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Architectural errors frozen in time

By Arrol Gellner, Friday, April 24, 2009.

The other day I was eating breakfast at a cozy little diner called Sam's Log Cabin, not far from where I live. The place is pretty much what its name suggests -- a rustic little box of a building with log siding and a hipped roof. The inside is just as spartan as the outside: There's no proper ceiling, and the roof rafters are plainly exposed to view. more...

Architects and CAD: a love-hate relationship

By Arrol Gellner, Friday, April 10, 2009.

Not so long ago, a well-equipped architect might have had the following items on his drawing board: A T-square or parallel rule; a couple of plastic drafting triangles; some templates for drawing circles, door swings, and the like; and a container bristling with an array of mechanical pencils. A really up-to-the-minute practitioner might even boast an electric erasing machine, to help fix all the errors that inevitably cropped up as hand-drawn plans wound their way to completion.

Today, every one of these items is utterly obsolete, right down to the pencils -- all swept away by the advent of computer-aided drafting, or CAD. CAD produces invariably flawless lines, along with perfect lettering in any font or size. As for erasing, it's now done quickly and spotlessly by tapping the Delete key. Hence, the drafting skills so diligently practiced by architects of my generation now rank roughly on par with the making of stovepipe hats. more...

Words that changed architecture

By Arrol Gellner, Friday, March 27, 2009.

While much of the verbiage architects have churned out over the years has deservedly been forgotten, a number of phrases have managed to encapsulate, if not outright inspire, entire architectural movements. more...

Affordable building materials come at a price

By Arrol Gellner, Friday, March 13, 2009.

Some years ago I was walking through an old Victorian house that was being renovated. In one room where the original wall framing was exposed, I found a curious bit of workmanship. One of the two-by-four studs had been carefully notched about halfway up, and a small hardwood wedge had been driven in. After a moment's study, the reason became clear: The two-by-four had been badly bowed, and rather than cutting it up for some lesser purpose, the Victorian carpenter had used an age-old but effective trick to make it straight again. more...

Patina is where the heart is

By Arrol Gellner, Friday, February 27, 2009.

A contractor once told me an interesting story about a house he'd built for a man in Connecticut. Winter was already setting in when he'd gotten the place weather-tight, so as soon as he finished the fireplace, he built a fire in it to keep the house warm. When the owner found out, he demanded that the contractor tear out the bricks inside the fireplace and replace them because they'd gotten sooty. He told the contractor that he was paying for a brand-new fireplace, and he was damned well going to get one. more...

Long live the arch

By Arrol Gellner, Friday, February 13, 2009.

If you've ever seen a picture of Stonehenge, the prehistoric monument near Salisbury, England, you'll recognize the structural system known as post and lintel. It consists of two upright blocks -- the posts -- with another block -- the lintel -- spanning the gap between them. This was the earliest type of structure used to span open space. more...

Sorry state of architecture school

By Arrol Gellner, Friday, January 30, 2009.

Back during my school days at U.C. Berkeley's College of Environmental Design, one of our final class assignments was a project for a hypothetical cultural center. The program was elaborate, requiring dozens of spaces, large and small. I spent a good part of the allotted three weeks coming up with an unassailable floor plan before finally moving on to -- as architects like to put it -- expressing my solution in three dimensions. more...

How NOT to design front walkway

By Arrol Gellner, Friday, January 16, 2009.

Not long ago, I came across a house that was set back some distance uphill from the street. The house itself was rather charming, but this is how you got to the front door: Assuming you spotted the narrow flight of concrete steps hidden among the shrubs and didn't clamber up the driveway instead -- as most baffled visitors did -- you were rewarded with an additional hike over uneven and badly spaced stepping stones that drifted aimlessly up the hill. more...

China takes technology to next level

By Arrol Gellner, Wednesday, January 7, 2009.

(This is Part 4 of a four-part series. Read Part 1, "China's growth has lessons for U.S."; Part 2, "As China grows, so do its problems"; and Part 3, "China at forefront of environmentalism?") more...

China at forefront of environmentalism?

By Arrol Gellner, Friday, December 19, 2008.

(This is Part 3 of a four-part series. Read Part 1, "China's growth has lessons for U.S.," and Part 2, "As China grows, so do its problems.") more...

As China grows, so do its problems

By Arrol Gellner, Friday, December 5, 2008.

(This is Part 2 of a multipart series. Read Part 1, "China's growth has lessons for U.S.")

Americans are no doubt getting tired of hearing how well things are going for China. Having painted much the same picture in my last report from Suzhou -- my Chinese home away from home -- I thought I'd dwell on a few of China's biggest headaches for a change. more...

China's growth has lessons for U.S.

By Arrol Gellner, Friday, November 21, 2008.

(This is Part 1 of a four-part series.)

Once again I'm in China, having carefully timed my visit to avoid the brouhaha of the 2008 Olympics. In the wake of that long-heralded event, and following China's first space walk, the Chinese are practically bursting their buttons with national pride. Many of them now perceive little of substance separating China's status from that of the United States -- oh, maybe just that little matter of differing political systems. more...

Technology may be architecture's worst enemy

By Arrol Gellner, Friday, November 7, 2008.

In the days of laborious handcrafting, before the coming of the Industrial Revolution, ornament such as carving or engraving was a hallmark of extraordinary quality. Yet with the advent of mass production in the mid-19th century, automated machinery could replicate the most elaborate decoration at nominal cost, whether for a piece of furniture or a whole house. more...

America's urban planning on wrong track

By Arrol Gellner, Thursday, October 23, 2008.

What if we paved over the whole state of Wisconsin?

Actually, we already have. According to recent Federal Highway Administration figures, the United States has close to 240 million motor vehicles -- almost 40 million more cars than there are licensed drivers -- and just under 4 million miles of paved roads for them to run on. All told, some 61,000 square miles of the United States -- an area just a little smaller than the Beaver State -- is solidly paved over, either with roads or with parking. And of course, there's always more pavement on the way. more...

It takes a forest to build a house

By Arrol Gellner, Thursday, October 9, 2008.

Back in the not-so-Jolly Old England of the Middle Ages, where many American building traditions originated, no one knew anything about structural engineering. Instead, carpenters used common knowledge gleaned from trial and error and handed down over the centuries. With no way to analyze the strength of their buildings, they just built them as stoutly as they could, using massive timbers hewn from lots and lots of trees. more...

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