Charette of Thousands (well, Hundreds)

If you intend to demolish someone’s home, make sure they’re not in the room when you propose the idea.  That’s what I learned at one of the charette's I attended.

RLPS was asked to develop some long range planning for a Client several years ago.  This particular Client decided to open the charette process to the residents, with no restrictions.  Our contact from the Client’s office indicated that there would be about 30 people in the charette, with a gallery on one side of the action reserved for residents who could come and listen and watch.  As we began to organize ourselves prior to the designated start time, it became abundantly clear that we were going to have at least 75 people in the room, and the gallery came not to listen and watch, but to actively participate.  Not only that, but the room was so big, that residents could not hear what the other was saying. 

You can imagine that in any long range plan, there may be some buildings that occupy land that could be used more efficiently as something other than its current occupancy.  One of the designers made one such suggestion in plan, and in doing so, removed about twelve residences.  I think all twelve residents were in the supposed listening gallery.  It didn’t go so well with those residents, to say the least.  I had the distinct honor of running from resident to resident holding a microphone so that their disapproval could be heard above the general din.  With any long range master plan, the timing of the work is hard to gauge, but could be more than ten years out.  The affected residents did not quite grasp that concept.  A lot can happen in ten years; especially when you are 80 years old, if you know what I mean.

Actually, the hullabaloo worked for me, because I presented my portion of the plan next, which was much less invasive.  I prefaced my presentation with, “You may not like what I have to say, but at least I’m not knocking any of your houses down!”

Meeting the Wrecking Ball

It was the end of an era.  They tore down the Architecture building at Penn State.  It was actually an action long overdue, having been a temporary situation for several decades.  The fact that the buildings’ name was the Engineering Units (“A” through “E”) reinforced the fact that this grouping of five brick cubes were never supposed to house the Architecture and Landscape Architecture programs.

The buildings were ill suited for human occupation.  The first sense one had entering the buildings was a strange odor that I liken to a combination of pencil shavings, wet paper towels and body odor.  The scent permeated every square inch.  It was not air conditioned, but that was ok because it had huge windows to let the glare of the sun in.  The breezes, if there are any in August in State College, were conveniently blocked by the buildings surrounding it on almost all sides (you could really mess with the students in those other buildings with a laser pointer, though).  In the winter, the heating system kicked out a pleasantly cool air, so in case you fell asleep at your desk, the sound of your own chattering teeth would wake you up for class at 8 AM.

Because of the building’s condition, the administration didn’t hassle us about its condition.  Each student customized his or her own space.  Sometimes that was as simple as moving things around, but others brought in lumber to get the job done.  Late nights saw all sorts of hi-jinks, from the mundane of climbing to the roof to see the sunrise at 5 AM to lighting models on fire and dropping them three stories.  Pets were welcome, although I am sure one janitor disagreed when I saw him clean up what I only hope was a pile of dog turds in the stairway.

I know that at least one person who made the Engineering Units his actual home for a semester.  He had either lost his apartment or couldn’t afford it any longer.  He slept in the lounge on the disgusting couches next to the copier and vending machines.  He said he showered at Rec Hall, but nobody believed him.  No one ever kicked him out.  Walking by that lounge late at night, I’ve seen much more explicit activities on those couches than that.

The Engineering Units were more of a home to us for five years than anything else at Penn State.  While I am jealous of the new students coming into to a brand-spanking new building, I do feel bad that they won’t have the experience of living in the dump we all loved so.  The location of the Engineering units was ideal, but the new students will have to walk 20 minutes to grab a beer at Zeno’s Bar or pick up junk food at the Uni-Mart.  I guess that is the price you pay for having a new building.  Maybe the new students will end up being healthier at the end of five years.

It's not the Heat, It's the Humidity

There are plenty of situations that can make an architect uncomfortable.  I had one day at that tops them all for me.  RLPS had several retirement projects going in the Northeastern part of the State when I was a young intern, so I had the occasion to stop by one of them to carry out some sort of chore at the project (it seemed that we continually “adjusted” something at this project).

On the top level, there were several variations of balconies at that floor.  Some were open, others were covered with clear Plexiglas and some had a more traditional porch roof.  It seems that none of the residents liked what they had.  The residents with the roof didn’t like that their balconies were dark, the residents without any covering didn’t like that their balconies got wet, and the residents with the Plexiglas covering didn’t like that they could see debris on their roofs.

One suggestions for the dark balconies was to paint the underside white instead of the dark green of the original.  So instead of getting a painter to paint one, an intern architect was dispatched with a knife, boars of white Foam Core, a ruler, a cutting board and several tubes of Liquid Nails.  So there I was, in temperatures and humidity both in the mid-90’s, outside on a retired military officer’s porch on a ladder fitting squares of Foam Core into the coffers of the porch roof while trying to keep the sweet from burning my eyes.  I was miserable.  Having had a meeting prior to this exercise, I had been dressed in a coat and tie, not exactly appropriate for the task at hand.

After I finished inserting the panels into the coffers, I was literally drenched.  My ride (and the person that assigned this task to me) was meeting elsewhere in the building, so I just sat in the men’s room and tried to dry out, wishing I had a change of clothing.

I am told that the Liquid Nails gave way to the humidity over the summer, dropping panels on the Major’s head every so often.  Small consolation for a truly uncomfortable day.

33 Flavors of Stubborn

It never ceases to amaze me the role that food plays in our work.  Years ago we were meeting with clients to kick off a new project.  After meeting with staff, we had lunch with a representative group of residents, including the president of their resident council.

This gentleman came prepared and was obviously looked upon by the other residents as their spokesman.  He began to prioritize his major points of discussion into three categories.  First, was the need for a constant quality of food.  His major complaint was that in the last reorganization of the dining services, the group that provides the kitchen equipment provided a new ice cream freezer/dispenser that only provided room for four flavors from which to choose, instead of the six he was accustomed.  He conceded that this seemed harmless enough a decision, but he claimed that many of the residents, including himself, were quite upset.  In my head, I imagined a group of senior citizens tipping over the ice cream cart in protest, like a modern day, yet slower moving, Boston Tea Party.

But then I thought about how I like my ice cream, and while I never have 6 different flavors in my freezer at once, I do panic when we are running low.  So I can understand this gentleman’s dilemma.

Consequently, the gentlemen got so impassioned about his first point, that he had to struggle to remember the other two points, which I would have thought would have been more important than ice cream: how much is this going to cost the resident and will there be improvements done such that the residents living there now will be alive to enjoy them.  Just goes to show you that very trivial seeming decisions can affect the relationship a designer has with the residents. 

Topping off the last truss at our new office building last Firday.

No story, just showing the progress.

Half Again As Big

Having grown up in Pennsylvania Dutch Country, you would have thought I might have picked up a bit of the language.  It must be because my mother taught English that I never learned the local dialect.

We had prepared a mock up memory cabinet for our client in Easton.  It was really quite nice.  It was a mahogany stained wood cabinet and it was about four inches deep, with a half round top and a glass door.  The inside was lined in green felt.  The client liked it very much, but it wasn’t quite big enough.  The Dutchy contractor suggested that we make another, “half again as big”.

I don’t know what I was thinking, but I wrote down the phase on my pad, dictated it the minutes, and then proceeded to fax off a sketch to the wood shop to increase the dimensions.  In a couple of weeks, I came into possession of the new mock up, inspected it and then took it to the next job meeting.  The whole group looked puzzled.  I didn’t see what was wrong:  the new one looked just like the first one only it was twice as big, like they had asked.

Turns out, since I didn’t consult my English-Dutch dictionary, or my Dutch multiplication tables, I had made a mistake.  My logic had led me to believe that the first prototype was half the size it should have been – not, take one-half the size it is now and add it to the original.  In the end, the Owner took the oversized cabinet and placed it inside the front entry hall and used it for announcements – it looked great, almost as if it was planned.  In true Dutchy fashion, the lemons were made into lemonade.

An American in Paris

While in college, I was lucky enough to study in Italy for a semester.  It was one of the defining experiences of my life (I found my wife there, too).  However, at the end of my studies in Italy, I was able to backpack to several other counties on the train.  I loved Italy, but while many aspects of Italian life are “modern”, their architecture is relentlessly classical.  On the train ride it was obvious that the further north we got, the more modern the buildings were.

Paris had a scale and a blend of styles that I had not seen in months.  As a young student, I made it my mission to see as many “famous” buildings as possible with the time I had.  One stop I had to make was the American Center in Paris, designed by Frank Gehry.  At the time, Mr. Gehry had little of his public acclaim earned by his later Guggenheim commission in Bilbao, Spain.  He was; however, quite well know in architectural circles.  The American Center was his largest and most famous commission to date, and I had to see what all the fuss was about.

The building was not located anywhere near the center of the city, but on the outskirts along the river with many other modern buildings I could only assume were corporate office buildings.  The façade was not as pristine as it had been in the magazines, either.  It was dirty and several of the thin, stone veneer panels were kicked in, exposing the insulation behind.  I thought maybe that the French were none too pleased with this American presence in Paris (I will dispense with the comparisons to the much different attitude in Paris during 1944).  However, the building was anti-contextual, taking no cues from the surrounding environs.  The sweeping and curved forms related to absolutely nothing I could see from my vantage point.  I couldn’t imagine how that exterior translated into any kind of reasonable interior.

When I entered the main lobby, I found that most of the curved exteriors were part of a vast and complex atrium.  Then I noticed that there was hardly any one in there with me.  Come to think of it, I still don’t know what the main function of that building was.  I snooped around as much as I thought I could without getting cursed at in French.  The most telling investigation came when I found a bathroom.  I couldn’t open the door to the 90 degree position.  I found the obstruction to be the toilet itself.

I left feeling a bit jaded.  This exorbitantly expensive and controversial building had failed to deliver.  I’m not saying I kicked in any stone panels on the façade, but I now understand why there were so many.  A year later I learned that the Center went bankrupt and closed it doors, at least they closed them as tightly as they could given any obstructions.

Full Disclosure:  When I wrote this, the building was still standing vacant, as it did for 9 years.  Since, however, the building was rehabilitated into a center of history of cinema, with very little change to the outside.