Cursed By Knowing The Numbers

Our jobs are typically very private, so I don't often get a chance to brag on them, or the team responsible for breathing life into them.  So I'm grateful when we get great press.

Our Palo Alto project received another award.  Custom Home Magazine awarded our project its Grand Award for a Custom Home more than 5,000SF.  This Palo Alto infill project struck me as one of the last great houses of the 20th Century, and probably the best built example of Architects Steven Ehrlich, Takashi Yanai and Alec Whitten.

Ryan Associates was our general contractor and raised the bar on cast in place architectural concrete.

Engineered Environments was our AV design/builder and I recommend them highly.

Depp Glass fabricated the glass for the main stair--they did the Apple stores--and were real pros to work with.

Pacific Pools was the pool contractor and, well they stuck with it until they got the job done. 

Great team, exacting job, glad to see it get some press.

Posted by Ted at 11:23 AM | Permalink

If you are a student of the property business, you are a student of economics, of architecture, of politics, and of human nature.  I am 80% through the 16-CD audiobook that is combination memoir followed by a series of essays on global economic issues.

I am now more deeply grateful for Alan Greenspan's contributions. This book deftly handles the story of his life while not preening over his accomplishments.

Economics can oft times make for dreadfully boring reading--but not here.  This is the story of an extremely interesting character.

Here is the Economist's review of the book--succinctly captures what this 544 page tome is about.

One thing I did not fully appreciate was how influential Ayn Rand was on his life.

Here is the Chairman's interview on Jon Stewart--

Posted by Ted at 7:56 AM | Permalink

Agnes Bourne, nearly a San Francisco native, graduated from Mills College, studied art and design first in Italy and then with Rudolph Schaeffer at the Rudolph Schaeffer School of Design in San Francisco.  The school combined the aesthetics of the Arts and Crafts Movement and Asian art with a philosophy in which beauty and utility coalesced.  She had a San Francisco studio and showroom for 18 years and now runs her interior design, furniture and color design from Jackson, Wyoming.

Agnes was the interior designer on a home I produced in San Francisco almost ten years ago.  She epitomizes enthusiasm to me and is great fun to work with on projects--enthusiasm as faith in action. 

We had a chance to compare notes when she was in SF this past week

How do you get someone to understand the role color plays?

Take my crash course on color!  I ask a person to wear a color for a week and note in a journal the experience of wearing it, looking for it, listening for it, eating it.  If you approach color as a language, you can literally hear what the colors do.   The responses that come from the senses engaging with the color--where it is good, where it is bad--the response provoked in color.

It is fun to make a color go through its paces--put it in the light, make it shiny, make it flat, make it fat, make it thin.  We just saw the movie Flushed Away, and the colors carried so much of the plot without doing anything.

Other elements I work with:

• Adjacency--the effect of putting one color next to another gives you a third color.
• Texture--where it is the smoothest, the roughest and how you work the gradient in between.  Where texture becomes structure.
• Translucency.
• Form.
• Flow!
• And you can't forget function...

How do you set out to understand what the project wants to be?

The interview process is where you establish the kernel, the house haiku, the essence of the vision that becomes the project.  What are the essential elements?  Ecstatic?  Views?  Light? Peacefulness?  The haiku is the anchor, the touchstone of what the home or space wants to be.  The most successful projects are where the haiku is set at the beginning, is constantly referred to during design and construction, and is evidenced in the final product.

The design voice is in service to the idea, to the project's haiku.  All elements of the design are in service to the haiku, the project essence.

Thoughts on architects?
Frank Gehry and I had a series of great conversations about a project and he told me Architecture Evokes Passion.  What does passion do?  Inspiration, nothing passive about great architecture.  Your environment really affects your well being.

Tom Kundig and I have done a couple of projects together and the challenge is to do interiors that do not detract from the architecture.  The interiors must augment the response of the architecture, not an answer that takes away from the architecture.  His sense of detail is strong, not fussy.

Grant Marani, a partner at Robert A. M. Stern Architects, facilitated a great experience in true collaboration, authentic accountability and good humor on a San Francisco home.  These three elements provide a solid foundation for great results during the design process.

Heath Ceramics has been a great source for custom shapes and colors and inspiration for me.

What would you like to design that you haven't done?

Macro  >>  Design a house that has no waste in process and function.  Imagine a nest...nothing is wasted and it all returns to the environment when its job is done.  The only power consumed was the energy it took to gather and build it.

Micro Object of Desire >> Mattresses.  Goose down mattresses.  This would be a challenge, a missed opportunity, an amazing feeling--so rested, even temperature, support.

How has moving your practice to Jackson Hole furthered your practice?

The biggest lesson I have learned in Jackson is how to listen, listening to the environment in all the ways that one listens.  Listening apart from language.  Listening with all your senses.  Listening to understand.   There is a lot of trust and purpose in nature. 

Watching how wildlife responds to their environment.  They are purpose driven, but also take time off.  Particularly coyotes...

You begin to feel the difference of a granite mountain--it is a different thing, a different feel from sedimentary formed mountains--heavy mountains vs. not so heavy mountains...

Two things you want to do?

See the Massive Change exhibit at Chicago's Museum of Contemporary Art.

The Green House exhibition at the National Building Museum.

Any advice on building a practice in San Francisco?

Get your team together.  In all areas.  Construction.  Lighting.  Architecture and where the handoff occurs from design to construction.  Understand the project schedule and work with a team where everyone buys into the schedule.

Posted by Ted at 11:42 AM | Permalink

CEDIA is the premier residential low voltage conference in the country.

Home theaters, distributed audio systems, lighting control, shade control, system integration, and security were all well represented.

The low voltage systems for almost all of the insanely great houses I have produced have been designed and installed by Engineered Environments, a great group of professionals providing an integrated solution to phone, security, audio, video, and lighting control.  I love these guys...

 
I had a chance to walk the exhibitor’s floor with Engineered Environments’ Tim Johnson, who designed the low voltage system for a recent project I produced in Palo Alto.

They are up for two Electronic Lifestyles Awards for this job, one for Best Overall Integrated Home, and one for Best Dressed System.

I have a deep appreciation of both Tim’s experience and his passion in coming up with systems that are designed well, and installed well.[Ed. Note--Engineeered Environments won three CEDIA Gold awards for our project.--Way to go!]

There was a lot of cool stuff at CEDIA this year—from

• the new 1080p video displays, to
• the shoot-out between Blu-Ray and HD-DVD high def DVD players, to
• integration layers, to hardware, to new speakers, to
• three chip DLP projectors.

 I was amazed at the amount of 1080p projectors and displays—when there is no native 1080p content available!  The pace of this industry moves very fast, and the benefits can be oversold.

[Ed. note--Tim advises me there are a few 1080p native format discs and players available.]

My objective was to see where the value lies today, and how costs are trending.  Low voltage systems have a cost/performance curve that is asymptotic--a few percentage points more in performance can cost a great deal more. 

As usual, there were a number of technologies in search of a problem—I guess you see that in any field that is technologically juiced.

The problem I typically need to solve is to have lighting, hvac control, audio/video and security systems that are

• Reliable
• Have an understood migration path, and
• Intuitive.

These systems constitute 12 to 15% of hard cost, and the technology moves fast.

Here’s what methinks merits a further look:

Windows MCE2005 is turning out to be a reliable and relatively intuitive platform for integration, and I saw a couple of solutions that provide functionality without having to be completely programmed (there were 430 hours in the system I mentioned above).

A lower cost alternative to the integration layer I have deployed previously is being offered by Lifeware, based on the MCE 2005 operating system.

It has that annoying blue MCE screen background, but at $2PSF of gross buildable, is worth looking into.  Did I mention that they are bankrolled by Microsoft, Intel and HP?

Look for some great integration applications to come out of this platform, and to be a lower cost solution to integration if you don’t need the programming power of AMX. Looks like programming is done off the .NET platform.

Niveus Media Center is a media storage server and media control center that is built off the MCE 2005 platform that had some great looking hardware—they have these massive heat sinks on the sides of their servers (eliminates the fan noise).

Integration is a big deal in the homes I produce, so I spent some time at Crestron, AMX, and Vantage integration layer vendors—I don’t see a great deal differentiating the three, other than AMX works better with Lutron Homeworks, which is my preferred lighting control system.

  AMX did have a new remote product, that uses the Zigbee technology to tie into the integration layer.

Sonance has several in-wall speaker options, with minimal grilles and is carrying the old mud –in Sound Advance line—they bought them a while ago.

Artison has a new inwall subwoofer product that has the functional equivalence of a 15” sub, but with an opposing driver design, fits into a standard stud bay and very limited vibration (the opposing drivers cancel each other out—eliminating inwall vibration.  They also have a solution that provides center channel audio without a separate center channel speaker box.

Fujitsu plasma monitors are the best plasma product around—Tim explained to me that Fujitsu gets first dibs on the plasma screens they manufacture, selling the lesser grade products off to their competitors.

Sony LCD flat panel displays are the best LCD screen on the market.

Stewart Filmscreens' Cinecurve product is the hottest screen product.  Using an anamorphic lens and masking system, this product gets creates the correct screen area for viewing media with different native aspects--it gets rid of the black bars. Microperforations (allow you to hide speakers behind the screen), and the curved projection screen combine to make this a great part of your next home theatre.

Kaleidescape media servers had a real crowd around them. Nice product, great user interface, and extremely intuitive.

Chief in-wall screen arm plasma display mounts disappear into the wall, but are massive enough to support a 65” screen.

Tim raves about California Audio Technology’s custom speakers—they have gone into two of my jobs. They provide a custom product tuned for a specific environment.

Tim really liked the AudioPatch Precis LT, an 8X8 (1RU) or 18x18(2RU) digital signal processor to customize each room of a distributed audio system.

My takeaway is that the integration layer is getting more robust, as they like to say in the tech business, and that there is a dearth of media high def enough to make the numbers work on the beautiful monitors I saw today. Up-converting is left to the eyes of the beholder--Faroudja was showing off several solutions to take video to a 1080p format from a DVD source (480i).

The Economist judged there was close to $25,000 in electronics in the new 7 series BMW (~25% of the total cost)—I don’t think we will approach that percentage in these insanely great homes.

I can easily see 10% without a lot of video distribution and touchscreens, and once you cross this line, 15% +/- 3% is probably a more realistic number.

Posted by Ted at 10:43 AM | Permalink

Following up my conversation with Stephen Suzman and Lisa Guthrie, I asked them to walk a mile in the Owner's moccasins. 

I asked them,

What are the ten questions you would pose to your landscape architect?

1. How will you figure out what I REALLY want?
2. How will you convince me what the site tells you it wants?
3. How much of the program will be what I tell you I want and how much of the program will be what the site tells you it wants?
4. How long will this really take to complete?
5. How much will this really cost to complete?
6. Who am I going to work directly with in your office?  What are my choices?  Why is this person the best fit for my project?
7. Do you have a good relationship with a contractor who could provide reliable pricing information and guarantee this price working from DD drawings?
8. What other contractors do you usually work with?
9. Have you worked in this town before?  Do you have a good relationship with the planning and building department?
10. Do you like Agapanthus or Lantana?  (if so, you are fired!)
11. Do you source/review material before it is delivered to the project site?

Posted by Ted at 3:02 PM | Permalink

...Stephen Suzman and Lisa Guthrie of Suzman & Cole Landscape Architects about how to work best with your landscape architect, what is important, and what isn't.

1. Is "voice" important when looking for a landscape architect?

Landscape architecture primarily needs to respond to the site.  The landscape architect needs to understand the site, its opportunities and constraints, its microclimate, and the preferences of the client.

Planting a formal French garden that is not responsive to the site is not a valid solution.  Voice is possible, voice can be a fashion, but the opportunities and constraints of the site need to guide you.

We do not specialize in a particular vernacular, what we are is perceptive, inventive, and resourceful. Our goal is to produce a hybrid design--a new response that avoids endless repetition and sterility.  The Bay Area is an extremely conservative place (from a design perspective) where firms that provide only one voice limit their options.

The client's personal preferences, colors, plants and styles, are essential to identify early on, through an interview or a questionnaire process.

2. What three questions should an Owner ask you when you first sit down?

• Are you available?
• Is this something you would be interested in?
• Have you worked in this jurisdiction before?
• Are you familiar with the microclimate?

3. What are the fundamental elements that you work with, in terms of complexity and cost?

• Water--extremely expensive to provide from a budget perspective.  (Ted: $300 to $500 per square foot of surface area for custom pools and spas).  Maintenance and room for pumps and filters is needed.
• Grade changes and retaining walls--retaining walls are very expensive (Ted: $35 to $70 per SF of wall) and steps and stairs need to be developed to circulate through the site.  Rise and run of these steps are critical.
• Paving, parking, and tennis courts--paving can be expensive (Ted: can range in cost from $15 to $200 per square foot).  The wrong surface can easily degrade in the environment.  Grade changes for the automobile are difficult to manipulate without creating a bunker feel.  Automobile turnarounds, fire department requirements on rural sites.  Tennis courts can be a challenge.
• Drainage--more plants succumb to bad drainage than any other malady.  Leaky pools.  Drainage needs to be addressed by the civil engineer.
• Dialogue, early and meaningful,  with the building architect to review site, grades, retaining walls.  With the client, to make sure we understand their preferences.
• Safety--stairs and lighting.  Providing a comfortable rise and run on steps.  Stair and pathway lighting.
• Transplanting Trees--some plants will be lost, it is a fact, and something we can recover from.  Trees need to be pruned for safety.
• Color--sample matches on pool plaster, hardscape, and paving are very important..  Samples need to be approved and archived and used to accept built finishes.  There is a wider palette to work with today than previously--materials are sourced worldwide.  No mica.  Porous stones need to be dark to hide staining.
• Lighting--safety lighting is critical, pathway and stair lighting.  Pool lighting.underlighting rather than overlighting.  Avoid high contrast--transitions from inside to outside are critical.

4.  How do you relate to the buildings existing or proposed on the site?

Site planning is a chicken and egg process between the Architect and Landscape Architect to identify opportunities and constraints.  Sloping sites are particularly important to understand early on.  Siting the building properly makes a huge difference.

Outdoor program should be an early product of the design process.  Outdoor rooms are different--the solar aspect, the fact there is no ceiling, and they change through the day and the season.  Interior space is much more finite.

5.  Views are critical to owners in the Bay Area.  How do you respond to this need?

Borrowing views in an urban property, minimizing views from offsite and maximizing privacy is one of our key tasks.  Developing view corridors on rural properties comes out during our initial discussions with the architect and Owner. 

6.  And plants?
Owners usually start with plants, but that is typically the last thing you work through on a site.  You don't really know what wants to go where until you have developed your grades, circulation, and view corridors.

7.  How important is a site survey?

A complete, topographical survey with two foot contours  is critical.  A complete site survey is the best $10 to $20K that you can spend to understand grades.  (Ted: AGREED!!).

8.  What are the more difficult needs you have to respond to?

People want what they haven't got.  Its never what you can, its what you can't. Flat sites want to be elevated, sloping sites want to be flat (Ted: see retaining walls, above).

Building Codes.  Owners ask me to skirt building  codes on their projects.  Code compliance is very important and a reality that you have to deal with all the time. 

9.  What is the one thing that needs to be understood, but is tragic if it isn't?

Wind.  People don't like it, and it picks up in the afternoon when you want to be outside entertaining.  Critical in San Francisco, and on any high elevation site.  Very important to design around it, but if not understood early enough, responses are too late and not effective.

10.  What seems important, but really isn't?

Whether you have done this garden before is not an issue.  It is understanding the site--not providing the same solution to different problems.

Posted by Ted at 9:19 PM | Permalink

...in the practice of producing insanely great places to live.

We really are getting to the point where we are moving bits and only doing windshield tours as a final check.  Property data is now available online, and the amount of public data is tilting the value add equation.  And getting to know the numbers has gotten dramatically easier with online tools--but it takes a fair amount of time to become proficient--

"Give me six hours to to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe."

--Abraham Lincoln.

Here is what I use when turning over stones to find a suitable project:

1.  Google search rank has changed how I develop alternatives.  The single greatest tool I use.

2.  I keep Google Earth open on my desktop all day.  Handy for virtual low altitude fly-bys of potential sites.  I have a two monitor setup using an NVIDIA Geforce 7800GTX driving two Viewsonic VA1912wb's.  I keep Google Earth on one monitor and my current app on the other.

3. Zillow, and its user blog, to get a sense for development values around the sites I look at.

4.  For trends in residential markets, Zindex.

5.  To understand how current and former residents are trash-talking multifamily properties I am underwriting, I check Apartment Ratings.

6.  For property acquisitions, I use re3w.  It only works on IE--is really buggy on Firefox, my preferred browser.  And it uses MS Visual Earth, not Google Earth.  Let me know if you have a better alternative.

7.  Proformas are run on MS Excel, it has the flexibility to do whatever I need it to.

8.  I use Dreamweaver to put together my web apps--great product, but I am only using about 10% of its capabilities. Need to sharpen this tool...

9.   Movable Type v3.34 is my blogging software, a lot of brain damage setting it up on my server, but now seems to be running without a problem.

10.  When I am laying out or checking elevations on site, I love my DeWalt Laser rotary level--self leveling, uses the standard DeWalt 18V battery packs, and beeps if it goes out of level.

11. And I never leave home without my trusty Treo 650.

12. My Leatherman Juice is essential to McGyver'ing my way out of a problem.  It is always in my pocket...except when on my way to the airport.

What tools do you use?

Posted by Ted at 4:08 PM | Permalink

Every once in a while I am exposed to something that recalibrates my view on my profession.  A book, a conversation, a performance that knocks me back to first principles, that I am in this game to make a difference, to leave this place better than I found it.  And that there is so much more to do...

I have been doing soapbox duty recently on what passes for planning at San Quentin.  This top down approach that has left me dumbfounded. No response to date from our elected officials about why the law proscribes such a use on this irreplaceable 275 acre bayfront property and what it would take to change the law.

Here is a talk by an amazing woman, a MacArthur Fellow, about creating sustainable communities--an amazingly inspiring use of ten minutes of your day. Watch this, and think about what is about to happen here. 

 Download the video here.

I warn you, it is a powerful presentation.  If public presenting is part of your life, you might also appreciate Guy Kawasaki's take on Majora Carter's performance,

"I would love it if my daughter would grow up to be a warrior like Majora."

As Majora said, "We have nothing to lose...and everything to gain."

Posted by Ted at 2:46 PM | Permalink