Last week I visited Taliesin for the first time and was surprised in ways that I would not have guessed. The place has a ramshackle, swaggering attitude, sophisticated and homespun at the same time. That night, I dreamed that FLW was a Pirate!

Spiraling into the Taliesin compound

The journey up to the “brow of the hill” follows a gently ascending roadway, spiraling clockwise from the valley floor, around the back, and finally to the side of the compound.  To me, the place appears to be a small fortified village; I could imagine a defended well or spring at it’s core. The entrance to the compound is obscured; stairways hinting at entry, like so many stair-streets in Mediterranean hill towns.

The protected Court

Upon passing through the compressive, very low roof, the view opens up to a very lovely garden, even in it’s current decrepit state (more on this later). Prominently featured at the far side of the courtyard garden is the converted stable building.

The Converted Stable

The general layout of the buildings and exterior space reminds me of Mayan and other Mesoamerican compound arrangements, similar to Uxmal or Tikal in central america.

Garden and Brow

And now for a Call to Action: Taliesin is in awful shape, and getting worse.  After FLW’s death, his wife created Taliesin architects to finish up work that was still pending and on the boards.  That entity is no more, and with 30 students a year and very aged Trustees, it’s going to take a miracle to save the place.

Or… perhaps Brad Pitt?

Frank Lloyd Wright led a rather tumultuous love life, one that was punctuated by an axe-murder and fire, which is to be the subject of a new film. Bruce Beresford of “Driving Miss Daisy” fame is set to develop and direct “Taliesin,” a film named for the home he built for himself and his then married mistress, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

Mr. Pitt, if you are going to “be” FLW, please do what you can to help preserve Taliesin.

Deferred Maintenance

Sometimes a tombstone is just a tombstone, except when it's not.

Today I accompanied some Real Estate friends to look at a building for a prospective client, to get a sense of the “lay of the land”.  I do this quite often, as an architect’s eye and knowledge often help a buyer make a more educated choice when putting together an offer.

The building is a grand  old lady  from 1916 with tattered sheet-metal facade details and peeling painted brick, but with beautiful proportions and possibilities. The units were predictably shabby, but offered the glimmer of resurrection.

The agent said that there was something that we had to see in the backyard……

Now there’s something you don’t see every day!  So many ways to interpret this.

Courtesy the WSJ

“I like warm modern!”  I’ve heard such pronouncements before from clients, only to find out weeks later that we were not communicating at all, and that my idea of “warm modern” is their idea of a sanitorium.

The phenomenon that is Houzz continues.  If you are not familiar with Houzz, the 3 year old juggernaut is described as “….. a leading destination site for home design enthusiasts– professionals and homeowners. The Houzz site and mobile apps feature over 250,000 high quality interior and exterior photos, thousands of highly-engaging articles written by design experts, product recommendations and social tools to manage the remodeling and decorating process.”

We have been onboard from the beginning, and both our clients and our design staff have found the site to be a surprisingly useful tool.  In many ways, Houzz’s searchable photo database is only the beginning of it’s value to anyone in the design community.

Yesterday Katherine Boehret of the Wall Street Journal wrote an article entitled  ”Professional Decorating Ideas in the Houzz”, featuring one of our Project Pages as a graphic.

Please let us know how you use Houzz in your professional life, or as a homeowner working on a project.

Last tuesday I heard San Francisco Planning Director John Rahaim speak to the San Francisco AIA Chapter.

Planning Director John Rahaim

Much of the discussion was about new Planning policy around development in the SOMA neighborhood.  Current thoughts are that short, large plate buildings should be encouraged, with Commercial uses constituting 70% or more of the floor area.

Director Rahaim related that the North of Market/Downtown area has LOST more than 27.000 jobs over the last 20 or so years, a surprising statistic for most of us.

Architect Jim Zack, a respected  designer of restaurants as well as small residential buildings, asked whether the Planning Department had any plans to simplify the entitlement process for restaurants. Conversation wandered to the subject of a bittersweet video of the subject, found in, of all places, the Planning Department website.

Enjoy!

A view looking up through the Pepper Drive main stair.

Mark English architects of San Francisco Receives Houzz’s 2012 ‘Best Of Remodeling’ Award.

First-Ever Survey & Analysis of More than 1.2 Million Members Reveals Top-Rated Professionals and Current Design Trends from Across the Country

[San Francisco, CA]  –  March 21, 2012 – Mark English architects of San Francisco has been awarded  “Best Of Remodeling” 2012 by Houzz, the leading online platform for residential remodeling and design.  The architectural firm, entering it’s 20th year of practice, was chosen by the more than 1.2 million registered members of the Houzz community.

The Houzz “Best Of Remodeling” award for 2012 is given in two categories: Customer Satisfaction and Design. Customer Satisfaction award winners are based on homeowner members who rated their experience working with remodeling professionals in 12 categories ranging from architects, and interior designers to contractors and other residential remodeling professionals.  Design award winners’ work was the most popular among the 1.2 million members, also known as “Houzzers,” who saved more than 16.5 million professional images to their personal ideabooks via the Houzz site and iPad/iPhone app.

“With 3.5 million monthly unique users and 80 million monthly page views, Houzz has rapidly become the largest community of active remodelers, providing homeowners and design enthusiasts with first-hand advice from Houzzers who have been through the renovating and decorating process,” said Liza Hausman, vice president of marketing for Houzz. “This is a real stamp of approval for Mark English architects from the Houzz community and we’re thrilled to welcome them to this elite group of ‘Best Of’ winners.”

With Houzz, homeowners can identify not only the top-rated professionals like Mark English architects, but also those whose work visually aligns with their own design goals. Homeowners can also evaluate professionals by contacting them directly on the Houzz platform, asking questions about their work and evaluating their responses to questions from others in the Houzz community.

About Mark English architects

Mark English AIA and his associates at Mark English Architects create beautiful modern architecture, exploring the power of simple forms and spaces specific to place and client desire.  Since its founding in 1992, Mark English Architects has designed numerous residential and entertainment spaces throughout California, Texas and Mexico. The firm has a special interest in building in the urban context, with half of its work occurring in San Francisco.

Mark English Architects offers a designer’s sense of artistry, supported by practical knowledge gained from years of direct hands-on building experience, having worked as a carpenter on his first realized home design at the age of 19. The team respectfully guides the the client towards what could, and what should, happen in a space – so that they are both pleased and surprised by the results.

About Houzz

Houzz (www.houzz.com) is the leading online platform for home remodeling, providing inspiration, information, advice and support for homeowners and home improvement professionals through its website and mobile applications. Houzz features the largest residential design database in the world, articles written by design experts, product recommendations, a vibrant community powered by social tools, and information on more than 1.2 million remodeling and design professionals worldwide who can help turn ideas into reality. @houzz_inc

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The Women in Architecture whiteboard outline.

The beauty and challenge of New Media is it’s ease of use. As they say, Content is King, but the democratization of the web allows anyone to say anything. That’s what intrigues me- I trust thinking people to decide for themselves. If you don’t like what you read, start your own blog!

Rebecca and I hope that you have been enjoying our latest Interview Series, The Women in Architecture  program.  As each of the interviewees has stated so eloquently, architecture is a tough business for anyone, especially for women. I’ve been fortunate to get to know them all and share our experiences at dinners, events and committee meetings.  We are fortunate to practice in the Bay Area where open, challenging conversation is possible.

When Rebecca and I decide on a story direction, we’ll get together at the whiteboard and run through lists of possible interviewees and questions. The diagram shown above is the formative outline for the current series.

I hope you find the newest addition to The Architects’ Take, “Short Takes”, to be entertaining and informative. My goal is to include short observations about my profession, the built environment, people of interest, or news in general as items of interest come to me.

As always, please feel encouraged to comment, and let us know if there is someone you think we should interview!

Thanks, Mark

Mark English recently spoke about the use of Social Media in a small architectural practice during the KA Connect 2011 conference held in San Francisco on April 27 & 28 of this year. KA Connect is a community of AEC professionals driven to transform the way the industry creates, captures, and shares knowledge. KA Connect was founded by Knowledge Architecture in 2010.

Mark had a lot to say about the conference apart from his own talk, too. “There was so much information about the structure and handling of knowledge. The room was full of extremely smart people, all explaining how they manage and use knowledge successfully within their firms. The various presentations covered very timely subjects in this extraordinary period of change in our profession.”

Knowledge Architecture is a knowledge management and information systems consultancy based in San Francisco whose goal is to empower architects and engineers to create, capture, and share knowledge to leverage their expertise and grow their organizations.

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