104 - Imagining Residential Architecture

Kurt Neiswender: 0:21

Hey Jamie,

Jamie Crawley: 0:22

how you doing? Good morning. How are you show and

Kurt Neiswender: 0:28

tell what's that?

Jamie Crawley: 0:30

we did talk about show and tell and yeah. And knowing that I went and I went and got, ah,

Kurt Neiswender: 0:39

nice. I like that bag too. It's kind of a great bag.

Jamie Crawley: 0:42

It's like it, it spoke to me, marketing.

Kurt Neiswender: 0:45

Right. The color red. Oh, this, this camera's way too close. not that, the, the audio of these drop before the video. So, nobody can see at the moment that I'm moving my camera, but to start off. So, I hope you can see me in my camouflage.

Jamie Crawley: 1:06

Yes.

Kurt Neiswender: 1:09

all my optical illusions. So I'm, I wanted to bring up the coast. I think it's a nice, they, they do this typically it's a simple bag, but then they throw a sticker on it, but they always get custom art done for every, every flavor that they make. So this is rootless and they have it's called coast and it is says here too artwork by. Leanna Kaus. So on the back too.

Jamie Crawley: 1:40

So I love that, like the brand shout out back to the artist.

Kurt Neiswender: 1:44

That's that's good. Yeah. I think it's super cool. And, and they're all cool in different, they have a different thing and they match it with a, a bag, color. This is a nice little lavender anyway, so then I wanted to point out too, if you can see it, I don't know if you can, the way, way tango Guatemala.

Jamie Crawley: 2:09

So, and if you're wondering if you're listening to this one as the current one, and you're wondering what all that's about, go back and listen to the last episode. That's right. And, and that's all, I'll just say exactly.

Kurt Neiswender: 2:22

Gotta go backward to

Jamie Crawley: 2:23

go forward. Well, right. And so I am having the chameleon again. and I, the, Getting close to the end of this bag. So that's gonna, mean something have to change, but it's not just, it's not just, I it's not, I said it was a dark, but it's not just dark. It's a S smokey dark chocolate. And I think that that maybe is explanation enough for the audience of why Jamie probably is gonna buy this one again.

Kurt Neiswender: 2:54

Nice. So is that a, did you say that was a dark is a dark roast,

Jamie Crawley: 2:58

dark roast, smokey, smokey, dark chocolate. So they

Kurt Neiswender: 3:04

isn't, it typically dark roast are actually less caffeine and light roast or more caffeine

Jamie Crawley: 3:09

that I don't know if that's true. I was told if that is true. I'll maybe believe you

Kurt Neiswender: 3:20

well, that's the, the, fact finding mission for today.

Jamie Crawley: 3:24

Yeah, but the, but they're not accounting for the fact that you might have four or five cups, in that,

Kurt Neiswender: 3:29

Yeah. Nobody, nobody accounts for the architect's consumption. No. Yeah,

Jamie Crawley: 3:34

there there's a different level. Like it's,

Kurt Neiswender: 3:36

it's, how many, it's usually two hands.

Jamie Crawley: 3:39

Right. But just gimme a bucket.

Kurt Neiswender: 3:43

Yeah. oh, well, one thing to shout out, our friend, Joel, who's been on. Yeah. That cup is so big. And I, and I, on purpose, I use that every morning cuz I, I, it can fit more than it's more than the, the, the definition of a cup. Yeah.

Jamie Crawley: 4:04

You're like, Danielle, don't worry. Like I'm just gonna have one or two from, from Joel's cup.

Kurt Neiswender: 4:13

we gotta have him back on. We gotta, or we gotta, I gotta get a little schedule.

Jamie Crawley: 4:18

Yeah, we've got a couple guests, I mean, I, I, I sent you that, that message about the, the strange Jamie stumbled on a, a strange video of a comedian. Oh yeah. Talking about architecture and I, and it was actually funny. I mean, it was like one of those like two minute clips, on the interwebs. And I don't know who that comedian is, have no clue, but fun fact Jason's brother is a comedian. Oh yes. And quite good. And actually has a film too. So, that has been making the, the circuit of film festivals. So it's cool. It's quite quite funny. but yeah. And so, and Doug lives here in Austin, and is, I've known Doug as long. I've known Jason, this little brother. And, yeah, and he's pretty funny, loves drawings as well. So, he'd be fun to have on that, on, on the pod. and he's more than willing to do it. so we've, we're slowly generating our guest list again. So can

Kurt Neiswender: 5:23

he roast our sketches?

Jamie Crawley: 5:27

That would be pretty fun. Yeah, we can, we can do that.

Kurt Neiswender: 5:30

Did you like that pun? Yes, yes. Do a nice, a nice light roast of our coffee. A nice,

Jamie Crawley: 5:36

very nice light roast. Yes.

Kurt Neiswender: 5:40

Oh, that, that was, that was that's good. Purely accidental, purely accident. But I, I win. We're not scripting this at all. I won that one. Yeah. This is not, that was, that was off the cuff as they say in the biz.

Jamie Crawley: 5:55

all right, so let's get to the sketches. You go. There's a few. This is like lightning round

Kurt Neiswender: 5:59

today. We're gonna try and lightning round through three. Because I gotta get in gear and then go teach some students three on a theme. And so we have, we have, I'll start with this one. Should I flip to the other two real quick? Yeah. Why not? We have, we have this beautiful sketch here. Number two, which is so far kind of emerging as my favorite, but it it's a little different. And then, and then number three, which also is, is very interesting and they all have the same theme in Jamie's intention in putting them together. So where do you, where would you like to you? I guess you were gonna, we were, the only script we had talked about was that you were going to drop a little preface and then you're gonna let me.

Jamie Crawley: 6:55

Talk. Yeah. Kind of just walk through the sketch and you give me your, your thoughts. I mean, yeah, I think part of it was that, that the preface, when I say there's, three on a theme, is that any architect, who has ever thought about, at, at some point in their life? like when I get to design a place for myself, what would that be? And so sometimes your brain kind of goes there. Sometimes you do it multiple times at different points in your career. which is sort of fun too. and so what, what I found myself. And I, I do this all the time, is, I'm always sort of trying to digest architecture from different places. trying to get ideas, trying to understand what other people are working on, what trends are happening, what can I learn from somebody else's work? and so, you're always sort of digesting things and I found myself, in a, in about a week's time or so was looking at a lot of, kind of vacation type properties. Mm-hmm and, and it was just, work of different designers. And so I was kind of doing that and, kind of resort and, not necessarily resort in the sense, like, hospitality resort or something like that. but it was, it was, there was definitely a trend of, of things that I just found myself kind of looking at for. where my head was at, I guess, maybe I just need to go on a trip but in doing that, then I found myself generating sketches, and there's multiple ones that aren't even even printed here, that I didn't take pictures of, of, of just, additional kind of thoughts and things that it sort of sparked in my head. and, and that's where these, so there's elements of these that are probably, inspired by somebody else's work. but then some of it's also inspired by places that I've been. and then also some past work, some stuff just lives in a sketchbook and never ever sees the light a day of a project. so these are sort of an amalgam, I think, of, of some of those ideas, and techniques also, again, playing with the, sort of the presentation techniques of them. my friend jet there, making a comment, about the, about both the, the image, but also the technique, on the diagonal mm-hmm, across the binding. So Jet's, Jet's a fabulous designer and an old friend

Kurt Neiswender: 9:19

and, and the he's, he's a smart person who's figured out, one of Jamie's key, key, little tricks or techniques is the diagonal on the binding strong But the, yeah, so I, I think I appreciate the starting point. I do kind of get the sense of like the sort of. Well, your resort or maybe sort of getaway getaway house or, getaway place, it's kind of tucked into some landscaping, definitely orientation to views and, openness and, in areas for glazing and then sort of close down in other areas for, privacy, things like that. I, the one that I'll I'm starting with is the, this, this sort of the second of the third or second of the three that we have, right. We have in this sequence here. So this the one I'll just call the second one, but, It's I guess what stands out is like the, the contrast between this vertical sort of tower, modern looking tower element, and then the horizontality of the rest of the house and this sort of long sloping metal roof and, a chimney sort of stone in the middle. It kind of, I, I would think it sort of reminds me of like a, like Ray CAPY. I don't know if Ray cap's work mm-hmm but, it, his own house is, is more of a flat roof thing, but it has like this interesting, use of materials and, and setting into the landscape to where it's very kind, Built in to the hillside or slope that it seems like it was always there, but, but unlike his house, you have this sort of tower element, which is to me, I, we've, we've talked about Danielle and I, the potential to maybe build our own house one day. And currently we're thinking about like a ranch style as far as a single floor layout, which would be the, the, the main house of yours to the left. Right. But I've always been, sort of infatuated with, vertical structures, even if it has a tiny floor plate, like, this thing is like one room, but it's stacks and, and then it even has a little roof deck. Which is very cool. And then it's sort of, stacks into the hillside on a, a sort of stone plinth, base. It's very rustic looking. And anyway, I, so maybe there is maybe this will be the house that Danielle and I build that we'll have to hire you to design the rest of it. because it has it. Maybe some elements for both of us, the little tur turt, which I could make a nice studio out of and, home office and then the, the, the ranch rest of the house with nice outdoor indoor spaces. So anyway, this is, yeah. Warming this picture of like, I want, I want, I would like to buy this, this plan.

Jamie Crawley: 12:23

well, and it's, it's funny because it's like the, what you, what you're sort of picking up in sort of the sketch is these are just moments, right? It's, it's sort of ideas and moments that you want to capture on the page in, in a, in a quick sketch and, and into the three things that you sort of picked up on where like the, the hearth, the, the idea of a fireplace, the hearth kind of the center of a home, or the, or the gathering point. and, and literally in the sketch, you sort of see, it is like, I put it literally in the middle of the building. and kind of let the building kind of wrap it a bit, but then kept the building itself as a form, relatively simple. as we know the simpler the building gets and the CRI the CRISPR, the details, probably the more expensive it gets as well. but it, but along those lines, though, the, the, the floor plan doesn't necessarily need to be complicated, to, to be, kind of functionally what we, what we would want in, in a, in a structure or a house or a home or retreat. but then, kind of just like you, it, I've always sort of been fascinated with like the tree house, and getting up in a, in. in a smaller space, it doesn't have to be like, I'm not interested in necessarily doing a skyscraper per se. but the idea of kind of getting up in this like little bit of an extrusion of form and recognizing that it's gonna be a counterpoint to the, to the rest of the building, that was sort of the, I, I was really kind of playing with this idea of like, how can you make this sort of rustic, indoor, outdoor, simple, simple, straightforward shed form. And then how do you add a tower to it? and, and what could that be? And, can it be, can it be really different? how big is too big? what kind of roof does it get? how do you, how do you cap it? And so those are some of the ideas that were sort of floating around and, tried to capture. And, again, I think, like you said, with all, all three sketches, it's just kind of a, building in the landscape, kind of thinking about, it's a sightless site. these, these don't necessarily exist. but it's, conceptually sort of thinking about how you might approach program pieces, and kind of desires for a project. And capturing'em on the page. So yeah,

Kurt Neiswender: 14:45

it actually, there's another thing that just thought of like, like we, the last episode where we talked about the Sears catalog of houses, I mean, this is like, this is the cell right here. It's like, the, we just painted the picture and you're, you're drawing, sets the tone and, and sort of captures the idea or maybe a couple of ideas, even the, the sort of extra line work in the low building, for siding and, and other mm-hmm detail. But then the tower is, is clean and sleek as, as if it's like more of a tighter monolithic material. So there's a, a contrast in there, but it still works together from amassing or position standpoint, we don't try not to use too much jargon, but so that's.

Jamie Crawley: 15:36

And, and that's the thing is, as you say it, it's like, one thing we haven't talked about in episodes in a while is I'll get this building, I'll get this building drawn in the sketchbook and I'm sort of, and you can see sort of the, where I'm really working certain areas. Cause I'm trying to, it's, I'm figuring it out on the page, with the pen and I'm still working fast. but then when I get to the end of it, and that's why I enjoying this conversation is I'm critiquing it too. Like there's parts of it. Like if I was to revisit this as if it were, this was step one, what step two look like step two wouldn't necessarily, have the same image. and I probably need to do more of that myself. and maybe that's a whole new trend for the sketchbook that, maybe we'll

Kurt Neiswender: 16:23

see. Right. It's it's always like what's around the corner. Right? How do you turn this thing around the side that we don't see? Right. And, and, the last thing I'll say, cuz I, I, I will have to do this, make this little bit of a quick one, but the last thing I'll is, is, and it's a, a compliment sort of in comparison to the old anecdotal story we have of Frank Lloyd Wright in when designing, falling water, he got hired to design that house. I don't know if you've heard this story, but then, sits on, sits on the work. Right? He's got the contract. Hasn't really done any work as, so the story goes, gets a phone call from the client. Luckily he, he didn't have email, so he didn't have to turn something around right away, but apparently client was supposed to arrive the next day or something. I can't remember exactly, but so Frank Lloyd great sits down and draws this, three dimensional perspective, sketch of falling water from the vantage point that we all. Know that it will, if you're familiar with the building, looking across the Creek at the, at the house up the hill, blah, blah, blah. and he supposedly did that drawing in like four hours from no concept sketches, floor plans, anything at all, right. Just turns out this and, and sells the project. Right? Like the client loves it and says, okay, let's go And so Jamie's got, and, and in this case, probably 10 minutes into a design 20 minutes, maybe max, maybe. And, so, you should just, kind of turn around and go hand it to, is this what you want to build? Yeah. sell it out, sell it off. Or, or any of the other two sketches, which are also very interesting, which we haven't talked about them in particular, but it's in the similarities across. Is the, the, the development, the, some of the massing aspects, there's the, the horizontal and vertical and, some of the materiality too. And, so, so anyway, that's, that's my compliment to use is the, go out and sell these things now.

Jamie Crawley: 18:44

yeah. Yeah. Like make a flip book and, and turn it into a catalog and, and, and I'll see you later, I'm just gonna go, put the

Kurt Neiswender: 18:51

price tag down.

Jamie Crawley: 18:52

Yeah.

Kurt Neiswender: 18:55

yeah, this is cool. I, I mean, I know we did kind of do this pretty quick, but the, we'll, hopefully we'll see some more of these, some more tower designs treehouses and, and then talk about it some more in the future.

Jamie Crawley: 19:08

Awesome.