Ebbie Azimi

BOX V

Dana,

I would be glad to look over oyur work.  Please provide me the link to your website.

Thank you for your kind notes.

OZARAKHSH

Ok here are the final pictures of the design.

A non denominational center for peace and meditation.

OZARAKHSH= (1)Lightning bolt. (2) Tueseday nights when the ghallandars gather to meditate.

The site:

Philosophies of Frank Lloyd Wright and I

My thoughts on a few
Lectures by Frank Lloyd Wright 

(C) (Copy Right Protected)

I have read a few of Frank Lloyd Wrights lectures and will try to open some of his quotes within the lectures as to how his words relate to designing the way he did.

“In the realm of Ideas”
1930 Lecture

“An Idea is Salvation by Imagination.”

I don’t think we can disagree that, a good idea is one that helps put 2 and 2 together with less energy.  The idea might not be new, and it might be obvious to everyone after the fact.  But an idea comes only to an aware mind; a mind that is thoughtful of its environment, a personality that sees and questions why, one that is always trying to improve. 

  “I loved the prairie by instinct as a great simplicity, the trees and flowers, the sky itself, thrilling by contrast.”

Have you not felt the thrill of contrast?  Nature gets thrills by contrasts.  It’s the yin and yang.  Whenever they meet the contrast is felt and thrill is experienced; Male and Female, cold and warm, electrons and protons, the stars and the black holes.  Within their time and for their location, the result of the meeting of contrasting things will be thrilling.  The studio at Taliesin West with hard desert masonry and a light, flexible canvas roof is thrilling.  The Guggenheim Museum in NY is thrilling (a sphere in the land of cubes).  The central park in NY is thrilling (a flat open space within the most densely populated area on earth).  Life on Earth is thrilling.  So whenever I design and think I need to excite and energize the space, I will introduce contrasts.

“…why not a larger application of this element of plasticity (referring to Louis Sullivan’s fondness in using “plasticity” as a word to describe his own scheme) considered as continuity in the building itself? –Why any principle working in the part if not working in the whole?”

This is about how a design incorporates all of its parts to make the whole.  The building shall use all its parts to bring to life a whole.  The Architecture shall be integrated with its structure as is the body to its bones:
“Integration means that nothing is of any great value except as naturally related to the whole.”

As roots relate to keeping the tree up, and leaves that facilitate in photosynthesis; a good design should incorporate its smallest parts to give viability to the bigger picture.  If the bigger picture does not relate to the part, and a fragment is present then we should discard it as irrelative to the design.  This process is called “constructive elimination”.
“The ideal of “Organic Simplicity”, seen as the countenance of perfect integration, abolished all fixtures, rejected all superficial decoration, made al electric lighting and heating features an integral part of the architecture.  So far as possible all furniture was to be designed in place as part of the Architecture.  … any failure of this particular feature of the original scheme often crippled results, –made trouble in this plan of constructive elimination.”
“A different choice of materials would mean a different scheme altogether.”

“The building now became a creation of interior space in light.”

“Significance as new … This new significance repudiates the sentimentality of any symbol; looks the philosophic abstraction full in the eye for the impostor it usually is; reads its lessons directly from the book of creation itself, and despises all that lives either ashamed or afraid to live as itself, for what it is or may become because of its own nature.”

This is to use materials with the original form they are naturally and/or manufactured.  We should do our best not use paint on surfaces, as this will become an untrue expression of the material.  If the choice of material is incorrect then the whole design is flawed.  The significance of an Organic design is that all of its elements are related to the whole.  This is to say that the choice of the building material will have great weight on the method of construction which is a big part of bringing to life the thing that we have designed.  Again, we start form the local capabilities for construction and how contractors work.  Then we try to push them a level higher into what we can see them do.  Within this we will have to choose a material that is acquaint with the natural environment and also in which the methods of use are achievable.  This is when we will have realized the first guidelines to our design. (1)

(1)  Emphasized on page 5 “… the fist great necessity of a modern architecture …“

“To the Young Man in Architecture”
1931 Lecture

“Propagandists, pro and con, classify old as new and new as old.  Historians tabulate their own oblique inferences as fact.”

This is to confirm my wife’s recent conversation with Professor Michael Boyle (teaches in ASU).  Professor Boyle believed that no Architect had come out of Taliesin due to Apprenticeship with Frank Lloyd Wright.  Well, my wife brought up a couple of names of Registered Architects and then some very well known Architects that did not have an Architectural degree before they came to Taliesin and after they left they had come up with great designs, such as “John Lautner” that came to Taliesin with an English degree and left to become one of the very well known Architects on the West Coast.  To her surprise the historian jumped into his ego and sunk down into his dump of recollections of books he had researched and came up with the conclusion “madam … I am a professor in history and a researcher.  You are not, and thus you are not in a position to argue with me.”  I know it takes a blind man or a professor of History to say such a thing, but this went to verify what Frank Lloyd Wright had said.
Also I have heard Michael Johnson say a similar thing.  Once your work is complete, hire the best Architectural photographer to make your work look like a jewel.  It does not matter what it really is.  It matters what it looks like in the picture of the magazine.

“But confusion of ideas is unnatural waste of purpose.”

“Too many notes” was the criticism given to Mozart.  To many ideas coming into one project can become very distracting, especially when they do not radiate from the same central philosophy.  A Spanish colonial house mixed with modern windows and spaces with an English landscaping theme.  If you have not seen this blob of space please go to the Chapel of the Holy Cross in Sedona and while looking down from the terrace in front of the Chapel towards South S-W you will see a the peak of confusion in design.
Starting as a new apprentice during the charrettes we did, I would introduce into my design many different and good ideas; but since they were not anchored to a central ideology the design looked busy or out of place.  I have come to realize that a good design will have many great ideas that are driven out of the most basic philosophy of the design and which brings continuity to the Architecture.(2)
(2) Refer to page 6 “Internal disorder is architectural disease …”

“But today because of scientific attainment the modern more clearly perceives beauty as integral order; order divined as an image by human sensibility; order apprehended by reason, executed by science. … With integral order once established you may perceive the rhythm of consequent harmony.  To be harmonious is to be beautiful in a rudimentary sense:…”

If it is not beautiful it is no worth it.  The meaning of beautiful today is the perception of the viewer (client) of the harmonious rhythm.  Since more and more of the clients are people with simple views and its not like the old days where the clients were dukes and kings with complicated lives; the Architect must look for simplifying and should hesitate in the use of arbitrary ornamentation, and try to use the structural elements in a manner that brings the Natural beauty of the thing out; a design that looks like the Maple leaf, where the structure and the skin are interrelated and viewable with the naked eye. 

“Therefore the fist great necessity of a modern architecture is the keen sense of order as integral.  That is to say the form itself in orderly relationship with purpose or function: the parts themselves in order with the form: the materials and methods of work in order with both: a kind of natural integrity,-the integrity of each in all and all in each.  This is the exacting new order.” (1)

(1) Refer to page 3 “ … despises all that lives either ashamed or afraid to live as itself …“

Integral ornament as seen in the “Hillside Studio” and the “Robert’s room” ceiling is: the integration of beams/trusses, in a sensible architectural pattern that is in harmony with the ceiling form, and which is a structural necessity to the whole.  This is beautiful.  When I look at Taliesin West, I see a continuity which inhales the natural environment and exhales as the buildings.  Taking in the surrounding stones and using them as walls is one of the examples of such integration.

“Internal disorder is architectural disease if not the death of architecture.” (2)

(2) Refer to page 5 “…Confusion of ideas…”

“Any Architect should be radical by nature because it is not enough for him to begin where others have left off.”

This goes to say that because one graduates form the school it does not mean they are good designers.  The methods that hey have learned become a big part of what they come to do afterwards.  Architecture students should start from the root and earn their way up to the top.  At Taliesin we start from living in a tent—the most basic way that man has come to live in a modern method—and then we design a larger shelter—which we might come to live in and experience it throughout our residency.  It is after the first year that we realize our shortcomings; in concept, design, material, methods, structure, construction, or …. Through this realization we grow under the supervision of the Fellowship to only strengthen our roots in the earth for a whole year and then to reach out of the ground, towards the sky with larger and more complex programs.

“… the working of principle in the direction of integral order is your only safe precedent.  So the actual business of your architectural schools should be to assist you in the perception of such order in the study of the various architectures of the world—otherwise schools exist to hinder and deform the young.”

Making integral order a primary design principle will help in reaching continuity.  It is within this method of thought that Organic Architecture can come to life.  I have found most of the recent designs from A.S.U. lack principals which help create true Architecture.  At most universities the thought process is to use cubes and to make it as logical as possible (blindly trying to follow the Bauhaus), with no consideration for Architectural spirituality.  Fragmented material choices, broken relations, and unsolved connections do not lead to happy forms.  If one is caught practicing in an environment that uses fragmented, broken, and unresolved relationships; then the result will come to be for that person to become fragmented, broken, and unresolved.

“But only a radical and rebellious spirit is sage in the schools we now have, and time spent there is time lost for such spirits.”

Being radical is going back to the roots of things.  I try to look with an angle that can view the most basic things.  If it’s the site that I look, it is the soil, sun, wind, and environment that I see first.  If it is a wall that I look, it is the time it was built, material choices, and spiritual relationship to the environment that I see first.  It is the relationship between parts and wholes that I first realize.

“But as a consequence of the little modern architecture we already have, young architects, whatever their years, will emerge with less and less punishment, emerge with far less anguish, … That generation will be less likely to advertise to posterity by its copied mannerisms or borrowed “styles” …”

I can see it at Taliesin, we do not hold responsible those whom lack principal and thus most go astray and fall off of the path.  Their designs are copies and lack originality.  They draw without consideration for spirituality.  Making forms rather than Spiritual Architecture, lecturing on old concepts as if it is their own, copying designs with minimal material change to show them as different; these students are stuck in the black-hole of the “modern style”.  “Neither old nor new, neither live nor quite dead.”  I can give credit to a passionate soul that confirms old ideas and designs on such, but I have no patience towards unscholarly behavior.

“To find out what he needs go whenever and wherever you can to the factories to study the process in relation to the product and go to the markets to study the reactions.  Study the machines that make the product what it is. … ideas with bad technique are abortions.”

Wood is a new material to me and I am glad I have been able to learn about wood first hand by working in the woodshop.  It is highly important that an Architect master the means and methods of materials.  Not many people know how to save money by proposing an easier method to the contractor.  This line of thought can only come from an experienced mind, one that knows what it takes to manufacture and build.  The combination of a great idea and bad implementation is bad Architecture.  Technical knowledge is a necessity for all Architects.  Art + Technique = Architecture

“I do not refer to the skyscraper in the rank and file as that something nor does the world refer to it, except as a stupendous adventure in the business of space-making for rent,-a monstrosity.”

Skyscrapers are not the solution and do not represent the cultural depth that an Architecture should.  Tall buildings are too regulated through insurance, financial feasibility, and structural necessities.  Thus they tend to look mostly like one another and do not relate to the surrounding environment.  Their impact on the immediate surroundings is of the highest importance: surrounding neighborhoods will change to serve a sky-scraper.  The infrastructure needed for a skyscraper city is very different to what exists today in most cities (public transportation, sewer system, roads/streets/alleys, water supply, emergency response, waste control).

“The future of architecture in America really lies with the well-to-do man of business,-the man of independent judgment and character of his own unspoiled by great financial success,-that is to say the man not persuaded, by winning his own game, that he knows all about everything else.”
“….direct people, who, loving America for its own sake, live their own lives quietly in touch with its manifold beauties,-blessed by comprehension of the ideal of freedom that founded this country.”

What make s a good client?  Frank Lloyd Wright emphasizes their characteristics:  directness, loving America for its own sake, living their own life, understanding what the founding fathers meant by “freedom”, and most importantly do not think of themselves as the “know it all” genius.  This eliminates contractors.  Contractors know it all, or at least most of them think they do.  I believe it is a good idea to start my carrier working with contractors and learn from them the market and the methods of the professional world.  But after I have sufficient marketing and technical knowledge things will change.

“The soul of that new life we are fond of calling American is liberty: liberty tolerant and so sincere that it must see all free or itself suffer.  This freedom is the highest American ideal.  To arraign it, then, is inner-experience, because there is no “exterior” freedom.  Freedom develops from within and is another expression of an integral order of the mind in high estate.  Freedom is impossible where discord exists either within or without.”
“…Architecture like freedom cannot be put on, it must be worked out from within.”

I would like to introduce you to how thoughts and philosophies relate to Architecture.  American Architecture will come to life out of American beliefs.  Here Frank Lloyd Wright speaks about Liberty, and freedom.  How do we present freedom in architecture?  One way is by breaking the box (open corners), freeing the interior of clutter and extra spaces are another way.  To achieve clutter free architecture we will have to look at details that integrate with the whole.  Getting rid of any part that is ashamed of being what it is in relation to the whole.  To have a democratic government would translate in Architecture as a building that grows out of its natural environment and is not ashamed to show itself as the thing it is.  Not lying under oath would suggest the usage of materials as they are, and prohibits the usage of paint for color.  Living in America has enabled me to express my self more clearly and I believe if any soul lives in an American Architecture, it will change for the better.  As an Architect our designs should help lives, improve understandings, and elevate spirits that pass through them.  I also have no doubt that many of America’s problems are derived from the lack of proper Architecture.  I have seen many free and liberal souls that live in the cookie cutter houses and after a while loose their inner fire, or add chocolate chips to the cookie to feel better.  I have also seen people that retire, move to a different city, and make the mistake of living in a house that does not represent their values; this all results in them un-retiring and going back to work because they cant stand staying a prisoner in that space.  One should look forward to going home and feel that home is a place where their spirits can fly.  Today most homes are only investments and a temporary shelter to most Americans. 

“It is evident that free Architecture must develop from within,-an integral, or as we now say in Architecture, an “Organic” affair.  For this reason if for no other reason modern Architecture can be no “mode” nor can it ever again be any “style”.”
“The building as Architecture is born out of the heart of man, permanent consort to the ground, comrade to the trees, true reflection of man in the realm of his own spirit.  His building is therefore consecrated space wherein he seeks refuge, recreation and repose for body but especially for mind.  So our machine-age building need no more look like machinery that machinery need look like buildings.”

This is a reminder to the designers, whom their livelihood is based on reviving the dead.  Their time is over and only imprisoned souls will request such buildings to be built.  I have seen contractors -that know clients, or the market- force such designs and commit a crime that is harsh on the owner but even worse for America.  People that build and live in such hoses are never happy with them and tend to change them not much after it is built.  Also one should allow playfulness into a design to ease the tension that exists in American daily interaction with machines.  After a hard days work, home should be a place as warm as a mothers hug, as safe as a fathers shoulders, and as lively as a lovers kiss.

“…, we must not dramatize the machine but dramatize the man.  You must work, young man in architecture, to lift the curse of the “appliance” either mechanical or sentimental form the life of today.
But this modern constructive endeavor is being victimized at the start by a certain new aesthetic wherein appearance is made as aim instead of character made a purpose.”

A bad character will be so even if they wear the finest suits in Europe.  Appliances only mask and are good for first impressions.  In the long run it is character that will win over everything else.  The Architect cannot dismiss the client’s individuality, in the creation of a distinguished design that matches its owner’s character.

“… Architecture is born, not made—must consistently grow from within to whatever it becomes.  Such forms as it takes must be spontaneous generation of materials, building methods and purpose. … Use and comfort in order to become Architecture must become spiritual satisfactions wherein the soul insures a more subtle use, achieves a more constant repose.  So, Architecture speaks as poetry to the soul.”

Whatever touches the soul makes a difference.  Food, scent, Art, and many other things find real value with someone that feels them deep within their soul.   Architecture must grow to touch the owner’s soul, and as such it will have to reflect the owner’s spirituality.  None of this can be achieved if the forms are not grown out of the life that will exist inside a space.  Growth insures certain continuity in parts that relate to the whole, which results in individuality.  Comparing “derived out of” to “growth” is like comparing mathematics to music; the same difference exists between the “Bauhaus” ideology and Frank Lloyd Wrights Philosophy.  Although one exists within the other, as does mathematics in music, it does not become the other due to the lack of soul.  The soul element is what makes it worth.  Architecture without soul is not worth anything.  Empty soul and illogical, “sprawls”—mentioned as “machine age commonplaces”—are  shortcuts that the blind driver of America’s future has taken, which is condemning Americans to a life of slavery for the machine.
“… these commonplaces transfigured and transformed by inner-fire to take their places in the immense vista of the ages as human masterpieces.  Such interpretation by inner fire as “character in the realm of Nature” is the work of the young man in Architecture.”

“We as Americans may have to submit to foolish experiments used in the American manner as “quick-turnover” propaganda”

“Architecture is the very body of civilization itself.  It takes time for it to grow, …”

“It is better for you to proceed from the generals to the particulars.  So do not rationalize from machinery to life.  Why not think form life to machines?”

Approaching a problem we are advised to start form generals (as when drawing a section of a complex building) and then proceed towards the particulars (drawing details).  Putting it in a very general form, the main starting point for a good design will be Nature.  Nature is the most general that exist within any Architectural problem.  As the details are terminal points that matter a lot we must not undermine the role of the machine; however the machine does not have a soul.  A formed material serves a logical method of attachment.  Starting with the details is beginning from the machine and would suggest writing a symphony by using math as the key.  Although not impossible, this kind of symphony becomes boring after a few times a sophisticated soul listens to it; and so is the faith of such Architecture. 

“The horizontal plane gripping all to earth comes into organic architecture to complete the sense of forms that do not “box up” contents but imaginatively express space.  This is modern.”

Usually the horizontal line limits the vertical view.  Framing the view is good but even better than that is opening the view to provide a sense of freedom.  Breaking the box is a very important part of a free Architecture.  If we can use the horizontal line to bring together the sky, ground, horizon, and the building, then we achieve something that is one with its surroundings, and feels like it belongs to its location. 

“In Organic Architecture the hard straight line breaks to the dotted line where stark necessity ends and thus allows appropriate rhythm to enter in order to leave suggestion its proper values.  This is Modern”

The definition of “line” is “the path traced by a moving point” this states that a line is made out of dots.  So, if a line were to grow it would do so out of dots.  In an Organic Architecture where everything grows; lines grow out of dots.  The growth rhythm is consisted of dots and empty spaces—just as music uses notes and the silent note.  At Taliesin West the camp grows out of the ground, starting from a low bearing wall, then a flat space (walking grounds) which follows with a higher element like a building.  This continuation and growth rhythm is one of many things that make this place modern.

“In Organic Architecture, any concept of any building as a building begins and goes forward to incidental expression as a picture and does not begin with some incidental expression as a picture and go groping backward.  This is modern.”

  The conceptual phase of a project must start form the center of our universe, which is Nature.  Without Nature nothing would exist and what good would the universe be if someone was not there to admire it.  Admiration that comes out of spiritual and logical understanding of Nature is our only rout to salvation.  Having a picture and trying to make that picture perfect—where the picture is not related to Nature—will result in going backward and deprivation of life.

“…, the enclosure is no longer found in terms of mere roof or walls but as “screened”—space.  This reality is modern”

The interior is no longer separated with walls.  Spaces are defined through spiritual characterization; a garden that can become one with the living room is a “Garden Room”, a kitchen that can become the dining room is an “Open Kitchen”.  Also structural elements must not become growth barriers.  The interior must be flexible and free.

“Organic buildings are the strength and lightness of the spiders’ spinning, buildings qualified by light, bred by native character to environment—married to the ground.”

An interior space must take light into itself as much as possible.  The sun-angles are what direct such decisions.  The qualifying factor is; not having the sun hit directly into an interior space unless necessary for the warmth and energy, but at the same time to allow enough light to shine into a space to allow life to continue during the day without artificial lighting.  Calculated glazing systems as walls and roofs help in achieving this goal. 
For the native environment to appreciate what lies on top of it, the building must use measures that grow out of the natural surroundings. 

“Meanwhile by way of parting moment with the young man in Architecture—this he should keep—concerning ways and means:
1. Forget the Architectures of the world except as something good in their way and time.
2. Do none of you go into Architecture to get a living unless you love architecture as a principle at work, for its own sake—prepared to be as true to it as to your mother, your comrade, or yourself.
3. Beware of the Architectural school except as the exponent of engineering.
4. Go into the field where you can see the machines and methods at work that make the modern buildings, or stay in construction direct and simple until you can work naturally into building-design from the nature of construction.
5. Immediately begin to form the habit of thinking “why” concerning any effects that please or displease you.
6. Take nothing for granted as beautiful or ugly, but take every building to pieces, and challenge every feature.  Learn to distinguish the curious from the beautiful.
7. Get the habit of analysis—analysis will in time enable synthesis to become your habit of mind.
8. “Think in Simples” as my old master used to say—meaning to reduce the whole to its parts in simplest terms, getting back to first principles.  Do this in order to proceed from generals to particulars and never confuse or confound them or yourself be confounded by them.
9. Abandon as poison the American idea of the “quick turnover.”  To get into practice “half-baked” is to sell out your birthright as an Architect for a mess of pottage, or to die pretending to be an Architect.
10. Take time to prepare.  Ten years’ preparation for preliminaries to Architectural practice is little enough for any Architect who would rise “above the belt” in true Architectural appreciation or practice.
11. Then go as far away as possible from home to build your first buildings.  The physician can bury his mistakes—but the Architect can only advise his client to plant vines.
12. Regards it as just as desirable to build a chicken-house as to build a cathedral.  The size of the project means little in Art, beyond the money-matter.  It is the quality of character that really counts.  Character may be large in the little or little in the large.
13. Enter no Architectural competition under any circumstances except as a novice.  No competition ever gave to the world anything worth having in Architecture.  The jury itself is a picked average.  The first thing done by the jury is to go through all the designs and throw out the best and the worst ones so as an average, it can average upon an average.  The net result of any competition is an average by the average of averages.
14. Beware of the shopper for plans.  The man who will not grubstake you in prospecting for ideas in his behalf will prove a faithless client.”

If you don’t get it … then you don’t get it.

“Planning Mans Physical Environment”
March 1947, Princeton

“…, I believe that were all education above the high school level suspended for ten years, humanity would get a better chance to be what humanitarian Princeton itself would wish it to be, our thinking throughout the educational fabric has been so far departmentalized, over-standardized and so split that like a man facing a brick wall, counting bricks, we mistake the counting for reality …”

Most universities tend to specialize students in a certain field and forget to provide them with the knowledge to utilize the studies in the real world.  I graduated as a civil engineer to go to work and find out that I only know about a fifth of what I really needed to know.  I hade the base and was a good brick counter but could not see the nature of the wall.  I have found Taliesin does a better job at making Architects through their active “learning by doing” approach.  Having gone to internship for about 1000 hours and also working on construction with wood (in addition to my prior experience in steel and concrete), I now understand better what makes a design work.  I am getting the feeling of the materials and it is different than just reading it in the books.

“… urbanism … unable to live by its own birthrate, living upon the fresh blood of others, sterilizing the humanity …”

Today cities needs are fulfilled through the transportation of goods and services to it.  Water, electricity, food, and construction material are only a few that are brought into a city for the city to survive.  But through the internet the people of America can somewhat free themselves of the city.  The lack of a speedy public transportation that can get people in and out of the city is what is really hurting Americans.  Imagine a public transportation that could get you to where you want to be within the city and it would only take 45 minutes if you were living in a radius of 50 miles outside of the city.  You would be at home, getting your work done only to send it to your office in the city for review.  Your visits to the city would become limited to two or three days a week.    You would be close to family, and spending more time with the family insures a better life.  But this is not the case today and Americans have fallen slaves to the machine.

“This amazing avalanche of material, we call production, seems to have its eyes shut to all but destruction.  The standardizations it practices are the death of the soul, just as habituation kills any imaginative spirit.  So within this welter of the misapplied wealth of knowledge, with so little realization—wherein consideration and kindness are so rare, why not develop a little integral know how? …”

The standardization of education and materials allows average people to pose as know it all ignorant architect/contractors that introduce sprawls.  If someone takes the time to work with builders/Architects for a few years, they most likely would be able to get a team together and pose as an Architect/builder.  Standardization of life has become the downfall of urbanism.  Houses that look alike, neighborhoods that looks the same and lack the very essential elements of life, are plaguing American lives.  Wisdom to build used to translate to a general knowledge which allowed one person to start and finish general construction of a house or shop or etc.  Construction wisdom is now standardized into different fields, and has led contractors to know less about less.  Give a contractor anything out of the ordinary and they would not know how it is done.  That is why they ask for more money on a well thought solution that utilizes materials in a better way.

Renovating the Montooth Cottage

This cottage is designed and build by Charles Montooth and was in desperate need of some handy work.  Termites have reached the ceiling, but we were lucky enough for them not to eat the joists.  We have taken out most of the wood that was cracked, splilced, termit infested, and rat housed.  With this said the air in the cottage is much better now.  I have taken the Kitchenett out (every time we used it we had visitors from the desert).  In doing so I had to redo the ceiling above the kitchen and we filled the stepping floor to get a levled, flat slab which can be used for a storage or a closet.  "15 bags of concrete were mixed and poured" 

Design Build of a Drafting Table

Design Build Project
Drafting Table

Challenged with a design build project for a desk I came up with an idea to build a drafting table.  The philosophy was based on lightness (refer to previous portfolio for more information).  I used one cedar 2x6 to make the legs.  Lightness suggested that I rip the 2x6 into half and test.  Well it was holding pretty well, so I decided to rip it thinner.  And then it proved to be a little unstable.  The 2x6 had turned into four 5/16”x5 ½”.  After testing it I found out that lateral buckling is the main failure reason and I thought I can strengthen them by attaching a thin strip of plywood.  For the thickness of plywood I thought 5/8 should be more than enough.  I also had to shorten the radius of gyration and thought the way to do it is to first secure it from the top and then use a lower shelf to shorten the unsupported height of the legs (49”).  Also to put the top drafting board on I needed to somehow fasten the top to 5/16”.  Having two different problems at the same point helped me think about a solution that would solve both of them.  I laminated two pieces of 5/8” plywood to the top of the legs and achieved enough thickness to attach the hinge for the top as well as reduce the unsupported length of the table to 37”.  This combination worked well.
Going to look for a top drafting board I realized that the budget will not allow the use of good plywood.  However while at Lowes I was that the hollow core doors were on sale.  This was perfect.  If I take a hollow core door, shorten its length, and strengthen the sides with inserting plywood strips in it, I achieve multiple goals; first its lighter, and then its cheaper which fits in the budget.  The plywood used is recycled  out of what was a piece of Taliesin.
The next problem was that 5/16” is not enough thickness to allow the legs to rest on.  While cutting the legs to the angle I wanted there came to be a couple of triangles as waste and I thought those pieces would work and lower the radius of gyration for the bottom of the leg, if I flipped them and used them as the shoes for the legs.
The table is high and requires that I stand up to draw.  I believe that hand drawing is art and it is enjoyable, like Dancing.  Well if you are tiered of dancing, you stop; its time to go and rest.
Many looked at it and think it is to Frank Lloyd Writ’ish and they never look beyond that to see why each piece is put the way it is.  I am happy to be able to design something based on lightness and see how close the design becomes to a Frank Lloyd Wright design (and little bit more elegant).  I am also happy to be able to understand how deeply the master thought in regards to his designs.  After this design I started looking at Frank Lloyd Wright Designs deeper. 
The next level will be to design a smaller table to accommodate the computer.  I think applying the same design to hard wood and carving out the same profiles would allow for a more sophisticated look (Space age curves and flows).
I used the cedar wood and bought less than $30 worth of hardware and hollow doors.  Total cost would be under $50.
It is of most importance that as a school of Design we work on making our own furniture.  Furniture is the closest thing to Architecture as it encompasses all the thought processes involved in Architecture.  Many in the school will not be able to build a shelter but all can build furniture and it would cost the school much less than $1000 to have apprentices build furniture.  The good ones get used and the bad ones get recycled.
Since I had bought low quality hinges for the top I was not able to fasten the top well enough not to need lateral bracing.  So there is a small hiccup.  The lateral bracing came out of waste railing and does not match the materials exposed.  I would have preferred a fiberglass covered wood dowel for use in that location.
I could have spent at least a week or two on drawing details for this project but building it took much less time than drawing it.

You can find the pictures in the My Life at Taliesin in 2007 picture book library.

Preservation

To preserve an idea or to preserve the building.

At Taliesin West we try to preserve what we have.  The date has been chosen and it is "1959".  The category one areas will be restored to the target date.  This will help tourists and apprentices experience -visually- what the place/space looked like and imagine how life went on. 

An Argument:

Frank Lloyd Wright believed in Organic Architecture that has the ability to change with time and adapt to new usage.  Changing its form to accommodate a new life, an Organic Architecture will become very plastic (malleable). 

So ...

If as a school we teach his philosophy, should we not abide by it?

By stopping the building from changing (restoring it back/freezing it at a certain time) and adapting to its time and usage we are going against the phylosophies of the master whom brought Taliesin West to life.

and ...

If we are to allow change to happen in all ways in Taliesin West and everything changes to a point that only a small percentage of the material essence that once was remains, then how do we reference back and learn from its history?

Any ideas??

Box III

Sinagua Natives and Highrises

One of the first people that lived in multi story structures close to phoenix were the Sinagua Natives; they would house, hunt, store, start agriculture, and have fun at their settlement.  When I look at their choices of location for housing, I can see that they had achieved certain points:

The use of passive solar systems

            Building in the belly of the cliff, with awareness of the summer sun angle provides shade when it is needed most.

The use of radiant heating/cooling

            Having the buildings attach to the back of the cliff provides radiant heat transfers from the earth behind the cliff which is around 68 degrees all year round.

The view of the land below

            By having a higher point of view which not only makes one feel more powerful, they could observe and administer the functions of what happens down below.

The choice of location to use a body of water for evaporative cooling

            Locating within certain points of the cliff that are in the direction of the wind that flows over a body of water they used evaporative cooling and also received moist air during dry times of the year.

The separation of public and private spaces

            Different families would choose different locations for housing their own (respecting privacy), and would function as a village once they were down within the land below (public domain).

The sense of security

            As the families live in different clusters, they keep control of their small family easier and people living in a cluster respect one another.  This sense of respect brings higher security to the family. (This is a result that is discussed in “Defensible Space Principles” by Oscar Newman, “buildings with a large number of families sharing an entry experience higher crime rates”, and also “The form of housing was shown to play an important role in reducing crime and assisting residents in controlling behavior…”)

            

The sense of community

            Once the Sinagua Natives descend to the ground below, they start working on projects to help feed the community; some farm, others gather, while a few hunt.

The above mentioned is the foundation that makes the conceptual base for the design of this high-rise project.

The High-rise any highrise becomes a monument to the city it is built in. this monument will stand for 200 years. It is important to understand the impllications of such sculpture and how it can effect the people that see such a design. I have tried to work on a solution that starts with the life within and grows to embrace the history of its location. Using contemporary mrthods and materials I have created a form that is from its time and belongs to its location. What is the most important note in Music? I tend to think te silent note is the most effective note. The silent note calms the tensions and at the same time it amplifies what ever notes that come after it. Its nature is calm, however this silent note brings a certain suspense which elevates awareness. I have used this concept to seperate spces and mass, and also emphasize the sculptural forms that embrace the void. I like contrasts and appreciate how objects in contrast tend to show their forms and colors better. This is why I have used free forms in conjuction with boxes. I have started from the life within (The Frank Lloyd wright Philosophy) and moved towards a Le Corbu Structur and grid and then used J. Hayjduk free form within a rigid grid to express cliffs and the dwellings within them. The interstitial level is a representative of the Hoho-kum that are Native Americans that existed in this area, but dissapeared and no one knows what exactly happened to them. We have their footprints but they do not exist anymore. No one wants to acnowledge that their roots go back to Hoho-kums. The Cube (modern life) on the top is the intervention of the New America (us americans) and its movement towards the sky showes our extension in time. I have incorporated the principals of life found within Sinaguan cliff dwellings. Enjoy Download 1.mov

Im Back

Well ... I'm Back.

I will post some of what has happened, and hope you like what you see.

Regards,

Ebbie

With many thanks to Terrance Reimer for the photo.

Visual Literacy Part 2

V I S U A L   L I T E R A C Y
with
Tim Wright

“I LOVE LOOKING AT BEAUTIFULL THINGS.” 
“WELL,
WHO DOESN’T?”
The most important thing we have for the full perception of visual beauty and elegance is our sight.  However, what we see gets manipulated by our minds; our mind tries to match what we see with what it has learned to see through visualization; our mind retraces/reconstructs through what it expects to see and we don’t see what is really in front of us with all its details.  What we visualize of that object  does not have all the details and complexities.  What I learned was that things are not the way they seem to be, and if you look at them differently they change, and sometimes turn into the most bizarre things.  Parts of trees can be turned into alphabet and parts of floors that we use everyday can be visualized such that no one can recognize. 
As Architects we learn and study the way things look from different angles, knowing this subtlety makes all the difference in the world when it comes to comfortable special designs.1 
Shadows are the best tool in the hands of an Architect that has the wisdom to use it, and the worst enemy for the designer that undermines it.  Once our eyes get used to a certain amount of light, a sudden change in contrast will be very discomforting; so in a good design we cannot have high contrasts of light.
I learned that by controlling the shadow lines in a building I can make the space look larger or smaller than what it really is; and also I can make it feel different during the many changes of the Sun angles (like what I experienced at the Taliesin Living room).  The perceptions of space are in the hands of shadows and light patterns.1
Observing the buildings in Taliesin and the Seth Peterson Cottage from a light/shade point of view has taught me to design differently.  With this perspective in mind, I designed the box project to allow the shadows and the sun to come into the house just enough in the summer to break the barriers of inside/outside, and in the winter to have patterns come in the house and play on the walls.  This helps the residents realize time, makes a space that is different throughout the day, and also helps use the sun for passive solar heating.
Connectivity of plains in a space is something that can happen from a distance between walls which are not connected physically.  This concept helps construct designs that relay a deeper understanding through apparent but integrated visual connections (as what is seen in the FedEX logo), and adds a level of heightened awareness which can help Architects relay different messages to whoever passes through or by their building. This type of vista control is what can make outstanding Architecture.2
I designed the final party/presentations and made some footings to put foam boards on.  The footings are designed to be multi use and accommodate different tastes for layout and display of foam-board presentations.
I am grateful of having this opportunity to work with Tim and see that even though he is not an Architect, he does carry a great deal of understanding about what Architecture should really be about. 

Quantum and Architecture

PHYSICS FOR FUTURE PRESIDENTS
with
Professor R. Muller, Berkeley CA

The seminars are available online and they explain most physic concepts in an easy understanding language.  I have started from physic of wave and gone to the explanation of quantum physics and the Universe.  I have also found various relations to Architecture within these lectures. 
Every civil engineer knows that earthquakes are waves.  I have taken courses in college in this regards and was surprised at how easily the concepts are explained in these seminars.1 
Choosing a city site, an Architect must try to locate the city on the hardest ground they can find.  Waves turn towards the softest soil and as a result, a soft soil between cliffs gets more waves from different angles, while a cliff would get its share and not from multiple directions unless its deep in another set of cliffs.  Buildings in between cliffs are even worse off due to the magnification effect of the waves bouncing off of walls which cancel one another in certain locations but multiply in others.
The relation of quantum mechanics and Architecture are deeper than a small explanation in this portfolio.  I will just point out a few facts:
• Electrons are particle waves: when experimenting to prove if they are waves or particles; if not observed, they have a footprint that would come from waves, but under observation they change their behavior and their footprint becomes proof that they are particles and not waves. (Double Split Experiment)
• By observing we change results.  An artist in a crowded studio will create different Art than when in solitary confinement. 
• If atoms change behavior when we try to observe them and atoms are one of the original particle waves that create life; would it not be fair to say “when we observe anything we change it and as a result the next viewer would be looking at a different thing”. 
If someone looks at an Art piece and likes it then others looking at the same should feel a change.  This change is on a sub-atomic level.  We all know that the feeling of a space changes when you have friends or foes in it. 
How does this work with Architecture?  Well, if we live in a house, we are observing it thus changing it on a sub-atomic level which affects the Spirit of the Architecture.  Architecture is not only materialistic; it has a deeper experience involved in it (a spiritual experience).  As the Architecture changes, so will our way of life within it.  To make it complicated think of a family living in a house.  They all observe the spaces and experience them differently which will change the spaces every time they pass through or even look at it.  The house would look different when a celebration is in place, and it would feel different when there is only one person living in it.  The only explanation that I could find is with the use of quantum physics.
The life inside changes the Architecture and as a result the Architecture will change the life within.  The bigger picture is Architecture changes cultures.2  If American Architects realize this fact they will stop designing Sprawls.

1- Refer to Previous Experience section in this Portfolio
2- Refer to the Europe Study Trip section in this Portolio

Winter 2006 Box Phase IV Presentation

                                        B  O  X     I I
                                    Summer 2006 Taliesin
                      T H E     F A M I L Y       H O U S E

The purpose of this project is to design a dwelling for the family of four, using modular methods.  Economies of scale will allow this type of dwelling to turn into mass production for housing development.  Architecture should realize time, in a sense that the life inside will change, and it should assist the family living in it.  A family will grow: kids go to college, get married, the parents get old, divorced children come back, and there will be a time that everyone might need assistance.  The design should be flexible enough to take form --like a tree does-- and allow life turbulences to pass.  There are no real clients involved at this time. 

Upon more research I shall determine the square footages needed.  This type of plastic shelter should have enough land that gives way for future changes to take place. 

Looking at the future of alternative fuel I can see WI becoming the major producer of bio-fuel.  As a response to the potential economic growth, which will follow higher demands of ethanol, and the migration of jobs to WI we will need more hoses.  I have chosen a piece of land just outside Dodgeville to get some knowledge about land usage, ordinances, and legal procedures; however considering WI land type similarity that exist, the solution provided here must incorporate values to allow implementation in most of the state.

The I.B.C. joint with the WI comm. 62 as well as Iowa County Zoning regulations shall govern over the project.

Thanks to Stephen Nemtin whom brought to my attention a new aspect of design.  Frank Lloyd Wright always talks about the life within but there are many dimensions to life.  “Change is a very large part of life and should be considered in the design of a house.  A family will grow, kids go away, and older people will need assistance.” This is what Stephen said and asked me to consider this when I design for this project.
I have researched philosophies of life and lived in a few countries (Iran, UK, France and America) for at least a few months.  Westerners tend to be more outward looking and open while Eastern philosophies are based on inward looking and are more enclosed.  Most houses in the west do not have walls on the outside and people don’t mind if other could see inside of their house; houses in the West have outer courts that are not walled in.  In the East there are walls on the perimeter of the land that protect the house form outside viewers; houses in the East have inner courts that can be accessed after passing through the main door.  In the East people dress to cover fully and in the west they dress up to show just enough.  There is a significant difference in how one thinks about a design based on where they design.  I tend to make plans that provide some type of protection from viewers and usually have different spaces in the houses for family and guest gathering.
After the Europe trip, I have come to realize that the lack of culture in America is due to the separation of families that disconnects older generations from younger ones.  In this situation the wisdom and culture that has been found through hardships in life does not pass fully down the chain of life. 
I am choosing to redefine what a home should look like in America.  In the U.S. houses are built such that allow children to disconnect from their parents.  Children close the room door and think they are free to do as they please while they are in their room.  Parents are not at home a lot and the short time that they are at the house, the kids are in their room.  I don’t argue that separation is good for children but how much and at what age.  Colleges are spread out and force family separation which at its time is good.  The separation that keeps grand parents from interacting with their grand children is the part that hurts the passing chain of wisdom in life most.
I suggest that we as Americans put forth in our designs the First Principal of organic Design and have a social/spiritual base for the design of the house (the life within).  Design smaller rooms for kids, which do not have computers in them.  This forces kids to come out and socialize.
To have Flexible Architecture in the house.  This enables the life within to grow at its own pace in the same location.  If we were to cut a tree and replant it every year in better soil what we get is less stability in its roots.  We need that tree to stay in one place until if finds such health that with relocation it will not hurt its fruitfulness.
To have a house which owners look to cherish.  Not a place that I sleep and then move on in a year or two. 
To sell to people that will live in the house and not investors that look at their return on investment.  Since the house can grow they would build it up to its limit and then sell to make more profit.  This will kill the very purpose of growth alongside the life within.
A family is a lot of things.  I have found the following family relations and I have tried to incorporate into the Architecture of the two story house:

• A Family is there with you through good times and bad
• A Family is flexible and grows with you as you get old
• A Family gives you shelter when you need it
• A Family helps you through life
• A Family is cherished

Having a design that echoes the above would result in a “Family House”.  I think anything that has the above mentioned could be called family.
When I talk about flexibility and growth that is cherished I can not stop thinking about music.  Music is made out of eight notes and a silent which all have full or half notes.  The continuity of different notes in harmony brings a growth pattern that is inspiring.  The flexibility of the note system is such that Hard Rock, Rock and Roll, Classical, Jazz and many other themes have flourished out of this system.  To me it looks as if music is a good part of any family and that families play their own kind of music. 
Thinking about the Usonian Automatic I see how Frank Lloyd Wright used the panels to bring about an Architecture that is beautiful and elegant which is at the same time livable.  I have thought about a panel system that uses more green materials that the S.I.P available in the market and one person with the help of a neighbor should be able to fix and clamp in place.  This panel should be:

• Reusable and recyclable
• Help shorten construction time
• Lessen pollution due to the nature of materials used

Since the panel is going to come from the factory with a finished interior and exterior it will require a higher initial investment.  I will market all of America to reach economies of scale which allow me to lower the manufacturing cost.
I then thought about how large of a space bedrooms or bath rooms requires today.  I did some designs based on minimal spaces and then applied the panel systems to it.  The results are spaces that are sufficient but require growth to complete and harmonize the life within.  Flexibility comes with the reusable panels that can be plugged out and put in place as a wall elsewhere.
The basic philosophy for a “Family House” is in place here and all that remained were life scenarios that could be applied so the design could start taking shape.
Out of millions of scenarios I have chosen a student that will graduate and have exponential boost of income after graduation -- as a Law student would -- and another one that the income is not that big -- as with a Philosophy student-- and stays at the lower side of things.
I have focused more on the exponential growth of the house and thought about the other scenario.  The starter house is about 850 Sq-Ft and the foundation should be in place for the next phases of growth.  The Architectural plans should be provided to the owners at the time of purchase to ensure the focus of the family of the possibility of growth at their own pace.  The final design is just about 2000 Sq-Ft and improves the life of its residents.
Staying at the Seth Peterson cottage has opened my eyes towards what a space could be (please refer to the Seth Peterson Cottage Section of this Portfolio).
I hope I have made this design, one that is beautiful and reverent with an elegance that flows on the fields around Dodgeville and Spring Green.  I have designed based on the location I chose but through opening a different entrance and overhangs this Architecture can be build in most places in America.
Living at Taliesin I have learned about how the big master manipulates your eyes in relation to the space with the usage of horizontal and vertical lines that break the box.  Our eye is used to seeing the ceiling line and recognizing where the ceiling is.  If we make a bold line under the ceiling line then our eyes will see that first and above that line there should be a silent note that heightens our attention for the next note to come.  The ceiling will look taller and more gracious with this technique. It is important that this line divides the wall in proportion and on the grid.  I am still trying to work on the vertical vs horizontal line breakers and have not mastered it yet.  As I was told the stairway was not completely one with the house and I have found why.  I will provide a better formation of the exterior of the stairway to what it was during the Phase IV presentation.  To bring the horizontal grid and vertical grid together and to have them meet in harmony is what I will do.