Tag Archives: women in architecture
Process: The Green Street House
Austin’s Green Street Cottage, which Mark English Architects had the privilege of remodeling, was designed in the style of the First Bay Region Tradition.
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Short Takes: A New Addition to The Architects’ Take
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!
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Karin Payson on Architectural Practice – Part 1
“Hugh Hardy once said to me that the problem with architects is a fear of drapery! Interior design is more tactile than architectural design… I think that many architects are afraid of this tactility. They’re afraid of color.
“Before I saw Aalto’s houses in their natural setting, I was married to the grid… [but] Aalto’s floor plans, while rigorous, did not use a grid. Instead, they focused on grabbing light, on nature, and on circulation.”
(Photo: Stephen Barker)
by Rebecca Firestone with Mark English AIA
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Karin Payson on Architectural Practice – Part 2
“40% of my graduate class were women, but only 9% of licensed architects are women. You know where I think they are? Buried! A few years ago, Robert Venturi got the Pritzker Prize. He had a practice with his wife for over 30 years, co-wrote his books with her, but she wasn’t originally listed. So now, when he got the Pritzker Prize, she was ignored! It was a huge scandal, in my opinion.
“I don’t play therapist with my clients. I play teacher. I educate my clients about the possibilities. Sometimes clients don’t get it until they actually see the walls come down.
“I’m not interested in floor plans that are full of dead ends and pointy angles. In museums, I like simple floor plans. It makes for a more peaceful experience. I always know where I am.”
by Rebecca Firestone with Mark English AIA
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Sand and Steel: Sand Studios’ Work Shows a Lightness of Hand
“Steel is feminine. Thin, strong, and lithe, it has a certain lightness. It’s the connective tissue for disparate elements; it can be used to integrate or mediate between heavier and thicker materials to make things float and stand off from one another. We fine-tune our designs using classical proportions, and le Corbusier’s Modulor system. In Miami, our style was so completely different from what was already there. Of course there was already a lot of contemporary design, but we were recognized as having a unique sensibility. My work was softer, more textured, more detailed. Unexpected materials, and a lighter hand.”
(Photos: Ken Hayden Photography)
by Rebecca Firestone with Mark English AIA
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Zack/deVito Architecture: Designers and Master Builders, Part 2
“Even though a painting is ‘done’ it’s never really done. I’m always walking around my house and wanting to pull a painting off the wall and work on it some more. Or I look at something in the house and wonder, ‘Why did I do that? What have I learned from that?’ One needs to be continually asking that question.” – Lise de Vito
by Rebecca Firestone with Mark English AIA
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Min/Day Architecture Creates Rapid Custom-Fabricated Interiors
A few weeks back, I was standing in line at the opening party for Metropolitan Home’s Modern by Design showcase at Baker Street, wondering what the latest from San Francisco’s top interior design luminaries would be. This project, a high-profile rehab of a 7,700 SF home, involved invitations to 14 design studios and giving them the freedom to create the interiors as they pleased – on their own dime.
Imagine my surprise at the top to discover Min/Day Architecture’s playful and colorful three-room “Jack and Jill” attic suite with handily elegant Murphy bed tucked away behind a custom-perforated sliding panel, a jewel-like green-tiled bathroom, and an adjoining room featuring large pink dots, with a modular table that looked like something Andy Goldsworthy might do if he ever tried working with stacked birch plywood as a fabrication medium.
