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Modern Shoestring: Contemporary Architecture on a Budget,
by Susanna Sirefman, and Essence
of Home: Timeless Elements of Design, by Liesl
Geiger.
It's difficult to underestimate the
importance of single-family houses in contemporary architecture.
They provide a launching pad for young architects, pepper
the monographs of most well-known architects, and are the
focus of most media (print or online) focused on the built
environment. These two books published by Monacelli
Press approach this area in two different but highly
specific ways: looking at houses with small budgets and
seeing from the client's perspective.
The title Modern Shoestring
clearly indicates author Susanna Sirefman's assertion that
modern-with-a-capital-M architecture need not be unaffordable.
Presenting 18 houses in the United States in order of per-square
-foot costs -- from $51 to $220 -- the book is high on variety,
be it context, materiality, or formal and technical solutions.
The two projects that start the book -- Urs Peter Flueckinger's
own
house in Lubbock, Texas and Salmela
Architect's Keel Cabin in Minnesota -- illustrate the
creativity required to achieve costs under $100/sf, be it
using corrugated siding and other cheap materials or designing
around a collection of bargain-basement windows, respectively.
Not surprisingly, one finds the creativity extending to
the construction, be it by the client's hand, by an undergraduate
class, or by a commercial contractor (instead of a costlier
residential one).
Compared to a similar-minded book
like Cost-Effective
Buildings, this book is more eye candy and inspiration
than technical details and occasional theory for architects.
The text here is slim, but, unlike far too many books on
residential architecture these days, the numerous photographs
are accompanied by floor plans and the occasional building
section. Ultimately this sort of book is measured by the
quality assembled around its theme. Modern Shoestring
illustrates that quality not only occurs frequently at a
lower budget but that it also comes out of the budget constraints
that architects, while they might not admit to liking them,
are as much inspiration as site, program, and client.
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for Modern Shoestring
This last piece, the client, brings
us to Liesl Geiger's Essence of Home, a book whose
subtitle "Timeless Elements of Design" could also
be "How to Build a Better Client." The author
acknowledges that the best-designed commissions occur when
the architect and the client work together. Architects might
joke or express frustration when a client is too demanding
or too opinionated, but one who is the polar opposite is
surely no better. Given that the client must live in the
architect's creation for (hopefully) a long, long time,
the relationship between the two must be a constant back
and forth where the client's wishes are interpreted by the
architect's expertise, and where the latter offers ideas
the former might not have ever known or even considered.
From signing a contract with the
architect to moving into the house, the two parties spend
anywhere potentially years working towards the goal of a
well-designed house. In that time the architect could be
said to have the upper hand, presenting ideas via the material
of his or her training: sketches, drawings, models, and
renderings. Clients must try to envision the final product
and how well it will work for their lives, and that 's where
this book finds its raison d'etre. Reading this book as
an architect is to relive the early years of undergraduate
education, but reading it as a client is to be more prepared
for the long process ahead. Geiger intersperses her text
with a number of "case studies" by a variety of
architects, though the neo-Modern predominates here as much
as in Shoestring. But unlike that book, budgets
are the least of concern, be it in the examples of or the
author's text; her discussion of "site and scale"
sounds like its geared for those with acres of land, not
a fraction of an acre. While squarely aimed at the client
willing to pay more than $220/sf, the book nevertheless
revels in the small, the intimate, those things shared by
clients of all budgets.
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for Essence of Home |
