TRANSCRIPT

00;00;00;02 - 00;00;05;07

Doug Pat (DP)

Let's go inside the vault. The design vault.

 

00;00;05;10 - 00;00;30;11

Daniela Holt Voith (DHV)

Part of our design philosophy is to really make more of a home, both in terms of individual buildings, but also in terms of the context. And this design really is right up our alley in the sense that we love to combine mission and image. There is a strong mission to get the dining hall, which is for the fifth formers, a chance to rebond.

 

00;00;30;13 - 00;03;05;12

DP

This is my guest, Daniela Holt Voith. I'll share more about her shortly. In this episode from the Design Vault, we highlight Voith and MacTavish Architects Abbott Dining Hall in Lawrenceville, New Jersey. The Abbott Dining Hall is located at the Lawrenceville School in Lawrenceville, New Jersey. The renovation of the 1960s era dining hall exclusively serves senior or fifth form students in their last year on campus.

 

The project responds to the style of the adjacent upper house dorm and other Peabody and Sterns architecture and reminds one of both Shingle Style and Richardsonian Romanesque architecture. VMA’s reconfiguration blends seamlessly into the Lawrenceville esthetic with new brick facades, pitch slate roof and vaulted interior ceilings supported by glulam hammer beam trusses. In addition to a complete redesign of the kitchen and servery, custom white oak furniture and booth seating clad the interior, white oak paneling, terrazzo floor and over scaled fireplaces complete the vision.

 

Hi, I'm Doug Pat and this is Design Vault. Daniela Holt Voith is an architect and founding principle of Voith and MacTavish Architects and Director of Design. She holds degrees from Yale University School of Architecture and Bryn Mawr College. Since the early 1980s, she's taught at Yale University as a TA, University of Pennsylvania, Drexel University, and has developed and taught Bryn Mawr College's Design Studio program.

 

Mayor Michael Nutter appointed her to serve on the city's award winning 2008 zoning code Commission, which revised the city's 50-year-old zoning code. Danielle is currently president of the Institute for Classical Architecture and Art, Philadelphia Chapter director of the Carpenters Company of Philadelphia and Board member of the Design Leadership Foundation. Daniela has dedicated her career to promoting the advancement of design for educational environments.

 

Her client-focused practice supports leading edge pedagogical thought and encourages mindful ways of living and learning. Daniela loves to travel, bike and ride trains. She speaks French and German, travels frequently and collects early 20th century train lithographs. So welcome, Daniela. It's nice to have you with us today. So tell us a little bit about Voith and MacTavish Architects or VMA in Philadelphia.

 

So where in the city are you guys located? What's the size of the firm? How long has it been around and what type of work do you do?

 

00;03;05;15 - 00;03;41;14

DHV

Our firm has been celebrating its 35th year this year. We are located just on the edge of Center City on the Schuylkill River. So we have fabulous views of the river and city skyline. We are about 40 people, I think maybe 41 just this minute. And our primary focus is on design for education from pre-K to post-collegiate. But that encompasses a wide range of services, preservation, planning, architecture, as well as we have an interior studio and a wide range of projects, which is why this client type is so exciting for me.

 

00;03;41;19 - 00;03;45;14

DP

Interesting. So the firm size has grown over the years, I would assume.

 

00;03;45;17 - 00;03;55;08

DHV

Yes, we started off as two people and now our, as I said, almost 40. We actually grew during the pandemic. I have no explanation for it.

 

00;03;55;11 - 00;03;58;08

DP

That's incredible. And was that mainly in school work?

 

00;03;58;13 - 00;04;33;09

DHV

Almost exclusively, we do architecture planning, interiors and preservation, and we service school work primarily, but we do other work for other institutions, primarily nonprofit. For example, we're just completing a almost 100,000 square foot renovation of some factory buildings for an organization called Philadelphia Youth Basketball. So it has seven basketball courts, classrooms, leadership training, those sorts of facilities up in one of the more disadvantaged areas of Philadelphia.

 

00;04;33;11 - 00;04;35;10

DP

And do you guys do any residential work?

 

00;04;35;14 - 00;04;45;27

DHV

We do, actually. Thanks for asking. We just brought on three new partners, one of whom is Scott O’Barr, and he is heading up our residential studio. It's fairly new for us.

 

00;04;46;00 - 00;04;48;11

DP

Well, that's great. That's actually my, that's what I do. I do.

 

00;04;48;11 - 00;04;55;25

DHV

All right. Well, we started off doing residential but grew out of that and now we're coming back to residential again with the addition of Scott.

 

00;04;56;02 - 00;05;04;22

DP

That's great work. Good for you. So tell us a little bit about yourself. How long have you been practicing and what's your role in the office as a principal and director of design?

 

00;05;04;24 - 00;06;15;06

DHV

Well, my first job in architect's office was when I was 19 at the Architects Collaborative. I got an internship between my sophomore year and junior year at Bryn Mawr, and I loved it so much I took a year off and stayed there. Sadly, that firm doesn't exist anymore, but it was a great introduction to very high level design.

 

I graduated from architecture school in ‘81 and I've been working pretty much since I formed a partnership with my first employer, Toni Atkins. So it became Atkin Voith and Associates. So that existed for sadly only about three years. We were doing great, but somehow the relationship just wasn't going as well as it should have been. So I broke away and formed a new firm with one of the people that was an employee at the previous firm.

 

So Cameron MacTavish, who is a wonderful human being and very talented person, and I just bought him out about five years ago because he wanted to do other things and we're still great friends. That's amazing. And just this January took on three new partners. One of the people who was a partner previously, John Cluver, heads up the Preservation Studio.

 

So there are now five of us, the VMA five.

 

00;06;15;08 - 00;06;28;12

DP

Well, it sounds like your firm clearly has grown and you do wonderful work. I've been on your website and we'll talk about that a little bit later. So let's talk a little bit about this project. How did your office get the project?

 

00;06;28;15 - 00;07;12;00

DHV

Well, just as we usually do, it's a competitive business. I think we won it at the interview. The RFP was one of the most unusual ones that we've ever gotten because the brief was written about love and loyalty and how can architecture help young students form a really strong bond with a place. There is also a lot of humor involved at Lawrenceville.

 

There are a funny bunch, they love to joke, and so in our visual response that we sent in with our portfolio, we photoshopped the head and face of the CFO, who had written the RFP into almost every photo that had people in it. So he only found five of them.

 

00;07;12;02 - 00;07;13;04

DP

Where's Waldo?

 

00;07;13;07 - 00;07;28;24

DHV

It was exactly like Where's Waldo? But we tried to approach the interview in responding exactly to that. How do you create a sense of belonging and a sense of fascination and otherness in a place?

 

00;07;28;27 - 00;07;30;25

DP

So you didn't know the clients and you got the job?

 

00;07;30;26 - 00;07;31;17

DHV

That's correct.

 

00;07;31;17 - 00;07;38;05

DP

That's wonderful. Good for you. So let's talk a little bit about the history of the location you said is kind of special.

 

00;07;38;07 - 00;09;17;03

DHV

So Lawrenceville is one of the premier boarding schools in the country. It has a long tradition. Its original campus was laid out by Olmstead, and a lot of the architecture was done, as you mentioned, by Peabody and Stearns. Originally, it was laid out in a circle as many older boarding schools are. And as it grew, the planning paradigm became more oriented around quads.

 

This dining hall was built as an addition to a Peabody and Stearns dormitory. It had a flat roof, a pretty unsympathetic brick, big glass curtain wall that faced West, which you can only imagine was sun beating in at dinner time. So they pulled the curtains. So it was almost always dark. And so there was a lot to improve, but they didn't really want to diverge too much from the footprint of the building.

 

But essentially we took the building down to its foundations. We left the steel, took off the roof and kept these two side wings that are almost square and planned and put a new roof and new structure. As you mentioned, the big glulam trusses that look like heavy timber and then made a basically a six foot addition on the Western facade to create some really deep windows so that that West facing sun would get mitigated as it comes in and then really responded to the facade of the original dormitory on the other side.

 

So the facade is characterized by a round tower which forms the entry and six Romanesque arched windows, three on either side. So it has this very heavy look about its sense of gravitas.

 

00;09;17;06 - 00;09;23;05

DP

So this building really looked nothing like what it does today. Is that correct? The facades are completely new.

 

00;09;23;09 - 00;09;25;00

DHV

Completely new.

 

00;09;25;02 - 00;09;41;01

DP

So what's interesting about that, as I'm reading about your renovation 1960s building, I'm thinking this was clearly a very talented architect in the sixties. Now, that's amazing, right? So this building, he just took it down to the foundations. Okay, Now it all makes perfect sense.

 

00;09;41;01 - 00;09;41;19

DHV

Pretty much.

 

00;09;41;19 - 00;09;44;16

DP

My goodness.

 

00;09;44;16 - 00;09;47;00

DHV

It was a flat roof, 1960s building with a curtain wall.

 

00;09;47;06 - 00;09;53;05

DP

Yeah. Wow, that. Okay, that's pretty cool. So you guys know what you're doing? This thing is beautiful.

 

00;09;53;05 - 00;10;36;19

DHV

Thank you. Thank you. Well, part of our design philosophy is to really make more of a home, both in terms of individual buildings, but also in terms of the context. And this design really is right up our alley in the sense that we love to combine mission and image. As I said before, there is a strong mission to get the dining hall, which is for the fifth formers, their culminating year at the school, a chance to rebond. The school is organized so that there's a freshman dorm, but then they divide up into houses and they're in those houses for two years and then they come back together again as a class. So it's a chance to rebond.

 

00;10;36;21 - 00;10;41;22

DP

So tell me a little bit about the scope or programmatic requirements of the project from the beginning.

 

00;10;41;29 - 00;11;53;02

DHV

Right? So the dining hall seats about 250 to 300. The servery was a very old fashioned cafeteria line, which is way outdated in terms of food service. So the kitchens had to be upgraded, the servery completely renovated, the loading dock assisted and that sort of thing. So they also wanted to be able to use the room as an event space.

 

So it needed to handle various different seating configurations, a lot of AV component ends, video, that sort of thing. And they wanted to be able to clear out the room, as I said, for some events like dances. So I worked very closely with Thomas Moser. There's a fine mill worker up at Maine to develop a table. It looked like a very heavy wooden table.

 

It is a very heavy wooden table, but the top flips and you can put it up onto skateboards essentially and move them away. So it's now called the Daniela table, and it's available on their contract side if you're looking for a nesting trestle table. And that was really about it. It serves three meals a day other than the events that they do.

 

So one of the first was a wedding for the head of school, his daughter.

 

00;11;53;05 - 00;11;59;26

DP

So they must have had a decent budget for the project, right? They ended up making some custom furniture.

 

00;11;59;28 - 00;12;15;24

DHV

I think by most standards it was decent. The project in the end all in was $8 million. It's a 13,000 square foot building, so it's not incredibly expensive by residential short, but a lot of value I think, for what they invested in this building.

 

00;12;16;00 - 00;12;29;03

DP

So let's go backwards a little bit and talk about the building stylistically. So you mentioned, I mentioned earlier, Peabody and Stearns Architecture. I guess they may have been well known for shingle style architecture.

 

00;12;29;09 - 00;12;44;00

DHV

They were they were a firm of big reputation. And so I think the board members must have nabbed them from New York and brought them down to Lawrenceville. Shingle style definitely. But also this kind of masonry structures as well.

 

00;12;44;02 - 00;13;06;21

DP

So let's talk a little bit about project restrictions. So I don't know a whole lot about how to get a building built on a boarding school campus. What was that like? And are you working with the town and zoning ordinances there? And you're also working with the school and with esthetic issues. And are there any historical challenges other than trying to match certain architecture?

 

00;13;06;28 - 00;14;22;12

DHV

The zoning was easy because we were really staying pretty much within the same footprint. We're not adding impervious coverage. The construction logistics were tricky and we essentially cut a new entrance road onto the campus, a construction entrance, and fenced off the construction area. Obviously, student safety is a huge concern. Embedded into our specification are behavioral guidelines, no smoking, shirts on, no swear words.

 

There's a lot of that sort of thing that's required by most school campuses, actually. The construction needed to happen within a year. They only took that dining hall offline for just one school year, basically a real tricky part of the project was that the original contractor was somebody that we had done maybe 15 to 20 projects with, went out of business in the middle of the project.

 

So that was heartbreaking because they were such good contractors and caused a huge hiccup and because they were having such trouble, there was construction work that was done that wasn't necessarily supervised, and the school wanted some work to continue. So there was a lot of logistical issues that happened in transferring to another contractor.

 

00;14;22;19 - 00;14;27;29

DP

Did you have to hire like a construction manager to come in and help put it all back together?

 

00;14;28;01 - 00;14;48;15

DHV

No, the school, you know, was fairly sophisticated in terms of construction. Many schools are not, but there was insurance involved. And so there was insurance oversight. There was banking issues. There were a lot of things in transferring all that knowledge from one contractor to another. Not having the backup was challenging, but they did an amazing job in the end.

 

00;14;48;18 - 00;14;52;03

DP

So how long did the planning and design process take?

 

00;14;52;06 - 00;15;28;09

DHV

Probably just about a year, maybe a smidge longer. There's always that moment. We go through the design. We made models, we did beautiful drawings. There wasn't, like there often is, a hiatus for fundraising because the project was fully funded from the get go, so a single donor basically anteed up. So it was a fairly smooth process from the beginning of concept through the construction documents, the construction documents were a thing of beauty.

 

The Millwork was so detailed, the brickwork is so detailed. There is a lot to that set. I'd love to show them to you at some point.

 

00;15;28;12 - 00;15;34;22

DP

I'd love to see that. So what was the size of the team that you had working on the project?

 

00;15;34;24 - 00;15;47;17

DHV

Core team of myself, the project manager, Sennah Loftus, the architect, Andrew Lipschitz. And then there were probably two other people who were helping. So that's 5.

 

00;15;47;17 - 00;15;51;06

DP

And did you guys work in 2D and 3D?

 

00;15;51;08 - 00;16;03;20

DHV

This is a project that was done entirely in CAD so much detail that it not a lot of repetition and so many one off kinds of details that working in Revit would have hindered us.

 

00;16;03;20 - 00;16;11;29

DP

I think and you guys presented I'm assuming, drawings and ultimately maybe even models to the clients along the way. Did they enjoy that?

 

00;16;12;01 - 00;16;24;23

DHV

Of course, there's nothing like a model. So we actually made a model where we could take the roof off. The client could actually understand the roof structure and then see the space inside and then put the roof back on.

 

00;16;24;25 - 00;16;27;01

DP

Did you guys hire that out or did you make them?

 

00;16;27;01 - 00;16;43;09

DHV

We did it in-house. We have a great shop where we can do both woodworking, we have a laser cutter and also 3D printing. I think we're in the midst of phasing out the woodshop, sadly. But the other aspects of it is that prototyping is really important to us.

 

00;16;43;12 - 00;16;55;01

DP

So that's a good segway to the building esthetics. So I'm looking at some photos of the architecture. Did you guys replicate some of the archways that you found on campus and other buildings?

 

00;16;55;09 - 00;17;44;11

DHV

The main arches that are on this facade are derived directly from the front of the original dormitory. It's called Upper House. So from the upper house facade. But the curved tower entry was something that, you know, we studied Peabody and Stern a fair amount and we thought that would be appropriate. It, of course, was very tricky construction and detailing wise because not only is it curved, but we also put an arched top over the main doors.

 

So that arch is curving in elevation and in plan. Interestingly, if you flatten it out, it's actually and ellipse and the underside of the arch as you get into the door itself actually expands from the doorframe to the door head. It gets steeper because the curve is coming around.

 

00;17;44;13 - 00;17;46;09

DP

So they built formwork for that?

 

00;17;46;11 - 00;18;34;12

DHV

No? Well, I'm sure they did in terms of having an arch to lay everything up on. But the arches are actually true arches and we wanted that really deep window recess. So the brick is laid up on a facing block. So it's actually an eight inch facade on top of the structural law we have that depth really makes those arches read.

 

The arches have a stone arch on the outside. Then there's another arch on the inside that's made up of a header and a stretcher. So it's that deep. And then there's a hinge brick underneath that has a molded shape on it, basically, not quite a full round, but I guess a three quarter around section. And then it goes back into the return, which as I said, varies in depth as it goes around.

 

00;18;34;14 - 00;18;38;11

DP

Did you have any trouble finding a mason to do that work?

 

00;18;38;14 - 00;19;20;00

DHV

So we didn't find the mason, the contractors did. And the Masons on this job were really good, so we were happy. The brick is kind of a orangish red. The way we've laid it out has a very, almost monolithic feel because we picked a mortar that blends with the brick. It doesn't highlight each individual brick. So the mortar itself has that a similar coloration to the brick.

 

There's not much of just facade and it's laid up in running bond. In between the arches we have round medallions that are also made of brick. And then the center those medallions are a herringbone pattern. So there's an incredible amount of richness in the brickwork and it's highlighted by these masonry elements.

 

00;19;20;02 - 00;19;25;09

DP

I would imagine you did a lot of drawings in house of what this, ultimately, the facades were going to look like.

 

00;19;25;09 - 00;19;28;04

DHV

And then the shop drawings were amazing.

 

00;19;28;06 - 00;19;31;01

DP

And did you do many mock ups in the field?

 

00;19;31;04 - 00;19;54;24

DHV

So we did a mock up of the wall and a return. We did not do a full on mock up with the window inserted. We often do, but in this case we didn't. Tricky part was putting one of these arched openings into the existing brick of those sidings that I mentioned To start with. The brick actually is slightly different than the 1960s brick. That's the only bit of facade that remained.

 

00;19;54;27 - 00;19;59;01

DP

So the brick facade remained on those wings and then you matched?

 

00;19;59;07 - 00;20;04;06

DHV

Now we didn't match their contrasting sixties. Brick has more variation in it.

 

00;20;04;10 - 00;20;06;13

DP

It looks a little redder in the photos.

 

00;20;06;16 - 00;20;21;19

DHV

Yeah, it's just has a little bit more variation in the brick. But we tried to choose a brick that would blend both with the original Peabody and Sterns and those existing pieces of wall. I mean, in the end we could have just taken them down and started over, but we didn't.

 

00;20;21;21 - 00;20;36;24

DP

Right. You always, at least in my experience, you kind of pick and choose what you're going to keep and what you're not going to keep. And you look back, you're like, man, we probably spent more money keeping things than just tearing it down to the foundation gradually.

 

00;20;36;25 - 00;20;50;17

DHV

Absolutely. But part of the transformation of this building was not only this incredibly detailed facade, but also the very, very steeply pitched roof that's all slate. The dormers have copper on them and the tower itself has some copper on it.

 

00;20;50;19 - 00;20;55;14

DP

They must have loved that, the peak roof, the idea that they were getting rid of this flat roof.

 

00;20;55;14 - 00;21;04;21

DHV

Absolutely. I'm still hearing, I mean this was finished a number of years ago, and I still hear from people who've been on campus how amazing the space is.

 

00;21;04;24 - 00;21;13;14

DP

Let's talk a little bit about the trusses on the interior, even though they're not masonry. So in my experience those are called hammer beam trusses. Am I incorrect?

 

00;21;13;16 - 00;21;51;24

DHV

No, but basically this is a modern building and the span was fairly large. And so our engineers wanted this to be self-supporting. So they're made up of glulam pieces and then bolted together. There is a lot of concern actually by the client when they first saw the trusses go up because they weren't stained yet. And it has these heavy bolts in the plates and they're really worried that this is going to get too industrial looking.

 

And we painted the steel bits in a color that kind of calms down the contrast between the steel and the wood. And by the time the roof went on and everything else was going on, everybody's in love.

 

00;21;51;26 - 00;21;57;02

DP

You would never know. And I looked at those photos online. You'd never know there was any steel.

 

00;21;57;04 - 00;22;07;02

DHV

Yeah, it's just the balls. Sometimes we've done roofs that look like they're heavy timber but are actually steel clad. But in this case, the wood is actually self-supporting.

 

00;22;07;05 - 00;22;08;23

DP

Yeah, the interior's stunning.

 

00;22;08;26 - 00;22;09;10

DHV

Thank you.

 

00;22;09;10 - 00;22;14;21

DP

Is that one large rectangular space on the first floor other than the wing?

 

00;22;14;21 - 00;23;21;18

DHV

Yeah, other than the wings, it's not quite rectangular because the ends have sort of apses. They're angular. And so in the middle of each and there's an enormous fireplace, we pulled the base of the fireplace up off the floor so that you could see in to the fireplaces from the seated position. And then we had these incredible carvings done that are representative of themes on the campus.

 

And then, they're not wood burning their gas, but they certainly give this incredible warmth to events and the floor is made of terrazzo. And we carefully made a pattern of the terazzo. So but I said, these people are jokesters, right? And so one of the things that you can do with terrazzo, so it's imbed brass shapes into it.

 

We found a number of shapes again of animals and other things that are kind of spread through the Lawrenceville law. And then we put cockroaches on the floor. That's so there's like five or six cockroaches. So there's the question always is, well, where's the cockroach?

 

00;23;21;20 - 00;23;23;03

DP

I'd love to see that.

 

00;23;23;05 - 00;23;25;04

DHV

I can send you a photograph.

 

00;23;25;12 - 00;23;31;03

DP

Please do. So, did your team learn anything interesting through the design and construction process? Anything kind of new for you?

 

00;23;31;05 - 00;24;04;08

DHV

One of the things that we were very interested in anyway was the issue of the Western exposure. And we're a firm that is oriented towards sustainability. It kind of is part and parcel of every project that we do. And so the light mitigation was a big piece of it. So we did a number of lighting studies to see how deep we needed to make the niches to really be able to cut off the direct glare to the inside.

 

That was an interesting piece of work for us. The combination of computer modeling, lighting, simulation and facade design.

 

00;24;04;11 - 00;24;18;24

DP

Very cool. So, Daniela, you've been an architect and educator for some time. Based on what you know today about being an architect, do you have any words of advice for your younger self or maybe for young people coming up in the field today?

 

00;24;18;27 - 00;25;06;09

DHV

So everybody has to find their own selves. And I mentor a lot of women. Our office is more than 50% women. Being an architect on the job site is always a challenge. I found my own way, partially because I played a lot of basketball growing up and I played a lot of basketball with men. I already had this kind of knowledge of both teamwork, competitiveness, defensiveness, all of that all plays out in sports and then into real life.

 

But most people don't have that experience. They're not as big as tall as I am. I try and say, You're going to have to find your own way. But ultimately on the job site anyway, the person who signs the requisition for payment has the power. So I think my biggest piece of advice is learn to trust yourself and stand on your own two feet.

 

00;25;06;16 - 00;25;23;26

DP

It's great advice. When I think about myself as a young architect, a young human being for that matter, I was always looking for answers from someone else, always asking someone, How do I do this or How do I get to where I want to go? Or what do I even want to do with my life.

 

00;25;23;28 - 00;25;25;09

DHV

That only comes from inside.

 

00;25;25;15 - 00;25;36;22

DP

But it takes a long time to figure that out. And it's really nice that there are people that come alongside you and say, Hey, you know what? You have to look inside. The answers are actually all there already.

 

00;25;36;24 - 00;25;37;27

DHV

Correct. Nice way to put it.

 

00;25;38;00 - 00;25;47;18

DP

Well, I'm glad you've been there for lots of other women. So, Daniela, it's been great to have you here. Thanks for your time. Where can people go to learn more about VMA and yourself?

 

00;25;47;20 - 00;26;08;14

DHV

Our website is cumbersome in terms of its name, but its VoithandMacTavish.com. There's lots of information. If you want to know more about me, search Daniela Voith I think will get you there. You don't have to add my middle name, Holt. I even have a Wikipedia page. So there's a lot of information out there to be had about me.

 

00;26;08;20 - 00;26;12;18

DP

That's pretty cool. Well, thank you very much for your time today.

 

00;26;12;25 - 00;26;15;11

DHV

It's been a pleasure. Thank you so much for inviting me.

 

00;26;15;14 - 00;26;42;05

DP

Our pleasure.

 

TRANSCRIPT

00;00;00;02 - 00;00;05;10

Doug Pat (DP)

Let's go inside the vault. The design vault.

 

00;00;05;12 - 00;00;34;05

Michelle Todd (MT)

So the whole idea was to fix the parapet and also to fix all of the step cracking within the facade. It was a beautiful building of brick in the front and the original status was that it had stucco on the very rear portion. We wind up finding out that this particular building, it wasn't brick behind it, it was actually wood.

 

So that therefore became more of an extensive project in which it wasn't just a renovation of the exterior facade, it was now a whole new addition and also an entire new rebuild.

 

00;00;34;07 - 00;01;01;23

DP

This is my guest, Michelle Todd. I'll share more about her shortly. In this episode from The Design Vault. We highlight Michelle's restoration project at 102 Bainbridge Street in Brooklyn's Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood. The Bainbridge Street renovation project is located in the Stuyvesant Heights Historic District. It was built within a row of buildings, which is a long group of houses planned to form seven freestanding architectural units.

 

00;01;01;28 - 00;03;46;13

DP

102 is situated at the end of the row. It's a modified Spanish residential style home with a triple arched loggia made of red brick laid in Flemish pond. The roof parapet rises at the center in an arch supported on concave shoulders. The restoration was begun to repair a buckling roof parapet, deteriorated walls, damaged pediment and cracking stucco facade.

 

Renovation work was extensive and a decision was made early not to replace the stucco, but rather leave and repair the natural brick masonry. The building scope also changed during construction from an exterior renovation to demolition and reconstruction due to construction material issues. Structural engineers were also consulted to create a necessary and unique wall construction method. The existing roof skylights, roof hatch and areas of limestone and bluestone were also repaired.

 

The project was also recently awarded the 2023 Lucy G. Moses New York Landmark Conservancy Award. Hi, I'm Doug Pat and this is Design Vault. Michelle Todd is an architect and principal of M.Todd Architects in Bedford-Stuyvesant, New York. Michelle has a master of science from Columbia University in architecture and urban design. She also studied at the École des Beaux-Arts in France.

 

Michelle grew up in Brooklyn's Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood in the 1970s. She knew she wanted to be an architect by the age of ten. Her interests today focus on urban planning and socially responsive architecture. After a brief stint at Perkins Eastman, she opened her own firm in 2008. Since then, she's worked for small and large corporations such as Snapple, the New York City Agency Office of Emergency Management, as well as private residential projects.

 

Her studio in Brooklyn, New York, focuses on historic renovations and additions, collaborating directly with clients and working closely with the general contractor during construction. Michelle's worked on Landmark designated buildings, bakeries, restaurants, schools and renovation projects. She's an adjunct professor at the New York City CUNY College and a licensed architect in New York State and Maryland. She's certified as a consultant with the International Institute of Building Enclosures, and Living Future accredited with the International Living Future Institute.

 

Welcome, Michelle. It's nice to have you with us today. So tell us a little bit about M.Todd Architects in Brooklyn. So where in Bed-Stuy are you located? What's the size of the firm? How long have you been around? And tell us a little more about project types.

 

00;03;46;16 - 00;04;19;19

MT

The firm is in the heart of Bedford-Stuyvesant on the whole Z Street. Been around since 2008 was almost 15 years as of March of this year, 2024. And basically the firm is small, is about three people, we specialize specifically in historical preservation, as well as residential private editions, commercial projects such as restaurants, bake houses and also schools. So basically you have a realm of achievement in different areas, which is commercial, residential and also business.

 

00;04;19;21 - 00;04;26;09

DP

So tell us a little bit about yourself. How long have you been practicing architecture and what's your role in the office as principal?

 

00;04;26;12 - 00;05;00;18

MT

I've been practicing architecture since 2008, when I received my license. However, I do have decades of experience before then in working at previous larger offices, in smaller offices to gain the experience I needed. Because, as you know, as an architect, you have to have at least three years working first in the field and then afterwards you're able to take the examination.

 

So once I did that, then just made initiative to just start my own practice. And basically I am the principal where I do a lot of marketing as well as clients in order to obtain business.

 

00;05;00;20 - 00;05;02;15

DP

And you said you have some employees?

 

00;05;02;21 - 00;05;13;16

MT

I do have employees. They're basically consultants. So basically I have a expediter. I have a drafts person. I have also my consultants, such as structural engineer, mechanical engineers.

 

00;05;13;19 - 00;05;21;08

DP

That's interesting. So you have an expediter that you guys use. And is that to make the process working with the city a little easier?

 

00;05;21;11 - 00;05;33;17

MT

It really does make it easier because as a person with a small firm, your hands are in everything. So to have somebody to be on the outside, to be able to do that type of work is appreciative and helpful.

 

00;05;33;19 - 00;05;46;05

DP

That's really cool. I mean, just as an aside, I hadn't really thought about the need for an expediter in a firm like that, but that makes perfect sense. So let's dig in here and talk about the home. How did your office get the project?

 

00;05;46;07 - 00;06;08;01

MT

I received the project in regards to as a dear friend, where I'm on the New York City Landmark Committee for Bedford-Stuyvesant specifically, and Community Board three, and he was a good member, Fred Jones, rest in peace. He had a friend who was in need of architectural services, so he recommended me to the client, which is the richest family, about this project.

 

00;06;08;03 - 00;06;10;01

DP

So you didn't know the clients before you got the job?

 

00;06;10;06 - 00;06;18;04

MT

I didn't know the clients. It was a friend of a friend, and he just talked highly about me and said that you should work with me in regards to this project.

 

00;06;18;06 - 00;06;24;26

DP

So give us a little history about the location. And was I correct in stating that the unit is an end unit?

 

00;06;24;29 - 00;07;08;00

MT

It is. It's in the beautiful, original, historic district of Bedford-Stuyvesant, which is known as Stuyvesant Heights, and it was established as a landmark district in 1971. So this set of buildings, it's literally between Stuyvesant and Lewis on Bainbridge. There's about 14 series of the buildings, and it's at the end row and there are Spanish style Renaissance buildings. That was created by W.f. McCarthy, who was an architect back in 1919.

 

And the unique thing about these buildings is that it's the only buildings I've ever been in with it has two staircases inside where there's one in the back and one in the front. So I guess back in those days they would have the servants come through the back and then the owners come through the front.

 

00;07;08;03 - 00;07;10;14

DP

Roughly, what's the square footage of the project?

 

00;07;10;16 - 00;07;13;09

MT

It's about 1200 square feet.

 

00;07;13;11 - 00;07;17;05

DP

And what was the scope and the programmatic requirements from the owner?

 

00;07;17;07 - 00;10;08;12

MT

Well, the original scope and program was that it was in terrible need in regards to the existing structure, the parapet was buckling. So on the north facade as well as the south and west facades, it was just crumbling. They were scared that it was going to fall down in some way. So the whole idea was to fix the parapet and also to fix all of the step cracking within the facade.

 

But then as we went along, we started to think also, it was a beautiful building of brick in the front. And the original status was that it had stucco on the very rear portion. Once we started to do the renovation was like, you know, we don't really need the stucco. It really looks beautiful with the brick itself. So we started to expose all the stucco, and by exposing all the stucco, we wound up finding out that this particular building, it wasn't brick behind it, it was actually wood.

 

So that therefore became more of an extensive project in which it wasn't just the renovation of the exterior facade, it was now a whole new addition and also an entire new rebuild. So we found out the history, and that was the nice thing about it. We really had to go back in the history of it. This is where the assistance of the expediter really came into play, because basically we found out that back in 1956, the building itself had a permit to actually do a addition because all of these beautiful houses.

 

What makes them so special in this neighborhood, too, is that they have their own private driveway, which many people don't have in that area. And also they have a garage. But then also on the second floor of each of these houses, they have a beautiful sunroom with a balcony. The person who owned the property at 102 Bainbridge, he basically wanted to make an addition.

 

So he eliminated that balcony and extended the whole square footage of the building so it can be enclosed. When we removed the stucco, we found out that instead of it masonry, he had it wood. So that was back in 1956. So we had to go back all the way to the building department to find out what the original drawings were, which we found out which were these beautiful blueprint drawings that you don't see anymore.

 

And it said that year they were legally supposed to have an addition, but it was supposed to be made out of brick, not wood. So that's where the whole expedition kind of came in. I had to go back to New York City building department, as well as the landmarks, because everyone was like shocked that it was wood versus masonry.

 

And we basically had to do a whole reconstruction. And that's where I guess the product of Glen-Gery came into play, because what happened to you is that on the back of the facade, all the bricks in the building weren't the same. The bricks in the front of the building were made out of Beldon, and it was a different type of color scheme.

 

But then when we removed the stucco in the back, it was a beautiful match with the Glen-Gery Kushwaha Calvert Plantation Middle Plantation, 52DD. It was a perfect match to it. Again, we had to go back to landmarks to make sure that they were approve of that brick to match what was in the rear facade that was being used.

 

00;10;08;15 - 00;10;17;12

DP

So what's interesting about the photographs that you sent is that the building looks as though some of these walls were completely taken down.

 

00;10;17;18 - 00;10;59;01

MT

It was because due to the fact it was stucco and I'm an architect that's very conscious about the environment. And stucco is something I concrete and it adds to the carbon footprint. So the whole idea was that this project specifically was to eliminate that process in really being more progressive and more enhancing to the environment. So that's why we didn't use stucco.

 

We wanted to just expose the beautiful masonry itself. And therefore, by eliminating the stucco, we saw the building was in need of much deeper repair than we expected. That was the thing, because in 1956 you figured that the contractors would be honest and they would do what they were supposed to do. But he wasn’t. And therefore that made this more of an adventure to get it right.

 

00;10;59;03 - 00;11;05;27

DP

So I would imagine there are a number of other buildings on that block that were also made of wood, that the interior wall construction. Is that correct?

 

00;11;06;00 - 00;11;44;10

MT

I don't know. That's the whole thing. What happened is, what makes this special is that this is the only house that has the addition. That's it. Everybody else has the sunroom. So this once in particular you thought that you would put it in masonry, but it's in it makes sense. First landmarks had to come and see it.

 

They were, like, shocked. Then I received the structural engineer, which was SOMA Engineering Firm, which is a great engineering firm. They came, they were shocked. The construction company that we work with, Naim Construction, all of us was basically shocked that this was behind the stucco because it looked like everything was fine. But when exposed, that's when we all gathered together as a team to like how we can resolve this.

 

00;11;44;16 - 00;11;52;22

DP

Interesting. Let's back up and talk a little bit about the plan of the building. I would assume it's just a large rectangle, two storey rectangle.

 

00;11;52;24 - 00;11;54;23

MT

Exactly. It was a two storey rectangle.

 

00;11;55;00 - 00;11;59;29

DP

And had you been contracted to design the interiors as well?

 

00;12;00;04 - 00;12;20;18

MT

I have for later date because what happens is based on the fact that now the photographs that you have here show of what it was existing. We went back to the premise of what it was back in 1919 when the solarium had these beautiful corner windows. So the design now is encompassing back the original style of that format.

 

00;12;20;20 - 00;12;25;05

DP

So you had to work with the city. How long did that process take?

 

00;12;25;08 - 00;12;53;21

MT

This is how it began. The project began in May 2020, during the pandemic. Then we actually had approval to start construction in April of 2021. Then all of these items, open issues about the facade not being what it was, and reconstruction, we basically spent about two years after that, and it was completed around October 20, 23. So it was back and forth with New York Landmarks as well as New York City Building Department.

 

00;12;53;27 - 00;12;55;09

DP

And the client had somewhere to live.

 

00;12;55;16 - 00;13;08;12

MT

He lived on the first floor. So the top floor. It was a blessing that he was able to live on the first floor while all this construction was going on. And in the top floor, basically, he had tenants, but then they moved out. When this major construction of us doing the rebuild.

 

00;13;08;15 - 00;13;09;07

DP

A lot of noise.

 

00;13;09;13 - 00;13;11;04

MT

It was a lot of noise.

 

00;13;11;04 - 00;13;11;23

DP

Very dusty.

 

00;13;11;24 - 00;13;15;00

MT

But it was fun.

 

00;13;15;02 - 00;13;24;10

DP

That's great. I'm interested as an architect about the drawings that you created in the very beginning. Did you work in 3D or just 2D?

 

00;13;24;12 - 00;13;33;28

MT

I worked in 2D, but then afterwards, when we started to look at what this condition that was taking place in the rear, I started looking at it in 3D and how it would be.

 

00;13;34;05 - 00;13;38;05

DP

And did you have to present drawings to a historic commission?

 

00;13;38;07 - 00;13;47;14

MT

Yes, we present it to Brian Blazak, is one of the senior preservationists on in New York City Landmarks. We had to show the drawings of what we planned to do.

 

00;13;47;16 - 00;13;48;26

DP

Exterior elevations?

 

00;13;49;03 - 00;13;50;24

MT

Yeah, exterior elevations.

 

00;13;50;26 - 00;13;58;25

DP

So again, backing up a little bit, you removed the stucco on one facade and replaced masonry on another. Is that correct?

 

00;13;58;28 - 00;14;25;03

MT

It's on the same facade. What happens is, is that the entire facade was placed in stucco. But then when we looked at the south elevation, so the windows were there, but it was infilled with wood. And that's what was shocking to everybody because basically it was really dilapidated and it also kind of made sense for the owner later on because he said his tenants always felt cold in that part of the room.

 

And it made sense because it was the wood and that masonry, there was no insulation whatsoever.

 

00;14;25;06 - 00;14;30;17

DP

So tell us a little bit about the new wall system that you guys had to create because of that condition.

 

00;14;30;19 - 00;15;17;03

MT

So the new wall system was still going back to what was historically done in regards to the rear facade was made out of three widths of brick, which basically is like three layers. And what we had to do is that we had to abide by what the actual, once we removed the stucco, what the actual pattern was, because it was a common bond, because as I stated in the beginning, the pattern in the front of the house was completely different than the pattern in the back of the house.

 

So once we established that, then we wanted to really make it structurally sound and we incorporated steel within the wall. So basically you have the three whiffs of brick on the outside, then you have the steel. It was stainless steel that made sure it was resource sustainably. And then we have our insulation and then our finishes in the inside.

 

00;15;17;06 - 00;15;26;25

DP

So the project sounds really interesting. Did you guys learn anything new about construction technologies or about building typologies in working on this project?

 

00;15;26;27 - 00;15;58;06

MT

Yes, the use of materials because again, was very selective about which materials we're going to use because since this building was already historically landmarked since 1919, we wanted to make sure that it lasts for another 100 years. So was very selective on who the steel came from, where the insulation came from, where the bricks came from. All of these were really mindful things and I think moving forward with other projects, I continue doing that, making sure that they are friendly to the planet as well as to the people who are going to live and utilize the buildings.

 

00;15;58;08 - 00;16;04;18

DP

So did the client bring the general contractor to the project or did you interview a number of contractors?

 

00;16;04;20 - 00;16;10;09

MT

We did interview a number of contractors, but then the client himself selected Naim Construction for it.

 

00;16;10;12 - 00;16;15;19

DP

And clearly there's a lot of masonry work. Did you have any challenges finding a good mason?

 

00;16;15;21 - 00;16;45;27

MT

Oh no. He has very excellent masons and they were very accommodating because we had to go back and forth with New York City Landmarks when we were selecting the bricks where we had to actually do a sample of the wall where the wood infill was of how the brick was going to look. So one of his masons, George, was really who's one of the oldest ones there.

 

It has most experience. He was very patient. We went on the scaffolding and it was a really cold day, but we did the whole mock up and it came out beautiful. And therefore Landmark said, Yes, go with it.

 

00;16;45;29 - 00;16;49;16

DP

So you did the mock up and the city came out and took a look at it?

 

00;16;49;19 - 00;16;56;05

MT

No, we took photographs and then afterwards they were like, because it was cold.

 

00;16;56;07 - 00;17;05;24

DP

So the city doesn't like to go out on cold days? I think we’ll leave that in there. That's good. So I assume the client's living there now?

 

00;17;06;02 - 00;17;09;17

MT

He is. He's living in the bottom floor still, but he's happy with the work.

 

00;17;09;20 - 00;17;12;25

DP

So is it complete? And he has a tenant on the second floor?

 

00;17;13;00 - 00;17;22;21

MT

He doesn't have a tenant on the second floor. And it's not quite complete yet because now we're just waiting for the historical windows to come in. So that is the last crème de la crème.

 

00;17;22;23 - 00;17;24;27

DP

And who is the manufacturer of the windows?

 

00;17;25;03 - 00;17;36;10

MT

It is Norwood Manufacturers, a Canadian company. And again, it was very selective on them because the way they use and harvest wood in order to make the windows, we're really mindful about that.

 

00;17;36;17 - 00;17;39;23

DP

Interesting. Are they double glazed? Triple glazed?

 

00;17;39;25 - 00;17;49;03

MT

They're triple glazed, low e glass index and they're quite beautiful. They're the original to what was there before of the windows? So they're replicating those.

 

00;17;49;05 - 00;17;57;00

DP

So I'm curious in terms of color, you were able to find a brick that you were happy with. You said that matched on the exterior.

 

00;17;57;02 - 00;18;12;16

MT

The contractor has suggested he was like, this will be a perfect break. I did research and was a Glen-Gery Kushwaha Calvert 52 DD Middle Plantation. That was the one that was selected. And when we put it in place, it was perfect to what was there from 1919.

 

00;18;12;22 - 00;18;15;27

DP

So do all these row homes, they all must look the same?

 

00;18;16;02 - 00;18;45;16

MT

They basically all look the same. And the other fascinating thing too, with the project, when we were doing the demo for the wood infield, all the bricks, I learned this like recently from my practice that the bricks that we were removing, that were there all had the names of the brick companies on there. And you don't see that anymore in which they were actually etched into the brick.

 

I was like, Wow, It's like, fascinating. So it was like an archeological project in the same way of doing something better for the building for another hundred years.

 

00;18;45;19 - 00;18;52;24

DP

So when you guys put these new windows in, what about the color? Can you do whatever color you want or the colors have to match the other homes.

 

00;18;52;26 - 00;18;57;13

MT

The colors have to match. It is going to be made out of wood, but they're going to be of a white finish.

 

00;18;57;16 - 00;19;00;10

DP

And they have to be traditional in style to match the others.

 

00;19;00;16 - 00;19;01;06

MT

Exactly.

 

00;19;01;06 - 00;19;11;17

DP

Interesting. So, Michelle, you've been an architect for some time. Based on what you know today about being an architect, you have any words of advice for your younger self or maybe architects coming up in the ranks?

 

00;19;11;19 - 00;19;41;21

MT

I would say don't quit on yourself. That's for me personally, as a woman and a woman of color in this industry, to always just believe in yourself, that what you find really interesting and powerful within yourself will just keep working at it and you'll get recognition. But it's not really about the recognition. I've always known I wanted to be an architect.

 

I feel architecture is like a stewardship. You are helping other people to obtain their desires and dreams and designs, but then also, too, helping the planet.

 

00;19;41;24 - 00;19;49;23

DP

So, Michelle, it's been great to have you here today. Thank you so much for your time. Where could people go to learn more M.Todd Architect and yourself?

 

00;19;49;26 - 00;19;56;06

MT

You can find me on my website at  MToddArchitects.com and then also I'm on LinkedIn.

 

00;19;56;08 - 00;19;58;10

DP

Well, thank you very much. It has been great to have you.

 

00;19;58;17 - 00;20;00;24

MT

Thank you so much. Appreciate the opportunity.

TRANSCRIPT

00;00;00;02 - 00;00;05;12

Doug Pat (DP)

Let's go inside the vault. The design vault.

 

00;00;05;14 - 00;00;30;24

Will Quam (WQ)

The Fulton Market area, I think, is the place where some of the best brick architecture in Chicago is currently happening, because it's a place where you have a lot of these historical buildings and you have a lot of people coming in there building offices, residences, restaurants, and they want to make it feel like it's part of that history.

 

And so they're using brick. And then you have a lot of architects who are really pushing the limits on what they're able to decoratively do with the brick.

 

00;00;30;26 - 00;01;42;04

DP

This is my guest, Will Quam. I'll share more about him shortly in this bonus episode from the Design Vault. We talked to Will, an architecture photographer, writer, researcher and man who was fascinated with brick.

 

Hi. I'm Doug Patt and this is Design Vault. Will Quam lives in Chicago. He's currently writing a book for the University of Chicago Press on the history of brick architecture in the city.

 

He documents brick as a way to pay more attention to the world around him and encourages others to do the same. He believes it's been like learning a whole new language and a means to discovering great texts hidden in the buildings that surround him in his own words. Everything built is designed and has impact, good or bad. It's easy to walk by something like a brick building and pay it no mind.

 

But the world is so much more interesting when you ask the question, What is that and why is it the way it is? Above all, he believes nothing is boring and everything can be interesting and exciting, even bricks. So welcome Will, it's nice to have you with us today.

 

00;01;42;07 - 00;01;43;29

WQ

Thank you so much, Doug. It's great to be here.

 

00;01;44;02 - 00;01;50;09

DP

So tell us a little bit about where you're from and how you became so interested in brick and brick architecture.

 

00;01;50;16 - 00;03;52;24

WQ

I became interested in bricks through a very circuitous route. I am from Saint Paul, Minnesota, originally, which is a good brick town, a smaller brick town. I studied theater, I directed, I did set design. I acted, and I moved to Chicago originally to be a theater teacher, and that's what I did for about nine years. I taught middle school theater.

 

I taught afterschool programs, in school residencies. I wrote and directed plays with middle schoolers. The great thing about that work, besides just, you know, it was so fulfilling working with kids is my work brought me all over the city in the suburbs of Chicago, and Chicago is massive. The south side of Chicago alone is the size of Philadelphia.

 

And so coming from a place like Saint Paul, it was an introduction to a much larger built world. And so through my work, I was, you know, on the north side in the morning, the south side in the afternoon, the west side, in the evening, the suburbs the next day. And going around Chicago, you start to see that there are these very repetitive building types, the bungalow, the two flat, the courtyards style, the apartment hotel, and they're all made of brick pretty much exclusively.

 

You get some stone, you get the very occasional wood, but brick is the defining material. And I started to notice that it was the brick and specifically the face, the bricks on the front of these buildings that made them all unique. And they weren't just these red rectangles that I'd always thought of a brick as being. There's texture, there's color, there's pattern, there's usage.

 

And so I started taking pictures on my phone. And then one day in the basement of a theater where I was running a middle school theater camp, I started Instagram and posted them and people started asking me questions. And so I said, Well, I better research this, dove down the rabbit hole and then seven years later, here I am.

 

It's become my full time job, taking pictures for architects and suppliers and engineers. And then I lead these brick tours to such a natural spinoff of my earlier work. Taking that excitement and giving it away. I think that's the biggest thing about my work is I'm not trying to gate keep anything. I don't have a background in this.

 

I'm just a very passionate learner. And then on, my goal is just to give everything away in the most interesting and exciting way possible.

 

00;03;52;26 - 00;03;55;08

DP

Do you ever think to yourself, I should have been an architect?

 

00;03;55;14 - 00;04;36;20

WQ

I'm very lucky in that my great grandfather was an architecture journalist and instilled a lot of that in my dad. My great grandfather's the great John Entenza, who did the case study houses. I never met him, but my dad knew him well. So we grew up going on a lot of architecture tours, a lot of historic home tours.

 

And really the importance of the built world was instilled to me as a young man, but it was always something I thought, you know, I would just enjoy. And maybe that is I'm very lucky that I grew up playing trombone and singing in choirs, and I went to space camp and I was encouraged to have all these very multifaceted interests by parents who had these very multifaceted interests as well.

 

And so I was very lucky to be able to feel like I could explore things.

 

00;04;36;25 - 00;04;58;26

DP

It sounds really cool. I mean, it's almost like you're walking down the street and you see a building and it's made of brick, and it occurs to you, you get this thought like, Hey, that's kind of cool. I wonder why that looks like that. And then the next day gets a little more important. The next day gets a little bit more fascinating, and all of a sudden you've got this interest in something that sits so far outside of your wheelhouse. In a way, it's amazing.

 

00;04;59;02 - 00;05;37;16

WQ

Exactly. You know, it starts with somebody asking, What's that pattern? And me, I guess I'll look on Wikipedia and then I'm emailing a brick dealer, and then I'm finding books on the history of brick architecture to the point where now last week I spent a whole day at the University of Illinois Library reading through old copies of the brick and clay record from the 1970s.

 

And what makes it so great in Chicago, too, is you truly can walk down any street and you'll find great brick architecture, any residential street anywhere in this entire city. And the city is so big and changing so much so constantly that you can go down the same street again ten years later and you can have so many new things to discover.

 

00;05;37;19 - 00;05;41;03

DP

Yeah. As an aside, have you been to the Monadnock Building?

 

00;05;41;10 - 00;05;42;19

WQ

Love the Monadnock Building.

 

00;05;42;26 - 00;05;59;14

DP

Right? When I was in architecture school and I learned about that building and the fact that the base is six feet thick of brick masonry as the load bearing structure. The first thing I did when I got to Chicago was go to that building. I'm I just couldn't believe it. Right. It's amazing.

 

00;05;59;17 - 00;06;40;15

WQ

It's an unbelievable it's one I found has such lasting power as well as I interview architects. So many times, I'll ask them, what's your favorite brick building in the city? And I'd say 50% say the Monadnock Building. It's so honest with its material and so inventive at the same time. You know, one of the things as I've looked at it and photographed it, I've noticed is there's no hard lines on the building.

 

It's all using this molded brick made by the Chicago Anderson Brick Company. You get the sort of the plinth that rises up and then curves into the building and that it's not a sharp edge from a brick to another brick that's turning; there's a rounded brick to bridge that gap at every point. So the lines are kept incredibly smooth throughout the whole thing through this really intentional use.

 

00;06;40;17 - 00;06;41;27

DP

Yeah. Now, how about the cornice?

 

00;06;42;03 - 00;07;31;18

WQ

Oh, tremendous. Every piece of that was intentionally planned that way. There's nothing was done on accident, and that's still true today. You know, one of the things I try to push back on a lot is, you know, in my work, I'm a lot of times focusing and studying and photographing historic buildings and they're amazing. But people sort of feel that permission to say, oh, well, we just don't make them like we used to.

 

And there's only crap being made today and it's just not true. There's a lot of really amazing buildings being built today. The way we make them is different. The style we make them is different, but that's because so much has changed in the materials we use, making things efficient, making labor safe. And there's a lot of really great design out there that if we just say we don't make them like we used to, we neglect the work that architects and designers are still doing today with the same intentionality they were doing in the 1890 and the man was built.

 

00;07;31;25 - 00;08;38;20

DP

Well, it's a great segway. So we're going to talk about a few pieces of architecture today, two Chicago pieces and one New York City and then maybe some other buildings. So let's dig in here and learn a little bit more about brick architecture. First, let's talk about the Chicago Park District HQ Building by John Ronan Architects in Chicago.

 

The Chicago Park District headquarters is a 78,000 square foot building comprised of headquarters office space for the Chicago Park District Staff and Field House on a 17 acre park. The headquarters building is a two story circle in plan, with two courtyards. The building has a unique facade with individually curved metal panels, curtain wall glazing and a light brown brick facade with brick patterning.

 

An interesting fact that Will points out about the building, and in regard to the brick masonry set, the bricks used are all Chicago common bricks which were made locally. So Will, let's start out with that. Tell us a little bit more about the bricks of this building.

 

00;08;38;23 - 00;12;56;07

WQ

Yeah, they're made of Chicago common bricks which are the bricks made locally in Chicago and most cities in the 1800s and for part of the 1900s were producing their own brick, both common brick and face brick, face brick being the nicer, more intentionally made brick used on the fronts of buildings and common brick, the cheaper stuff to go in the guts.

 

What made Chicago unique is that we only made common brick. Our clay, which we had in massive abundance thanks to this glacial lake that you cover all of this dry land in Chicago, Lake Michigan used to extend far over what's now dry land. The still waters of that lake allowed all this clay to settle, but all this other stuff settled in that clay as well.

 

The perfect mix for making bricks. But it made bricks that were, frankly to those architects of that era, very ugly. They weren't predictable in any way. The levels of mineral in them were really varied, but one batch might come out yellow, one brown, one pink, one red, all these chunks of limestone in them. But the clay was right there and it was super cheap to make.

 

And so we made a ton of that and threw it in our buildings. But then we would import other bricks, nicer bricks from Saint Louis or Milwaukee or Pennsylvania or Texas to put on the fronts of buildings. But Chicago kept making these common bricks, and we made a massive amount of them. In 1871, the year of the Great Fire of Chicago, Chicago produced about a hundred million of them a year.

 

And part of what makes the timing of the fire so good, a little ironically, is that the year of the Fire, 1871, the Chicago brick industry had really finished mechanizing pretty much by that year. And so when the city burned down, the city was in, the brick makers of Chicago were in a unique position to help rebuild the city out of brick.

 

So that fire code, a new fire code could be met in a way that other cities like Boston, Boston's burned down several times because they kept having to rebuild out of wood. Chicago had this local brick making machinery to make it possible to rebuild with brick. So the year the fire reproduced about 100 million of them a year.

 

Ten years later, Chicago was producing 200 million of these a year. And by 1916, Chicago was producing just shy of 1 billion common bricks a year. And that's the year Chicago actually surpassed the Hudson Valley of upstate New York, which provided all the common brick for New York City. By 1916, Chicago's producing more common bricks than the entire common brick area of New York City.

 

About 11% of all the brick made in the United States in 1916, face brick or common brick was Chicago, common brick and more by about 100 million than all the brick made in Missouri, Wisconsin, Iowa and Indiana combined that year. So we made a ton of brick in these surface plants all over the city, and we kept it all local for the most part.

 

And so you go around Chicago into alleys and sides of buildings, and this is the brick that you see, this messy looking brick. And it was always covered up because it was considered too unpredictable, too ugly. But what happened was, starting in the 1960s, as we're entering this era of bright glazed bricks or these sort of sleek, smooth, sort of noisy and modern bricks, you get a generation of architects who start to be really drawn to the antique accidental look of these bricks, the variation on them.

 

This is the time as urban renewal was sort of ravaging Chicago, when all these buildings are being torn down all over the place and people start to save these common bricks and put them in new buildings because they can add the sense of antique ness and age to buildings in a way that a modern market and this new market of reclaimed brick is born.

 

And then by the 1982, when the last Chicago common brick manufacturer shuts down, there's suddenly this massive market for these reclaimed bricks. First for an antique look to a building in the seventies and eighties as people are really drawn to these earth tones, browns and rough sort of creamy whites of brick. But then today, especially, and in the case especially of this new Chicago Park district headquarters, these bricks, they've embodied carbon in them and so they get you a lot of lead points and they're much more eco friendly material to use.

 

And so you start to see a lot more use of this reclaimed material because of the way it ties in to a greater focus on ecological buildings. And it's perfect for this building. It's a gorgeous building sitting on this massive park and having this really earthy brick that's full of color variation, full of all these stones, full of all this stuff.

 

It makes it feel like it really is growing out of the park and a part of the park rather than a lot of park buildings that feel like they’re just placed down into the park.

 

00;12;56;09 - 00;13;07;03

DP

So I'm curious, just to back up, why did Chicago stop producing common brick? Was it because brick masonry was no longer load bearing? We were using steel and iron.

 

00;13;07;10 - 00;15;23;04

WQ

Yes. So Chicago and the country stopped using common brick, mostly after the Second World War when cavity wall construction became prominent. Concrete block is just a lot larger and a lot cheaper. In 1952, in Chicago, a 77 square foot wall of Chicago commons would cost about $120 to lay parts and labor. The same size wall out of concrete block was about $45.

 

And so this cost savings were huge. As labor then became more and more expensive and concrete became more and more affordable, people started moving away from the common brick. Then what happened is in 1970, Congress passes the Clean Air Act, forms the EPA and brick plants all over the country are putting tons of sulfur dioxide and ozone and smog into the air.

 

And for a lot of those companies, it was not too difficult to get into compliance. You know, you have a big beehive kill or tunnel kill, and you could put a scrubber on your vents and start to clean up your operation. These common brick manufacturers, by that point, there were just two left in the Chicago area. They were using what are called Pskov kilns, which basically you take a bunch of unfired bricks, make them into this massive pile with channels running through it.

 

You cover it in fired bricks and set it on fire from the inside. It's a super cheap way to make bricks that don't need to look nice but are effective. But the comparison I like to make is a traditional kiln works like an oven. You take your turkey, you put it in the oven, you close the door, you turn it on.

 

A Pskov kiln that the Chicago commons were made in. You take that same turkey, you put it on your countertop, you stick a gas jet in the butt you cover it in deli meat and light it on fire. It's a lot more messy. It does the same job, but it's a lot more messy and it's a lot harder to clean up.

 

And so the Chicago common plants looked at the economics. They were losing market share. They looked at the clay. They had left the Illinois brick company in Blue Island decided, we've only got about three years clay left or just shut down. And then they looked at the environmental impact. One of these companies in Muncie, Indiana, on days that they were burning there were certain intersections you just couldn't drive because they were so smog filled. To the credit of the American beer company who was in that last company, they spent tens and tens of thousands of dollars trying to find ways to come into compliance and to make it a cleaner operation and continue this business.

 

But it ultimately just wasn't economically viable.

 

00;15;23;10 - 00;15;34;11

DP

So back to the Chicago Park District headquarters building, did you ever read anything about why John Ronan Architects ultimately used common brick for the exterior of New York?

 

00;15;34;14 - 00;16;42;04

WQ

Yeah. A friend of mine supplied those reclaimed bricks for him. A big part of it was that environmental impact using that embodied carbon, using a local material, not needing to create any new emissions through the creation of material, and also the fact that it's a reclaimed material taken from demolished buildings nearby. It's taking that local material and using it for a local purpose, making it something more true to that place.

 

Then a different kind of imported brick. And John Ronan is an architect who really loves brick and has used brick in really creative ways. In Chicago, he did a high school at South Shore International Academy where he was very specific about these different colors or slightly different tones of brick, sort of a creamy white and a little bit more of a beige and figuring out exactly where he wanted these bands to go on the building.

 

He had a house on the north side that uses these super long format bricks in a really interesting way to enliven up this very geometric or rectilinear facade. So someone who's super intentional about brick and so the Park District headquarters is another example of him using brick in that really intentional way.

 

00;16;42;07 - 00;17;36;17

DP

Yeah, the building's really unique and it sounds like a very thoughtful office. So next, let's talk about McDonald's HQ in Chicago. The architect of record was Gensler. When I sat down to do a little bit of research online, I really couldn't find a whole lot of pictures which describe this building. There are many exterior pics that are kind of further away shots.

 

The interior photos that I did find on a variety of websites, really quite stunning with wood clad interior, gracious curves and a very contemporary feel. The exterior is also quite interesting. The building almost seems inverted with a steel and glass base and square glass curtain wall openings framed in brick above. So these brick frames are really actually quite beautiful.

 

And you sent me a couple of photos of these. Let's talk about those.

 

00;17;36;20 - 00;19;44;07

WQ

Yeah. So it's a big steel and glass building, but it does have these large brick frames that surround two stories of windows each. It's all precast thin brick made by a company in Germany. And to get to the importance of what that brick is on the building and why it's there, I think it's important to talk about the neighborhood it's in.

 

It's in an area called Fulton Market, part of the West Loop of Chicago, which a lot of people have probably heard of as sort of Chicago's new restaurant and tech hub. It was an area of meatpacking and warehouses and manufacturing for many, many years. In the last 15 years, it's become this massive area for some of the best restaurants in the city.

 

Google has a building there now, and so it's full of all these big brick buildings, these big old brick warehouses or storage buildings with large windows. And so I think it's so wonderful that this new steel and glass building made the intentional choice to embrace that brick material. But the other thing I love about it is that we talked about with Chicago common brick brick is no longer really being used as a structural material in the United States.

 

And so buildings like this that take that nature, that brick is no longer a structural material. They take it and use it instead as a purely decorative material. And I think they do such a wonderful job on this building because it's the thin brick that runs around these windows, sort of blue ish and golden and orange colors with a rolled edge and a little bit of sort of a knock or sort of bumps and stuff on the face of it.

 

It describes this herringbone and zigzag pattern through these spandrels and these mullions that run along the building in a way that serves no structural purpose at all. But it is beautiful to look at and tie in through the use of that brick. It ties it into the neighborhood. I think that's just such a wonderful thing to do at a time when a lot of new construction and here I've said earlier, there is a lot of great new construction, but there is a lot of construction that's using brick and really uninspired ways it's just slap at a bunch of structures up on a wall or between windows. And so to see a building like this, a really prominent building in a really prominent location, in a historic location, I love that they're using brick in such an interesting way.

 

00;19;44;09 - 00;20;03;15

DP

Yeah, I'd love to see the studies in the architect's office for all of these or for the variety of brick patterns where you get soldier coursing. You've got stacked herringbone, as you stated, you almost have something that looks close to a Greek key as well. It's really quite beautiful and the color is stunning in the sun.

 

00;20;03;22 - 00;20;29;01

WQ

It really is. I captured it in those photos I sent you. It faces the north side of the street. And so you get this beautiful raking light on it in the summer evenings and in the shadow, it's still got this sort of lovely warm orange to it. So it really is very present and there's so much going on.

 

It's the sort of thing where you look at it and you trace it along and you to start to, like you said, start to find all those little details, different details scattered throughout the brickwork.

 

00;20;29;08 - 00;20;54;03

DP

You know, it's really nice too. It's almost as though they're expressing the structural system on the exterior with these super tall piers which frame these windows. One starts to think, okay, well, maybe the structural steel system is hidden within that. I don't know whether or not that's actually the case, but it does remind one of an industrial building in Chicago 80 or 90 years ago, right?

 

00;20;54;09 - 00;21;49;09

WQ

Yeah. And those are the buildings that surround it there. And another little twist. I like that they idea is that those brick frames are not surrounding every single window or they don't run on every single story that you do get these big frames that surround two or three stories I can't quite remember. And so it still gives it this very light feeling, this very open feeling, while having that strong brick tie into the neighborhood.

 

And the Fulton Market area, I think is the place where some of the best brick architecture in Chicago is currently happening because it's a place where you have a lot of these historical buildings and you have a lot of people coming in there building offices, residences, restaurants, and they want to make it feel like it's part of that history.

 

And so they're using brick and then you have a lot of architects who are really pushing the limits on what they're able to decoratively do with the brick. And the McDonald's was a pretty fairly early example of that. But there are many more that have come in since they're in the area.

 

00;21;49;11 - 00;21;58;24

DP

That's an interesting point. So early McDonald's structures across the United States, do you know if they utilize brick pretty heavily?

 

00;21;58;26 - 00;23;58;26

WQ

You know, I've researched this. I have emailed with a fast food historian to find some answers. So, yeah, the early McDonald's drive ins were clad in ceramic tile, whites, bright whites, bright red, and then they made a very intentional choice. In 1975 or so, they did a big redesign sort of as the baby boomers who were driving there are now buying homes.

 

And what they did was they started putting these dark brown bricks. They redesigned their restaurants using this very dark, earthy brick and adding that classic McDonald's double mansard roof. And this is the era when like Wendy's ads for solariums, the restaurants become these very earthy buildings. The first one of those was in Matheson, Illinois, in the south suburbs.

 

And that was the time too where McDonald's actually built their first corporate headquarters in Oakbrook, Illinois, designed by Dirk Lohan. Mies van der Rohe's grandson, like those restaurants, is a building very much, it's covered in this wonderful sort of earthy iron, spotted brick and surrounded by a manmade lake and all these trees and very much engaging with nature at a time when they're trying to push away from that kind of bright colors, machine age, looking stuff into a more earthy thing.

 

And then you get into the 1990s and McDonald's does another major rebrand, adding these sort of pastel colors or a lot of painted white brick that I think a lot of people my generation are familiar with as well. And then now a lot of those McDonald's, they've torn them down. They've rebuilt them using smooth grays and blacks and whites.

 

And so McDonald's, you can really follow you know, one of my big passions is following how people have used brick throughout every decade of history that you can look at a building and based on the color, the texture, the use of the brick to tell when it was built and McDonald's in specific is a great way to do that.

 

You can look at the restaurants and see how they've changed the restaurants, and that gives you sort of a bellwether of how ideas about what purpose bricks should serve has changed. That's a very long answer to say, yes, McDonald's has used a lot of brick in their restaurants throughout the country.

 

00;23;58;29 - 00;24;08;04

DP

The building is really interesting because it's also kind of flipped, right? I mean, so the base should be masonry and the upper portion should all be glass and windows.

 

00;24;08;07 - 00;24;41;18

WQ

I hadn't really noticed that until you brought that up. It is pretty unusual in that way. It's about a two story big steel and glass expressed base story within the brick rising up above, and I don't know why that choice was made, but it is pretty striking and it creates maybe a much open feeling based story. And the base story, they have a restaurant where you can order, you know, all the traditional McDonald's things, but you can also they have a rotating list of items that you can get at McDonald's around the country. So you can get sometimes like a curry burger or something like that that they'd have in McDonald's, India, or I guess it wouldn’t be a burger, a curry chicken sandwich.

 

00;24;41;25 - 00;24;43;02

DP

The McRib, maybe.

 

00;24;43;02 - 00;24;46;12

WQ

Yeah, the McRib. All year long. Who knows? We can dream.

 

00;24;46;15 - 00;25;57;18

DP

Oh, you know, can dream. Oh, that's great. The final building that I'd love to talk about is the Grand Mulberry in New York City by Morris Adjmi Architects. I got to meet Morris Adjmi in the city. We talked a little bit about the Grand Mulberry that evening. The building is absolute stunning. It's incredibly creative. This is paraphrased from their website.

 

So traditionally, Italianate tenement buildings featured a tripartite white facade that consisted of a base, middle and top with different details and brickwork. The Grand Mulberry facade consists of banding at the building's base, pediment windows at the middle and arched windows and a cornice at the top with coin details defining the base. While the facade pattern is traditional, the application of the hand molded domed bricks is modern, the molded bricks representing an offset window pattern to the real ones.

 

The red orange color pays further homage to the red brick buildings found in the neighborhoods. So this building is really unique, not only because of its aesthetics, but because they used some custom brick.

 

00;25;57;20 - 00;28;13;22

WQ

Yeah, it's one of my favorite new brick buildings in the United States and one that I had on my radar for a long time. And I took a trip to New York this summer specifically to go photograph several buildings, and it was one of the first ones I hit because it's just such a striking building and I think a perfect use of brick as a modern material in a couple of ways.

 

One is that color, that beautiful reddish orange color, and talking about, you know, the history of what kind of bricks are people using in areas and those Italianate tenement buildings, that was an era where they were using this very smooth pressed red brick, and that was sort of the predominant material. So first, that color pays homage and two, like I mentioned before, embracing the brick as a decorative material in an age when it doesn't need to be structural anymore, it could have very easily just been a red brick punched opening building, but then using those specifically hand molded bricks to create that design on the building is such a simple, yet unbelievably inventive way to create design across the facade.

 

It reminds me a lot of one of my favorite buildings here in Chicago. There's a church, many Chicagoans, they know it. It's Saint Stanislaus Kostka. It's right next to the expressway. It's a big brick church right next to the expressway that you've probably driven by. It's built in 1881 for what came to be the largest Polish Catholic congregation in the country, maybe even the largest Catholic congregation in the country at the time.

 

It's a huge church made entirely of Chicago common brick. So using the cheapest brick they had available. But what the architect, Brooklyn based architect named [Patrick] Keeley, did, the front of the building, the main central window is very small and it's got wood tracery. But he took that common brick and by pushing it out and turning it created this much larger arc that surrounds it with smaller round sort of bull's eyes and these bands of densely and creates on the facade just through the movement of the brick, the illusion of a much grander central window, a much grander central design using that same material.

 

And I'm seeing the Grand Mulberry. That's what it immediately ties me back to, it's using that same material in just a slightly different way to create the appearance and the remembrance and the reminder of something different all through the use of the same material, but just in a slightly different way.

 

00;28;13;25 - 00;28;54;06

DP

Yeah, the building essentially has two facades, right? It has a facade that's made out of brick, and then it has a facade or a facade that's articulated in brick and then the real facade with glass and metal windows. It's a really creative piece of architecture. You know what I love? There are some really great shots of this building online from further away and up above, and the building matches all of the other architecture and yet is completely set apart.

 

It's like this little wonderfully articulated orange red cube which sets itself apart and yet kind of fits into everything around it. It's a really wonderful building.

 

00;28;54;09 - 00;30;25;04

WQ

It absolutely is. And the other thing I want to praise about it is the use of those hand molded bricks. They could have done any other sort of thing. They could have, you know, done a projecting header or something to create that design. But again, in this era when brick can be sort of freed as a purely design detail and it is a ceramic material that is made of earth sculpted by people and fired in fire.

 

We see more and more these days projects taking advantage of specifically that hand process. There's a couple projects here in Chicago, a couple of homes like in Lincoln Park that are using these sculpted hand sculpted bricks that brick companies have these artisans who will take that same material and apply this more sculptural treatment to it in all sorts of different ways, and bring the handmade process back into the fold.

 

You know, you don't have to get rid of your extruded modulus, but we now have the ability to use brick more decoratively. And let's bring a little bit of the handmade process back into it. And I think that's what is so great about this tool. Also, one of the thing is it could have been so easy for them to have those two facades line up the real and the false.

 

And it's just so spectacular to me that there is that offset, that offset to them also that the building has you know, it's this tripart, the tenements, but they're sort of the two pushed together and then there's it's almost as if another one kind of got built in later with a thick party wall. Again, it's not a perfect repetition of the same form over and over again.

 

It looks more realistic to how the city would have organically been built.

 

00;30;25;07 - 00;30;28;00

DP

Well, you talk just like an architect.

 

00;30;28;02 - 00;30;32;26

WQ

Listen, I'll take it. I'll take it. This is what you get if you don't have hobbies for many, many years.

 

00;30;32;29 - 00;30;40;02

DP

That's great. So I know you give tours. Do you do any teaching? Because you'd be an amazing teacher if you're not already.

 

00;30;40;08 - 00;33;10;13

WQ

I appreciate that. Yeah. So I don't do any teaching. I have taught photo classes and I have given a lot of talks with groups on the history of brick architecture, both for you know, architecture classes but also for things like various interest groups. But then I give these tours. I started about five years ago. A friend of mine who runs a great tour company here in Chicago called Chicago for Chicagoans basically slipped in my DMs and was like, You've got to do tours, you got to do it.

 

And I was like, okay, I guess I will. It's been perfect. I love doing it. It takes advantage of the teaching background I have. And like I said, I'm a guy who I like to see things and I like to tell people about them. I never want to and similar, you know, I do all this research for these two words using all these databases and newspaper archives and things.

 

And whenever anybody asks me how I do my research, I just can't wait to tell them I don't want to keep anything. I want you to be able to do all this research and dive into your own things as well. And the great thing about the tours is, you know, when I first started them four years ago, they were very solely brick focused.

 

You know, I'm teaching you about rowlock, soldier, shiner and all these things, but now as they've grown to eight different neighborhoods around the city and hopefully ten by next year, I treat brick as the beginning. If I can get you excited about a brick, I can get you to look closer at anything. You're going to look way too close to the brick, but you're also going to see the other ways in which the built environment or even the invisible environments change our city.

 

And Chicago's this amazing city because it has so much history and so many generations of history with 77 official neighborhoods. All of those are Brooklyn sub neighborhoods, and all of those have had several different generations of people and stories there. So every single place you go, you can find all this depth to dive into. If I can give one of my favorite examples that ties to brick when I tell people about Chicago common brick, you know, I talk about these clay pits that were all over the city.

 

There's a big one on the north side here. There's three small clay pits, these three small companies, and by 1900 they had formed into one large company, mining one big pit. By 1915, they moved out to Blue Island in the south suburbs. The city bought that pit from the city, filled it with garbage to get it back to ground level, paved it over.

 

And in 1929, they built Lane Tech High School on top of it, which is one of the largest high schools in the country and one of the most prestigious high schools in Chicago. It's this huge, beautiful gothic revival, high school built on this former clay pit that you wouldn't even know was there. And that's a wonderful example of all these things that are just hidden all over Chicago.

 

And you really don't have to look too hard to find them.

 

00;33;10;16 - 00;33;44;17

DP

Well, it's been a real pleasure to have you here today. You know, as much more than any architect or architectural historian about the subject of brick. And you're incredibly intelligent and articulate and what blows me away is that you do talk just like an architect. So it's been a real pleasure to have you here before you go, you're a guy with many varied interests.

 

Do you have any advice for someone who's passionate about so many things or maybe just about one thing and doesn't really know where to start?

 

00;33;44;23 - 00;34;22;16

WQ

I mean, I would say it can be hard. It can be difficult to start, but just the thing to do is start small and start somewhere. I'm someone who very much once I find something I want to know about, I can get way in my own way of like, Well, this can be too hard to learn everything, so it's not worth it.

 

You start somewhere. You know, for me, it was Wikipedia. It truly was just Wikipedia. And I started getting answers to questions. And then I start getting more questions. And that let me keep asking more questions and keep getting more answers and keep getting more questions and more answers. So I think it's just choose to start in a way that is simple and accessible to you and to dive down as deep as you can.

 

00;34;22;22 - 00;34;37;24

DP

Yeah, I think what's challenging for most people is they overthink it and wonder where everything's going. And it would seem to me that your experience has been so organic that it's worked out for you in many ways that you never really anticipated it.

 

00;34;37;26 - 00;35;09;21

WQ

Exactly. And something that is also really important to me is saying when I don't know the answer to something, you know, if someone asked me a question I don't know, just saying I don't know, because I think so often the instinct is to if you are want to be an expert in something, to try to pull things together, to create an answer to something you don't necessarily know.

 

But I think from my teaching days and working with kids and young people, it's so valuable not to do that, to be able to admit when you don't know the answer. And that often will lead people to their own curiosity and finding those answers for themselves. And then you can go off and do your research, too.

 

00;35;09;28 - 00;35;17;11

DP

Will, it's been great to have you here. Thanks for your time. Could you tell us about your websites and how people can find you?

 

00;35;17;17 - 00;35;53;22

WQ

Yeah. So my website is BrickofChicago.com. And that's where I have information about, you know, you can learn about brick bonds, you can learn about the history of Chicago common brick and my tours and I make a calendar as well and my website WillQuam.com, and that's for my architecture photography work.

 

I take pictures for architects and engineers and landscape architects and all sorts of people and organizations are around Chicago, so you can see my work there. And then I'm on Instagram, @bricksofchicago, posting different bricks from around Chicago, and then my travels every single day.

 

00;35;53;27 - 00;35;54;17

DP

Thanks, Will.

 

00;35;54;24 - 00;35;59;14

WQ

Thank you so much. It's been a delight.

TRANSCRIPT

00;00;00;02 - 00;00;05;10

DP (Doug Pat)

Let's go inside the vault. The design vault.

 

00;00;05;12 - 00;00;33;19

JI (Jeremy Iannucci)

So the site's essentially just a rectangle. It's the size of a full city block. So the way that we've organized the buildings around the site is in this U-shape, where they start up in the northwest corner. Move around down West Street and then below, creating a U that opens up towards the water. We try to open up the view corridors from the building and leave as much view towards the water and towards the horizon from the rest of Greenpoint as we can.

 

00;00;33;22 - 00;02;07;13

DP

In this special series, we're unlocking some of the most powerful conversations we've had so far. We're connecting the dots, revealing hidden gems, and unearthing insights that might have slipped by. All to spark your next big idea with brick. Whether you're looking for fresh inspiration or innovative solutions, this series is designed to fuel your creativity. So let's dive in.

 

Hi, I'm Doug Pat and this is Design Vault.

 

Today we explore mixed use developments, a type of urban design that integrates multiple uses such as residential, commercial, cultural, institutional, and entertainment into one cohesive space. Mixed use projects aim to create vibrant, interconnected communities by physically and functionally blending these diverse components, often prioritizing pedestrian friendly environments. This bonus episode highlights three remarkable mixed use projects from past episodes, emphasizing insights from architects Jeremy Iannucci, John Zimmer, and Vincente Quiroga.

 

We'll explore the architectural design process, construction challenges and the thoughtful use of materials, particularly brickwork, to bring these complex developments to life.

 

Jeremy Iannucci discussed One Java, a residential project in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. This ambitious development balances sustainability, affordability and marketability with cutting edge features.

 

00;02;07;19 - 00;02;36;27

JI

The site's 200ft in the North south and then between West Street and the East River around 600ft, with 40ft reserved for a waterfront esplanade. We actually pulled back even a little bit further from that, and it's located right on the waterfront in Greenpoint. There was recently a rezoning that allowed for a whole redesign of the waterfront, and our project is one of the earlier projects in that redevelopment.

 

00;02;36;29 - 00;02;42;19

DP

So could you give us an idea of what the scope of the project is and the programmatic requirements?

 

00;02;42;26 - 00;03;03;06

JI

So it's a residential project of around 834 units, encompassing a total of around 800,000ft². This also comes with a series of amenity spaces, a series of retail spaces, as well as that waterfront park and also a collection of rooftop amenities in greenspace.

 

00;03;03;08 - 00;03;10;03

DP

So let's talk about the building design. Stylistically, were you guys borrowing from anything locally?

 

00;03;10;05 - 00;03;35;06

JI

We like to think that the entire project comes from the community around it. We looked at a series of precedents in the Greenpoint neighborhood historically, and Greenpoint specifically on the waterfront, to inspire the way that we detail these facades. We have a collection of different brick styles that help to break up the massing of the building, different articulations, as well as material bricks with the two precast towers.

 

00;03;35;08 - 00;03;40;11

DP

So what was on the site before you guys ended up building the new architecture?

 

00;03;40;13 - 00;04;04;25

JI

Previously, there was a two story warehouse on the site, and it really was kind of a beautiful space in its own right before. We got the chance to tour around, before it was demolished. And I think walking around really inspired us just with these qualities of light and materials and things that were really native to the waterfront before all of this redevelopment.

 

00;04;04;28 - 00;04;14;08

DP

And the project, as I said, very large. Could you tell me a little bit about the zoning requirements and any challenges you guys had in terms of planning?

 

00;04;14;10 - 00;05;11;19

JI

So the project is as of right. It follows the zoning guidelines. The lot itself is actually split up into two different zones. So towards the inland it's mostly low rise. We had a height cap of 65ft with portions that were allowable to go up to 100. And then towards the waterfront. The zoning actually got a little more complicated where there were a few different conditions that you could meet.

 

It opened up these different paths for how the building could be formed. One path was a one tower scheme, which would bring you up to 360ft. And then the other was actually a two tower scheme where if one tower made it to 200ft, the other would be allowed up to 400ft. We took advantage of that in order to move more of the mass to the waterfront.

 

It helped gradually declined building back into the fabric of the community, and it provided more waterfront views.

 

00;05;11;21 - 00;05;19;14

DP

John Zimmer shared insights on The Lively, an 18 story tower in Jersey City's Powerhouse Arts District.

 

00;05;19;17 - 00;06;12;23

JZ (John Zimmer)

The Powerhouse Arts District in Jersey City is so named because there is a somewhat iconic powerhouse there. It had been an industrial area that was targeted for redevelopment, and they had design standards for the entire district that were meant to maintain that character. Not necessarily industrial, but loft style, focus on the arts. The entire district has a strong focus on the arts, which is part of the reason we have the black box theater in The Lively.

 

It's experienced a lot of new development over the course of the last decade, and it's pretty great today. When I first started going over to the powerhouse ten years ago, I'd get out of meetings and the sidewalks would be deserted, and today it feels like Brooklyn. It feels like the East Village. I mean, it is incredibly, for want of a better word, lively.

 

So it's a great neighborhood now, and it's all happened in the last decade. It's an exciting thing to have been a part of, honestly.

 

00;06;12;26 - 00;06;20;01

DP

This mixed use development includes retail spaces, a black box theater, and residential units.

 

00;06;20;03 - 00;07;17;00

JZ

180 residential units. Lennar is one of the biggest home builders in America, but they were mostly doing suburban subdivision work. They got into the urban markets. I can't tell you exactly one, but they were still a little bit new to it. When we took this project on and they were ambitious, they wanted to be at the absolute top of the market for a residential building in Jersey city.

 

And obviously, as any developer does, they wanted to maximize rentable square footage and get the most bang for their buck. And they had this requirement for the black box theater. You know, the project came with this with its approval, but it got a zoning bonus for having the theater in the base of extra height. It was a give back to the community that was written into the zoning, and we always knew it was going to be a theater, and we always knew it was going to be for a nonprofit arts group.

 

And that arts program as part of the building was in the DNA of the project from the very beginning, and informed a lot of the decisions moving forward became part of the personality of the building throughout, not just the theater itself, really.

 

00;07;17;03 - 00;07;23;18

DP

Vincente Quiroga discussed 29 Huron, a two tower development in Greenpoint, Brooklyn.

 

00;07;23;20 - 00;08;40;15

VQ (Vincente Quiroga)

The history of the site, you know, it's a long, narrow site. Our building massing is 100ft in the north south direction. It's over 500ft in the east west direction. So it's very distended and lengthened and narrowed. The original site was a one story warehouse, which was kind of the context of the neighborhood. I lived in that neighborhood many years ago, and that was the context.

 

The context is changing primarily because in a sort of Bloomberg era, there was up zoning plan, but then the 2008 crisis stalled those plans, and it took a while for that increase, zoning and development to come to fruition. And so we were part of that increased zoning for the site. In terms of the massing, we wanted to take a sense of the character that was there and honor that.

 

Not all the projects that we see built. Really take that into account. And we were thinking, what is the context now and what was the context in the past? So we really thought about selecting a one story podium and selecting brick as the foundation for that, and also being practical about the openings and where they are located. The emphasis for the target population would be families.

 

So large units, lots of two bedroom and three bedroom units, a lot of outdoor access and the views because of its waterfront proximity.

 

00;08;40;18 - 00;09;05;15

DP

Yeah, the site is unbelievable and you guys really take advantage of just about everything out there. It's a great project. So let's talk about the design. So first let's talk about the building stylistically. So to me it looks a lot like a very contemporary warehouse space right. So there's lots of glass. It almost appears lantern like in the photos that I saw at dusk.

It's beautiful.

 

00;09;05;18 -  00;09;34;00

VQ

The choice of the materials was very specific. The neighborhood has a unique grid orientation to the world, and so it captures the light in the sunrise and sunset, in particular the brick. We chose to be a rough molded brick with a dark mortar, and the metal panel has a mica flake to it that captures the light and changes throughout the day.

 

So some times it looks orange and coppery. Sometimes it actually looks bronze toned and it has a chocolate Sienna under glass to it.

 

00;09;34;07 - 00;09;42;01

DP

Each project faced unique challenges. 29 Huron is situated in a flood zone requiring innovative solutions.

 

00;09;42;04 - 00;10;20;28

VQ

The first story is about 17ft in height, and so there's some very high ceiling experiences there, ranging from 12 to 14ft ceilings within the amenities alone. And that also gave us the room to deal with some of the flood constraints as well. Being that the site is adjacent to the East River, the predicted flood zones right now are anywhere from 5 to 6ft above grade.

 

So that was a challenge and a constraint early on where we had to coordinate. We certainly decided we weren't going to excavate because of the high water table. So some of the functions that you would put in the cellar, we put a grade, but we often had to elevate the critical services six feet above where you normally would place them.

 

00;10;21;01 - 00;10;27;26

DP

So I'm curious, when you're digging that close to the water, do you get a lot of water, a lot of groundwater coming in when you're creating your foundation?

 

00;10;27;27 - 00;10;56;08

VQ

Yes. You do. Yes. Early on there was a lot of pile driving very deep anywhere from, I would say 30 or 40ft down. And those piles were linked up with large caps, pile caps, and then mat foundations at the towers. The slab itself, because of, you know, you have to think more like a boat or a bathtub. The slab itself was anywhere from 24in to 18in thick at various points throughout it, and it has to resist uplift.

 

00;10;56;11 - 00;11;01;27

DP

Well, that's really interesting. So when you're driving piles and there's a lot of bedrock, how do you do that?

 

00;11;01;29 - 00;11;21;04

VQ

The nature of the historic waterfront is often landfilled. So a lot of it is just trash or sediment. Over 200 years, people just dump things in the river. And it created a new shoreline, which was often the case, as you see in lower Manhattan as well. So we knew that we were going to have to go deep to hit rock.

 

00;11;21;10 - 00;11;25;28

DP

So you're driving the piles then 25 or 30ft in?

 

00;11;25;29 - 00;12;21;29

VQ

Yeah. And another challenge relating to the waterfront edges we had to deal with actually coordinate with the marine architect because the edge condition was failing and we needed to remediate it. So we coordinated a new driving a new sheet edge along the shore to create that. The site actually is interesting in that it has a natural cove condition that other areas along the waterfront don't.

 

And so we recreated that in the remediation. But we also worked with the landscape architect to create this, We're obligated by zoning to create a setback for public access on the site. So they really leaned into that curved cove condition that's set back and stepped it down to the water gradually from grade, and incorporated eco concrete blocks that have various pockets that allow kind of tidepool action to happen.

 

And so we thought about breaking down the shoreline a little bit and not just a hard edge.

 

00;12;22;02 - 00;12;31;12

DP

It sounds really interesting. I mean, when somebody owns a piece of property like that and it's really sitting on debris, in many cases, it's kind of unusual.

 

00;12;31;14 - 00;13;07;28

VQ

I mean, we tried to find opportunities to maximize the value of the site with the two towers strategy. We put lots of valuable floor area up high and took advantage of the views. We made double the amount of corner units that you could have by having a two towers. We also separated them over 100ft apart, so that the west tower really gets out there in front of other buildings that are it's alongside the east tower is a setback for the east to kind of get around other buildings that could obscure it.

 

And we were actually surprised at how good the views are as it was being built. We knew it was going to be good, but it actually turned out to be better than we anticipated.

 

00;13;08;00 - 00;13;14;27

DP

It's really beautiful about the design as the corners are opened up, then to become porches, right? Terraces. Is that correct?

 

00;13;15;00 - 00;13;34;04

VQ

That's right. So as part of that is a response to some zoning constraints. At a certain height, you also had to setback in multiple directions. And one of the things that we like to do is incorporate our balconies into the building facade and not just look like appendages. So we really took advantage of that setback rule and created these covered, protected balconies.

 

00;13;34;07 - 00;13;44;23

DP

The Lively was also situated in a flood zone, requiring solutions such as deployable barriers, elevated critical systems and flood resistant glazing.

 

00;13;44;25 - 00;14;09;02

JZ

The unique topographic feature would be that it's below the 100 year flood elevation. That's always a big deal. And the sidewalks there, I think are about five feet above sea level. So flood protection resiliency, ground floor uses. How do you enter the building? How do you avoid nuisance flooding when it's not a 100 year storm? Those were all big aspects of the design of the ground floor or the pedestrian experience.

 

00;14;09;05 - 00;14;10;16

DP

So breakaway walls?

 

00;14;10;23 - 00;14;40;01

JZ

There are deployable flood barrier systems designed in. So the flood elevation is seven feet above the sidewalk. In the event of a massive tech, a hurricane Sandy kind of thing, they would deploy these flood barrier systems. I don't know if you're familiar with them, but they keep them in storage and they come out and they both enter the building, or they spread them around the building.

 

They can be self-supporting, and they have to be deployed in a certain amount of time because it's an emergency response system. So a big part of all the projects in this area.

 

00;14;40;06 - 00;14;44;17

DP

And what about zoning codes? You had mentioned you had a height issue.

 

00;14;44;19 - 00;15;27;12

JZ

Yeah. So the building got, I think, 65 additional feet for having the black box theater in it. That was one zoning aspect. You can see the cantilever here over the sidewalk. There was a sidewalk widening requirement in the zoning. So that made it obviously challenging. You've got 17 stories of residences coming down over a cantilever that allows the sidewalk to be wider at the base.

 

That was an interesting challenge. There's a little bit of parking in the building that came from the zoning. So obviously some structural challenges there as well. Whenever you're putting that many residences over the top of a parking garage. The second floor here that you see through the window, that is also designated art space in the zoning also requirement.

 

00;15;27;14 - 00;15;32;26

DP

So I don't do tall buildings. How many extra floors to 65ft get you?

 

00;15;32;29 - 00;15;59;27

JZ

I think it was basically five because the top floor is an amenity space, rooftop amenity, which was specifically permitted by the zoning bonus. I think it really made the building, the massing and the expression of these mid-range buildings is a little bit tricky. They're not as tall as they want to be to be a tall building, and they're not as low rise as they want to be to be a low rise building.

 

And I think the extra stories really help to give it a little bit more verticality. It's a better piece of architecture for it.

 

00;16;00;02 - 00;16;03;22

DP

So tell us about the building plan. You said there's a sharp corner.

 

00;16;03;24 - 00;16;47;10

JZ

Yeah, very acute corner. There's two lot lines and it has a corner lot. So right where you have your corner window with two exposures, there's a very acute corner and I can't remember the actual degrees. But anytime you have a building it's not just the corner that's a problem. In fact the corner isn't really a problem. You may not be able to put a sofa in that corner, but the corner per se is not a problem.

 

It's kind of a cool room to be inside of, but what it means is that the apartments on each of those two different streets are on different geometries. And so if you're going to have a rectilinear apartment on streets that are at such different geometries that all crashes into each other at the corner and at the corridors and at the courtyards, so it becomes very challenging to plan buildings that feel sensible and projects that have this kind of site.

 

00;16;47;12 - 00;16;59;02

DP

The narrow, irregular site of The Lively, demanded creative massing strategies to optimize space while meeting zoning requirements and maintaining contextual sensitivity.

 

00;16;59;05 - 00;18;01;13

JZ

From its get go. There was never any question it was going to be a contemporary building. As far as where we drew our inspiration from and what we were looking at, you know, I mentioned the difficulty, the massing for these midnight buildings. I think the gathering together, the window openings into these vertical slots helps to emphasize the verticality of the building.

 

We have this prominent gold portal for the black box theater and the building entrance, and that became an idea that we repeated throughout the facade frame, these moments on the facade. And I think generally we try to be pretty rigorous about how the facades are designed. Obviously you've got structural continuity, but then you've got what always happens in residential design is you've got living rooms that are one width and you've got bedrooms that are a different width.

 

And so a strictly rational grid is probably not going to serve you well for a residential building the way it does for a commercial building. So you're often trying to find a way to manage that. If your interest is fundamentally and having a kind of rigorous and rational facade, you're trying to find a way to manage those partitions hitting the wall.

 

00;18;01;13 - 00;18;19;27

JZ

And what does that mean? And at the same time, I think creating a facade with movement and interest and dynamism and that play on the facade, I think was always an important part. And you could say it is part of the emphasis on the arts and the theater and dance, but also obviously just an interest in creating something fresh.

 

00;18;19;29 - 00;18;28;25

DP

At One Java for the project prioritized views and thoughtful use of materials which elevated the design and ensured long term durability.

 

00;18;28;28 - 00;18;56;15

JI

So the site's essentially just a rectangle. It's the size of a full city block, and on three sides on the north, the east and the south, we have streets. And then the west side is the waterfront. It's the East River. So the way that we've organized the buildings around the site is in this U-shape where they start up in the northwest corner, move around down West Street and then below, creating a view that opens up towards the water.

 

00;18;56;18 - 00;18;59;18

DP

So it's really all about the views, which it should be.

 

00;18;59;20 - 00;19;14;19

JI

Yes, it's something that it needs to be on the waterfront as well as it is about the views back into the neighborhood. We try to open up the view corridors from the building and leave as much view towards the water and towards the horizon from the rest of Greenpoint as we can.

 

00;19;14;22 - 00;19;24;13

DP

So tell us a little bit about the material choices. We've got a series of different materials and colors there. What were the decisions behind that?

 

00;19;24;15 - 00;20;16;04

JI

The building massing itself is broken up into five unique buildings, and out of those we have two towers that are precast, and those are the buildings on the waterfront. And then inland, there are three different buildings that range from ten stories to six stories. And those three buildings are brick, and that we really wanted to draw back from a lot of our inspirations in the Greenpoint community.

 

There's no shortage of brick precedents there. There's beautiful buildings such as The Astral, which is this queen in red brick terracotta building. There's Saint Anthony's Church, which is red brick and limestone trim. It's really beautiful, striking building. We looked towards kind of the history of the waterfront, those manufacturing industrial buildings, and used that precedent to define these brick colors, these three different brick buildings.

 

00;20;16;06 - 00;20;44;28

DP

So interestingly, the facades. So we've got the shorter or we've got the less tall architecture, which are brick buildings, and the facades are a series of what I'll call punctures with spandrel. It looks like spandrel brick in between each one of these vertically in between each one of the window openings. Correct? Yes. So how many studies did you guys end up doing to decide what these facades looked like?

 

00;20;45;00 - 00;21;23;17

JI

Everything kind of melded together. At some point, it's hard to break it down into a number because it was just this completely iterative process where we'd look at something, we'd make a model, we draw it, we'd look at it again, we'd make another model, we draw it. And this evolved from the concept, schematic designs all the way through to the construction document development.

 

This idea of the different brick details that actually came from wanting to streamline the project. So we use the same details on each of the brick buildings, but we remix them in each one. We use them in a different order to create a different identity for each of these.

 

00;21;23;19 - 00;21;40;29

DP

I think what's really interesting about these facades too, so you separate them facades into squares or rectangles, and then they have this very well. It looks subtle in elevation from far away, but it's actually a very large construction joint in between each one of these square rectangular panels. Correct?

 

00;21;41;02 - 00;21;56;02

JI

Yes. We use that construction joint and we overemphasize it. We use this double soldier coursing reveal tool as a way to further break up the massing and kind of imply this subdivisions within the buildings.

 

00;21;56;05 - 00;21;59;01

DP

And how deep is that, is that one brick thickness?

 

00;21;59;04 - 00;22;00;20

JI

It's two inches.

 

00;22;00;20 - 00;22;11;11

DP

Two inches. It's nice because when you look at the facade, I mean, it looks quite homogenous. But if you look at it a little bit more deeply, it's separated into these squares and rectangles. It's very pretty.

 

00;22;11;16 - 00;22;30;20

JI

Yeah. That's the effect that we really want to go for in terms of how this fits into the fabric of Greenpoint. We like the idea of there being this large scale massing that breaks down and continues to break down the closer you get, and it relates to more of your scale relative to the way that you're viewing it.

 

00;22;30;22 - 00;22;52;26

DP

You know, as an aside, what's really pretty, the red brick that you guys use there, there are a lot of lighter bricks in that facade, and so it makes it look almost pink in color, but you get up close to it and you can see a lot of variations in these colors in the red colored brick, a lot of like I'll call it value, but it's light and dark red brick.

 

00;22;52;29 - 00;23;57;04

JI

For that facade we're using a blended brick, and we wanted that to echo some of the red brick buildings that you already see on West Street, on the waterfront. That was kind of our launching point for coming up with this brick palette. We knew that there was going to be a red brick building. We knew that it was going to be relative to those warehouses.

 

And then the other two bricks were kind of an offshoot that based on how we wanted to frame this story of the building as you move around the site. So to the north, there's a lighter brick. It's something that we see as a little more modern. We try to keep the tones of the brick and mortar and the sills and other materials a little more homogenous.

 

And then on the flip side of that, on the southern street of the building, Java Street, we wanted to use something with a bit more variation. We wanted a higher contrast between the ground and the brick, a higher variability within the bricks. And that's something that we saw as a little more nostalgic to some of those worker housings and the smaller buildings that you begin to see as you move more inland.

 

00;23;57;07 - 00;24;41;16

DP

These mixed use projects demonstrate how brick and thoughtful architectural design can serve as a bridge between the past and future. By blending functionality with design, each project contributes to its community while addressing practical and esthetic goals.

 

Jeremy, John and Vincenet emphasize the importance of collaboration, innovation, and a deep understanding of site context in achieving these outcomes. Ultimately, these developments showcase how mixed use projects can create vibrant, connected urban environments, enriching neighborhoods through thoughtful integration of diverse uses and attention to detail in design and execution.

 

TRANSCRIPT

00;00;00;02 - 00;00;05;18

Doug Pat (DP)

Let's go inside the vault. The design vault.

 

00;00;05;20 - 00;00;38;03

Sussan Lari (SL)

The house had character. Typically, Tudor style houses from outside are just stunningly gorgeous piece of structure. And when you go in, it's just sad. And that is not going to happen with my approach to design, because I like the style of Tudor and I don't like the style of sad inside spaces. So it's bright and happy and is open, is spacious. You know, lots of windows.

 

00;00;38;06 - 00;02;41;18

DP

In this special series we’re unlocking some of the most powerful conversations we've had so far. We're connecting the dots, revealing hidden gems and unearthing insights that might have slipped by. All to spark your next big idea with brick. Whether you're looking for fresh inspiration or innovative solutions, this series is designed to fuel your creativity. So let's dive in.

 

Hi, I'm Doug Pat and this is Design Vault. Today we explore Tudor style homes with insights from Peter VanderPoel, of VanderPoel Architecture, who designed the geometrically inspired Guildford Court in McLean, Virginia, and Sussan Lari of Sussan Lari Architect PC, who transformed the Tudor style Henhawk house in Long Island, New York. Tudor architecture is a style of British design that emerged between 1485 and 1558, blending decorative Renaissance elements with the Gothic tradition. Recognized for its steeply pitched roofs, half timbered facades, ornate brickwork, and distinctive chimney treatments.

 

Tudor buildings often feature large, grouped windows and intricate details. While exteriors highlight rich textures and patterns, interiors are known for wood paneled walls and plasterwork ceilings, creating a blend of medieval charm and early Renaissance sophistication. In this bonus episode we’ll highlight various aspects of Peter and Sussan's project, including the architectural design process, construction challenges, and the thoughtful use of brickwork to create Tudor style homes that bridge tradition and modernity.

 

Both projects reflect a deep respect for tradition while incorporating innovative design solutions. Peter VanderPoel’s Guildford Court responded to the steep, angular site with a unique three axis geometry inspired by the hexagonal forms of Frank Lloyd Wright's Hanna house.

 

00;02;41;21 - 00;04;28;05

Peter VanderPoel (PV)

The lot as it looks in plan, in the site plan, it kind of looks like the state of Georgia and the Atlantic coast of Georgia was just a little bit to the northeast of Florida is what's on the cul de sac. So there's a very small entrance circle for the cul de sac, very small entrance onto the site, and then very steep as it goes up in the back.

 

And then these two angles that almost describe 60 degrees from the two property lines that go away from the cul de sac. And so my first inclination was, well, that's almost 60 degrees. And so a hexagonal plan would work on a lot like that. So then I started looking at precedents for that. I know Frank Lloyd Wright had done the Hanna house in California.

 

It was based on the hexagon. He had done a whole series of projects based on geometry. So I had looked at those, but it was through that less hexagonal forms and more towards three axes rather than we normally think of two axes that x and y. But this now has these 120 degree rotation that with a hexagon you have three axes that are involved in describing that geometry.

 

And that was essentially the same geometry we had on that site. So that became the basis for the design. And then with three geometries, we've got three programmatic elements of getting the cars on and off the semipublic and then the private. And then we also have this dramatic rise in height. So we could also do the same thing vertically.

 

We have the garage at the lowest level so the cars can get on easily. The semipublic now faces the street on this very narrow frontage, and then the private is up highest and essentially resting on top of the semipublic block and runs back. But because the site is so steep, it touches ground. It's a grade at the back of the property, even though it's sitting on top of the lower level at the front.

 

00;04;28;07 - 00;04;34;24

DP

The design uses distinct programmatic zones, private semipublic and garage spaces.

 

00;04;34;26 - 00;06;57;14

PV

Well, one is getting the cars on and off the lot. They can't, just the nature of cars, they can't be going up and down hill. So we need to get them on the shortest route and the lowest route, so that if you think about the site as a state of Georgia, the Florida border line was where the cars came in. The semipublic face, the cul de sac.

 

It addressed through there. And then we had stairs going up this series of stones, because one of the concerns was, that's a long way up to get to that first floor, just because it's so steep. So we have these stones on the site that are shifted. So you're sort of walking across these lily pads and then a diagonal that goes up and then a set of stairs.

 

So there's a variety of experiences moving towards the front of the house. We also have the office portion now is right inside the front door. So if someone in the house decides to set up office there, they have a client come by. They don't have to go into the main house, just in and out the front door, take care of business and then from there a few more steps go into the main house.

 

So that opens up and a very large open space. There's the fireplace, dining, living, kitchen are all in that area. And then behind the kitchen is sort of the pool deck area for showers and changing and so on. And then there's a large circular stair that's the pin. So if you think about the semipublic and the private, they splay out at 120 degrees.

 

And the stairway is the pin that holds us together to do that rotation. So there's a very large grand sculptural stair up to the second level, and it comes up between the master bedroom and the additional bedrooms, so that when you move towards the cul de sac, you're now in the master bedroom suite that is like this big diving board looking over.

 

It's a tremendous site, as I said, was very challenging. But being in that master bedroom and looking out over the trees away from the site, it's a dramatic view going the other direction there. The other bedrooms that I said eventually gets back to grade because it gets so steep in the back and then there's also the stair continues down.

 

So there's a family room in the basement, a large television there as well. And then on the other end we have that same rotation with the garage, and that's a much more modest stair coming from the garage into that living space. But it's based on those three axes and those two hinges to turn it on to the site, both in plan and in section.

 

00;06;57;16 - 00;07;19;03

DP

These zones are further emphasized through the vertical layering of the building, rising with his site's natural topography. In contrast, Sussan Lari's Henhawk House expanded a 40 100 square foot Tudor home into a 13,300 square foot estate. While maintaining the scale and charm of the original architecture.

 

00;07;19;05 - 00;07;38;15

SL

Location is really a fantastic location. The tree lined boulevard type street in Long Island. The house itself was Tudor style brick. Relatively small zoning wise, were allowed to build close to 8000ft², and the existing house was close to 4400ft².

 

00;07;38;16 - 00;07;40;04

DP

So there's an FAR there.

 

00;07;40;07 - 00;08;08;02

SL

Yes, yes. Everything we do is full force zoning under rules. And that's kind of what I've learned them really well. As much as can be played with. We have learned at all. But the house had character by the house was dim like, typically Tudor style houses from outside are just stunningly gorgeous piece of structure. And when you go in it's just sad, dark.

 

00;08;08;05 - 00;08;13;18

DP

I love the way you describe that. It's so true. So many tutors really feel that way. Absolutely.

 

00;08;13;20 - 00;08;49;05

SL

You know, in a way it gives this kind of fear of people to the Tudor because they think Tudor supposed to be dark interior and that is not going to happen with my approach to design, because I like the style of Tudor, and I don't like the style of sad inside spaces. So it's bright and happy and is open, is spacious, you know, lots of windows.

 

And in this particular case, the expansion of the house was extensive because I needed to keep a chimney.

 

00;08;49;11 - 00;08;51;21

DP

Was this a functional chimney or boiler flues?

 

00;08;51;21 - 00;09;10;09

SL

Yes. Function to me. And then we wanted to keep a fireplace. We wanted to keep a chimney and they wanted to keep the ceiling has to work ceiling of a dining room. So I said, okay, we keep all those tree, but we get rid of everything.

 

00;09;10;12 - 00;09;25;03

DP

Her design emphasized the playfulness of the Tudor esthetic, with its steeply pitched roofs, half timbered facades and intricate brickwork, all modernized with a bright and open interior that reflects contemporary living.

 

00;09;25;06 - 00;10;01;28

SL

The idea become into doing an L-shape design and because it was kind of long L-shaped, it gives me the opportunity to create the design, as there are certain components of structures together, section by section, with the playfulness of the roof, which is important for Tudor style and also different height, and also introduction of stucco and introduction of wood paneling, framing stuccos and brick, and also playfulness of a brick.

 

00;10;02;01 - 00;10;22;28

DP

Brick played a pivotal role in both projects, not only for its durability and timelessness, but also as a design tool to express texture and detail. At Guildford Court, dark brick veneer was used for the semipublic zone, creating a visual contrast and grounding the structure within its suburban context.

 

00;10;23;00 - 00;10;53;28

PV

There's fiber cement boards for the bedroom space, and then the semipublic was, a brick, and then the garage was, I think there's a wood on there. So we have a couple different faces. There's a brick facade for the semipublic. I think there's some brick as well on the garage, and we also brought some of the brick inside in the living spaces.

 

We wanted to have a variety of materials to represent because everything's now being divided into threes with the garage, semipublic, private spaces.

 

00;10;54;01 - 00;11;00;14

DP

So tell me a little bit about why you guys chose to use brick, in particular, the dark brick.

 

00;11;00;16 - 00;11;16;21

PV

The dark brick. That was not my selection. I did not select the colors on that element, but it would also be contrasting. You could see the dramatic change in color because as I said, it's about these three elements. And so they read differently every way you cut it.

 

00;11;16;21 - 00;11;23;19

DP

It, you know, would seem to me that you chose to use brick as a differentiated design element, right? Right.

 

00;11;23;21 - 00;11;34;07

PV

It's also very common in this part of the country. In an old town, Virginia, and just all up and down the East Coast. Brick was the way to do durable construction and still is.

 

00;11;34;09 - 00;11;38;10

DP

Are there any houses around this one that are masonry as well?

 

00;11;38;14 - 00;11;57;13

PV

Yes. So the houses that were there in the neighboring lots, most of them were split level with a lower with brick on the first floor and siding on the second floor. The houses that have come in their place, the two I can think of are stucco, but there's a lot of brick in the neighborhood.

 

00;11;57;15 - 00;12;07;19

DP

The brick was also introduced in interior spaces such as the fireplace surround, blending the exterior and interior seamlessly.

 

00;12;07;21 - 00;12;23;02

PV

There's brick for the fireplace surround, which is the left photograph there. And there were also two trees on the site where we ended up pulling those up, but the contractor had those milled and used them for the trim. The wood that's above the fireplace there is from those trees.

 

00;12;23;09 - 00;12;24;22

DP

Do you remember the species?

 

00;12;24;24 - 00;12;27;25

PV

My recollection will be black locust, but I'm not sure.

 

00;12;27;28 - 00;12;40;15

DP

I was going to ask you what some of the historical precedents were for the, for the architecture, but clearly were into much more modern architecture here. However, as you said, we see brick in the area.

 

00;12;40;17 - 00;12;45;17

PV

Yeah. There's brick. The material is common in Northern Virginia, the building forms.

 

00;12;45;25 - 00;12;47;11

DP

Yeah. I was going to say we got gables here.

 

00;12;47;11 - 00;12;54;29

PV

Yeah, that's pretty common as well. So the basis of it is traditional, but the implementation has become modern.

 

00;12;55;02 - 00;13;06;04

DP

And tell me a little bit, what I call this modern Tudor aesthetic. Where did that come from? And I know it's not modern Tudor, but describe that for our listeners.

 

00;13;06;06 - 00;13;15;24

PV

So from this view, the division of the fiber cement is accomplished with these vertical elements that come proud of the exterior finish.

 

00;13;15;27 - 00;13;21;23

DP

Okay. So they're not set back into the fiber cement. They're brashly proud. So it's applied.

 

00;13;21;27 - 00;13;37;08

PV

Yeah. And so that could be considered a reference. It was not the intention but to have timber that was common with timber houses. Would use expressed wood materials and then with stucco in between those. And then the angles for the roofs are fairly standard.

 

00;13;37;14 - 00;13;38;03

DP

Are those 12 12? Tudor style?

 

00;13;38;03 - 00;13;45;07

PV

Yes they are. The contractor ended up putting living space up there as well. So we made good use of that space.

 

00;13;45;07 - 00;13;59;19

DP

Of course, for Henhawk House, brick became a canvas for creativity. The facade features herringbone patterns, soldier courses and diagonal layouts, adding richness and depth to the design.

 

00;13;59;21 - 00;14;12;28

SL

I think we were good in accomplishing that because it has its playfulness and although is relatively large but it is not overwhelmingly massive.

 

00;14;13;00 - 00;14;14;15

DP

I'd say it's well scaled.

 

00;14;14;17 - 00;15;07;29

SL

It is well scaled, right? And then at the end, we realized that there's no way we could match the old brick. So I know Glen-Gery very well, because if I ever have done any brickwork has been Glen-Gery and why? Because the quality of the material and I get service. So I am fussy enough to worry about the size and also worry about the color of the grout.

 

And I want to have the samples of it made before I even decide what color brick. So a rep does that service for us and do the color we provide the color and tell what brick. And between those is what I chose and eventually and I have are some Mason that are Italian and five brothers and one better than the other.

 

They're local to local and they do a magnificent job. And also they built a good size.

 

00;15;08;01 - 00;15;09;10

DP

They did a mock up?

 

00;15;09;14 - 00;15;51;18

SL

Absolutely. And and one other thing that I was almost kind of experimenting, this project was that I love the style of Tudor on the outside. I don't like that inside. So that was one issue. Second issue. I like the playfulness of how we could create interesting textures and playfulness of the laying of the brick, but Tudor would allow me to do that because we are compartmentalizing pieces here there, and that other styles don't do that.

 

And then that herringbone style has to be compartmentalize, right?

 

00;15;51;21 - 00;15;53;18

DP

In between the boards, I think at one.

 

00;15;53;18 -00;16;40;12

SL

Between the boards would work. We shouldn't do too much of it because too much of an accessory. Not good. So it allowed me to experiment and do detailed work. And also choosing of the color of the brick and the color of the stucco and the freedom I had in detailing and designing and working also with the roof and with the roofer - I’m friend with the roofer, I'm friend with the Mason man, I’m friend and and to make sure that we get eventually a beautifully detailed house and outside. And then when it come to the inside, our life is modern.

 

We are living in this time. Our space should be representing our era.

 

00;16;40;15 - 00;16;43;00

DP

Did you guys use any brick on the interior?

 

00;16;43;03 - 00;16;45;09

SL

Not on this project.

 

00;16;45;11 - 00;16;53;01

DP

What were some of the historical precedents? We were talking about details. Were there any local buildings that were Tudors? Was this the only?

 

00;16;53;01 - 00;16;59;08

SL

Yes, actually, no. No, it's not in this particular street. There are many other brick buildings.

 

00;16;59;10 - 00;17;27;18

DP

Both architects face unique challenges, but found creative solutions to overcome them. In navigating the steep and irregular site of Guildford Court, the unique three axis geometry and distinct programmatic zones brought forth a familiar concept for Peter, known as polyrhythms. The result is a home that harmonizes with its environment while offering dramatic views and a clear organization of space.

 

00;17;27;20 - 0;18;27;00

PV

Something else we hadn't discussed that I used to play the drums, still do. Yeah, and for a long time I used to play, actually in a bagpipe band. More sophisticated than you think. But, so rhythm is something that I've been dealing with since I was ten years old. And one thing that came up is what called polyrhythms, where you have overlapping rhythms, you take two rhythms that may not be so interesting on their own, but when they're overlaid with each other, then it creates something more interesting than either of them were to begin with.

 

And that's how I view this project, that this overlay, the reason why that window angle is there on the corner is because the geometry of the private portion is been thrust through the semipublic. And so there's an angle that goes through, the chimney was rotated along that as well. And the contractor turned that back. But it was that slot that pushed through that mirrors the same axis that the private portion is on.

 

00;18;27;02 - 00;18;46;17

DP

For Henhawk House, Sussan preserved key elements of the original structure, such as a chimney and a decorative dining room ceiling, while designing a new L-shaped layout. This approach allowed her to integrate traditional and modern elements, creating a home that feels both expansive and intimate.

 

00;18;46;19 - 00;18;54;15

SL

The chimney that I wanted to keep, which was right above the fireplace, was outside of skyline exposure.

 

00;18;54;17 - 00;18;57;03

DP

Okay, there was a height restriction?

 

00;18;57;06 - 00;20;44;08

SL

Yes, we always have height restriction in this case, I said, this is an existing building. This is not a new house. This is a renovation of an existing house. So I'm allowed to keep the chimney. And that chimney, we end up to really change the inside of the chimney on the outside of the chimney, and all the bricks and everything, but we kept the height.

 

Now, the zoning building going to hear that. Fortunately, we had no issue at the setback because we had plenty of space from the front of the house in King's Point to setback requirement for front yard is 60ft and we had way more than 60ft. It was deep enough that I was able to create a parking courtyard in front of the house and the garage.

 

We have one two car garage on the upper level and then three car garage on the lowest level. The garage is actually coming further out from the front of the house, but I don't think we had any other zoning issues. But one other feature of the house that I thought, it's kind of important. As I was driving around and see all these Tudor houses, Tudor is not a box, Tudor is never a box. Tudor expand. And that is one beautiful feature of when it's all expand. We had a lot of width, plenty of available. The size of the property was very large and we had enough room on the site, and I thought that if I could add an extra width to the house, will be introducing a brick wall, extending from the garage, and that will be the access from the front of the house to the garden.

 

00;20;44;10 - 00;20;47;26

DP

And then you did a series of small windows along the garage, correct?

 

00;20;48;02 - 00;21;06;04

SL

Yes, because a simple wall without any detail in the front elevation was not a good idea. If I can introduce fenestration into the wall and breaking it, because this is again the style of Tudor.

 

00;21;06;07 - 00;21;11;12

DP

Did you guys get to do any new details on this project that you hadn't done in the past?

 

00;21;11;14 - 00;21;22;06

SL

Yes, that brick herringbone is new. The playfulness of the brick above the entrance hall in the front and back, front and back are identical in what they represent.

 

00;21;22;09 - 00;22;29;09

DP

Reflecting on the design and construction of each home, both projects skillfully balance historical charm and modern functionality, demonstrating how this iconic style can be adapted to meet contemporary needs while maintaining its traditional character. Whether through Peter's innovative use of geometric axes and dark brick to articulate spaces, or Sussan's playful incorporation of brick patterns, timber framed stucco, and steep gabled roofs, both projects celebrate the rich textures and distinctive elements that define Tudor architecture, such as intricate brickwork, bold roof lines, and striking chimneys.

 

Ultimately, these projects underscore the power of Tudor design to bridge past and present, offering timeless esthetics alongside modern livability. Through their thoughtful interpretations, Peter and Sussan highlight how this historic style continues to inspire and evolve, creating homes that are as functional as they are beautiful.

 

TRANSCRIPT

00;00;00;02 - 00;00;05;13

Doug Pat (DP)

Let's go inside the vault. The design vault.

 

00;00;05;16 - 00;00;20;26

JW

I think what was special about this project was that the clients were able to generate a lot of input. That forced me out of my comfort zone, think about things in new ways, and take some of the systems and strategies I had in place, but to create something completely different than had been done before.

 

00;00;20;28 - 00;02;12;18

DP

In this special series, we're unlocking some of the most powerful conversations we've had so far. We're connecting the dots, revealing hidden gems and unearthing insights that might have slipped by. All to spark your next big idea with brick. Whether you're looking for fresh inspiration or innovative solutions, this series is designed to fuel your creativity. So let's dive in.

 

Hi, I'm Doug Pat and this is Design Vault.

 

Over the past two decades, Brooklyn has undergone a remarkable transformation, evolving from its historic roots as a commercial and civic hub into a thriving mixed use borough that supports residential, commercial, cultural and community development. Sparked in part by the 2004 rezoning of downtown Brooklyn. The neighborhood has attracted billions of dollars in investment, reshaping its urban fabric with new housing, infrastructure and public spaces.

 

This wave of growth has fostered a renaissance of architectural innovation, where historic preservation meets modern design and sustainability intertwines with cultural heritage. Today, we highlight three projects that we've previously discussed, which all embody the spirit of Brooklyn's redevelopment: the adaptive reuse of 50 Nevins Street, the historic restoration of 102 Bainbridge Street, and the bold reinvention of a brownstone at the Z House in Clinton Hill.

 

These projects reflect the dynamic interplay between Brooklyn's rich history and its vibrant future at 50 Nevins Street. John Woelfling of Dattner Architects led the effort to blend historic preservation with sustainable and equitable housing.

 

00;02;12;25 - 00;03;47;06

John Woelfling (JW)

It was originally designed as a YWCA, as an SRO, a single room occupancy building, so all the rooms were like single bedded rooms. There was a common cafeteria and kitchen and common bathing facilities. So it was like really stacking people in. And this was like an old model of housing people that was, you know, appropriate at a certain time in the city's history, but not really contemporary residential standards.

 

What we would expect today. So that was kind of the history of this building. You also mentioned the shaving off of the north end of the building, which actually we suspected that through some research, but we didn't really get it confirmed until we got into the building and started doing the demolition and saw, oh, this is where they replaced this column with a different type of steel that was in the original building, it was riveted steel. In the new portion, it was rolled sections. We'd see the back up wall or actually the composite wall in the original building was all brickwork. It was all bonded brick wall. In the new building, in the modified part that happened when they widened the street, it became a terracotta block back up within the finished brick in front.

 

The window details were different, so it was actually really interesting to have that kind of confirmation and see it once the demo all happened. The building has this legacy of being modified, and I think serving the greater good, the widening of the street and the shaving off of 20ft of the building was done so that there would be this greater public amenity of the subway station. That would would improve the life of all New Yorkers.

 

00;03;47;08 - 00;03;56;26

DP

Michelle Todd's work on 102 Bainbridge Street in Bed Sty, showcased the complexity of restoring a historic Spanish Renaissance style row house.

 

00;03;56;28 - 00;04;38;29

Michelle Todd (MT)

It's in the beautiful original historic district of Bedford-Stuyvesant, which is known as Stuyvesant Heights, and it was established as a landmark district in 1971. So this set of buildings, it's literally between Stuyvesant and Lewis on Bainbridge. It's about 14 series of the buildings, and it's at the end row. And there are Spanish style Renaissance buildings that was created by F McCarthy, who was an architect back in 1919.

 

And the unique thing about these buildings is that it's the only buildings I've ever been in with. It has two staircases inside where there's one in the back and one in the front. So I guess back in those days, they would have the servants come through the back, and then the owners come through the front.

 

00;04;39;01 - 00;04;41;12

DP

Roughly, what's the square footage of the project?

 

00;04;41;15 - 00;04;44;08

MT

It's about 1200 square feet.

 

00;04;44;10 - 00;04;48;03

DP

And what was the scope and the programmatic requirements from the owner?

 

00;04;48;05 - 00;05;47;00

MT

Well, the original scope and program was that it was in terrible need in regards to existing structure. The parapet was buckling. So on the north facade, as well as the south and west facades, it was just crumbling. They were scared that it was going to fall down in some way. So the whole idea was to fix the parapet and also to fix all of the step cracking within the facade.

 

But then as we went along, we started to think also, it was a beautiful building of brick in the front, and the original status was that it had stucco on the very rear portion. Once we started to do the renovation was like, you know, we don't really need the stucco. It really looks beautiful with the brick itself. So we started to expose all the stucco, and by exposing all the stucco, we wound up finding out that this particular building, it wasn't brick behind and it was actually wood.

 

So that therefore became more of an extensive project in which it wasn't just a renovation of the exterior facade, it was now a whole new addition and also an entire new rebuild.

 

00;05;47;02 - 00;05;58;19

DP

In Clinton Hill, Shane Neufeld of Light and Air Architecture transform a derelict brownstone into the Z House. Named for its dynamic switchback stair.

 

00;05;58;21 - 00;07;14;25

Shane Neufeld (SN)

There was this idea early on that we sketched of a kind of grand public floor on the stoop level. Basically, they knew they wanted to add to the building horizontally. We weren't yet sure about vertically, but the original building, it was wider than most townhouses, 22.5ft, but it was only 32ft deep. So the addition was necessary in order to function.

 

Basically. Then the idea of the living space on the parlor floor and with bedrooms above. And originally, as I've done in other projects, I thought of the adult level on the second floor with the kids above. They pushed me to invert this, which created a very interesting programmatic and spatial result. Basically, with the vertical addition on the rear, you end up having a terrace on the top floor of the master bedroom.

 

I think what was special about this project was that the clients were able to generate a lot of input that forced me out of my comfort zone, think about things in new ways, and take some of the systems and strategies I had in place, but to create something completely different than had been done before. So in that respect, when I first started this project, I thought about it as, you know, Switchback House 2.0.

 

I like this idea of the switch back as a typology that offers a multitude of spatial outcomes depending on the family's needs.

 

00;07;14;28 - 00;07;28;01

DP

Each project demanded a careful balance between preservation and innovation. 50 Nevins Street maintained the historical character of its prewar structure while maximizing the density of the building.

 

00;07;28;03 - 00;08;59;15

JW

So one of the really critical things for affordable housing in most housing, all housing is efficiency. And the efficiency was really driven by the desire to maximize the number of units that we could put here so we could serve the most people. So we looked at that rectangle and where the opportunity was to expand the building horizontally and located our cores, our elevator and our stairs in a spot that worked best for that.

 

And then really started to figure out where the best units would be located, where the best apartment layouts would be, and in the existing building, it was actually a challenge. We were not going to change the fenestration where the windows are located or the size of the windows. So that really dictated a lot of the apartment placements and the size. New York City has something called light and air requirements for apartments need to have a certain size window for a certain size room, and you can't go below that for both light daylight and ventilation. So the existing buildings layout was determined largely not completely, but largely by the existing fenestration layout. And then we had more flexibility in the new building portion. But that was also a challenge because it was a very limited floor plate.

 

And it really had to integrate with the existing building. We had corridors that we had to figure out. We placed the elevator in the inside corner where the two buildings meet, because that's a place where you can't really put apartments because there's no windows there. So I think we were pretty clever about putting all the, like, fundamentals and figuring out how the floor plan would come together.

 

00;08;59;18 - 00;09;10;28

DP

The integration of new structural systems with existing ones highlighted the project's technical challenges, such as underpinning foundations to support the added stories.

 

00;09;11;00 - 00;10;45;29

JW

So the new foundations were complicated. The existing building foundations were also complicated. When we did this vertical expansion above the existing building I mentioned earlier, the term heroic, and it really was heroic. I mean, when I look back on this, I think, oh my God, what was I thinking? And we actually convinced somebody to do this. We convinced a contractor to do this.

 

We convinced our client, which you know, there are great clients. I don't want to make it sound like I've deceived them, but it was a really courageous project of both undertaken by all parties. In the existing building, because we built above, there was additional load that we were superimposing on the existing superstructure in that building. We had to brace one of the columns so that we could lower the footing and increase the size of the footing.

 

And the way we did that was and when I say we, I mean, it's really the contractor that did this. We came up with the concept, but they executed it. There was a huge beam that was spanned from one column to another that supported this column temporarily, that we were going to lower the footing on, and they jacked that beam up and supported that column so that the existing footing that was undersized could be pulled out, excavated further down, and then a new footing could be introduced and an extension of the column.

 

So gutsy acrobatics to do this and the way they tested, whether that beam, that temporary beam that was put in, whether it separated the footing from the column, was I took a piece of paper and they slipped it between the footing and the base plate of the column to see if it was actually separated. So they wanted to test that, to make sure there was daylight before they pulled out that existing footing phenomenal construction, sequencing and logistics.

 

It was a gutsy project I'm very proud of.

 

00;10;46;01 - 00;10;56;04

DP

102 Bainbridge Street required collaboration with structural engineers and landmark authorities to address the unforeseen condition of the original wood framed construction.

 

00;10;56;10 - 00;11;41;04

MT

So the new wall system was still going back to what was historically done in regards to the rear facade was made out of three widths of brick, which basically is like three layers. And what we had to do was that we had to abide by what the actual once we removed the stucco, what the actual pattern was, because it was a common bond.

 

The pattern in the front of the house was completely different than the pattern in the back of the house. So once we established that, then we wanted to really make it structurally sound, and we incorporated steel within the wall. So basically you have the three whiffs of brick on the outside. Then you have the steel that was stainless steel that made sure it was resourced sustainably.

 

And then we have our insulation and then our finishes inside.

 

00;11;41;06 - 00;11;53;15

DP

The Z House presented an opportunity for spatial experimentation with its double height spaces and green roof, fostering connections between indoor and outdoor environments.

 

00;11;53;17 - 00;12;37;28

SN

We have solar panels on the roof and a green roof, 100ft² of green roof is required now of new construction in New York on residential projects. If you don't have solar panels, we kind of decided to do both. The solar panels actually came a little later on in the project, but the green roof is integrated into the addition so that actually when one descends down the stair from the second to the first floor, they look out of a window that views out upon the green roof.

 

And that green roof also, the intention is, over time it grows. It's exotic. It falls down the facade. And so the idea of the brick as a kind of monumental monolithic material that is a counterpoint to the organic quality of the roof itself. Our hope is that they really begin to work together in a lovely way.

 

00;12;38;04 - 00;12;41;11

DP

How much energy can they generate with the solar panels?

 

00;12;41;13 - 00;12;47;28

SN

Probably anywhere between 40 to 50%. You know, I think obviously in the winter, not so much, but in the summer a lot.

 

00;12;48;00 - 00;13;03;22

DP

And that's pretty cool. Across all three projects. Brick served as a cornerstone of design at 50 Nevins Street, contrasting red and light bricks, articulated the old and new sections of the building while maintaining esthetic cohesion.

 

00;13;03;29 - 00;14;22;23

JW

Yeah, the existing brick we had to undo some sins of the past, add lintels, the repairs that were done previously, not quite sure when they were done with, maybe a little bit less sensitivity to matching the brick and mortar. So that was some of the repair work that we did at the existing building. The existing building also has a base, a very formal base.

 

It's a very classical design to have that base. So we wanted to that was another one of these affinity points that we wanted with the new building. So we created this base which was a dark grounding brick. That's a Glen-Gery product. It's a Black Hills velour. The velour is the finish on the brick. So that kind of established the base of the building.

 

And then above that we did a much lighter, more contemporary brick. Also a Glen-Gary product, White Plains velour. Again, the velour is the finish of the texture of the face of the brick. And we did similar coursing. The mortar is very different. The mortar in the White Plains is its own mortar. The existing buildings, mortar repairs were their own mortar, so they would match that building's texture and coloration.

 

But through a combination of the same brick size, the same coarsening, and also picking up on that limestone detailing this in the existing building, we did kind of created this affinity between the two buildings, so they're definitely distinct from each other, but they're also kind of a family.

 

00;14;22;28 - 00;14;42;23

DP

Yeah, it's a nice touch. It ties the two buildings together. At 102 Bainbridge Street, the careful selection of historically accurate Glen-Gary bricks ensured the integrity of the restored facade. So I'm curious, in terms of color, you were able to find a brick that you were happy with. You said that matched on the exterior.

 

00;14;42;25 - 00;14;58;06

MT

The contractor had suggested. He was like, oh, this will be a perfect brick. I did research, it was a Glen-Gary Cushwa Calvert, 52-DD Middle Plantation. That was the one that was selected. And when we put it in place, it was perfect to what was there from 1919.

 

00;14;58;13 - 00;15;01;20

DP

So do all these row homes, they almost look the same?

 

00;15;01;24 - 00;16;05;19

MT

They basically all look the same. And the other fascinating thing to do with the project, when we were doing the demo for the wood infill, all the bricks, I learned this like recently from my practice, that the bricks that we were removing that were there, all had the names of the brick companies on there, and you don't see that anymore in which they were actually etched into the brick.

 

I was like, wow, it's like fascinating. So it was like an archeological project in the same way of doing something better for the building for another hundred years. We basically had to do a whole reconstruction. And that's where Glen-Gary came into play, because what happened too is that on the back of the facade, all the bricks in the building weren't the same.

 

The bricks in the front of the building were made out of Belden, and it was a different type of color scheme. But then when we removed the stucco in the back, it was a beautiful match with the Glen-Gary Cushwa Calvert Plantation, Middle Plantation, 52-DD. It was a perfect match to it. Again, we had to go back to landmarks to make sure that they were proof of that brick to match what was in the rear facade that was being used.

 

00;16;05;22 - 00;16;14;23

DP

So what's interesting about the photographs that you sent is that the building looks as though some of these walls were completely taken down.

 

00;16;14;26 - 00;16;44;21

MT

It was because due to the fact that it was stucco and I'm an architect, is very conscious about the environment, and stucco is something like concrete, and it adds to the carbon footprint. So the whole idea was that this project specifically was to eliminate that process in really being more progressive and more enhancing to the environment. So that's why we didn't use stucco.

 

We wanted to just expose the beautiful masonry itself. And therefore, by eliminating the stucco, we saw, the building was in need of much deeper repair than we expected.

 

00;16;44;23 - 00;16;53;28

DP

At the Z House. Brick brought warmth and texture to both the exterior and interior, reinforcing the home's connection to its urban context.

 

00;16;54;00 - 00;18;23;04

SN

The client had this dream of a masonry rear facade. I did too, I mean, it's what made sense. I mean, masonry is a East Coast material. It is something we see a lot here. The beautiful old buildings, you know, of the northeast are made of brick, many of them red brick. And so that was a theme that came up as well.

 

The client did have a bit of a dream of this red brick facade, but knowing that this brick would live on the inside as well, esthetically, I felt that a red brick spoke too much of exterior use and would be a kind of too much of a contrast to the type of mood and space we were trying to create on the inside.

 

A lighter brick reflects light. It bounces light around. It doesn't present itself as a color so much as an opportunity for variations in tone throughout a space. There's so much light in this house that we kind of after some time and looking at many, many different products and many Glen-Gary products, we decided that a white Lightish cream colored brick was the right choice.

 

And then it came to question, well, how do we get a white brick that has the texture that works both on the outside and on the inside, and doesn't force someone to see that as an issue in one way or the other. And so we went with, in the end, the white velour, which we felt was this perfect middle ground of cream colored was not too white, was not two beige.

 

It's not too reflective, not too matte, and had a wonderful kind of authentic handed texture to it that I think really helped the house out a lot.

 

00;18;23;06 - 00;18;26;23

DP

And use a slightly darker mortar right, so we didn't know it's brick. Correct?

 

00;18;27;00 - 00;18;44;00

SN

We tested it out. So that was the sense do we want the lines to go away? That's always a question you know architects deal with. I think we found something that wasn't too much of a contrast, but very clearly spoke to the manual craft that goes into putting brick walls together.

 

00;18;44;03 - 00;18;46;24

DP

You guys used masonry on the interior as well.

 

00;18;46;26 - 00;18;49;28

SN

We did. And those are full masonry bricks on the inside.

 

00;18;50;00 - 00;18;50;29

DP

So it's load bearing.

 

00;18;51;06 - 00;19;24;25

SN

Well, we're not using the bricks for load bearing purposes. It is a CMU wall in the addition. But the bricks take up the three and 5/8 inch width, which is I think, really interesting. I think this is again speaks the kind of work that we do is that we looked at tile products. I think Glen-Gary makes tile products too, of some of those bricks, but we wanted it to turn corners.

 

We wanted it to move. We wanted it to appear fully authentic. And in the end, I think once we had reflected on all the products available, that using the same brick, the same finish was the right move.

 

00;19;24;28 - 00;19;57;22

DP

These projects reflect the importance of collaboration among architects, clients, engineers and builders. Whether it was addressing structural complexities, navigating regulatory processes, or fine tuning details like window placement and masonry coursing. Each team overcame unique obstacles to realize their vision through their work. John, Michelle and Shane demonstrate how architecture can preserve history, innovate for the future, and create meaningful spaces for contemporary living.

 

Brick as a material unites these projects, offering timeless beauty, environmental adaptability, and a tangible link to their urban and historic contexts. If you'd like to hear more about each individual project, you can find links to the full conversations in the show notes. If you haven't done so already, make sure to subscribe so you don't miss the rest of this series where we revisit some of the most powerful conversations and unearth insights that might have slipped by all to spark your next big idea with brick.

 

TRANSCRIPT

00;00;00;02 - 00;00;05;14

Doug Pat (DP)

Let's go inside the vault. The design vault.

 

00;00;05;17 - 00;00;30;21

Mateusz Nowacki (MN)

They grew up in small villages in southern Poland, where a lot of the typical houses there are just built out of, like, clay brick. One could look at that and say, well, that's really utilitarian and where's the cladding? But to me, I find that really interesting. I'm like, oh, that is the cladding. And how do we kind of represent that in a new way?

 

Hence, where we landed with the materiality of this project, which is a kind of smoked, darker tone sort of clay brick that ages really well and has this kind of grace and it's timeless quality.

 

00;00;30;27 - 00;02;13;21

DP

In this special series, we're unlocking some of the most powerful conversations we've had so far. We're connecting the dots, revealing hidden gems and unearthing insights that might have slipped by, all to spark your next big idea with brick. Whether you're looking for fresh inspiration or innovative solutions, this series is designed to fuel your creativity. So let's dive in.

 

Hi, I'm Doug Pat and this is Design Vault. Today, we travel around the world to examine the architectural vision behind three remarkable projects with insights from William Smart, founder and Creative Director of Smart Design Studio in Sydney, Lorne Rose, principal architect of Lorne Rose Architect in Toronto, and Mateusz Nowacki, architect and designer of the H House in Ontario, Canada. We’ll highlight various aspects of each project, including the architectural design process, construction challenges, and the thoughtful use of brick to blend modern and traditional esthetics.

 

When working on these projects, each architect faced the challenge of integrating modern design elements while honoring the character and history of their respective contexts. William Smart's Smart Design Studio, located in Sydney's inner city, stands within a conservation area of brick warehouses. William designed the building to reference the industrial roots of the area, while incorporating bold, modern design gestures. The curving and peeling brick facade creates a sculptural and dynamic presence, showcasing an innovative use of brick in a contemporary setting.

 

00;02;13;27 - 00;03;29;05

William Smart (WS)

So there's an existing warehouse here, and the front strip of that building, which was where the office’s meetings had been adjusted so many times over the past 60 years that it had lost all its integrity. And we demolished that front seven meters and rebuilt that. And then we kept the rest of the warehouse, which was about 80% of the footprint, and restored that.

 

And that's where that big room is in our studio. And the front strip, which is seven meters wide, has a beautiful brick vaulted facade that almost looks as though it's peeling open. The brick kind of curves outwards and leans downwards, and we worked out a way to lay bricks facing in a downward direction, and peels up again the other way.

 

And at the top of that three storey structure, we have this apartment building, which is called the four walls that we spoke of before. And so what we tried to do with the project was to use everyday, ordinary materials like galvanized roof sheeting and galvanized steel windows and a very simple brick. But to take these materials and do something extraordinary with them.

 

So make kind of beautiful sculptural shapes, or to make beautiful load bearing brick folds. So that was one of the primary objectives. And it talks to the history of the area and really relates back in a very sympathetic way to the context.

 

00;03;29;08 - 00;03;53;14

DP

For Lorne Rose, the Tudor home in Toronto was inspired by a traditional Tudor style house from the turn of the century, but with modernized materials and craftsmanship. Replacing the half timber board work with stone, Lorne created a more durable and refined facade, all the while maintaining the Tudor character through intricate brick patterns like diagonal herringbone and basket weave.

 

00;03;53;17 - 00;05;23;14

Lorne Rose (LR)

There were some Tudor, a lot of postwar architecture. Toronto was very much influenced by English architecture, especially at the time, but the home that was the inspiration for this one was a much smaller home near Forest Hill Village. You know, where my office is, it was a much smaller home that had beautiful brickwork. And the Mick band was a homage to that house in Forest Hill.

 

Way to describe it is an orange segment carving. It would have been done out of wood on the original house, and these beautiful brick patterns, which you would see on other homes in Forest Hill village that really caught my eye and nobody really replicates properly these days. In addition to the first floor, as it were, carved, details like that on the old Tudor homes from the turn of the century in the revival of these styles are always left out.

 

So we really wanted to do it correctly on this home, and the homeowner spent extra money to do it properly and more authentic. Subsequent to that, there were quasi replicas of this house that popped up. People are in Toronto and they see something they want to emulate, but I don't take it as an offense, I take it as a form of compliment.

 

I didn't invent anything here. I was borrowing from, I have selected borrowing details from architecture styles that I like, and I do it with any style of modern or Georgian or French provincial. I like to use the most authentic details that clients will allow us to afford.

 

00;05;23;16 - 00;05;48;21

DP

Mateusz Nowacki’s H House located in a suburban area embraced minimalism and functionality. The home's clean, modern lines are contrasted with the strong material palette, where brick serves as a key element in grounding the design. The use of brick in simple linear forms respects the suburban context, while emphasizing craftsmanship and architectural simplicity.

 

00;05;48;23 - 00;07;00;10

MN

From a style perspective, the house is certainly a deviation from them, like they used to kind of live in a house that was quite ornamented and detailed and things like that was a beautiful house, right? But I think them seeing me continue to work on projects and the kind of projects I was working on, it really started to kind of have an effect on them.

 

And me coming on home at Christmas and talking about how important natural light is and that kind of stuff. It really had an impact. So they saw that as something that they could kind of work with themselves in terms of how to approach the house. And then on top of that, we looked at references of Eastern European architecture that felt familiar to them in terms of their context, right.

 

So they grew up in small villages in southern Poland, where a lot of the typical houses there are just built out of like clay, brick and the clay brick is exposed, all the mortar’s exposed, so it's all load bearing. One could look at that and say, well, that's really utilitarian and reflective of the structure of the house and you know, where's the cladding?

 

But to me, I find that really interesting. I'm like, oh, that is the cladding. And how do we kind of represent that in a new way? Hence where we landed with the materiality of this project, which is a kind of smoked darker toned sort of clay brick that ages really well and it has this kind of grace and it's a timeless quality.

 

So we looked at those precedents as a reference in terms of where the style of the house itself went.

 

00;07;00;13 - 00;07;20;00

DP

Each project seamlessly blends modern elements with traditional craftsmanship. A strong emphasis on materiality and detail was evident in all three projects. William's use of brick in the Catenary Vaults of the caretaker's apartment is a striking example of blending contemporary design with age-old techniques.

 

00;07;20;02 - 00;08;36;08

WS

I've had quite a lot of experience in working with brick, so over the years I've started to understand how to do more joints really well, how to make it kind of work gymnastic so it can do more expressive forms, and it felt like the right material. And then for us, it came down to the point of choosing exactly the right brick and we have two types of brick in our building.

 

One is called a dry press brick, and that's made about 60km from Sydney to very local and they're beautiful. They're white to they're in the space that I'm in now. They're chalky. They chip easily. They have incredible material quality to them. And because they're on the inside, we can afford to use these more softer bricks and look after them well.

 

And then on the outside of the building, we used a very durable brick called La Paloma, which is made in Spain, actually, and we wanted to use a black brick on the outside of the building for a bunch of different reasons. But in Australia we don't have the really good clays and my good black bricks. So we had to use the Spanish brick and they made a special profile for us so they were able to customize it, and they're just incredibly strong and durable and look beautiful with the trees in the landscaping that's in this area.

 

And marry perfectly with the building opposite that I mentioned.

 

00;08;36;10 - 00;08;55;10

DP

So let's get back to these unique vaults in the apartment. How did you build these? So there's a series of them. I saw some photos. They looked like they were built in one location or perhaps moved, or were they built at the spot they ended up in? And they're also a really unique shape, right? They're elliptical.

 

00;08;55;13 - 00;11;18;16

WS

Yes. They're all built in situ and how we built them was pretty close to what we imagined at the start. So we made a catenary shaped false curve. So like a hull of a boat sitting upside down, we made a timber plywood form. And then we literally put the brakes on top of that form so that the mortar didn't leak out in between.

 

We didn't use regular mortar. We used a terracotta tile glue, and we glued the bricks together so that there's no mortar joints. And if you're laying them upside down, that's a good way to do it, because you don't have that problem with the mortar leaking out in an uncontrolled way towards the inside face. We made the timber false work that was all CNC cut and was put together without using any nails.

 

We worked out that you could make the CNC machine work very hard for you and the CNC cutting is incredible false work because you can make it a perfect shape and it's really fast. They were all cut overnight, delivered in one day, all assembled it within one week. So a very fast process. We laid the bricks across the top and then we put a thin layer of reinforcing mesh over the top of that.

 

And we sprayed it with 60 mil stick of concrete. Now in that process where all the bricks are glued together and you have this concrete on the outside, the brick itself in this catenary shape doesn't need any support. It will hold itself up. It is the perfect structural shape, and that shape can also be described by or represented by taking a chain and hold it at the two ends that slumps to a catenary shape in tension.

 

When you invert that and put that up the other way, it stays true to its shape. But it's all in compression, and brick is a great material for compression. It's strong when the forces are loaded on top of it, and the person that made that famous is the Sagrada Familia Building in Barcelona uses catenary vaults everywhere, and Antoni Gaudí is the master of how those elements come together.

 

We laid bricks on top. We sprayed it with a thin layer of concrete, what we call shock created in Australia. It's a similar way to how you build swimming pools. They dried that off and they left it to dry for a month. And then after that we took it away. So the concrete in that system provides stability, because you could imagine if you make this brick fold, then it's a bit vulnerable when you have kind of a strong sideways force, like a very large wind or a branch or a tree falling on it, it could all fall sideways and topple over.

 

And then you take it away and it stands up beautifully in this space. It's kind of fun to do all that.

 

00;11;18;18 - 00;11;32;21

DP

In Lawrence Tudor Home, the thoughtful arrangement of brick patterns and carved stone details brought a level of authenticity and timelessness to the project, enhancing the traditional Tudor aesthetic in a modern urban context.

 

00;11;32;23 - 00;11;58;16

LR

There were examples that I looked at as well, where the second floor, rather than brick, you could do some of these patterns in stone, but red brick was dear to the owner's liking, and I don't think there was really another option in the sides and the rear of the house there's a stone skirt that wraps around the house, but the rest of the house is broken while many people do a front end of all stone sites and red brick, it allowed us to tie the brick in all the way around the house.

 

00;11;58;18 - 00;12;08;02

DP

What I think is really pretty when you look at the exterior gables, the half timbered construction has become stone. Talk a little bit about that. And where have you seen that in the past?

 

00;12;08;04 - 00;12;39;26

LR

There were some examples I've seen in the city, but for the most part, you know, even on a lot of the house since we do that are Tudor, but we'll have a cornice detail. Our winters are harsh, or whether it's harsh or summers or hot, sticky. And we have extremes. The thought of sort of painting wood timbers, have timbers every now and then was not something the homeowner wanted to do.

 

So we suggested doing them out of stone. There's no maintenance. So we've done that a couple of times just to cut down on maintenance. There are some parts that are wood, but not a lot of this house.

 

00;12;39;29 - 00;12;48;00

DP

Matisse's minimalist approach to the brick design provided an understated elegance that complemented the home's modern design.

 

00;12;48;07 - 00;13;42;06

MN

Specifically, I remember for my mother when I said, you know, we're thinking about this kind of clay colored brick and something that looks really natural. She loved that idea. She really never understood why more houses in a kind of contemporary context didn't do that, at least in the context where they live, and to some degree, because the house, you know, in its design, in its formal and massing quality, it can appear really stark compared to its neighbors.

 

The materiality choices of it are meant to sensitize that approach. So this notion of really conventional brick is meant to appear familiar to kind of the onlooker or to the person that, you know, lives in that home. It has this really timeless quality to it. It's like, I can understand that house because it's made of brick. It's made of a conventional thing that I know that's been around for ages and has its conventional color.

 

That's the color that brick usually looks like. When you ask a child to draw a brick, they're going to draw you a red brick. Maybe with three quarters if the child is advanced enough. Right. There's this familiarity which helps make the architecture more digestible.

 

00;13;42;09 - 00;13;47;11

DP

So set up the building materials in general for us because the palette isn't just brick.

 

00;13;47;13 - 00;13;57;03

MN

Yeah. So the kind of two wings that ground the house at the base are a smoked Tudor velour modular brick. So it has this kind of rusty sort of clay color.

 

00;13;57;09 - 00;14;02;24

DP

And those colors I would use the word variegated right so we see a series of different colors, that red clay.

 

00;14;02;24 - 00;14;28;02

MN

Yeah. The specification of the brick itself has a variation in it. It's up to a good bricklayer to make sure they patronize it quite well. But a lot of that is just coming from like the brick. Looks like it's been smoked at its edges and some are more smoked than others, which is where you start to get that kind of differentiation.

 

And we like that a lot because the house has these really monolithic, large brick volumes. And so the kind of variation, the slight variation in the tone really helped to kind of break that monotony apart a little bit.

 

00;14;28;06 - 00;14;31;21

DP

Was it hard to find a mason, a good mason?

 

00;14;31;21 - 00;14;32;26

MN

Yes. It's always hard.

 

00;14;32;27 - 00;14;33;26

DP

It's crazy.

 

00;14;33;26 - 00;15;06;21

MN

Yeah. And so this is why, you know, as a studio, we think it's important to kind of collaborate with trades early on because they can help kind of understand or they can help kind of propose ideas about how to get the masonry right at these angles or at the cantilevers that we're proposing, things like that. And then the other materials, we're using a black standing seam metal above.

 

So conceptually, the volume that hovers above these two things floats. So metal felt more appropriate. And then we're using a composite wood system in between the windows. So that's meant to kind of be a homage to sort of old wooden shutters that kind of peel away from the window itself.

 

00;15;06;24 - 00;15;08;04

DP

Where did you find that?

 

00;15;08;07 - 00;15;23;08

MN

It's a product. I think it's based in the States, I can't recall. It's meant to be a veneer, but it's made out of wood fibers that are infused with like fiberglass and resin. Okay, so from a durability perspective, there's no means. So, and it retains its color over time really well.

 

00;15;23;13 - 00;15;29;04

DP

And you're using steel lintels over these large openings that you're then using this wood infill between the windows.

 

00;15;29;08 - 00;15;33;12

MN

Correct wood, the main one being the cantilever at the front entry of the home.

 

00;15;33;14 - 00;15;35;05

DP

So how did you pull that off?

 

00;15;35;08 - 00;15;54;06

MN

So you know we're looking at brick as a simple material. And it's execution that appears very traditional in the way that we're applying it. But we found moments where we could start to kind of give it a more contemporary execution. And the main one being that cantilever at the front entry, which is just upheld by steel beams that are cantilevered out and transforming their way back to kind of point lower.

 

00;15;54;06 - 00;15;55;24

DP

So they're tied back into the walls?

 

00;15;56;00 - 00;16;08;22

MN

Yeah. Correct. And that cantilever holds a terrace on the upper floor. So that dormer above the entry that opens out onto a south facing terrace that you can use. And even in the kind of cooler spring months, because the sun gauges that terrace quite nicely.

 

00;16;08;28 - 00;16;11;27

DP

Right. And that's a clear glass guardrail up there.

 

00;16;11;27 - 00;16;13;10

LR

Just a butt joint, no frames.

 

00;16;13;10 - 00;16;51;17

MN

No frames. Yeah. So that it just it kind of appears really minimal and visually to kind of carry on the notion of this house being an antithesis that's exemplified in this entry. Now, you know, just talking about it. So many of the houses in the context, you know, the entries are these large columnar conditions, you know, with very ornamented roofs and things like that meant to kind of evoke this kind of grandiosity.

 

And here I think we're trying to evoke a grand door, but we're doing so in a more nuanced way, layered elements, a kind of a structural acrobatic of this cantilever, the brick kind of enveloping you, your eye moving vertically towards that dormer. It's creating that grandeur, but doing so and using kind of tectonic architectural elements.

 

00;16;51;20 - 00;17;03;27

DP

Each project faced unique construction challenges. William discussed how his team worked closely with bricklayers and engineers to achieve the complex peeling facade and vaulted brick ceilings.

 

00;17;04;00 - 00;18;38;25

WS

All of the work is in sections, in cross-section, not in plan. So when you look at the building as a floor plan, they're all rectangular rooms on the inside, but in section we have a part of the facade that peels outwards at the top and sort of leans outwards. And we worked out a way to lay the bricks on top of each other almost at 45 degrees.

 

And we're able to do that with creating a small jig to lay them on. And then we laid up to three courses at once, and then we'd have to leave it for overnight and then lay another three courses the next day so it dried. And then on the bottom part, we lay them over a steel frame. And on that steel frame we had a curved sheet of metal.

 

So they were laid on to that curved sheet of metal and then tied back using brick ties to that other element that the projected outwards. That's sort of what was done in construction. How we came up with that was to work collaboratively with our bricklayers and our engineers and just sit down on the table, and we knew who we wanted to build the project before we'd finished all the documentation.

 

And so we're able to sit down with them at a meeting table. And I've kind of said, here's the vision, this is what we want to do. And this is how I thought you might make it, but I don't really know how to lay a brick. Can you help us with this process? And the builders we chose are experts in heritage construction, and they also know a lot about engineering.

 

So they were able to sit down with their bricklayers and myself and our structure engineer, and we workshopped it together. And in a few hours we worked out how to do that. And then they went away and did it on their own lawn.

 

00;18;38;25 - 00;18;50;17

DP

Lorne and his team also had to work closely with skilled masons to ensure the intricate brick and stonework met the high standards required to replicate traditional Tudor craftsmanship.

 

00;18;50;20 - 00;19;36;26

LR

At the time, I was dealing with a gentleman named Isaac Raposo from King Masonry. Now he had an idea. We worked with Isaac for years at King Masonry and other companies he worked at. He's passionate about brick and stone. So he said to me, Lorne, I got this special brick that's being used in university in the States, and it's Glen-Gery brick and it's 85% Shenandoah and 50% called 53DD that's being used at a university.

 

It had a nice tonal range. Some fired bricks in there. So it wasn't all flat coloring, a great deal of variation on the brick. And I said, great, let's do it. Isaac was instrumental in suggesting that brick and had other clients that have used a similar mix.

 

00;19;37;04 - 00;19;46;22

DP

So were there any unique construction details using masonry or brick on the home? Anything that you had never done before? Anything that you do a lot?

 

00;19;46;25 - 00;21;11;14

LR

This was the first time that I used the stone boards and so to speak, I have to bring and it was the first time, I believe, that I had these different brick patterns on a house, so it was challenging for the Masons. I remember calls about, how do you want to deal with this? Even on the stonework, we had some smoother blocks, but I wanted them chiseled with different patterns on them.

 

Really authentic stuff. Didn't want perfectly aligned joints. I wanted it a little bit, I call it messy, but when it's done perfectly linear, you can spend the money on a real stone. It does look real because it's so perfectly laid up. Bellies were put on a lot of the stones chipping the edges off. It's a little bit of a messier joint, you know?

 

I like to call it a rock joint. I was particular about the laying of the stone brick and quite happy with the way it turned out. The chimneys are quite detailed with different patterns as well, and limestone caps. One of the things I like to do is put superior clay chimney pots on jumbo ones. One of the details I loved and traveling in England is they would have many chimneys, and different clay pots on top of each.

 

Normally on our homes we put two of the same. I wanted to do something a little more British and mix them up. So each chimney has two different pots on it just for fun.

 

00;21;11;17 - 00;21;15;24

DP

For Mateusz, the design approach was driven by constructability.

 

00;21;16;02 - 00;22;29;25

MN

From a challenge perspective, I think the biggest one is one that surrounds the way in which I approach all my projects, which is buildability. With that, I mean, I try to find a way to create really interesting and engaging architecture using really conventional methodologies. So this is a stick frame house that limits its use of steel. And yet we see cantilevers and floor protrusions and things like that.

 

It's like, how do we get there if you're not building a full house out of steel and largely like my kind of interest in that was trying to make engaging and good architecture available to both clients and contractors at a better price in a way that feels more approachable from a building standpoint. And because with this house, my father being the contractor working on it, I knew inherently how he likes to build things and what his limitations are as a builder, I use that as a framework within which to start thinking about the design, thinking about the tectonics, thinking about really strategically where we're using more costly steel, where we were using larger expanses of glass, but also where we were tightening them up.

 

And so though the house looks like it's tectonically a lot more maybe complex than it looks, if you peel all of it back to the bones, it's no different than all the neighbors’, which are just typical conventional stick build houses with wood trusses.

 

00;22;30;03 - 00;22;34;19

DP

So a lot of thought went into, I would imagine how much this thing was going to cost?

 

00;22;34;21 - 00;23;21;28

MN

Certainly how much it was going to cost, and just the approach to how it was going to be built. So I remember, you know, when we were working through the construction documents on the project, having weekly conversations with the contractor and with trades that were involved from the early onset of how do we want to actually make this thing materialize?

 

How do we want to build this thing? Like, you know, how is this beam going to sit, what kind of post this is going to sit on and almost working through it with a really solid understanding of structural engineering, without going right to the consultant and asking him what to do. Like we had this really intimate relationship with how this thing was going to be built and in a way that sort of harkened back to the agrarian structures that it's influenced by.

 

Was the individual who owns that property is going to come in and look at the timber he has and build it himself. And we're sort of creating a modern interpretation of that approach in some degree.

 

00;23;22;00 - 00;24;20;15

DP

Reflecting on the design and construction of these three projects Smart Design Studio, the Tudor Home in Toronto, and the H House, several key themes emerge. Each project masterfully integrates traditional craftsmanship with modern design innovation. The architects William Smart, Lorne Rose, and Mateusz Nowacki emphasize the importance of collaboration throughout the process, working closely with craftsmen and construction teams to overcome challenges and bring their vision to life.

 

The use of brick as a versatile material is central to all three projects, whether it was to honor the history of a site, recreate the intricate patterns of a Tudor Revival, or enhance the minimalist esthetics of a suburban home, brickwork was reimagined to meet contemporary needs without losing its timeless appeal.