Peninsula Meets Pie - Design Meets Dessert

One room where everybody wants to do everything. Pattern 139. FARMHOUSE KITCHEN.

...an ancient kind of kitchen where the cooking and the eating and the living are all in a single place...a circumstance where the people who are cooking are in touch with the rest of the family, while they are working...

Merry Christmas. We had 6 house guests joining our 5 for comfortable family mayhem, eleven folks did most everything in our big room, consuming vast quantities in the process.


Cristin directed the deep dish apple pie making from our kitchen peninsula. It was a group activity performed "in the round" with witty remarks flying everwhere. We had sweet apples and tart apples a'pealing. Katherine works the tart ones.


The pie team featured 3 more of our all-stars, Rachel, Cristin at the sink, Linda.


Guests came over to see the show. You couldn't come to our place without meeting the people and the pie.


The pie crust may have set a world record for homemade goodness. The Weather Channel reported our prospects for a white Christmas.


For her efforts Cristin was named the first Lifetime Pie-Goddess by the directors of the Architecture Tourist Culinary Committee. Matt was behind her 110%.


Oops, I almost forgot another pattern: 199. SUNNY COUNTER.

Special thanks to Bill.

Browning Courthouse, Tucker, Georgia circa 1860

Thanks to the Tucker Historical Society for saving this noble little building and moving it here where we can fall in love

LaVista Road, Georgia 268, is how you get from I-285 to Tucker. It's a 5-laner. Not a burger-row, but you just want to get through it. And get though you must, it's my route to the legendary Handy Hardware, and the to fine town of Tucker.

"Most landmarks and focal points in cities - of which we need more, not fewer - come from the contrast of use radically different from its surroundings, and therefore inherently special-looking, happily located to make some drama and contrast of the inherent difference ... noble buildings ... set within the matrix of the city, instead being sorted out and withdrawn into 'courts of honor'"- Page 228, ”The Death and Life of Great American Cities” - Jane Jacobs, Vintage Books Edition 1991


For years I've wondered what the heck this place is.


Last week after visiting the dentist across the street I ran across the 5 lanes for a closer look. It's picturesque fronting the modernish Tucker Recreation Center. Looks like there's a pilgrim in the yard!


Aha.


 The landscaping is so modest and so comfortable: woodchips in a garden grown wild. (design pattern 172. GARDEN GROWING WILD)


You can rent the place, get married here. I approve.


It wasn't open but I got took a picture though the window.


If you've got a couple of minutes, stop and enjoy it on foot.


View Larger Map
You can't miss it.

How to Enter a Pink Castle

It strives to delight and lift our spirits, not to intimidate. May I show you in via my 30-second video?

There is no trouble finding the rose door. It's the clearest of the pinks and reds from the tile, faded walls, and gravel. Isn't the color of the door perfect? Can you imagine another color?


There is another door, the service door done as a window. See the steps in the corner?


The foyer bumps out. It's plain and human sized, more comfortable than I expected. Little hedges and lanterns guide us to a perfect landing. We might have to make a dash during a rain.


No athletic step climbing is required. It's perfectly sized for families. Ladies in heels might need some gravel practice: I notice some "interesting" lady strides as we crunch toward the door. The left window lights the ladies room, the right lights the men's.


Time to go into the surprisingly cozy foyer.


Mind if I quote "Pattern 130. ENTRANCE ROOM?"

When hosts and guests are saying goodbye, the lack of a clearly marked "goodbye" point can easily lead to endless "Well, we really must be going now,?' and then further conversations lingering on, over and over again."

It's been 6 days and I'm not over it, not over my visit to the Pink Castle. I wrote about the angel & urns and about the garage.

A room with Migraine lighting

WARNING - Migraine Sufferers Should Avoid this Post - WARNING

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Really: thinking about migraines is a migraine trigger for many folks.

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It made me sick. The memory of the room makes me sick.

Do you get migraine headaches? Do you recognize your triggers? I get them and I can sometimes recognize my triggers.

Last night I went to a lecture in a trigger room. It's brand new, it's wonderful, it's huge, it still has the new car smell. It made me sick.


I exaggerated the contrast in this picture but it captures the essence. It's an evenly lit grey room with bright slivers on the walls and ceiling. The house lights were low so we could the the slide show. That emphasized the bright slashes.

Instinct warned me. I found a seat at the very front and cupped my hands like horse blinders so I couldn't see the walls. I enjoyed the lecture and bolted as soon as it was over.

When I encounter trigger room, a room with migraine lighting, I just want to shake some sense into the designer.

Don't they teach this stuff in lighting design school?

There is another lighting problem in the room, not a migraine problem but one that works against human comfort.

Design Pattern 252. POOLS OF LIGHT

"Uniform illumination - the sweetheart of the lighting engineers - serves no useful purpose whatsoever. In fact, it destroys the social nature of space, and makes people feel disoriented and unbounded...One word of caution. This pattern is easy to understand; and perhaps it is easy to agree with. But it is quite a subtle matter to actually create functioning pools of light in the environment."
A Pattern Language: Towns, Buildings, Construction by Christopher Alexander, Sara Ishikawa, Murray Silverstein.

Party at the Beacham Series Cover House

The 2010 Beacham Series Magazine deserved it's kickoff party last Thursday. Your fortunate host was there to enjoy a fine Atlanta evening. Here is the cover house as it lit up at dusk.


Bunch of bloggers.

Left to right: Pamela, I'm in the blue shirt, then Niki McNeill of SingleBubblePop, Dana Jones - thegreatdanaj, Blayne Beacham of This Photographer's Life, Kate Abney of Atlanta Homes and Lifestyles. James from Limestone & Boxwoods was there too but camera shy. Those Atlanta bloggers who weren't there are hereby placed on secret probation.

The pool was party central. It felt very nice down there, many comfortable places for sitting or standing, good circulation for mingling.


The beautiful balcony overlooks the backyard.


Folks took advantage of the views. What do you call those columns that appear to be bundles of rods wrapped together?


People gravitated toward comfortable places. Standing is Harrison Design Associates principal, Rick Hatch.


Harrison Design Associates designed and redesigned the house. Here is Bill Harrison himself talking with Beacham agent, Anne Powers. Anne and I grew up together. We had an unexpected and touching reunion at the party. Anne said that the "little kids" we were in High Point are still very much with us.


This is a stunning view from the pool. Two curvy chimneys flank a magnificent oriel window. The pool house roof grounds what might otherwise be an intimidating wall.


This is a nice place.


On the right is Cristi Holcombe of Charm Home. You can see how Blayne, Nikki, Cristi, the pool house and the great house make me look thin.


My impressions? This is a big house, done to a "T" if you know I mean. What struck me most was the comfort in the spaces. The interior spaces are extensive, impressively sized and detailed but they never made me feel small.

The entrance facade and courtyard conceal the bigness, the flanking garages seemed to embrace me, I felt very good there. The big windows and shallow pitched roof mitigate the bigness, made it human scaled I think.

The backyard faces the full 3 stories of the house. Balconies, shelters, stairways, and the pool house break up the great mass. There are many inviting, sheltering places on the back. They make yard comfortable and invite you into the house.

From A Patter Language: 160. BUILDING EDGE

"Crenelate the edge of buildings with places that invite people to stop. Make places that have depth and a covering, places to sit, lean, and walk, especially at those points along the perimeter which look onto interesting outdoor life."

Inside, well, it takes a pro to present the inside in pictures. Blayne's listing pictures are the best substitute to being there.

My very favorite indoor space? The downstairs kitchen is the headquarters for a family space where children and their parents can pleasantly run amok.

Many thanks to Beacham And Company Realtors and the the gracious homeowners for a wonderful evening. Thanks to Greg Palmer of Harrison Design Associates for these up-lit columns in antis on the pool house.


Bravo and thanks again.

Cote's Kitchen Problem

Hooked on Houses is hosting her "Hooked on Fridays" blog party; I hope y'all will click here and have look. This week I'm hooked on kitchen psychology.

Joni at Cote de Texas is bucking the open kitchen trend. Well she is. If you don't believe me, listen (again) to the latest at the Skirted Roundtable: "Blogging and Design with Susan Serra, CKD." It's not the first time she has let this slip out.

We all want our real estate ads to be proud of us. Don't we?

Honestly, who doesn't want an open plan and granite and 10' ceilings and stainless and farmhouse sinks and sconces and chandeliers and... for our kitchen? At the Architecture Tourists' house we at least have an open plan and it worked very well on Independence Day.



So what can WE do to help Joni. I don't think she feels the least bit guilty about it.

In this very polite universe of design blogging a bucked trend or a critical comment is a delightful breath of fresh air. So I'm helping Joni by saying big thank you.

TV shows, magazines, the books, and the blogs can make design fans feel very small, very dated, very out of style, very poor, and worst of all, very un-cool.

I decided to followup with a little reading in "A Pattern Language: Towns, Buildings, Construction." There is quite a bit about kitchen psychology. Try this pattern. I'm teasing you with a few quotes.

139. Farmhouse Kitchen

"In many cases, especially in houses, the heart of this common area is a kitchen or an eating area since shared food has more capacity than almost anything to be the basis for communal feelings."

But Joni specifically mentioned caterers and wanting to keep the mess away from guests.

"The isolated kitchen, separate from the family and considered as an efficient but unpleasant factory for food is a hangover from the days of servants."

The Architecture Tourists will volunteer anytime anywhere to test the "unpleasant days of servants." A bit of history:

"...in the middle class housing of the nineteenth century, where the use of servants became rather widespread, the pattern of the isolated kitchen also spread, and became an accepted part of any house. But when the servants disappeared, the kitchen was still left separate, because it was thought "genteel" and "nice" to eat in dining rooms away from any sight or smell of food. The isolated kitchen was still associated with those houses of the rich, where dining rooms like this were taken for granted."

"...there is in this kind of plan still the hidden supposition that cooking is a chore and that eating is a pleasure."

Well maybe I can help. I think maybe some folks need both a family kitchen and a catering kitchen.

If you can find A Pattern Language you might check these 2 other kitchen patterns.

147. Communal Eating

"Without communal eating, no human group can hold together."

182. Eating Atmosphere

"Put a light over the table to create a pool of light over the group...(so that it) lights up people's faces and is a focal point for the whole group, then a meal can become a special thing indeed..."

Thanks,
Terry

P.S. Did you get the word about wearing blue?

Window pleasures, window design patterns

"But it is just this refinement, down to the last foot, even to the last inch or two, which makes an immense difference. " - see Pattern 221 at the end of this post.

I first mentioned this teardown in May. This is one of my very favorite construction projects. It's not an intellectual thing, but I might eventually find words to explain it.


It's by Rutledge Alcock Architects, Decatur, Georgia.

I talked with principal Andy Rutledge today. Andy says there is a lot more goodness yet to come. He's keeping a special eye on it as well he should. It's in a prominent place on one of Atlanta's great streets. It can only be seen in context with it's neighbors. There is no hiding, no separation as there might be on an estate lot. This is Morningside.

Oh those windows: the Auburn "School" filters Lutyens. My architect friend Carl Bridgers told me that is it doesn't feel good during construction, it probably won't feel good when it's completed. This is feeling good right now.

Remember?




Have a look now. Window pane heaven.


The driveway facade faces north-northeast. The light will be indirect and diffuse reducing shadows and glare. Recesses and bump outs will maximize light in the interior. There are plenty of niches and bumps on the south side too.



Now that I've done a mind-meld with A Pattern Language: Towns, Buildings, Construction by Christopher Alexander, Sara Ishikawa, and Murray Silverstein, these come to mind:

159. LIGHT ON TWO SIDES OF EVERY ROOM
When they have a choice, people will always gravitate to those rooms which have light on two sides, and leave the rooms which are lit only from one side unused and empty.

164. STREET WINDOWS
A street without windows is blind and frightening. And it is equally uncomfortable to be in a house which bounds a public street with no window at all on the street.

192. WINDOWS OVERLOOKING LIFE
Rooms without a view are prisons for the people who have to stay in them.

222. LOW SILL
One of a window's most important functions is to put you in touch with the outdoors. If the sill is too high, it cuts you off.

239. SMALL PANES
When plate glass windows became possible, people thought that they would put us more directly in touch with nature. In fact, they do the opposite.

They alienate us from the view. The smaller the windows are, and the smaller the panes are, the more intensely windows help connect us with what is on the other side. This is an important paradox...

This one is quite challenging in our value engineering environment---
221. NATURAL DOORS AND WINDOWS
Finding the right position for a window or a door is a subtle matter. But there are very few ways of building which take this into consideration.

In our current ways of building, the delicacy of placing a window or a door has nearly vanished. But it is just this refinement, down to the last foot, even to the last inch or two, which makes an immense difference. Windows and doors which are just right are always like this. Find a beautiful window. Study it. See how different it would be if its dimensions varied a few inches in either direction.

I'm really enjoying this one.

Patterns: Windows, Thresholds, Snakes

Hooked on Houses is hosting her "Hooked on Fridays" blog party; I hope y'all will click here and have look.

This week. I'm hooked on 3 Atlanta bloggers. Things That Inspire and Tara Dillard brought some clarity to my fuzzy thinking. I enjoy finding simple ideas and metaphors that help me understand design.

New Atlanta blogger Dan Curl gave me a scare and some good advice. (see below)

This post is not about cats: This picture is in memory of Lilly the cat who did her best to make our family room look good.

Have you seen Things That Inspire's last 2 posts fantastic posts on windows? We Architecture Tourists notice windows before we notice decor. If the architecture is wrong, it's hard to overcome with decor.

Her latest post, "Light on Two Sides" illustrates Design Pattern 159. LIGHT ON TWO SIDES OF EVERY ROOM. Inspire and I had been discussing the design patterns "off-blog." Many of "Inspire's" commenters talked about the trade off: more windows mean less wall space.

That rang my bell. We have a lot windows.

Our designer friend Gordon always bugs us to put something interesting outside the windows: Something to pull the outside in and the inside out. And whatever is outside needs to be lit because a window at night is just a black shiny thing.

If the windows take up decorative indoor wall space, put decorative items outside the windows. The effect extends your room. I think I've got the idea but I'm unable to explain it very well.

So this week I discover Atlanta blogger Tara Dillard and have one of those slap my forehead moments. Tara's term for the idea is "Vanishing Thresholds" the merging of indoors and outdoor design. Go over to Tara's site. She explains it better than I can.

If you are a fan of "A Pattern Lauguage" you'll apprecitate Tara's implicit understanding of several patterns:

106. POSITIVE OUTDOOR SPACE
111. HALF-HIDDEN GARDEN
112. ENTRANCE TRANSITION
115. COURTYARDS WHICH LIVE
160. BUILDING EDGE

Warning:
Dan Curl's brother was bitten by a Copperhead Snake in an upscale Atlanta suburban subdivision. He was just taking a walk on the sidewalk after dinner. He's OK. Dan interviewed his brother in the hospital. Be more careful out there. I sure am. As near as I can tell, Dan is Atlanta first blogging home inspector. He was an "eco-inspector" before it was cool.

Here is a picture to honor Things that Inspire's "Light on 2 sides" post. These are some of our corner windows. We didn't realize it until we moved back in, but this room has north, south, east, and west facing windows. Most face north and east, the Palladian faces east. I'm not sure how Bill did it but I know he did it on purpose. I'm sure he knew we'd eventually catch on.



Thanks for coming by and please check out all the bloggers at Hooked on Houses' "Hooked on Fridays" blog party.

Foyers - wasted space, psychologcal boost, or what?

Hooked on Houses is hosting her "Hooked on Friday's" blog party: today I'm hooked my foyer. I'll show you some pictures and make some points from A Pattern Language. Got your copy out? OK. Turn to Pattern 130, ENTRANCE ROOM and follow along. For you floor plan nuts - like me - I've got some for you. If you know Flicker, click the pictures and make them bigger.

Today I'll show you my foyer. It's a good one but why? Come on in.



Well, you can't come in quite yet. What does Pattern 130 say?

"Arriving in a building, or leaving it, you need a room to pass through, both inside the building and outside it. This is the entrance room. "

In fact before our renovation, the entrance room was somewhere else. We bulldozed our enclosed porch to make a new foyer:



Here is the plan for our new foyer. When I first saw it, my brain said, "look at all that wasted space" and "why the heck do we need with a powder room?" The pros, Bill Harrison, Gordon, and Susan, told me to just go with it. They were so right.



Here is another peek at the real thing:



It's pretty but what about the physical space? From A Pattern Language:

"(a) Politeness demands that when someone comes to the door, the door is opened wide.

"(b) People seek privacy for the inside of their houses.

"(c) The family, sitting, talking, or at table, do not want to feel disturbed or intruded upon when someone comes to the door."

Once inside you can gather yourself to make your grand entrance to the main living area. Here you are looking to the left, towards the power room and kitchen. The purple hall leads to the laundry and kids' rooms.



Turning right there is a zen view into our jungle-office (library on the floor plan). We just call it the green room for our painted grass-cloth walls. It is a wonderful room that deserves it's own post some day, and maybe a picture without office supplies.



Another quote from A Pattern Language:

"Make the inside of the entrance room zigzag, or obstructed, so that a person standing on the doorstep of the open door can see no rooms inside, except the entrance room itself, nor through the doors of any rooms."

We certainly have the zigs, zags, and diagonals. They are unexpected and give you a strong sense of passage. You aren't traveling far but the scenery is changes with every step.

Head left and wave to the cook.



Southern hospitality requires that we offer you a moment freshen up. Who left that seat up!!!



Hearing the guests arrive, the cook can peek out and say hello.



Ready? Come on in and join us in the family room.



I know it's late and you have other blogs to visit.

What does A Pattern Language say about leaving?

"When hosts and guests are saying goodbye, the lack of a clearly marked 'goodbye' point can easily lead to endless 'Well, we really must be going now?' and then further conversations lingering on, over and over again.

"(a) Once they have finally decided to go, people try to leave without hesitation.

"(b) People try to make their goodbye as nonabrupt as possible and seek a comfortable break"

Michelle at A Schematic Life has a great post today about A Pattern Language.

I'm so happy you dropped in.

Best wishes,
Terry