Blog trouble and houses

I was beginning to panic. I tried to post my Friday afternoon article about 10 times on Friday, starting about 3:30 PM when I completed it, until about 10:00 PM that evening. I kept getting connection timeouts when trying to FTP to my website host. Who knows where the problem was, all I know is that it didn't work.

Truthfully, I completely forgot about the blog because I got completely engrossed in "decorating" my latest house design. I've taken the "Suburban Contemporary" template and made a 3 story "Prairie" style house with it. As it seems, just when you think you've taken a design idea as far as it can go, you find you can go (at least) one step further. Then again, I'm only talking about this design because I really, really like it. As a form and a structure it has great curb appeal. On the inside I've gone to a new level in interior decoration. There are more moldings, wainscoting, and detailed ceilings than I've done on any house design, so far. All my painstaking work on the Sears houses is paying off in a much improved technique. I feel much more comfortable in assembling a legitimate "turn-of-the-century" look and feel.

Speaking of the Sears Modern Homes, I found some (small) color palettes for Craftsman bungalows that date from the 1910's (or so). Very nice colors, and very authentic looking, as if I had been alive back then to even know what colors were in common usage. I'm "old", but I'm not that old. Not even close.

I have also visited my early childhood home (well, driven by, anyway). It was at least 40 years old when my parents moved into it back in 1956, or so. Maybe 1957 (I should ask them when it was, exactly). Suffice it to say, I can remember being inside that house in the upstairs hallway at a time when we didn't live there. How young can you remember things, coherently? My guess is I might have been just shy of two. But, I digress.

The house in Grandview, a suburb of Columbus, OH (in whose metro area I live), is no longer white. It's yellow, now. They also made the front porch into a sunroom and extended the porch upwards to the second floor where there is a second story porch. When I was a kid the front porch was just like what we see on all those Sears houses. Open, but covered by a roof. Oddly enough, the strange small detached garage is still there, and still strange, small and detached. It's just yellow now, like the house. Seems I also remember that the side porch has been changed. I don't remember if the roof was a shed or gable dormer, but it doesn't look familiar, anymore. Oh, and they put in a large window in the back of the dining room I'm sure wasn't there, before.

My point in all this rambling is that I'd like to model that house, and try to show it as it was back before all these changes were done to "ruin" it. Of course I can't be sure of the dimensions, but I do know how many rooms it had, and where the rooms were, too. My parents, as well, should be able to help me with the layout, but I sort of doubt the current owners would be willing to let me traipse through the house taking measurements. Doesn't seem likely. I may have to guess.

Admittedly the house isn't very unusual or unique, but it is 90 years old, so it easily fits in with all the Sears houses. Of course, it's not the only house of its kind in the neighborhood, either. There are examples of all the popular house styles (Craftsman bungalows being particularly popular in the area). I have photographs of many of the better ones. Yes, we took a walking tour of the neighborhood one warm, sunny afternoon, and I snapped pictures from the sidewalk.

On a final note, I remember mentioning Suburban Contemporary #13. It's finished, all but the renderings. But those ... those are taking forever. I'm trying to get the lighting and shadows to look right, but even then, it has taken almost 2 hours (and several attempts) to get a single rendering to look right. And even then, I was forced to turn shadowing off for a couple of the images. I just couldn't get the program to make them look good. I have about 10 images left to go, and then I can publish the results. There are a lot of images for this house because this design has a lot of things I want to show. There are 5 or 6 images in the master bath, alone, I think. Just wait, things are starting to get good!

That's all for tonight. I'm going off to bed. Tomorrow is a work day.

Where does the time go?

I just noticed that it's been almost a month since I lasted posted to the blog, and I thought, "Gee, I wonder if I should write an entry, today?" So I am.

Since we last talked I've added a bunch of pages to the How to Design Houses section on the website. Much of the content surrounds how to make the HomeDesigner program do what we want it to do, but at the same time I do discuss some of the design process used to arrive at the final design. Perhaps not as much design discussion as we would like, but ...

I have also been finished my second Sears Modern Home (No. 146), and have started 2 others. I also bought some books on construction details (especially interior details) that were originally published in the 1910's and 20's. Invaluable when it comes to modeling these historic houses, especially when it comes to the details. As they say, the devil is in the details.

Not only that, but I am nearly finished producing renderings for "Suburban Contemporary #13", which is a very nice design, indeed. There are a few flaws (lack of storage space being one), but overall it is a very pleasing and coherent design. I spent extra effort modeling the unusual master bath, and when I get the renderings produced, I will be posting the completed design.

In addition to the above (as if that weren't enough) I have made substantial progress on 4 more "tract house" designs, which I intend to post when they are done. These designs don't take nearly as long to do as some of the others, mainly because they are so conventional and standard, but that doesn't mean they can't be good designs with desirable characteristics. Perhaps for some of the audience, they might have a bit more relevance than some of the more exotic and/or unique designs I tend to do.

Oh, and I have added another tract house design that's also nearly done. With this one I plan to show 3 or 4 alternate floor plan variations, and discuss the relative pros and cons of each. One really big flaw that exists in the current design is the lack of storage space and the lack of access to a basement. Of course I have some ideas for fixing the storage space problem, but unless I move the stairs (or take up space somewhere else in the house) there's no place for basement stairs. As I said, it's a problem.

On a different topic, when I began modeling the Sears houses I wasn't really sure what I expected to accomplish. I did a design initially because I thought it was an interesting house, and because I thought I could reproduce some of the exterior details fairly accurately. At the least, it would be a learning experience, of a sort. Well, what I've discovered is that these designs represent the modern standards of their day. Most of the designs were intended to be both practical and attractive, and they serve as a baseline and direct descendent to the houses of today. It's apparent that some of today's more typical designs do not take into account the practicalities that even these 100-year-old designs do. The designs on the Internet are mostly complete garbage. Not all garbage, but mostly garbage.

I don't think it's necessarily the architect who has forgotten the past or the need to mix reality (practicality) with beauty, it's everyone else who produces houses and house designs who has never studied design or looked back to the road down which we all have come. There is much to be learned by studying these old house designs. Not that we want to necessarily duplicate them, but that we need to know now what we knew then, so we can avoid making the same (and some newer) mistakes.

I recently read an article (on the web) published by an architect who (essentially) blasted the housing market, today. In particular he had harsh words for all the "marble barns" he sees being produced. Yes. Giant edifices of glitz and glitter with no thought behind them. Interestingly, I read similar sentiments by architects that were written around the turn of the century (the turn of the century - 1, i.e.: 1900, or so) decrying the state of house design of that time (or the recent past) that accused architects and house designers of relying too much on "pastiche" (ornament and decoration), and not enough on the fundamentals of house design. They were promoting the Craftsman and/or Prairie ideals in contrast to the much more ornamental Victorian style(s). I do have to agree that the Queen Anne Victorian style prevalent in the late 1880's and 1890's was very much more centered on the decorative. As in anything, we have come full circle, once again.

Going back to the recent article I read, the author was discussing that architects today have not been schooled in the classics; the fundamentals of architectural design that go as far back as the Egyptians (or more recently, the Greeks and the Romans). Much of European architecture derives from the Romans, with homage to the Greeks. His point was that in order to produce a truly "period" house design (let's say Tudor, or perhaps more recently Georgian/Colonial), the designer must understand and know what the designer of the time knew. Architects (and the much less astute--the housing contractors and housing companies of today) are not properly trained. To many current designers (and I am no less accountable for being igorant of the past), the Georgian style merely means a certain style of roof, exterior, and perhaps windows. It might also mean a symmetric facade, but beyond that a Georgian style house today could be converted to Mediterranean by simply replacing the brick with stucco and the roof to Spanish tile. Needless to say, there is more difference between the two styles, than that. There really is no such thing as authenticity. Not today.

We also suffer from a penchant for pastiche that's just as jaded and faded as the Victorian style was when FLW started making all those low, clean, simple (but effective) Prairie designs. Too bad for us, but the Modern movement has come and given way to the Post-Modern movement, and even that has given way to ... well, who knows what. We're simply eating our own tail, and not really progressing at all. At least in the popular housing industry, all we are making are the so-called "marble barns" (and not even composed of marble, at all).

I don't beat myself up about this, too much. I design software for a living, and that is my expertise. I am well-founded in that art and science, and I continue to develop my knowledge. I am old enough to have developed software the "old fashioned way", so even my approach in the new object-oriented world is tempered by the knowledge of how to write straightforward procedural logic. Yes, for me OO is new. But, back to the point: I am a child when it comes to architectural design, and I am making many mistakes and repeating the mistakes I have seen in other designers. But, I am thinking about it, though, and I am learning what I can as I go along. I get better, and my designs get better. I'm studying the history of architecture, and trying to learn what I can about how we came to be where we are.

And that's how it is.