A Fort Comes Full-Circle

It's hard to imagine that  two and a half ago I was in Texas stressing-out over completing my Final Study project for my Master's Degree.  I highlighted the project here and here, but I didn't specify where the building was located mainly because it was still an active military base slated for closure.  Well today the nation's oldest continuously operating military base, Fort Monroe in Hampton, Virginia, is being decommissioned by the Army and is open to the public for the first time since its creation in 1819.

What is so amazing about this location is that since it was a military base, it remained untouched by developers who grabbed almost all of the waterfront property in Hampton Roads.  So not only does it have an incredible sampling of two centuries of architectural styles (plus a MOAT!), but the waterfront views are absolutely astounding.  

photo court. of Fort Monroe at Old Point Comfort via flickr 

The redevelopment authority for Fort Monroe has strict preservation and development standards in place as to prevent developers from going crazy over this property - and there's also a local movement to have the Fort made a National Park, so the views are safe for the moment.   If you are in Hampton Roads Virginia, be sure to take advantage of being able to visit this incredible treasure and all it has to offer.  And be sure to check out the one piece of Fort Monroe that is near and dear to my heart: Building 57 (aka, the motor Pool)

Which I proposed go from looking like this:

to this: 

and this:

Here's hoping that whoever redevelops this building uses it for something other than parking (which is the currently listed "best redevelopment use" for this building... a total cop-out if you ask me).  The 8 foot tall casement windows that span the length of the building still make me knees weak.

Happy decommissioning day to Fort Monroe and here's looking forward to an incredibly successful future!

This is My Home: Our Journey of Places

I must admit, my absolute favorite part of living in New Orleans is our house.  Yes, it's small, yes it was subjected to awful renovations in the 90s and some shoddy repair work, but my goodness it is perfect for our little family right now.  When we moved here (Mr. Bama in May 09, me in Oct '09) we lived in such an awful place.  It was listed as "lower Garden District luxury living."  However, after living there a few months we knew we had to get the heck out of there - at least from a construction/design standpoint.  I surely will never forget the kitchen that was thissmall, the lack of any garbage deposit anywhere within a 1/2 mile of our unit (I would have been laughed out of grad school if I had presented a project that had this place's layout... awful), our teeeennny tiny balcony, unique wiring (our cable was hooked up - to an outlet in our closet) and our, um, "interesting" neighbors.  So when our awesome 3 month lease was almost up, I began the search for a truly New Orleans home.  We knew that being given the opportunity to live in this amazing city was a gift, so living in a place that gave us a unique experience was essential.  Also, my Historic Preservation and old home loving soul was just screaming out to live in a pre-WWII house while living in this city (interesting side note: this is the first time in my life I've lived in a building that wasn't new construction or a product of the 1960s.  To say I've been quality, old home deprived is an understatement).  Before I knew it,  November had crept up and I was banging my head against the wall for a few weeks, only finding affordable places on Craigslist that were:

1. located in highly questionable areas (VERY important note in New Orleans.)
2. last renovated / cleaned in 1960.  Retro yes, but not in a good way, and they weren't much better than the apt where we were living.

It wasn't until we were driving home from yet another less-than-thrilling apartment showing when we passed a late 1900's, early 1910's converted double shotgun house with a "for rent" sign out front.  I made Mr. Bama pull over and I jumped out of the car and started calling the number on the sign.  The landlady picked up, walked right over from her house and gave us a viewing right then and there.  I was in love and Mr. Bama was really happy with the Uptown location.  Few days later, we had put down a deposit and were starting the move.

Now, a year and 2 months later, I am still in love with our home.  We were allowed, by our amazing landlady, to paint the house to fit our preferences, and the place went from pretty old house, to the pretty old Bama house.

Now, It definitely has its fair share of quirkiness, especially when it comes to the bathrooms:

walk-through-sized guilliontine windows.  I worked at prying this bad
boy open for 2 months after we moved in.  Lesson - never
EVER paint windows shut.

our creativity-demanding guest bathroom door, with windows, of course.

our master bathroom partition is on a mission to bring square
glass blocks back into fashion, circa early 90s style

But it also has its fair share of awesomeness

the hardware on the pocket doors.  It's craftmansship and detail like
this that you never find in the "throw them up in a month"
houses of today.  Cool note: The little latch in the middle
 is actually a key that can be used to lock the pocket doors and
 then taken out and stored.  really unique.

exposed rafters in the kitchen - perfect for defying the laws of gravity
and taking one's life into their hands every time they enter the kitchen

But it also has its fair share of awesomeness:

Transom windows (that are workable).  We has a serious airflow
problem when we moved in - after prying all of these open,
no more problem!  Such a simple concept,
yet one thats so incredibly overlooked

And probably one of the things I love the most is what I see when I wake up every morning.  The bottom portion of our big bay windows is covered with plantation shutters -- we dont have to have shades, but we still have privacy.  This is the view from our bedroom window:

doesnt seem like much, but I love being greeted by the pretty blue sky every morning without having to exert any effort.  Its truly the simple things!

When in the Scottish Highlands...

It's all about being comfortable and practical without sacrificing gorgeousness.

Let me introduce you to my old friend ANTA- who I fell in love with during my post college Scotland preservation field school.

A product of the husband & wife team Lachland and Annie Stewart, two designers (he- architecture, her - interior & fashion design) who deeply love everything unique about their country.  Everything, from their gorgeously simple corsets, to amazing pottery to the ANTA house, is completely influenced by Scotland and its history.  

There is no shortage of Tartan's

or St. Andrew's crosses 

here

All of their products are designed and made in Scotland, hitting home TRUE sustainable design and the preservation of trades such as wool-working and furniture making.

And the stewarts not only talk the talk, they truly walk the walk... enter  Ballone Castle.  Ballone Castle is a 3-story, late 16th century, Z-plan tower house castle that is right on the edge of Moray Firth in Tarbet Ness in the highlands of Scotland.  It fell into ruin and by the 1990s looked like this:

this photo of Ballone dates from the 1980s

Lachie and Annie Stewart would picnic next the ruins and in the 1990s, decided to buy the property and restore it fully.  After a long battle with Historic Scotland (their preservation philosophy is "if its falling apart, just don't let it fall apart any more."  The Stewart philosophy: "a building isn't any good unless it's being used."  I find myself siding with the Stewarts on this argument.  This the renovation of Ballone began and when i visited in 2005 it looked like this:

Ballone castle when I visited in 2005.  Thats me in the lower
left side of the pic in a purple shirt.

The drive up to Ballone is absolutely breathtaking.   

My much adored professor, who was our guide during the trip (and lives part of the year in Scotland) is friends with the Stewarts and was able to get us access to the house.  No pictures were allowed, since it is a private residence, but I can tell you that it really was spectacular - simple, cozy and classic.  The Stewarts have 3 children, so there were skateboards and hockey sticks strewn across the hall ways, with each child living in their own "tower" of the house.  It breathed life into what one would think would be a cold, drafty and archaic building.  Annie Stewart told us a story about how her son was on a trip with a number of international students when one child from France was bragging to the others about how he lived in a Chateau outside Paris,  to which the young Stewart replied "I live in Castle, so what?"

So please enjoy the eye candy that ANTA has to offer.  I was able to snatch up a latte mug during my visit.  It suffered a chip on the shipment back to the states and since they don't ship to the states, it's my lone ANTA piece.  However, some day......

Fugly Architecture Thursday - when bad renovations happen to good homes

This post hits a little too close to home.  Its not really the architecture that's heinous -its merely an early 1990s addition to a Victorian shotgun.  However, its the manner in which an addition was done to said Victorian shotgun and what it has created that is the criminal act.

What makes it worse is that it is our house :-(

I highlighted some water issues that had created a bit of a situation when we initially moved in back in this post.  Mr. Bama, being super handy man that he is, fixed the asthetic ramifications of the problem, but didnt solve the root of problem.  Our awesome landlady got on trying to find the problem and after calling some contractors, found out that we needed gutters and it would help, at least a little.  Gutters installed, problem still not fixed.  Nothing was happening to the problem spot (damage semmed to be contained), but it was evident something was continuing to be wrong at the front of the house.  Here, in the early 90s they added a section for the bedroom to bump out onto part of  the front porch that once spanned the whole front of the house.  Great solution for more added square footage, if you do it right.

Turns out, someone forgot to install the flashing from the old roof to the new roof correctly and brace the bay window properly.  Therefore, while the bones of the original house are in great condition, the "new" construction was not waterproofed correctly and therefore has allowed the introduction of awesome things like water and wood eating bugs into the house.  The actual wood siding had holes in it from where water had just bore down on it.  It was apparent that the construction company that did the addition had NO business putting new additions on old buildings.

So our land lady decided to make the call and have the siding replaced (I truly dont think she knew the extent of the damage that was only showing a little bit on the outside).  When I walked outside to talk shop to the really great workmen tearing off our siding, it went something like this:

nice man working on the house: "well really, a lot of the damage seems due to the age of the studs and that they're just old wood "  

me: "um, actually this addition was done in the early 1990s"

Nice man: "oh.................wow"

Needless to say it was pretty bad -  The sill plate on that addition had almost disappeared and the water-repellent membrane was torn to shreds (note: if you're not architecturally/construction savvy, this just means the structure was compromised and the elements that kept water out were pretty much gone). 

Pardon the crummy picture, but this is the front of our house after they removed the
siding 3 days ago.This is NOT good!
The wall studs were whittling away  to nothing.

If our huge tree in front of the house wasn't in the way, you'd see the holes in the

siding about 5-6 planks of wood-siding up.

Yay new studs!  Yay new felt water-repellant membrane! yay new WOOD siding!

I was also pretty nervous that they would be puting something cheap and terrible for the building, like vinyl siding, onto the house in place of the old wood siding.  Vinyl is unattractive, completely inappropriate for historic homes, temporary and a totally NOT green building material.  Image how happy I was when they pulled out pretty wide board WOOD siding! It had the same form, but isn't as decorative as the siding on the original part of the house.  This is completely fine, since the new materials shouldn't even attempt to mimic the original house (it is an addition... after all) but its is still complimentary to the original siding.  

So far they've finished putting up the siding and they should be painting it in a day or two.  The awesome workers also reinforced our porch banister in addition! Moral of the story, if you are a construction company who agrees to do renovations and additions to historic buildings, PLEASE keep in mind that old and new construction techniques are NOT the same and odds are, the older techniques are hands and feet more solid than anything constructed now a days.  You need to know how to properly match up the old and new construction so that you do not allow the elements in and that your new construction does not compromise the integrity of the original structure  Because if you don't think of that, the result isn't just fugly, it's expensive and very damaging.

Fugly Architecture Thursday - Cinema Style

This is a heart breaker of sorts.  For those who don't know me / are new to this blog, I will fill you in on some of my background - I have a Master's in Architecture.  However I also have an Undergraduate Degree in Historic Preservation and a Master's certificate in Historic Preservation.  This means, in short, that I am obsessed slightly with historic buildings.  I love their construction, their decades/centuries of stories, the feeling you get when you walk into a historic building, as well as an overwhelming sense of their infinite possibilities.  I despise the modern idea that old = useless, context is there only to be ignored and the only possibilities for a historic building is as a home or a museum (Fact: I also despise house museums.  Useless waste of awesome potential).  Adaptive reuse design is a passion of mine and something i absolutely loved doing back in grad school.  To hell with new buildings, bring on the old stuff.

So this brings me to today's post.  In New Orleans, we have a bit of a shortage of theatres that are within the city (minus the new canal place theatres).  But located in the Garden District, nestled next to small homes and boutiques, is a quaint little theatre that dates back to 1915.  The Prytania Theatre  is the only single screen theatre left in the state of Louisiana and really is a treasured establishment.  While it specializes in playing art films and movies from Hollywood's golden age, it is equipped with 3D technology, so you can see Inception in 3D right next door to your little shotgun house.  

The only problem?  Urban renewal and the idea that "old is ugly" that plagued the country in 1960.  So this quaint little theatre went from this lovely Italianate building:

to this:

Look mommy, a brick box!  I half expect to walk through the archway entrance and hop in a boat for a ride through the "tunnel of love" rather than going to see Toy Story 3.   This building has absolutely no character and, like last week's feature, NO respect for context (its in the Garden District for heaven's sake!!).  On the plus side: at least it isn't clad in steel or vinyl siding or, heaven forbid, turned into a museum. *shudder*

Finally, some home yumminess

So in the insanity of training the newest addition to our family (it has been a lesson, rather many many lessons in a row, more so for me and Mr Bama than Bear.) I realized that I never followed up on the decorational state of our home.  So here we go!

The bedroom- yes, i realize that the walls to the R & L of the picture are bare.  I'm still trying to figure out what to do there.

The window seat to the left of the bed -

 Before:

After:

the initials are from behind the bar at our wedding - Mr. Bama put those there bc we had no idea what to do with them.  The seat cushion was originally a sun-faded pukey pink but I took one of Mr. Bama's old twin bed sheets that was a pretty navy and just folded it around the cushion - voila, new cover!  I also love how the blue of the wall and the green of the tree outside are so complementary.

Our chest of drawers -

Another example of Mr. Bama's bachelor furniture.  While totally not my style, it does the job for now.

Our living room -

before

Now:

yeah it looks cluttered, but we're combining two people's stuff into approx 900sq ft (and one of us came from a 2,000 sq ft house).  Once again I LOVE the guillotine window that I FINALLY got to open completely.  When fully open, you can walk through it (!!)

Turning around, this is the view of the kitchen -

Before

Now

I was really hesistant about the bikes at first when Mr. Bama proposed them being hung like that, but it is definitely a conversation piece that is also practical since we don't have a garage to house them.  The galley kitchen isn't the best  use of space when you have two people in the kitchen at the same time, but I love having more space and SOOO much storage. 

We also have a second bedroom/office that is really a disaster because we have lots of books and papers, but no shelving.  Someday it will be organized.

So that's it for now.  We've still got alot of stuff to hang, shelves to mount and some places to touch-up paint, but all-in-all it's done, much to my relief!

A Hole in the Wall

Let's begin with a little update: Mr. Bama and my's rent at our current apt complex is up at the end of December (thank heavens!), so we've been spending a ton of time on Craigslist looking for homes/condos to rent for the rest of the time we're in NOLA. One night, after visiting endless properties, we were driving down a street in an Uptown neighborhood and found THE house: a 2 BR, 2BA, late 19th -- early 20th century double shotgun that was converted in to single at some point, with a GIGANTIC kitchen. The rent's a little pricey, but it's in super safe area (a huge plus in NOLA), within walking distance from shops and restaurants and surrounded by gorgeous single family homes.

(a side view of the house - there are two mature trees in the front of the house, so getting a front view is nearly impossible)

The Landlady, a local artist who has her studio in the back 1/4 of the house and her actual residence next door, is incredibly friendly and has even offered to pay for new paint for the house (because right now the house is this icky dark khaki color)

We started the prep work to start painting the house on Dec 1 - which turned out to be a day of just constant, persistent rain here in NOLA. It was then that we noticed that in the guest bedroom, the drywall under the window sill was bulging out, an instant sign that something was rotting under it. Mr. Bama knocked on the wall to see where the studs were and his knuckle ended up going through the drywall! After showing the hole to the landlady (who was surprisingly very grateful that we showed her the problem) she gave us the go-ahead to do a quick patch as she contacted a company about fixing the root of the problem (a possible leak in the roof).

Here's the condition of the wall before we started the patch-job.

all of the wood (the lathes) you see were rotted through, and the drywall was a dark brown, black color - NOT good
Mr. Bama cutting the existing drywall hole into an even rectangle to fit the new piece of drywall.

the condition of the wall after cutting the hole. Note, the pieces of wood you see were in this condition when we opened up the wall, and shows just how disastrous moisture can be to the structure of a home.

The patched piece of wall before drywall tape and spackling were placed over the seams.

As we discovered during this process, at some point during the additions done to the house in the late 80s someone removed the actual plaster that covered the wood lathes and placed drywall on top. Pre-air conditioned homes such as this one were designed to breathe, to allow air from outside to circulate into and out of the house. Therefore, walls were constructed of breathable materials: wood siding, wood studs, wood lathe and organic plaster. When moisture would enter the inner structure of a wall, air would dry it out before it could create any major damage. However, as in the case of this house, when one of those breathable materials is removed and replaced with a modern, non-breathing material, such as gypsum dry-wall, moisture cannot escape from the inside of a wall. The result is catastrophic - the moisture sits in the wall and rots the structure, inviting termites, mold and other pests to nest and destroy the wood and the house. The rot shown above was just a preview of how extensive the damage is: we did a basic aesthetic fix, not an invasive one that actually examined the entirety of the damage. I shudder to think.

So the moral of the story is, when doing a renovation/adaptive reuse of a historic building, be careful what building materials you use to update the structure - you could be doing more harm than good.

Times are a changin' -- a return to blog-world

Hello everyone! Long time, no, see, speak or hear. Yes, a long absence, i know. However, its been one insane week after another. Some things to note:

1) I passed my final thesis with so much ease, it was awesome. My committee loved it, I could answer all of the tough questions, and my images were worth the 10+ hours of rendering... each. If you knew me the first year of architecture school 3 years ago, you will understand just how amazing this is-- back then I called home almost every night, in tears about how I was going to drop out, hated architecture and missed home. However, lots of all-nighters, great guidance and poor fast-food eating habits helped me to achieve a project that not only made my committee happy, but proved that no matter what I believed 3 years ago, I am NOW a competent designer. Below you can see a few pictures from my final study:

(The picture on the upper right is the building's existing condition. The main image is my proposed condition)

(night view looking in the other direction, at the new bar addition)

(The proposed gallery space in the industrial building. I previously posted about my initial rendering of this space. The image in the upper right had corner is the existing view of the space. The largest image is the proposed reuse)

So yay for being done! Passing my final study then lead to my next update:

2) GRADUATION!! I have my masters degree, thank Heavens. Here's a picture of me after the hooding:

It was a blast and very bittersweet. I am so happy to be done, but I know I'm going to miss this time in my life for one reason or another.

4) After graduation, it was time to pack everything up and move everything about 7 hours east to my fiance and I's new hometown... now for him and in September for me: New Orleans. It is absolutely an amazing city and for the first time in my life I've visited a place and haven't ever wanted to leave. We got to catch up with friends, both new and old who now call this amazing place home, so Bama Boy and I are really looking forward to starting our life off there together in September. The lucky guy gets a head start on me though, since he gets to live there now while I have to wait. We didn't take a lot of pictures b/c we were pretty absorbed by finding a temporary place for my fiance to live til the wedding, but I know more pictures will come the next time I visit/ when I officially move there. One thing to note: the 3 course breakfast at Brennan's is a must.... it is a day's worth of calories at one meal, but oh my goodness it is so amazing (Brennan's is the restaurant that invented Banana's Foster in the '50s).
So here I am back in Virginia working after a crazy month of graduating, moving to a new city and spending time w/ extended family in New Jersey. The next adventure? Diving head-first into planning a big party (more commonly referred to as a "wedding") in less than 100 days.... so here we go!

Final Study Friday

Since I haven't done Fugly Architecture Thursday in a while, I decided to share my final project design instead. Heck, depending on your preferences, this could be considered fugly. But eh, its all subjective anyway.

As many of you know, I'm trying to wrap up my Masters in architecture. I've been immersed in the world of late nights, no sleep, critiques and model making for 3 years already and I cannot wait to get that diploma. But before that glorious May 15, I have to complete a the architecture version of a master's thesis: aka- the final study project. Since I'm a preservation nerd, I chose to adaptively reuse a 1934 Motor Pool Building located on an Army base that is projected to close in 2011. When I visited my site in December, this is the current condition of the building's inside:

Very very industrial, and blase. Also very dark. But the entire left side of the building in this picture has 9 foot tall casement windows that stretch from about 4 ft off the ground to the bottom of those trusses. Some brilliant person in the 1960s decided it would be a fabulous idea to cover up the top 5 feet of these windows with ugly siding... thus creating the dark interior. Genius I tell you (*rolls eyes*). The wonderful current condition is shown below:

Isnt that just horrid!!??

Since I'm dealing w/ 48,000 sq ft total, my project proposal was to adapt the building into a art gallery, restaurant, art academy spaces and standing room only, House of Blues type entertainment hall. All areas are connected by a central "avenue" that runs the center of the building. My description is totally not doing the design justice, but this past march for my "thesis defense" I had a 20-slide PowerPoint to explain my project. I'll spare you the pain of that presentation.

Now I'm in the design development phase and here's a little sample of where I am in my project.

This is the proposed view down the main "avenue." To the left (behind the turquoise wall) is a dance studio and part of the academy. To the right is the side of the Entertainment Hall.
The other end of the corridor is the art gallery, the entrance of which is shown below:
The red wall in the background is the entrance to the Entertainment Hall. This view is from practically the same location as the original, dark and icky picture shown above. Also, I've removed the silly window coverings and voila: more light! Shocking, I know.

These are very preliminary renderings and theres still A LOT to do -- last night i spent just developing skylights. Oh Ces't La Vie. Must push on til the 7th!!

PS - SUPER excited, b/c Bama boy will be here tomorrow!! It's been 2 months since we last saw each other. Oh the horror.

Take a big breath...

lets see..... how much can I cram into one post (this is what I get for not posting in eons)


1) symposium went off really well. Friday night was a fabulous affair in a beautiful old venue. Not only that, but on Saturday the discussion between so many great minds in the preservation world was so wonderful and really brought to the surface not only that LEED needs to be revamped to address historic structures, but maybe the holy grail of the preservation world: the Secretary of the Interior's Standards for Rehabilitation should be updated as well. Intriguing as intriguing can be for us preservation nerds.


2) On March 11 I defended my thesis and believe it or not.... I PASSED!! After 2 straight weeks of pulling 4 & 6 ams, I presented my mid-point presentation to my Masters committee and they loved it. Amazing considering that 2 weeks before I met w/ my chair and he mentioned the possibility of an August graduation based upon the amount of work I had done -- NOT something a girl who is not the biggest Texas fan wants to hear. But thankfully, w/ a lot of sleep lost and a HUGE amount of help from the big man upstairs, I passed and I am allowed to graduate in May. *sigh* what a friggin relief. Now I'm on break back in Virginia and can sleep.

3) Bama boy & I got our engagement pictures done and we were thrilled. Here's one of my faves:






Allison Cargile of Cargile Photography did a fabulous job of catching just how much fun the two of us have together and I'm kind of bummed that she isn't our photographer for the wedding (2,000 miles doesnt help). But I'm meeting the wedding photographer this week and I'm stoked for that!
4) Ok, so one thing when you're planning a destination or any other wedding where people need to travel distances is that you need to create Save the Dates. Kind of like a pre-invitation invitation. However, I cannot help but notice that in all of my wedding planning books and on alot of the wedding websites & forums, these little mailing notifications are casually referred to as STDs. Call me immature or juvenile, but does ANYONE else giggle at this reference? Is the wedding industry and other brides so sucked into this weird psycho wedding world that this goes so unnoticed? No way I'm the first to point this out. Anyhow, My Save-the-Dates have been made and I'm just waiting for a proof. Whoop!
5) I tried on my dress. GORGEOUS! perfect in every way possible, which isn't too shabby considering that I ordered it off the internet from j crew and was going off my other j crew dress sizes. I was so impressed, it was beautifully packaged and is so perfectly detailed and simple I'm just in awe. Now just gots to find some shoes for the big day.

6) The wedding website es fini! Big thanks to my fellow September wedding twin Misa at notreallyblogginmaterial for my fiance & I's witty and cute website domain name. As we're finding out at an alarming rate, great minds think alike. Misa & I are two super duper busy girls who are trying to survive two breakneck Master's programs, live normal lives full of normal interests and things all while, oh yeah, planning super simple, classy, practical and really fun September weddings without breaking the bank. Without my girls I swear I'd have thrown in the towel back in January.
And I'm out for now. My beds' calling and since I'm actually allowed to sleep now, I've got to make up for lost time.

Shameless Plug

This is what's consumed my life (no joke... supposed to be 20 hours a week.... has turned into 40 hours) the past 4 weeks.

But I can't complain. anything that involves 450 green legos cannot make anyone truly upset. Plus, the team helping out (my fellow co-workers) is absolutely stellar. Totally couldn't do it w/out them and their undying patience and work-aholic tendencies. I'm excited b/c its a meeting of so many preservation & sustainability experts from Texas all the way up to Nova Scotia. This year we've got a really diverse speaker list (an economist/developer, a few architects, an engineer, and a previous AIA president!) so our attendees are expected to be just as diverse. Now if we can just keep the little crazy fires at bay, we'll be good to go!


After Saturday life can resume its semi-nomality. Thank heavens. I'll let ya'll know how it goes.


PS- engagement pics to come soon.... we got the proofs, now just time to wait for the DVD to come in mail & the images are all ours.