Mr. Smith Goes to Washington

I'm currently in Washington DC for the AIA Grassroots national leadership conference. I spent the morning in a seminar regarding the upcoming International Green Construction Code. Have listened to congressional speakers on the economy, Haiti reconstruction via the state department, and spent the evening touring the city around the White House, Washington Monument, and other monuments.


Sight seeing is done for the evening; I'm off to turn out a late-night preliminary design. Stay Tuned!

Pascucci Marble & Granite Facility

The new Pascucci Marble & Granite facility is finished and open for business. The 22,000 square foot building houses their new tile and countertop showroom, offices, and warehouse space for the stone slabs, including a 5 ton bridge crane. They're located at 4260 Broadmoor, just north of 44th street.

The base value of architecture...

In Shanghai, a 13 story apartment building literally fell over on it's face. Apparently they used inadequate pilings and liquefied the soil via the excavation. "Large quantities of earth were removed and dumped in a landfill next to a nearby creek; the weight of the earth caused the river bank to collapse, which, in turn, allowed water to seep into the ground, creating a muddy foundation for the building that toppled."

Architecture in the US is so good at the fundamentals of construction that the discussion of the value of architecture often surrounds topics such as style, design, tectonics, being green, etc.
But when an event like this happens, it's a very straightforward reminder of the core value of architecture. Architects are licensed under oath to protect the "Health, Safety, and Welfare of the Public" so that our buildings don't end up like this one.

Full Story Here from the Wall Street Journal

The One Percent.org

Maxam Architecture has joined "The One Percent.org" A site dedicated to connecting architects with non-profit organizations in need of pro-bono work. From their website...

"If every architecture professional in the U.S. committed 1% of their time to pro bono service, it would add up to 5,000,000 hours annually - the equivalent of a 2,500-person firm, working full-time for the public good."

I'm looking forward to opportunities to do some good with these organizations and work on unique projects and designs I might not otherwise get the opportunity to implement and express.

A peek at the drafting board... Dental Building

A peek at the drafting board... Office Building

Happy Holidays from Maxam Architecture!

I stopped believing in Santa Claus when I was six. Mother took me to see him in a department store and he asked for my autograph.
-- Shirley Temple

Christmas gift suggestions: To your enemy, forgiveness. To an opponent, tolerance. To a friend, your heart. To a customer, service. To all, charity. To every child, a good example. To yourself, respect.
-- Oren Arnold

In the old days, it was not called the Holiday Season; the Christians called it 'Christmas' and went to church; the Jews called it 'Hanukka' and went to synagogue; the atheists went to parties and drank. People passing each other on the street would say 'Merry Christmas!' or 'Happy Hanukkah!' or (to the atheists) 'Look out for the wall!'"
-- Dave Barry "Christmas Shopping: A Survivor's Guide"

And the Grinch, with his Grinch-feet ice cold in the snow, stood puzzling and puzzling, how could it be so? It came without ribbons. It came without tags. It came without packages, boxes or bags. And he puzzled and puzzled 'till his puzzler was sore. Then the Grinch thought of something he hadn't before. What if Christmas, he thought, doesn't come from a store? What if Christmas, perhaps, means a little bit more?
-- Dr. Seuss

Industrial Office Building - Variations on a design

Lesson: Design Fail Floathouse

Good design starts with good diagnosis and solving problems at the appropriate level. Recently the 'Float House' designed by UCLA students taught by Thomas Mayne of Morphosis has been getting a lot of attention from the media. The basic premise is that it's a sustainable eco-friendly house that can float in case of a flood. It's built in New Orleans lower 9th ward which was devastated by Hurricane Katrina. Apparently this is in conjunction with Brad Pitts efforts and advocacy organization Make It Right to promote sustainable affordable housing for lower 9th ward residents.

I admire the effort, aesthetics, and good intention of the design; however anyone who lost a yacht or houseboat in Katrina can tell you that simple buoyancy doesn't make a house able to survive that sort of natural disaster. Plenty of boats are totaled in hurricanes, and they're certainly better designed to handle high winds, waves, and overturning than a boxy yet buoyant house.

So is this good design or just good sounding intentions? Beware sweet sounding design speak and sleek imagery. Ultimately the lower 9th wards problem is one of geography and urban planning. The lesson here is that good design solves problems on the appropriate level. In Michigan we simply don't build below the 100 year floodplain level. It's a regional solution to a regional problem enforced by zoning and DEQ policy. Solve urban planning issues on the level of urban planning, architectural problems at the level of architecture, and interior design problems at the level of interior design. Anything else is a band-aid over a bullet wound which won't solve, but merely hide the real problem.

Trends Magazine

The Waalkes home is going to be featured in an upcoming issue of Trends Magazine, a New Zeeland based international publication for kitchen, furniture and home design. Can't wait to see it go to press.

Heritage Hill Porch

Construction photo's of a little project to rebuild a curved porch at 312 Lyon in Heritage Hill. Nice work by contractor Paul McGuinness.

New Website Launched!

The new and improved Maxam Architecture website is live! New features include an updated portfolio, the "Ask the Architect" section, and "New Project Starter Forms" where the basic questions to get a new project underway are available in an easy web form.

Option 1 Credit Union: Under Construction

Drawings are complete and construction has begun for the Option 1 Credit Union project with First Companies. It's a new tenant improvement for an Option 1 branch in the Metro Health Village. Stay tuned for future updates as the project is completed.

Young Designers

Rachel VanDyke asked me to be the guest critic for her Design II students at Northpoint Christian High. They did a unit on Architecture, with an assignment to design theoretical homes. They had some excellent work, both with their physical and computer models. We met at mid-term and for their final critique. It was great to see how their work and their thinking about the projects developed. Here are a few images from the final critique. Congratulations to all the students on their work; and to Rachel for doing an excellent job of teaching a very challenging subject.

Theorycraft: Architecture and Superstimuli

Earlier today I watched a TED talk by philosopher and cognitive scientist Dan Dennett. He was lecturing on the evolution of cute, sexy, sweet, and funny. The basic premise is that these qualities are not inherent in the object that is cute, say for example a baby, but that we have evolved to believe babies are cute because it is evolutionarily advantageous for our species to find babies cute. The value is assigned by us onto the object. This is why babies are cute and cake is sweet.

This line of thinking meshes quite well with what author Daniel Harris posits in the book Cute, Quaint, Hungry, and Romantic: The Aesthetic of Consumerism. We have certain mental symbols that act as triggers for these qualities. Babies have disproportionately large eyes and large heads. Therefore cartoon characters drawn with similar features are perceived as cute by us. So back to Dan Dennetts lecture, where he talks about 'supernormal stimulus.' He gives the example of gulls who have small orange spots on the end of their beaks. Baby gulls know to peck that orange spot on the end of moms beak to get fed. The orange spot is a stimulus. If experimenters paint that orange spot 10 times larger, then the gulls in reaction will peck 10 times more fervently for food. In effect, they have 'hacked' that normal stimulus to create a 'supernormal stimulus' for the baby birds.

This leads us to the application of these observations to architecture. If a client wants to build a 'cute cottage', then there are architectural ques that function as normal stimulus for that 'cuteness.' What are those ques, and more importantly how can they be turned into 'supernormal stimulus' to create the sort of design that truly moves and overwhelms the observer? If a white picket fence is a symbol for quaint hominess, then would a scaled up white fence, taller with wider with 2x6 pickets, elicit a supernormal reaction; making you feel proportionately like a young child next to it? If a front door is a symbol of welcome, then would a wider front door, with exaggerated surrounding trim and a large scale knocker provide an even greater sense of welcome? If a roof overhang is sheltering, then extra large roof overhangs ought to provide all the more sense of shelter. It seems to be a basis for a design aimed at hacking those conditioned associations. Over the next week I'll explore these concepts in paintings leading to a prototype cottage design. As Dan Dennit posits, sweetness is evolved due to the advantage of high energy foods like apples, and double decadent chocolate cake is the super stimulus that takes advantage of those evolved associations. Then what architecture superstimulus leads to the chocolate cake of cottage design? Can the associations of home design be hacked to create a design that is super-appealing and overwhelms the sense of hominess in the same way that chocolate cake hacks the evolutionary preference for higher energy foods like apples? What would such a house look like?

Construction started at O'Brien residence.

The O'Brien house is starting to take shape. Here is the 'before shot' and the current state of construction. You can see how much difference adding overhangs did for the existing dormers. The old side porch addition has been torn off, and the foundation is in and basement walls of the new addition are up. Also notice how much better the house looks without it's shutters, even though it doesn't yet have siding.

Waalkes House

The remodel of the Waalkes home is finially finished up, with great results!

Maxam Architecture featured in Rapid Growth

Rapid Growth, a great local e-zine that covers Grand Rapids development news, featured me in an article this week.







Click to read.

Banking On It...

My lastest design challenge involves a new financial branch. I have to keep the 'who' anonymous at this stage, but it's good to see there is a financial institution in the area who is looking to expand, despite the credit crunch. I'm developing both a modern and traditional scheme. I definitely prefer the more modern design, and would love to see it done as a LEED-certified project. Either way, I hope that this project ultimately gets the green light. Click the images for a closer look, and leave your thoughts in the comment box.



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Crescent Electric

I recently completed drawings for the Crescent Electric project. Crescent Electric Supply Co. is a national distributer or electrical, automation, and voice data products. Their new facility in Holland is being built by Lakewood Construction and is scheduled to be completed by spring. The facility is a 15,000 square foot building with a 3,500 square foot office and showroom; 11,500 sf warehouse and 2,000 sf mezzanine. Crescent Electric was founded in 1919 and is one the largest electrical distributors in the US.