a year to get started and the project itself took another two years to finish. Year and a half. Two years.

 

00;09;17;15 - 00;09;18;07

DP

And pandemic.

 

00;09;18;11 - 00;09;34;10

SN

Yes, through that as well, through price increases on plywood and windows that took over a year to arrive, miserable at times. But a truly wonderful client who trusted us trusted the process, communicated well, and we really got through it together.

 

00;09;34;15 - 00;09;41;02

DP

Yeah, a common story for we architects. I mean, everything took longer, cost more. It was insanity.

 

00;09;41;09 - 00;10;38;09

SN

Yeah. I mean, I think what's really interesting for me about this project was that this addition that we had, we wanted it to feel completely different than the front of the building. We actually restored the front of the building to its original state, which was a cementitious or brownstone facade. Despite adding a floor, we made it look, appear as if that's the way it had always been.

 

So we were playing up this Jekyll and Hyde inside, outside contrasting relationship. And so the rear is this monolithic kind of earthy force in a way that appears entirely different from the front of the house. And there was a real desire with the large windows to bring light and air into the space, to feel continuous ness of the space between the inside of the building and the rear.

 

And I think that's really where the search also for the right brick came into play because we knew that whatever we did, which we wanted to be masonry on the rear also had to be that same masonry on the inside of the addition as well.

 

00;10;38;17 - 00;10;52;02

DP

So tell us a little bit about style choice. So the owners, did they just say right away, hey, we want to do something contemporary? They're looking at your project, the Switchback House, and they're thinking, this is what we want to do. That's why we came to you.

 

00;10;52;04 - 00;11;14;22

SN

To be honest, I always tried to actually sidestep away from conversations about style, but there was an idea from the get-go that they had seen our work. They wanted something in that vein. There was no conversations about whether something should be stylistically historical or modern or contemporary. There was just questions about where things should be, how they should function, and what material should be the outcome.

 

00;11;14;29 - 00;11;20;07

DP

Did the city dictate that the third story on that front elevation had to be a traditional aesthetic?

 

00;11;20;09 - 00;11;22;25

SN

Absolutely not. That that was a client driven.

 

00;11;22;25 - 00;11;23;16

DP

Client driven.

 

00;11;23;19 - 00;12;04;00

SN

Yes. And you know what? At first I thought, you know what? If the vertical edition was something modern, stepped back and those were ideas that I was really interested in to play as a counterpoint to the historical facade. But the client and I think to their credit, in the end, this idea of really disguising the kind of dynamism that was going on inside that the front played a more subtle, subdued role.

 

I really like that. In the end, the front door is a reference to their heritage. Actually, it's a mahogany lattice that references Geoffrey Bauer's work and some of the screens that he developed in his work. So there's suggestions of a kind of different world within, but it's very subtle.

 

00;12;04;02 - 00;12;10;15

DP

So tell us a little bit about the building restrictions. Was there an FAR? Zoning codes?

 

00;12;10;17 - 00;12;28;14

SN

Yeah, sure. So it's a 20 to by, I think a little under a hundred foot deep lot. So obviously you have to do your calculations. But no, we are not maximizing FAR, we're close, but not maximizing the envelope is, I believe, 50 feet on the street side. But we're not engaging any of those limits.

 

00;12;28;20 - 00;12;31;12

DP

You guys used masonry on the interior as well.

 

00;12;31;16 - 00;12;34;11

SN

We did. And those are full masonry bricks on the inside.

 

00;12;34;18 - 00;12;35;17

DP

So it's load bearing.

 

00;12;35;24 - 00;13;13;10

SN

Well, we're not using the bricks for load bearing purposes. It is a CMU all in the addition, but the bricks take up the three and five eighths inch width, which is I think really interesting. I think this is again speaks to the kind of work that we do is that we looked at tile products. I think Glen-Gery very makes tile products too of some of those bricks but we wanted it to turn corners.

 

We wanted it to move, we wanted it to appear fully authentic. And in the end, I think once we had reflected on all the products available, that using the same brick, the same finish was the right move. And with the 22 and a half foot wide lot, it really afforded us that opportunity.

 

00;13;13;12 - 00;13;18;29

DP

So tell us about some of the unique construction details that you guys ended up using on the project.

 

00;13;19;01 - 00;14;20;08

SN

This whole project, this whole house was bespoke. I mean, it kind of drove us mad how difficult it was. We were there almost every other day figuring things out. You know, my office is near Clinton Hill, so it's a five minute bike ride. And there were lots of things to consider constantly as the construction progress went on. But I think that one quality that we like to achieve in all of our projects is this notion of materials and volumes, kissing or abutting in very sensitive ways.

 

So knowing that if you want two finish materials to have a tolerance of, let's say an eighth of an inch or a 16th of an inch next to each other, one has to constantly move back from those materials and think about what's on the inside. So we worked with Henrybuilt on this kitchen. Henrybuilt produces very beautiful high end kitchens.

 

But I the architect am the verifying field for that if you can believe it we actually designed and dimension this kitchen before the masonry was built so the masonry that you see in the kitchen was actually designed to the specs of the kitchen.

 

00;14;20;13 - 00;14;22;16

DP

Wow, that is backwards.

 

00;14;22;21 - 00;14;38;26

SN

But I had to know where everything was. So we have the CMU in place. I had to understand the depth of all the materials where they would end up. And using that information we decided what the kitchen was, where it would be. And then I'm on the field supervising, making sure that the masonry is indeed where I think it will be.

 

00;14;39;03 - 00;14;50;06

DP

Yeah, I think it's pretty cool. It's pretty rare to see masonry on the interior of a building. You just referenced, there were other materials you guys talked about using for both the interior and maybe even the rear facade.

 

00;14;50;08 - 00;16;19;11

SN

The client, they had this dream of a masonry rear facade. I did too. I mean, it's what made sense. I mean, masonry is a East Coast material. It is something we see a lot here. The beautiful old buildings, you know, of the Northeast are made of brick, many of them red brick. And so that was a theme that came up as well.

 

The client did have a bit of a dream of this red brick facade, but knowing that this brick would live on the inside as well, esthetically, I felt that a red brick spoke too much of exterior use and would be a kind of too much of a contrast to the type of mood and space we were trying to create on the inside.

 

A lighter brick reflects light. It bounces light around. It doesn't present itself as a color so much as an opportunity for variations in tone throughout a space. There's so much light in this house that we kind of, after some time and looking at many, many different products in many Glen-Gery products, we decided that a white light cream colored brick was the right choice.

 

And then it came to question, Well, how do we get a white brick that has the texture that works both on the outside and on the inside, and doesn't force someone to see that as an issue in one way or the other. And so we went with, in the end, white velour, which we felt was this perfect middle ground of cream colored was not too white, was not too beige, not too reflective, not too matte, and had a wonderful kind of authentic handed texture to it that I think really helped the house out a lot.

 

00;16;19;13 - 00;16;23;21

DP

And used a slightly darker mortar. Right? So we didn't know it's brick.

 

00;16;23;21 - 00;16;39;26

SN

Correct. We tested it out. So that was a sense of do we want the lines to go away? That's always a question you know, architects deal with. I think we found something that wasn't too much of a contrast, but very clearly spoke to the manual craft that goes into putting brick walls together.

 

00;16;39;29 - 00;16;41;29

DP

So you guys have a green roof on this?

 

00;16;42;04 - 00;16;42;23

SN

We do.

 

00;16;42;26 - 00;16;46;11

DP

So sustainability was something you guys talked about?

 

00;16;46;12 - 00;17;13;21

SN

For sure. We have solar panels on the roof and a green roof, 100 square feet of green roof is required now of new construction in New York on residential projects. If you don't have solar panels, we kind of decided to do both. The solar panels actually came a little later on in the project, but the green roof is integrated into the addition, so that actually when one descends down the stair from the second to the first floor, they look out of a window that views out upon the green roof.

 

00;17;13;24 - 00;17;30;24

SN

And that green roof also, the intention is over time it grows, it's exotic, it falls down the facade. And so the idea of the brick as a kind of monumental monolithic material that as a counterpoint to the organic quality of the roof itself, our hope is that they really begin to work together in a lovely way.

 

00;17;31;01 - 00;17;34;05

DP

How much energy can they generate with the solar panels?

 

00;17;34;08 - 00;17;40;23

SN

Probably anywhere between 40 to 50%. You know, I think obviously in the winter, not so much, but in the summer a lot.

 

00;17;40;26 - 00;17;49;03

DP

Yeah, that's pretty cool. Let's talk a little bit about the architectural process, 2D 3D. Do you work in both? What are the programs you're using?

 

00;17;49;08 - 00;19;06;00

SN

Yeah, well, I'm an artist in the truest sense of the word. You know, I'm a draftsman and I was a painter in college. I still paint, I think, with a pencil and paper. I think through watercolors and painting. And that's how ideas begin to formulate in my mind. And so everything begins in a kind of old school way for me, it's kind of funny.

 

I like digital tools, but I think that I'm most creative on working directly with my hands. So I also think that's very exciting for clients. People forget that you're sitting at a table with paper and you're with a client, and to be able to communicate ideas through drawing is a privilege and it's fun.

 

And so that's how I begin the process. And then very quickly, we're moving to we use Rhino for all of our 3D design and a lot of model making. So our office, we have a 3D printer, we've created a hybrid process where, you know, as you can see in the photograph, our models have 3D printed components, wood components that are done by hand, concrete.

 

In a funny way, the models are a kind of precursor to the actuality of the house itself in that image. That's a quarter inch model there. It's a significantly large model and I think we use that with clients. They enjoy it. The model really offers a quality of light and experience that the renderings don't.

 

00;19;06;02 - 00;19;08;06

DP

Yeah, I was going to say clients love models.

 

00;19;08;09 - 00;19;12;26

SN

Yeah, they do. We don't charge for them, but we should.

 

00;19;12;28 - 00;19;17;04

DP

So you said you had two other people in the office working with you on this project?

 

00;19;17;11 - 00;19;35;07

SN

On this project, it was just me and one employee. You know, we worked together. Hands and hands, both of us. All hands on deck, figuring this out. I did most of the CA, Construction Administration, on this project, and I'm very hands on on site as well, drawing, sketching with builders, working directly with the foremen. And, you know, those are all things I really enjoy.

 

00;19;35;10 - 00;19;39;08

DP

So you're out on site every two or three days, which is wonderful?

 

00;19;39;15 - 00;19;43;11

SN

Or terrible, depending how you think about it. But in this case it was wonderful.

 

00;19;43;11 - 00;20;01;24

DP

Of course, I was just wondering, you know, you spend so much time with the GC and the subs. There's something you learn like every day. I mean, I feel like I learn an awful lot. I'm 54. I've been an architect for close to 30 years, and I feel like I'm learning something new, whenever I'm in the field that happened with his job or any other jobs?

 

00;20;02;02 - 00;20;44;15

SN

Yeah, I mean, I really enjoy it because it's really humbling. I mean, I'm not the type of architect who thinks they know the right answer all the time. I really approach my projects from a kind of artful spatial perspective, and I rely on the different trades and the experts that I surround myself with to help me through the process to get the project realized.

 

And so that means I have a trusting relationship with GCs as best as I can, that, you know, we work together. I take their advice. You know, I follow their lead at times to help resolve certain things that I might not know how to do. That's not frustrating for me. That's the best. And I like architecture because of that. Every project offers me a chance to learn something new and I find that challenge exciting.

 

00;20;44;17 - 00;20;53;05

DP

It's a great attitude. It's a humble one, and it's one most architects should have, right? We go out there and we can learn an awful lot from the people that are doing their job.

 

00;20;53;12 - 00;21;17;29

SN

Yeah, I mean, at some point I want to be in a position to maybe have a bit more knowledge. But I also think you can't be too trusting. I mean, there are moments when things aren't done right or mistakes are made that will realize in making the project not what it should be. It's hard to speak up at those moments and take agency, But yeah, it's a fine line. But all in all, I approach it through teamwork and being humble and listening to those around me.

 

00;21;18;01 - 00;21;21;07

DP

Did you guys end up using the Mason that you found right away?

 

00;21;21;09 - 00;21;30;20

SN

This project is pretty amazing in that the crew that we worked with did everything so the Mason was not someone subbed out. It was a crew of guys that did everything on this project.

 

00;21;30;22 - 00;21;31;29

DP

That's pretty unusual.

 

00;21;32;04 - 00;21;34;12

SN

Yes, maybe not as much in Brooklyn, but yes.

 

00;21;34;17 - 00;22;02;27

DP

So Shane, you're a young architect with a presumably long runway in front of you. Do you have any advice to young architects out there that are looking for projects and they're wondering, like, how does this work? You had said early in our discussion that in the very beginning it's really hard to find work. I mean, you've got to kind of wait for somebody to find you.

 

And how do you get your work in a magazine and then somebody finds it and then, you know, you're recognizable. It's a long it takes a long time.

 

00;22;03;00 - 00;23;29;16

SN

I have a lot of varied interest in my life. You know, I have a family, I paint, I do other things. Architecture, obviously is my career and it's what I want to do. But I think, one, it's helpful not to have all your eggs in one basket so that there are many things in life that make you happy.

 

And I think that helps and affords one with the patience that's needed to be an architect because a project from its beginning to its end to its publishing is five years even on a house, right? So that kind of patients you need, that can be really frustrating I think if you take a step back and think about it that way.

 

But it's just the reality. Working hard to get the images out there. I do believe I hate to say it, but the photographs are the medium by which our work is understood. It's very important to photograph your work with someone you trust in the way that you imagine it to be understood. I don't think people do that enough.

 

I work with my best friend is someone I grew up with who's my photographer, and it's very collaborative. We spend one day actually just in the house taking 500 shots. We then go through all of them, choose our favorites, revise, edit, iterate, and you know, then it's a two day shoot and it's a lot of work. We didn't hire a stylist or anything like that for this project.

 

This is us moving things around, using the client's furniture itself. This is all their stuff. And that's something I worked with the clients on as well. But yeah, just making sure that the project ends up looking recorded the way you intended to be. I think that's really, really important.

 

00;23;29;18 - 00;23;36;16

DP

So Shane, it's been great to have you here. Thanks for your time. Where could people go to learn more about Light and Air Architecture and yourself?

 

00;23;36;18 - 00;24;09;27

SN

Yeah, I mean, they should go to my website and look through the work. You can email me at Shane@landa-arch.com, or just search Light and Air Architecture. Either way, you'll end up at my website, and my website shows a selection of finished work and ongoing work. We have a really interesting townhouse that's in construction uptown on 95th Street.

 

Similar ideas, but completely different type of stair, all constructed out of steel offsite and being brought in more constantly, exploring different ways of thinking about the New York house. So yeah, feel free to get in touch.

 

00;24;10;00 - 00;24;35;12

DP

Well, thank you very much, Shane.

 

 

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;37;12

Eric Pros (EP)

The previous facility really just wasn't suiting their needs at all. They didn't have large gathering spaces. They didn't have places for fitness or any kind of wellness. So understanding all of those needs and trying to come up with a layout for the building that made all those spaces very obvious and making circulation to those spaces very easy. So we laid the building out as kind of a big donut.

 

So the circulation pass around the core. You can't get lost if you make a wrong turn, you just do a loop around the building and you're right back where you started.

 

00;00;37;14 - 00;03;04;27

DP

This is my guest, Eric Pros. I'll share more about him shortly. In this episode from the Design Vault, we highlight Eric's new City of Westlake Senior Community Center. The new City of Westlake Senior Community Center was designed for senior citizens. The building is quite large at 28,000 square feet, and the building typology is more and more familiar across the United States.

 

With that said, the design team used design restrictions as an opportunity. The City of Westlake, Ohio, adopted a distinctive Western reserve traditional style of architecture. All public buildings throughout Westlake are comprised of a traditional sandstone water table, a blended red brick veneer and a pitched roof with reverse gables over their entries. At the outset, it was strongly suggested by the city that all buildings in Westlake incorporate the same old Detroit red brown blend of brick in a standard modular size.

 

With these stipulations in mind, the finished building reimagines the standard running bond pattern of brick through the lens of an ancient Roman ruin. The team created a unique quarter coffer brick detail to make both the construction process repeatable and the facades uniquely textured. The resulting esthetic is innovative and quite elegant.

 

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

 

Eric is Director of Design at DS Architecture in Cleveland, Ohio. He has a bachelor's and master's degree in architecture and MBA all from Kent State University. Eric has also served as a professor at Kent State teaching Design Studio and digital application courses. His focus at DS Architecture is creating accessible and inclusive design, which has led to numerous award winning projects and successful partnerships across the country.

 

He was recently awarded the American Institute of Architects 2022 Young Architect Award at the national level. He was included in the 40 under 40 class of 2022 by Building Design and Construction Network. He was also chosen as the 2022 recipient of the International Masonry Institute's Young Architect Innovator in Masonry Award. Welcome, Eric. Nice to have you with us today.

 

So tell us a little bit about DS Architecture in Cleveland, Ohio. Where are you guys located? What's the size of the firm and what type of work do you do?

 

00;03;05;03 - 00;03;31;16

EP

Thanks, Doug. It's great to be here today. DS Architecture is headquartered in Cleveland, Ohio, and we are growing to be 20 people. We're actually making a hire very soon. We're actually celebrating our 40th year in business this year. So David Summers founded the firm in 1983, and it's been growing ever since. So I've been with the firm for about 12 years now.

 

August was my 12-year anniversary at the firm, and it's just been really incredible to see the growth over that time and to be a part of it.

 

00;03;31;19 - 00;03;34;25

DP

Had you worked at any other firms before DS Architecture?

 

00;03;35;01 - 00;04;13;18

EP

Yeah, I had an opportunity to intern as a high school student for a small design firm out on the west side of Cleveland in Vermillion and learned a lot there. They were a little bit more of a traditional firm in hadn’t fully embrace technology, so even had a chance to draw by hand and run blueprints the old way.

 

So gave me a great background into the design profession. Then as I went into college, you know, I had an opportunity to intern at a couple different firms and get a good experience learning about the industry, learning about different typologies. When I graduated, the opportunity to join DS Architecture presented itself. I've been there ever since.

 

00;04;13;20 - 00;04;16;12

DP

So what's your role in your current position?

 

00;04;16;15 - 00;04;58;26

EP

I'm the Director of Design at DS Architecture. That means a lot of different things. I have some influence and some input on all the design decisions we make at the firm. Some projects I get a lot more involved with and run through some of that project management as well. On other projects, I'm a little less involved and just there to provide feedback or to be a sounding board for the team.

 

So every project is a little bit different. The Westlake Senior Community Center Project is one of those projects where I was embedded in the team throughout the entire project. So the interview process to the ribbon cutting ceremony, I was there for the whole step. That project presented a lot of opportunities for us. It was the right one to really get involved with. So it was a pleasure.

 

00;04;58;28 - 00;05;10;21

DP

It clearly did and I'm really looking forward to digging in here. So let's talk about the building. Tell us a little bit more about the new City of Westlake Senior Community Center. So how did your office get the project?

 

00;05;10;23 - 00;06;06;25

EP

So it's a public project. Obviously, our client was the City of Westlake, so we went through a typical RFQ process where we submitted our qualifications. We put together a great team for this project. We had two engineers that we partnered with quite often on these public projects. We also brought in a subject matter expert, a firm called Lifespan Design out of Cincinnati, to serve as our senior center design consultant.

 

So they have a wealth of knowledge on designing senior centers and all the details that go into that. So that team is the reason why we won. I think our passion for design and the team we had built really gave us a chance to win that one. So again, went through the interview process, was awarded the project. The City of Westlake was our client and we had the end users.

 

A win by anybody. Agad is the director there. So she was sort of our client in a way. But we're working with the City of Westlake is our point of contact.

 

00;06;06;28 - 00;06;10;23

DP

So you guys did not know the clients before you submitted the RFQ?

 

00;06;10;26 - 00;06;31;11

EP

That's correct. This was our first project with the city. Like so brand new client. That's part of the fun with the public projects. We always meet new people, and even though it's a similar project to maybe another community, every community has a different character. They have a different vision for how they'll use the space. So it's always a new relationship that we get a chance to build.

 

00;06;31;14 - 00;06;34;11

DP

So how far was the location from your office?

 

00;06;34;14 - 00;06;45;25

EP

Not too far. About 20 minutes. Just near west side of Cleveland. So there's a highway that connects the two pretty closely. So very easy to get there, and we're proud to be working in our community.

 

00;06;45;27 - 00;06;48;28

DP

Could you give us a little history of the location?

 

00;06;49;01 - 00;07;27;01

EP

Sure. The senior center is located in the recreational campus for the City of Westlake . They have a parking space that they've designated for the public to use. It has a rec center. It has baseball fields, pickleball courts, a fishing pond, even sledding hills. So it's a place for the community to gather. This project wanted to be a part of that overall campus, but have its own identity.

 

Before this, the senior center was located in an old golf clubhouse and it really wasn't suited to their needs, wasn't designed for the uses there. So they wanted to be a part of that overall civic campus. What have their own space?

 

00;07;27;04 - 00;07;33;05

DP

So the scope of the project is pretty obvious. Could you give us a little bit more about the client's programmatic requirements?

 

00;07;33;07 - 00;09;09;09

EP

Absolutely. Working with the senior center and understanding the users and the types of spaces that they would be using there gave us an opportunity to really get an insight into the daily operations of the senior center and learning all of the wonderful programs that they have. The previous facility really just wasn't suiting their needs at all. They didn't have large gathering spaces.

 

They didn't have places for fitness or any kind of wellness. So understanding all of those needs and trying to come up with a layout for the building that made all those spaces very obvious and making circulation to those spaces very easy. So we laid the building out is kind of a big donut. So the circulation pass around the core, you can't get lost. If you make a wrong turn you just do a loop around the building and you're right back where you started thinking about visibility and in views through the building from the building to the building were really critical for us. The wayfinding that we did for the project made it so that anyone who was coming to that building for any of the programs they have has a very clear path to get from the parking lot to the building and to the program safely.

 

We located the administrative offices right in the front of the building near where there is a drop off and clear view of the parking lot. So in Cleveland, our winters can be pretty rough and we wanted to make sure that there was visibility out into the parking lot in case a car were to get stuck or someone would have trouble getting from their car to the building.

 

So thinking about the views and that connection between the staff and the patrons was really critical.

 

00;09;09;12 - 00;09;19;18

DP

So let's back up a sec and talk a little bit about the site. It seems to me there were no unique topographic features for the building. The land is relatively flat other than the sledding hill.

 

00;09;19;18 - 00;10;09;18

EP

Correct. It's a very flat site and because of the users with possible mobility issues, thinking about making the site as level and as flat and is easy to navigate as possible was critical for us. We did introduce some landscape elements, some kind of mounting to provide some interesting views to the building, provide a little privacy from some of the other users in the recreational campus, and also to provide a bit of a buffer between this facility and the neighboring residences because it's in this park, we have a lot of activity on one side of the building.

 

On the other side, there are people's homes. So we wanted to make sure we were good neighbor. The nature of this building, it's not loud, doesn't stay open late, but we did want to make sure we had that proper separation between the uses here and people's backyards.

 

00;10;09;20 - 00;10;21;10

DP

And what about project restrictions? You've got the job. Now you've got to look at the zoning codes and building codes, etc. Anything unique or special regarding like ADA, for example?

 

00;10;21;15 - 00;11;16;20

EP

With this project, because we were designing for seniors that may or may not have mobility issues, we took ADA compliance very seriously and even went into more of a mindset of universal design where we didn't want to have any slopes more than 20%. We wanted to make sure that we had handrails around the perimeter of the building for someone who's walking, it may need to take a break between two locations.

 

So we really thought a lot about the types of people using the space, how to give them dignity while they're using it, and to make it a space where people feel comfortable. One of the biggest challenges is getting seniors to come out, connect, feel comfortable, create those relationships. And that was one of the challenges that this building had, was finding ways to make all that happen without making it look geriatric or like a senior home or a hospital, but having those features there when you need them.

 

00;11;16;27 - 00;11;24;23

DP

So I'm sure the city reviewed the design. How long did the planning process take the City Review and design and construction kind of start to finish?

 

00;11;24;25 - 00;12;37;02

EP

Yeah, that's a good question. The city was very involved as our client, obviously the city engineer, were our main port of contact, so they helped us through the process. They were there to sort of lead that design because it was a high profile public project for the community. We got a lot of feedback from the community, especially those that the neighbors that abutted the property had concerns and we certainly wanted to address all of those.

 

So the process was involved. We got a lot of feedback. We had many, many public meetings trying to find the right way to position it on the site, trying to find the right way to make sure respecting the neighbors, making the building visible. A lot of parameters there to navigate. Ultimately did we got through and even the style of the building was something that people felt very passionate about.

 

As you mentioned at the beginning, it's in this campus that has a Western Reserve style to it. We wanted the building to fit into that campus, but also have its own identity, and that gave us certainly a design challenge. How do we make something that feels traditional but doesn't feel too dated or has new energy in life, which is what the seniors need out of this building? So it was a challenge, certainly was.

 

00;12;37;04 - 00;13;36;06

DP

So the City of Westlake set up some restrictions, obviously, what material the buildings made out of, but they didn't say how to form those brick modules on the exterior. Correct? And so you guys decided we've got 28,000 square feet in the buildings, a giant donut. So we have these large facades and you're thinking about what the heck can we do with a building that most architects would simply probably not spend a lot of time thinking about these exterior elevations?

 

When I saw these photos, I got to tell you, I was blown away. This is a gorgeous series of details and it must have taken quite some time for the office to put these together. So let's talk a little bit about start to finish. Who came up with this idea and how did you guys start thinking about the fact that we're going to use an ancient Roman ruin?

 

And where do you go with that and how do you articulate that in the office and how many different passes did it take, etc.?

 

00;13;36;08 - 00;15;26;14

EP

Thank you for appreciating the challenge that that presented. As you mentioned, you know, we sort of inherited a kit of parts, the tools of the materials that we needed to use for the project. But as you indicated, how they come together is really what's interesting. As an architect, you can take a brick and detail that a number of different ways and get a lot of other results out of it.

 

Then what might be expected. So as you indicated, the Pantheon was sort of our inspiration for this project. The layout of the building is focused around this courtyard, which brings natural light into the building, makes it a focal point for people to gather. Even if the weather's not cooperating, you can still go outside and be under these covered canopies, so you can at least get some fresh air.

 

Enjoy the weather in Cleveland when it is appropriate to do so. So the Pantheon became sort of a inspiration for the overall way that the buildings felt, the way that light came into the space, energized that space, created a focal point and really made that volume inspiring. People that are familiar with the Pantheon, the most dramatic spaces when you get into that covered dome and you have the lake coming into the oculus in the way that light spills over those coffers is just incredible.

 

Every time you're there, the light looks differently. The shadows that are cast on those coffers are just truly inspiring. So we took that idea and instead of making it part of the interior, we express that on the exterior. So we took the idea of a coffer and developed a detail out of bricks that accomplished those shadows, the as light across the surface and detailed it in a way that we could get as much drama out of those details as possible.

 

So as you indicated, the quarter coffer we kind of took that coffer detail and took a corner of it and use that as the inspiration for the exterior.

 

00;15;26;21 - 00;15;32;17

DP

For those that are listening who don't understand what a coffer is. Could you describe that to people?

 

00;15;32;20 - 00;16;06;15

EP

Yeah. So a coffer, particularly in the pantheon, it's a concrete dome and these are recesses that are carved into that mass. The Pantheon has a series of kind of steps to their coffers too. So there's even more shadow, there's more depth to that material. And the massiveness of that concrete is really celebrated in that way. You can get a sense of how much depth and how much mass there is to that form.

 

And then the way that light interacts with that space just really energizes it and creates that dramatic effect we wanted to capture.

 

00;16;06;18 - 00;16;26;22

DP

If I recall correctly. So the coffers create a kind of structural grid. And there also the concrete is thinned out toward the center in order to make the concrete lighter so that it actually works. So it's a really interesting idea. I can't wait to get into how these masons and you guys work this whole thing out.

 

00;16;26;25 - 00;17;52;15

EP

But again, yeah, using the idea of the coffered dome as a way to catch light, in a way to show the passage of time, but also to create something that's massive and feels permanent and feels welcoming in a way too, because of the volume of the space that became sort of our inspiration for the exterior, we made many iterations on exactly how we can capture so depths out of an otherwise flat wall.

 

Some of the spaces of this building are large. There's an auditorium space that has a very tall volume of space, and we didn't want any windows on the exterior of that. So what do you do with an 18 foot high brick wall? We had some ideas. We had some great ideas on how to make some depth, how to make the building feel enticing, and to take light differently in the morning than it would in the afternoon.

 

The colors change as light conditions change across it. So we took that detail and wrapped the entire building with it. Once we came up with the one that we liked, we just used that module in a number of different ways. It gave us a chance to explore the depths of the wall. There's was only four inches from the outside base of the brick to the back, but the subtlety of how we either could build the brick or slope them and step them back gave us opportunity to get nuances out of the shadows that you wouldn't think were possible out of a four inch gap there.

 

00;17;52;17 - 00;18;02;29

DP

So there's a lot to talk about here. I guess my first question is, did you have to make the exterior walls four inches deeper in order to accommodate that four inch dimension?

 

00;18;03;01 - 00;18;43;15

EP

We did, yeah. We took our typical brick cavity of maybe an inch to two inches and pushed that to more like four inches. So we had the ability to still have that drainage plain, still have proper brick detailing, but we also then had that depth to work with. So the base of the building is a calcium silicate sandstone looking product.

 

And behind that we just had some for CMU to help build out that mass, the typical Western Reserve style, you'd see a sandstone base. We embraced that idea kind of let that be the place that everything else would be housed on and then use that brick to start to articulate the facade and explore that depth.

 

00;18;43;18 - 00;18;47;19

DP

So when you guys drew this, did you draw it in both 2D and 3D?

 

00;18;47;22 - 00;20;01;13

EP

We sure did. And in fact, we went a step further and actually built a physical model. We were still in lockdown from COVID at this point, so maybe had a little more free time on my hands than I normally would have. But I thought it would be a great opportunity to take our digital models, our sketches, some of our inspiration images, and actually build a physical mockup of what that detail could look like.

 

So I went on Amazon and bought some small little bricks that I think are used to build dollhouses or maybe model train environments and actually built it. I built a whole panel of the quarter coffer detail and I had fun with it. I learned some ideas about how to detail it more appropriately. I think the Masons laughed a little bit when I brought it out on site to show them what I was thinking, but I think they also respected the fact that I took the time to try to communicate our ideas in that way.

 

But we use building information, modeling software called Revit that helps us visualize the materials in our digital environment. But building it in a physical sense, gave us opportunity to really kind of see the way light shines on it in a real world. So we built it at one inch to a foot scale. So it was about two feet tall, not a small model, but they had a lot of fun with that.

 

00;20;01;15 - 00;20;22;01

DP

It sounds really cool. You know, one of the things that's really elegant about this detail, I don't recall how many steps are in the coffers at the Pantheon, maybe two or three, but this has many as a series of steps. And each one of those what's the distance on each one? A quarter of an inch or a half of an inch?

 

00;20;22;03 - 00;20;23;29

EP

It's about a quarter of an inch. Yeah, you're right.

 

00;20;24;02 - 00;20;26;18

DP

Yeah. So it's super subtle.

 

00;20;26;21 - 00;20;55;16

EP

Yes, exactly. And then certain points the day you don't even appreciate the fact that they are going up, other times a day when the sun's more an oblique angle, you get lots of shadow, lots of kind of linear lines that come out of that that completely change the look of the building and that's what we really enjoyed is from the morning light to the evening light, sort of subtle and soft.

 

And then by the afternoon you really get some stark shadows and some really striking depth out of that detail.

 

00;20;55;23 - 00;21;21;27

DP

What I love about this show is the guests that we have, they're architects, but they're doing what we're taught to do in school, right? I mean, that's really think about what you're doing. So another architect in my mind, most architects would take this project and do, as I said earlier, something very straightforward, right? They just take the easy way out and do a really simple facade. But you guys really thought through this to an absolutely beautiful detail.

 

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

EP

Thank you.

 

00;21;22;19 - 00;21;26;13

DP

So was sustainability an issue ever for the building's design?

 

00;21;26;15 - 00;23;32;11

EP

It was. We didn't pursue LEED certification for this project, but we certainly wanted to be mindful about sustainability, the longevity of this building, hopefully being in service for many decades. We wanted the building to be an asset to the City of Westlake and something that they can be proud of for the long term. So as I mentioned before, you know, accessibility users had to come first, but we saw it a lot about natural light.

 

For instance, how do we bring light into all those spaces in ways that enhance the user experience and avoid glare and make the building kind of energized in that way? So lighting was one of the really great tools that we used in this project to just flood the spaces with light in different ways that make the spaces more exciting and at the same time more sustainable.

 

We have a light harvesting, daylight harvesting system in the building. So if there's enough natural light to the exterior, the interior lights dim automatically. So in the evenings obviously the lights come back up to provide the lighting the way we needed to. You know, thinking about resiliency, Masonry is a wonderful product for public buildings. This building, as I mentioned, will be in service for 50 years, hopefully.

 

So throughout that time, we really hope that the bricks will serve them well and be a good investment in the future in that building. So the envelope of building behind the masonry veneer, we really invested in a fluid wall system that provides that thermal barrier that we need. We had a sheeting product that has a factory applied weather barrier, so the whole system came together great.

 

We had a rigid insulation continuous around the entire building and even filled the cavity of the metal studs behind it with spray foam. So we have a really tight envelope there. We have a lot of masonry in the buildings, kind of these two flanking bars that are mostly masonry. And in the middle of the building is very transparent, very open.

 

So we have a lot of glazing through the middle of the building. We found a glazing product that had high energy performance for us there to mimic the performance in the masonry.

 

00;23;32;14 - 00;23;41;07

DP

So you guys clearly learned a little bit more about using brick masonry. Have you guys used this idea again in other projects or something similar to it?

 

00;23;41;14 - 00;24;18;20

EP

That's a good question. We try to be unique. We try to have each project be a new challenge and a new opportunity to try to use Masonry in a new way. So in some ways we learned some detailing, we learned some constraints, we learned some construction methodologies that we've certainly taken forward. But I don't know that we'll use this exact same detail again.

 

I think we'll find a way to continue to innovate. For me anyways, I'd like to do something a little new. Each project. I think that's what architects can do for a project too. If we did another senior center, I think we would take a completely new look at it. I don't think we would try to replicate really anything. It's a new adventure.

 

00;24;18;25 - 00;24;24;17

DP

That's great to hear. Spoken like a true architect. So did you guys have any trouble finding a good mason?

 

00;24;24;19 - 00;25;45;08

EP

The contractor we worked with had a mason that was under their umbrella. They self perform masonry. So when they were building the project, they had a lot of questions and we had a lot of good conversations with them very early on. And really happy with the product. We got Mason's insight. They were passionate about their craft, they were excited for the challenge.

 

We had a lot of good collaboration back and forth. They were calling me throughout the day asking me, Are we doing this right or understanding what you're looking for? Or even, Hey, you know, we've got an idea that can make it even better. Or what about this? So having that energy, having that connection with the craftspeople that are doing the work I think is really important.

 

You know, a lot of times as architects, we do our drawings, they go out the door, somebody else builds it, and there's really never that opportunity to kind of interface with the folks that are actually doing that work. In this case, though, we built a great relationship. I'd be very happy to work with those guys again. They were wonderful.

 

They were even some younger apprentices that were on the job that I think had never really done any projects before, let alone something with this amount of care. So I think they learned a lot. I think the foremen on the job had a chance to teach a lot, so I hope they were inspired by the project and would move forward with a renewed passion for the profession.

 

00;25;45;11 - 00;26;01;27

DP

I hear a lot about how difficult it is to find people to learn masonry, so it's good to hear that there are people out there learning the craft. So back to the mock up real quickly. So you clearly did a mock up. Did these guys then do one giant panel for you before they got rolling?

 

00;26;01;29 - 00;28;05;16

EP

That's a great question. So the International Masonry Institute, first of all, they are wonderful resource. The people. There are just a wealth of knowledge and they're there to help you answer questions, help you work through details. So I engage with them quite often when we're looking at some of these details, it's always good to get a second set of eyes, or many of those people actually were Masons or worked in the trades in some capacity.

 

So they may have some wisdom on other means and methods of how to install that. But in this particular project we engage them and asked if we could build a mock up very early in the design process to test out some ideas. We had some thoughts about can we make precast lintels with bricks formed into a concrete beam to accomplish some of those steps that we had?

 

Could we run stainless steel rods through the brick cores and kind of build a structure that way? But we ended up doing a little more traditional lintels to accomplish that goal. But we did have a chance to explore those ideas. And so the great thing there they have apprentices that are coming through the training program that are available to help build mockups.

 

So as an architect, I get a chance to interface with the future of the masonry profession. They get a chance to work with an architect very early in their trainings and look at drawings and start to understand how to read drawings and how to interface with design professionals. So very thankful for that resource and it's actually very close as well.

 

It's only maybe a half hour away. So we had the Masons that were building the job look at some of the photos we did of the mockup. We had some diagrams of how those bricks could come together and we had the trainers out there at the center available to answer any questions about how big do our anchors need to be or how are we detailing the flashing at some of these connections or interfacing with the international Masons, who is just a wonderful opportunity.

 

I don't think they're sick of me coming out there yet and borrowing their apprentices. So I'll keep taking them up on the opportunity.

 

00;28;05;23 - 00;28;17;27

DP

Great to hear. So switching gears, Eric, you're a young and successful guy. Do you have any advice for young architects out there that's been helpful to you along your journey?

 

00;28;18;00 - 00;29;41;27

EP

Boy, how much time do we have? I guess, you know, for me, I think you brought up a good point earlier that sometimes the easy thing to do is kind of what's expected. We always have budgets, we always have schedules. We have all these constraints that seem to limit our ability to create and be creative and innovate on, you know, brick.

 

We used a modular brick unit and got a really different result out of it than maybe otherwise could have been possible. So I think it's important to remember what we passionate about and trying to find the time to make that a priority in the project. You know, the client didn't come to us necessarily and say we want a really cool brick detail. We want something that's different. We had to kind of convince them that this building is worth investing in. It's worth doing something a little bit different. It wants to have its own identity and it also wants to fit into the context from a couple thousand feet away. You wouldn't really notice some of those details as you get closer to the building and more intimate with the spaces, that's when you really start to appreciate some of the richness.

 

And the end users of the building are what it's all about. They're the ones that are going to this building, hopefully being inspired by the brick by the other details of the project. To me, that's what it's all about. So we certainly could have taken the easy road and just made it a flat brick wall. But we wanted to do a little better for those people.

 

00;29;41;29 - 00;29;50;11

DP

There are going to be people that want me to ask, Did it cost more because you ended up making the exterior detailing more challenging?

 

00;29;50;14 - 00;30;47;03

EP

I would have to say that the material cost was about the same. We still use the same quantity of brick as we otherwise would have. The labor that went into it, I think was a little more time consuming. So again, having that early opportunity to collaborate with those Masons explained to them the goals, explained to them that he once you do this detail, once it repeats around the building, figure out a methodology to accomplish this and then just keep doing it.

 

So they came up with some pretty interesting ways. It's always fascinating to see the Masons out there in the field working, but using plumb bobs and using some wooden kind of jigs to help establish some of those flat planes that are pushed in. How do we measure the corbels that are coming out? They had built some jigs that would help repeat that pattern, so they got innovative out there in the field as well and found some ways to speed up that process, but certainly was more time consuming than just your typical one on top of two.

 

00;30;47;09 - 00;30;54;12

DP

Yeah, but it didn't break the bank, right? I mean, it was something they thought, hey, let's just do this. And it was well worth it in my opinion.

 

00;30;54;14 - 00;31;27;04

EP

It took a little convincing. I had to prove to them that this effect, this detail, would be something that is worth investing in. And I think, you know, if more people were to put some challenges out there to the Masons and maybe help them make this more the norm, it wouldn't take quite as much convincing. But I think at the end of the day, the Masons went into it with a little bit of concerns.

 

They were a little unsure, but it was really awesome to see throughout the project. They really start to take pride in it and really get excited about the project. It was a great relationship.

 

00;31;27;06 - 00;31;34;05

DP

Eric it’s been great to have you here today. Thanks so much for your time. Where can people go to learn more about DS Architecture and yourself?

 

00;31;34;07 - 00;32;50;03

EP

We have our web site, DSArchitecture.com. We're located downtown Cleveland in Playhouse Square on the ground floor. So we actually have the model I was describing to you in our window there. So anybody is walking by downtown, Cleveland, pop by and take a look at it and some other fun details we've developed. Stop in. I'd love to talk with you more.

 

Just a quick anecdote, too. As I was talking earlier, you know, the end users of these buildings are really what it's all about. And someone who goes this facility in Westlake happened to be downtown, saw a logo in our lobby area and actually came in just to thank us. And in this particular detail, he was thanking us for is the way we built in some handrails into the walls of a donut kind of hallway that we built in it.

 

And you don't know that it's a handrail, It's a flat panel. It's kind of rounded top to it and a little bit of a recess. And again, it's to give people dignity. If you're walking from the classroom to the bathrooms and you need to take a break for a moment to catch your breath, you've got a way to do that that doesn't make you feel feeble or like you're meeting assistance.

 

And this gentleman just came into thank us for being that thoughtful. And, you know, it's those kind of details and those kind of moments that just really made this profession so enjoyable.

 

00;32;50;10 - 00;33;02;05

DP

Wow, great story. I can't imagine many architects get to say somebody stopped in to tell them how excited they were about a detail or about something about their building. I'm sure that made you feel great.

 

00;33;02;08 - 00;33;02;27

EP

It was incredible.

 

00;33;03;02 - 00;33;05;23

DP

Well, thank you very much, Eric. It's been a pleasure having you today.

 

00;33;06;00 - 00;33;09;06

EP

Thank you, guys. I appreciate it.

TRANSCRIPT

 

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

Doug Pat (DP)

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

 

00;00;05;15 - 00;00;34;07

John Zimmer (JZ)

And they had this requirement for the black box theater. You know, the project came with this with its approval, but it got a zoning bonus for having the theater in the base of extra height. It was a give back to the community that was written into the zoning. And we always knew it was going to be a theater and we always knew it was going to be for a nonprofit arts group.

 

And that arts program, as part of the building was in the DNA of the project from the very beginning and informed a lot of the decisions moving forward became part of the personality of the building throughout, not just the theater itself.

 

00;00;34;10 - 00;02;37;20

DP

This is my guest, John Zimmer. I'll share more about him shortly. In this episode from The Design Vault, we highlight John's project in Jersey City, New Jersey, called The Lively. The Lively is a mixed use 18 story tower in Jersey City's Powerhouse arts district. The building features residential living situated above retail and public art spaces. The entry portals at the base define the black box theater and residential portions of the building.

 

Double and triple height lobbies open up to the street through curtained glass walls at the base. The building's deep and varied openings and bronze windows and frames give a wonderful complexity to an otherwise familiar building form. The structure features a custom white brick with darker mortar, which gives the edifice a warm residential appearance. The bricks well scaled modularity complements the organized and complex facade.

 

The project's esthetic and exterior elevations are reserved yet elaborate, familiar but novel, unpretentious, yet elegant. Hi, I'm Doug Pat and this is Design Vault. John is a partner and director at Fogarty Finger Architecture and Interiors in New York City. He's a graduate of Cornell University's School of Architecture. He's been practicing for over 20 years. He focuses on design, construction technologies, building codes and project management at the firm.

 

John spent the early part of his career in San Francisco. He later moved to New York City, where he worked for architectural firms and owned a small practice. He designed a wide variety of award-winning public and private sector works that range in size from studio apartments to city blocks. His resumé includes dozens of cultural, educational, commercial and residential projects and is balanced between new construction and renovations.

 

So welcome, John. Nice to have you with us today. So tell us a little bit about Fogarty Finger Architecture in New York City.

 

00;02;37;25 - 00;03;42;16

JZ

Sure. Thank you for having me. Pleasure to be here. So Fogarty Finger was founded just 20 years ago, pretty much on the nose. We're celebrating our 20th anniversary, and it was founded by two SOM alumni, one of whom Chris Fogarty was a kind of ground up corn shell guy at SOM. And the other Robert Finger was commercial interiors.

 

They got together and that basic structure has kind of defined the DNA of the firm ever since. It's very much a firm that offers both ground up architecture and interiors, and you'll find many firms that offer one or the other, but not both and not both in equal proportions. So our firm is very serious about both. The firm is about 130 people right now, has grown a lot in the last ten years.

 

The size of the projects has grown a lot, and I think that's a testament to the work we've been doing, but also the attitude of client service that comes initially from Chris and Robert and from SOM. just trying to deliver for our clients the product that they need while at the same time creating an architecture that satisfies us.

 

00;03;42;23 - 00;03;44;13

DP

And what kind of projects do you guys take?

 

00;03;44;19 - 00;04;19;25

JZ

On the ground up side? We're happy to take a look at anything. Most of our portfolio is multi-family residential, although we have a handful of commercial office buildings as well. We do building repositioning on all the ground up stuff. We also offer the interiors as well on the commercial interior side, and I don't work on that side of the office, but they do work for some of the largest landlords in town and do both test fits and build the suit spaces.

 

There's a strong hospitality element developing, so really a multi-disciplinary practice looking at a lot of different project types.

 

00;04;19;27 - 00;04;21;12

DP

And you guys have more than one office.?

 

00;04;21;19 - 00;04;27;06

JZ

We do. There's an office in Atlanta and also a small office in Boston as well.

 

00;04;27;10 - 00;04;29;11

DP

And where are you guys located in New York City?

 

00;04;29;17 - 00;04;35;23

JZ

We're in Tribeca on Walker Street. Been there for ten years or so. Eight years, something like that.

 

00;04;36;00 - 00;04;38;09

DP

So what's your role in the office currently?

 

00;04;38;11 - 00;04;53;05

JZ

So I'm a director. We are divided into somewhat of a studio system, a loose studio system, and there are two ground up studios. I lead one of them. I have a team of about 20 people. I'm involved in all aspects of the projects from day one to CFO.

 

00;04;53;07 - 00;04;58;14

DP

Basically, I would imagine your hours are pretty long with people working for you.

 

00;04;58;16 - 00;05;05;12

JZ

They still are, although obviously there is a team of very hardworking people with me that put in even longer hours than I do.

 

00;05;05;14 - 00;05;12;08

DP

So let's dig in and talk about the building. Tell us about The Lively in Jersey City. How did your office get the project?

 

00;05;12;10 - 00;05;50;20

JZ

The project had gotten a preliminary approval with a different owner and a different architect. The people that became our client, when they took on the project, looked at the planning and also the facades. But I would have to say more than anything, the planning of the building and thought it was problematic. It's a difficult site to do residential floorplans and it's got an acute corner there at one.

 

So, challenging site to get efficient residential layouts and we put an alternative plan in front of them that really increased the efficiency of the building and the commodious ness of the residential layouts, basically.

 

00;05;50;23 - 00;05;52;28

DP

So it wasn't a competition to get the project?

 

00;05;53;06 - 00;05;59;16

JZ

It wasn't a competition, it was an invited RFP, But I think it was the strength of the proposal that we put forward that got us the job.

 

00;05;59;18 - 00;06;02;08

DP

So could you give me a little history of the location?

 

00;06;02;11 - 00;06;55;27

JZ

Sure. The Powerhouse arts district in Jersey City is so named because there is a somewhat iconic Powerhouse there. It had been an industrial area that was targeted for redevelopment, and they had design standards for the entire district that were meant to maintain that character, not necessarily industrial, but loft style focus on the arts. The entire district has a strong focus on the arts, which is part of the reason we have the black box theater in the lively.

 

It's experienced a lot of new development over the course of the last decade and it's pretty great today. When I first started going over to the Powerhouse ten years ago. I get out of meetings and the sidewalks would be deserted. And today it feels like Brooklyn. It feels like the East Village. I mean, it is incredibly, for want of a better word, lively.

 

So it's a great neighborhood now, and it's all happened in the last decade. It's an exciting thing to have been a part of, honestly.

 

00;06;56;04 - 00;07;00;27

DP

So scope of the project, what were the client's programmatic requirements?

 

00;07;01;00 - 00;07;57;24

JZ

Well, 180 residential units. Lennar is one of the biggest home builders in America, but they were mostly doing suburban subdivision work. They got into the urban markets. I can't tell you exactly one, but they were still a little bit new to it when we took this project on. And they were ambitious. They wanted to be at the absolute top of the market for a residential building in Jersey City.

 

And obviously, as any developer does, they wanted to maximize rentable square footage and get the most bang for their buck. And they had this requirement for the black box theater. And the project came with this with its approval, but it got a zoning bonus for having the theater in the base of extra height. It was a give back to the community that was written into the zoning, and we always knew it was going to be a theater and we always knew it was going to be for a nonprofit arts group.

 

And that arts program, as part of the building was in the DNA of the project from the very beginning and informed a lot of the decisions moving forward became part of the personality of the building throughout, not just the theater itself, really.

 

00;07;57;26 - 00;07;59;13

DP

How long's the building been finished?

 

00;07;59;20 - 00;08;00;21

JZ

It's about two years.

 

00;08;00;24 - 00;08;02;07

DP

Is the theater getting used?

 

00;08;02;09 - 00;08;03;10

JZ

It does, yeah.

 

00;08;03;13 - 00;08;10;11

DP

That's great. So let's start with a site. I would imagine there are no unique topographic features. Relatively flat or. Or not?

 

00;08;10;17 - 00;08;36;02

JZ

Well, it's relatively flat. The unique topographic feature would be that it's below the 100 year flood elevation. That's always a big deal. And the sidewalks there, I think, are about five feet above sea level. So flood protection, resiliency, ground floor uses. How do you enter the building? How do you avoid nuisance flooding when it's not a 100 year storm?

 

Those were all big aspects of the design of the ground floor of the pedestrian experience.

 

00;08;36;05 - 00;08;37;17

DP

So break away walls?

 

00;08;37;24 - 00;09;07;04

JZ

There are deployable flood barrier systems designed in. So the flood elevation is seven feet above the sidewalk. In the event of a massive, take a Hurricane Sandy kind of thing. They would deploy these flood barrier systems. Don't know if you're familiar with them, but they keep them in storage and they come out and they both enter the building or they spread them around the building.

 

They can be self-supporting and they have to be deployed in a certain amount of time because it's an emergency response system. So a big part of all the projects in this area.

 

00;09;07;09 - 00;09;11;20

DP

And what about zoning code? You had mentioned you had a height issue.

 

00;09;11;22 - 00;09;54;13

JZ

Yeah. So the building got, I think, 65 additional feet for having the black box theater in it. That was one zoning aspect. You can see the cantilever here over the sidewalk. There was a sidewalk widening requirement in the zoning, so that made it obviously challenging. You've got 17 stories of residences coming down over a cantilever that allows the sidewalk to be wider at the base.

 

That was an interesting challenge. There's a little bit of parking in the building that came from the zoning. So obviously some structural challenges there as well. Whenever you're putting that many residences over the top of a parking garage. The second floor here that you see through the window, that is also designated art space in the zoning, also a requirement.

 

00;09;54;16 - 00;09;59;26

DP

So I don't do tall buildings. How many extra floors does 65 feet get you?

 

00;09;59;29 - 00;10;26;28

JZ

I think it was basically five because the top floor amenity space, rooftop amenity, which was specifically permitted by the zoning bonus, I think it really made the building, the massing and the expression of these mid-range buildings is a little bit tricky. They're not as tall as they want to be, to be a tall building, and they're not as low rise as they want to be, to be a low rise building.

 

And I think the extra stories really helped to give it a little bit more verticality. It's a better piece of architecture for it.

 

00;10;27;01 - 00;10;30;19

DP

So tell us about the building plan. You said there's a sharp corner.

 

00;10;30;21 - 00;11;14;06

JZ

Yeah, very acute corner. There's two lot lines and it has a corner lot. So right where you have your corner window with two exposures, there's a very acute corner and I can't remember the actual degrees, but anytime you have a building and it's not just a corner that's a problem. And in fact the corner isn't really a problem.

 

You may not be able to put a sofa in that corner, but the corner per se is not a problem. It's kind of a cool room to be inside of. But what it means is that the apartments on each of those two different streets are on different geometries. And so if you're going to have a rectilinear apartment on streets that are at such different geometries that all crashes into each other at the corner and at the corridors and at the courtyard.

 

So it becomes very challenging to plan buildings that feel sensible and projects that have this kind of site.

 

00;11;14;09 - 00;11;21;01

DP

So how long do the planning process takes? So City Review design to construction, what was kind of start to finish?

 

00;11;21;04 - 00;11;31;17

JZ

I would say it was probably 14 months, maybe 15 months from RFP to groundbreaking, something in that range, which is kind of typical for a building this size.

 

00;11;31;19 - 00;11;33;17

DP

And construction. How long did that last?

 

00;11;33;22 - 00;11;37;10

JZ

That was about 24 months, I think.

 

00;11;37;13 - 00;11;49;12

DP

So let's talk a little bit about esthetics style. What did the client say to you? Did they have any ideas? Were they showing you images that they'd like, buildings that they wanted you to look at?

 

00;11;49;14 - 00;13;38;12

JZ

Our main client point of contact was also an architect, so he didn't want to impose a specific sensibility. He wanted to see what we would come up with in our office does this kind of work. We don't really do much historicist work. It's all modern. And in fact, a contemporary design is part of the zoning in the Powerhouse Arts District.

 

They're not looking for a recreation of a 19th century Main Street because that's not what this part of town ever was. From its get go, there was never any question it was going to be a contemporary building as far as where we drew our inspiration from and what we were looking at. You know, I mentioned the difficulty of the massing for these midnight buildings.

 

I think the gathering together, the window openings into these vertical slots helps to emphasize the verticality of the building. We have this prominent gold portal for the black boxes here and the building entrance. And that became an idea that we repeated throughout the facade frame, these moments on the facade. And I think generally we try to be pretty rigorous about how the facades are designed.

 

Obviously you've got structural continuity, but then you've got what always happens in residential design is you've got living rooms that are one width and you've got bedrooms that are a different width. And so a strictly rational grid is probably not going to serve you well for a residential building the way it does for a commercial building. So you're often trying to find a way to manage that if your interest is fundamentally in having a kind of rigorous and rational facade, you're trying to find a way to manage those partitions hitting the wall.

 

And what does that mean? And at the same time, I think creating a facade with movement and interest and dynamism and that play on the facade I think was always an important part. And you could say it is part of the emphasis on the arts and the theater and dance, but also obviously just an interest in creating something fresh.

 

00;13;38;15 - 00;13;40;27

DP

So was there a city review of the esthetic?

 

00;13;40;29 - 00;14;04;29

JZ

There was, yeah. They loved it. They loved it from the get go. Honestly, it was great. I think the planning board there has seen a lot of different things and was quite happy to see a building that was elegant and carefully composed and well-made. I'm pretty sure we got a uniform unanimous vote of approval at the Planning Board and there were no negative comments about the esthetics.

 

00;14;05;01 - 00;14;08;20

DP

What did you guys bring in? Did you bring in boards with images or 3D?

 

00;14;08;22 - 00;14;40;18

JZ

They weren't set up to have digital presentations back when this was going through. They are now obviously everyone, all of the local jurisdictions became fully digital because they had to. Back then it was easels and boards and you sat there with a couple of easels and flipped the pages and described what you were doing. And we had renderings certainly full 3D visualizations of the building that we presented and a palette of materials.

 

They're very interested. In fact, in Jersey City, they require you to bring the actual physical materials you intend to build with to the planning approval.

 

00;14;40;25 - 00;14;46;24

DP

So why did you guys choose Brick? You probably could have used another material for the exterior facade.

 

00;14;46;27 - 00;16;37;10

JZ

We could have certainly. You know, there's many things we do do facades out of lots of different materials, obviously. But for residential buildings in particular, I think the scale and the intimacy of brick are a sure way to give the building a residential character. It makes people both potential tenants and non tenants on the street and everyone have a very warm response to Brick almost instinctively.

 

It's one of those things that the mind already knows, right? People respond to it quite well. I think the flexibility of brick was part of it for this. Obviously that acute corner right there is a custom shape. You can just do that in brick, right? You can just say, okay, I've got a corner that is 72 degrees and you just do it.

 

You just make it. So that part of it I think is pretty great. And the flexibility, the color in this particular case, this is a custom colored brick, semi-custom. We had a lot of flexibility. It's a coated brick. So we had a lot of flexibility with the coating and coming up with the exact color that we wanted, which was a lot of trial and error.

 

There were actually months of back and forth and getting it just right. And, you know, I do think color is incredibly important and you can spend a year and a half designing a building and two years building it, and then you get the color wrong and all anyone sees is the fact that the color is wrong. So it's incredibly important to get right.

 

It allowed us to do that. You know, if you're going to do a porcelain, here are the three porcelain, you know, and this is what you're going to get. It also helps in the way brick turns corners. We wanted to have these gold shrouds in some areas and not in others that frame certain openings Doing returns in window openings in brick is incredibly easy because it's a brick.

 

You just turn the corner in porcelain or terracotta or other materials. It becomes quite difficult. Is it just a shadow gap at the corner or is it two flat panels coming together to meet? So I think having that ease of turning corners supported the design concept of these intermittent gold shrouds.

 

00;16;37;17 - 00;16;40;18

DP

Now, was that correct? The window frames are bronze?

 

00;16;40;21 - 00;16;43;24

JZ

With a painted aluminum, but yeah, they're bronze colored.

 

00;16;43;26 - 00;16;46;29

DP

There are a series of framed out window openings as well.

 

00;16;47;01 - 00;16;47;17

JZ

Yeah.

 

00;16;47;18 - 00;16;49;01

DP

And what material is that?

 

00;16;49;03 - 00;16;53;27

JZ

That's also aluminum. Okay. Yeah. We have yet to do a building with actual sheet bronze.

 

00;16;53;29 - 00;16;56;12

DP

When I read it, I was like, Is that just the color?

 

00;16;56;16 - 00;17;06;01

JZ

Which is the great thing though, actually is color is usually free if you're going to do something out of aluminum, the one thing you can afford to do is change the color.

 

00;17;06;03 - 00;17;20;23

DP

That's a great point. Colors free. What I really like about this and the use of masonry is it afforded you the ability to make some of these window openings really deep? Yeah, it's really beautiful, especially with curtain, wall, glass. I mean, it's really pretty.

 

00;17;20;26 - 00;17;48;09

JZ

I think you get that play of light and shadow, you know, in a curtain wall building, you're struggling to get a couple of inches of depth, right. The economics of that and the construct ability of that are unrelenting, but between the depth of a brick cavity wall automatically gets you seven or eight inches and then he shrouds project, I forget, but let's just say it's another six or seven inches. Now you've got 15, 16 inches of depth, which creates a wonderful shadow on the facade and really helps to punctuate the facade.

 

00;17;48;11 - 00;17;54;06

DP

That kind of plays into my next question. So what were some of the unique construction details on this building?

 

00;17;54;13 - 00;18;20;10

JZ

Yeah, certainly the shrouds, I think you see them more now. I think they were less common when we first did them. They are quite deep, which made the attachment to the building. I'm like say more difficult, but it had to be done differently. A lot of times these will be clipped on to the window extrusion and the window manufacturer can simply provide them.

 

You know, obviously the wind wants to tear these things off of the building. So there's a decent amount of load on these that required some careful detailing around the attachments of them.

 

00;18;20;13 - 00;18;23;15

DP

So there's some structure on the interior that gets tied back.

 

00;18;23;17 - 00;19;13;03

JZ

Yeah. These buildings basically go back to structural studs as opposed to the window and there's a heavy-duty anchor clip extends into the shroud that helps to make it rigid and attach it to the building. These deep soffits at the overhangs, you know, obviously something that had to be looked at fairly carefully. Generally speaking, a brick cavity wall is a well known thing.

 

Builders know how to build it, architects know how to detail it. But when you start introducing these kinds of deep shrouds, the corner windows in order to make those successful, what the window manufacturers want you to do is take a big square window and put it next to a big square window and all of a sudden your corner window has 12 inches a middle in the middle of it, and it looks like a column instead of a window.

 

And so detailing that to make it keep the sightlines narrow and keep it elegant, that was a detail in challenge that took a lot of time making sure the flood protection doesn't become too intrusive. That's a detail challenge. There were a handful of things.

 

00;19;13;05 - 00;19;15;21

DP

And what about sustainability for the building?

 

00;19;15;23 - 00;19;49;09

JZ

Well, it's a P-TECH building, P-TECHS are the the through wall air conditioners. They're environmentally not great. So starting from that, you have a difficult time making it the most sustainable building in the world. Unfortunately, electric P-TECHS, but there are other green features in the building. Certainly you see this in a lot of buildings at this point, but a super efficient lighting, formaldehyde free, no off gassing materials, locally sourced brick, natural material, locally sourced green roof, significant stormwater management features. It's not a leader in environmental design.

 

00;19;49;09 - 00;19;53;09

DP

Sure it is. I was I guess I was wondering if it was something that the city was looking for.

 

00;19;53;15 - 00;20;00;06

JZ

It was not a requirement, but I think there's enough consciousness about it at this point that people want to incorporate these features if they can.

 

00;20;00;09 - 00;20;03;24

DP

So when you consider the building, you're working in 2D and 3D.

 

00;20;03;29 - 00;20;08;14

JZ

Yeah. So this was drawn in AutoCAD. We weren't working in Revit back when this was first drawn.

 

00;20;08;14 - 00;20;09;15

DP

Are you now in Revit?

 

00;20;09;18 - 00;20;22;07

JZ

We are, yeah. We model absolutely everything, but we would do that mostly in SketchUp, Google, SketchUp, and that would be a parallel. You know, you would be doing both. You'd be modeling it SketchUp and drawing it in 2D AutoCAD at the same time.

 

00;20;22;09 - 00;20;24;26

DP

So you guys haven't been in Revit for a long than?

 

00;20;24;28 - 00;20;25;07

JZ

Couple of years.

 

00;20;25;07 - 00;20;34;25

DP

The more people I talk to, I'm an ArchiCAD working in 2D and 3D. I never learned Revit. I was lucky to learn how to use a computer, frankly. I mean.

 

00;20;34;28 - 00;20;44;23

JZ

Yeah. So, I mean, I don't know Revit, but the team does. I certainly learned AutoCAD along the way and micro station randomly enough. I don't even know if that's still around, to be honest.

 

00;20;44;26 - 00;20;49;25

DP

I don't know either. But most of the people that come through here are on Revit.

 

00;20;49;25 - 00;20;51;23

JZ

Yeah, it feels like a done thing.

 

00;20;51;26 - 00;20;54;08

DP

So do we see any masonry on the interior of the building?

 

00;20;54;13 - 00;21;28;21

JZ

Not in the interior walls. I will say one thing, since this is Brick works, the client led the decision that anything people could see from their windows would also be brick. So the interior courtyards, a lot of times what you see is brick on the facades and EFIS or something like that, something cheaper on the interior elevations or the lot line elevations, the courtyard facades are brick.

 

We have like, well, that's all brick because the client wanted to make sure that any time someone was looking out a window, what they saw was brick and they were happy to pay for it. They felt quite strongly that that's what it needed to be.

 

00;21;28;24 - 00;21;42;29

DP

So John, you've been in New York City for quite some time. You worked for a number of firms, including having your own office at one time. What advice might you give a younger version of yourself now that you know it?

 

00;21;43;01 - 00;22;07;09

JZ

Now that I know everything, I think you go, your heart leads you. There are so many ways to be an architect. There's not just one way and there's not one right way. And I see over and over again that people find ways that make them happy to do this job. And I do my thing. Other people do their thing.

 

There's not one answer. And don't be afraid to not pursue that other answer for yourself.

 

00;22;07;11 - 00;22;33;02

DP

Yeah, it's interesting too, what you learn in school and then what you learn as a practicing architect. You can take those skills and do an awful lot of things that aren't just architecture. I say that a lot. I have a teaching YouTube channel and I've been talking about that for years. We learn how to do so many things and you got to do so many things well and you've got to know so many things about so many things, right? It's a really challenging business and you're always learning.

 

00;22;33;02 - 00;22;59;06

JZ

The synthesizing of a lot of different pieces of information, I think is a skill that has broad application, and looking at things from a design perspective is an exceedingly rare quality out there in the world that I think has broad application. So it's great to be trained as an architect even if you don't stick with it. And look, I've always loved it.

 

I would encourage young people to stay in the profession because it's a great thing to do with your life, but people make their own choices.

 

00;22;59;08 - 00;23;07;13

DP

Well, John, it's been great to have you here. Thanks so much for your time. Where can people go to learn more about Fogarty Finger Architecture and Interiors and yourself?

 

00;23;07;16 - 00;23;20;04

JZ

Go to our website for sure. FogartyFinger.com, and look at our portfolio and there's all kinds of interesting information there. Of course, we have an Instagram page and every other thing that's available out there in the world to learn about a firm. You can find it online.

 

00;23;20;06 - 00;23;22;02

DP

Well, great, John, thank you very much for being here.

 

00;23;22;08 - 00;23;26;26

JZ

Thank you. It's a pleasure to be here.