Musings on our role as an architect's client ...

When Viktoria was a child, there was a new house built near where she lived. For some reason, she would rather cross the road than walk past it. Whereas a 1950's bungalow a few doors down, complete with faded tyre-swans and pastel mint paint, exuded a simple happiness from its fibro roof to its kitch iron gate.
Is a building's 'personality' formed like a collage from the lives of previous residents, or is something within the fabric of the structure itself?
When a building is abandoned, a sadness bleeds through. A longing for the passage of footsteps in halls, voices in rooms.

As we undertake this journey, we have been reflecting on the role each person plays in bringing our own particular building into existence. Especially, what is the real role of the client... of us?
The architect is the scientist-alchemist who samples the DNA of the landscape, translates the cuneiform of the environment. Blending and extracting the wishes of the client.
The builders, plumbers, electricians, carpenters and block layers assemble the skeleton, adding flesh. Pipes and conduits form arteries and intestines.
And what is the role of the client, the resident?
We think our role only truly comes into being once everyone else has parted... with Frankensteinean spark, we think it's our role to bring the building to life.
To make the house, our home.
V&A

In memory of Russell Maggs

Russell Brian Maggs

6 Oct 1961 - 19 May 2013

"There he goes. One of God's own prototypes. A high-powered mutant of some kind never even considered for mass production. Too weird to live, and too rare to die." ― Hunter S Thompson, Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas

The first design dilemma... the only way is up...

Further to the feedback we provided previously to the architects on the latest designs, we had (whilst not exactly a stroke of genius) a thought at least regarding an option for how we might be able to get up to the mezzanine / ceiling height library. Viktoria attempted to scribble her ideas to help explain...

Given that we have no idea what the Australian Building Code says about the minimum diameter of these things, we're not even sure it would take up less room than a traditional staircase...

Some random pictures of spiral staircases & mezzanine access

Fiona-the-architect had planned for a large sliding ladder to access the bookshelves and provide access to the mezzanine, as shown in the following plan:

Plan showing ladder access to shelving & mezzanine

While a sliding ladder would take up less floor space than a spiral staircase, access to mezzanine may be required by less nimble folks than ourselves though, which would make the spiral staircase a ‘safer’ option.  Neal-the-architect also suggested some kind of 'safety cage' on the ladder (stylish, of course). But this presented some other challenges. In random order, here are some of the things we were considering:

·         We both agreed that a plain ladder would not satisfy our safety concerns (particularly in relation to guest access to the mezzanine)

·         We also both agree that having a ladder / stair with a cage-type arrangement (no matter how stylish) will make getting anything up into the mezzanine a royal pain, so we weren’t really keen on the idea

·         The Android likes the idea of the ladder on wheels, which can be moved along the book case and allow access to the mezzanine – however, because we would like the book case to be floor to ceiling height, it would need to be a HUGE ladder or the books near the ceiling won’t be accessible (and there would still be the safety issue as mentioned above)

·         The Android doesn’t like the idea of a spiral staircase because he doesn’t want it to block the high ceiling ‘feel’, nor does he want it to block the view out the big windows

·         Viktoria likes the idea of a spiral staircase with a gangplank at the top of the stairs, which would run along the length of the wall (half way up the bookcase) – and because she can no longer have her revolving bookcase secret door, a spiral staircase would be a small consolation (said with bottom lip poking out)

Hence, the dilemma.  And for two people who are usually in agreement about these sort of things - this is a dilemma indeed!!

So we have handed our dilemma over to Neal-the-Architect to see what he can come up with.

We'll let you know whether we have driven him completely bonkers ...

V&A

Still more feedback to the architect...

Wow... it's been nearly a month since we last posted, which is terribly slack of us.
Lots has actually happened, but not much of it seemed particularly noteworthy... but there have been some more house plan updates which we want to share with you. One of those was, however, that although the revised plans showed the main construction material not as blockwork, we have since crunched some numbers with the architect, and have returned to our original plan of blockwork, but built to the new design.
So bearing all that in mind, here's the feedback we passed onto the architects waaaay back on 29 April 2013....

"The Android & I have finally sat down and gone over the revised plans together. We have a bit of feedback, but overall, we both did a happy dance together when we looked over the plans. We particularly love the mezzanine.

I am now attaching a copy of the floor plan, which has been numbered according to the below musings:



Numbered Floor Plan from 24 April 2013



1.       We played around with some ‘to scale’ furniture for the living room, and don’t think that the current arrangement will really work for us. Mainly, where the desk is cuts our floor width in the living area to under 3 metres (and we won’t be able to sit that close to each other without fighting). So, with out brilliant lack of knowledge about building and engineering, what do you think about having the built-in bookcases along the solid ‘back’ wall (where #1 is), and incorporating a small desk area within that? The desk really only needs to keep a laptop off the floor, so doesn’t need to be that large. We would also like to have room for the TV etc to be ‘housed’ in the bookcase area (ie some of the ‘shelves’ will need to be different shapes). The attached photos kind of demonstrate what I mean & I hope make a bit more sense:

Ugly living room design, but has desk fitted in floor-to-ceiling shelving

More like what we are thinking, but with space for a TV

This one has a mezzanine too!

More like the 'look' that we are after

2.       Can we use the stairs to incorporate more storage too?

Possible 'stair storage' idea

3.       Just out of curiosity…What is this rectangle at #3? And what is the dark rectangle near it? (can you sense our ability to read floor plan diagrams?)

4.       While it saddens me greatly to do this, I think we need to lose the pivoting bookcase-door to Viktoria's studio (#4). I really would love to have one, as you know, but I just don’t think it will work here anymore, and looks a bit more like an afterthought. And if we can have the floor-to-ceiling shelving in the living area, we should get enough bookcase space for my million books there. So if you can incorporate instead a trap door, oubliette, or other eccentricity …. alright, all those things will just have to remain unfulfilled on my wish list L. But along those lines, we thought instead of ‘normal’ doors to the rooms off that corridor (ie bath, bed, Viktoria's studio) we could have sliding doors which would take up less room. Again, here are a million pictures to capture the ‘aesthetic’ we had in mind:

OK, this last one is completely inappropriate – but man it looks cool!!

If you could please let me know what you think, that would be awesome (I hope you don’t mind getting these rambling emails, but we seemed to work well getting the last lot of feedback sorted out together this way)."

And the response from the architects....

"Hi, thanks for the feedback. All is very do-able.

I am a bit sad that we are not incorporating your secret bookshelf, it doesn’t really suit the studio you are right but would be good to incorporate some secret door somewhere.

As for the black rectangles, you don’t have bad plan reading skills, we didn’t note them! The one near the kitchen is your tall storage element which will house fridge, cupboards and potentially storage on the passage side as well. The one between Viktoria's studio and the kitchen is the “cat fun house” which we envisaged as a play structure and cosy space between inside and the external courtyard. We can translate this to some additional storage if you would prefer. Anyway Luke is currently working on the changes and we hope to have them to you in the next few days."

We have since thrown another one of our 'brilliant ideas' at Neal-the-Architect, but as this post is getting a bit on the looooong side, we'll update you all with that a bit later.

We haven't heard tale of Neal beating his head against a wall over our constant input (yet)....

V&A

How to design a house via email...

As promised, following is the feedback between us and the architects in relation to the latest floor plans (Fiona's initial response in red, followed by Viktoria's in green). It is possible to design a house via email...

"Hi Neal (and Fiona)

We have made some scribbles on the floor plan (as foreshadowed), with the following by way of explanation:

A.      The Android's studio is too small. Can we move the wall between the studio and the carport over about 1m (into the carport)? Can the small storage room walls be removed & the storage incorporated into the studio? Re the extra bit of the carport with the diagonal lines, see letter “C” Yes this is all do-able

B.      Can we have a double entry door? Yes, where you thinking glass or something solid? Which is least cost J? If not double, an extra-wide version would be ok too.

C.      Can the carport be reduced by an extra 1m, and an additional metre be added to the bedroom? We know that house space costs more than carport space, but we would still like a slightly bigger bedroom. We will probably need a ‘wider than normal’ doorway into the bedroom so that we can get the enormous bed head through it. Yes we can reduce the width to 4m, however you will need to buy two smart cars and breath in when you get in and out. The absolute minimum width for two standard size cars would be 5.4metres with careful door opening. If you only need to accommodate one car in the carport then the 4m dimension is generous and you can be carefree when you fling the door open. We are downsizing to only 1 car, with the wider, door-flinging carport – if we get a second car, it’s likely to be a ‘mountain ute’ which we will let graze free-range outside. Wider than normal doorway for the bed is ok, however it may reduce the cupboard storage area? Would the bedhead fit through a standard doorway? I know that it didn’t fit through our front door at home, and we had to winch it up the side of the house to get it through the double doors to our bedroom. If CAD-magic shows that the bedhead will fit, then we won’t need a wider doorway (it’s a combination of height, width AND depth). Is this acceptable? As we are downsizing from a walk-in wardrobe, we would like to maintain as much storage as possible. Additional cost associated with the converting the floor space to a fully lined interior. Yep, we expected this.

D.      Can the window seat be a bit wider? We’d like it to double as a single guest bed, so the “short” end would need to be a minimum of 92mm (the width of a single mattress) wide. No probs. Cool

E.       Oh look… we’ve added the glasshouse… $$... Yeah… it’s been allowed for on Michael’s quote, and we have the sneaking suspicion that the glasshouse will become our ‘deck substitute’ (where we currently spend most of our time).

F.       Can we turn the very end of this study area into another window seat guest bed thing (similar to the one in Viktoria's studio)? Yep $ for additional joinery/framing. Ok.

G.     We’ve moved the kitchen wall (the one with the wood stove) further into the kitchen about 1.3 metres. And fiddled with the layout. I’m attaching a few photos of kitchen layouts which capture our thinking (we like the built in table, the built in gas hob near the table). We won’t be bringing our dining suite with us. And we don’t need a huge kitchen / diner. BUT having a bigger living room would be awesome J No problem don’t see any additional costs with this. Cool J

What do you think? Is any of this do-able?? Yes all do-able will update a plan for you and send through next week for your thoughts. Looking forward to it

Finally, a few questions…

1.       What are the ventilation shutters made from? Most likely a two layer system with compressed cement sheet as the outer skin and a perforated inner skin. Will ponder and investigate further. Ok

2.       What does W&B (in the laundry/entry) stand for? Sorry poor writing, it is actually a cupboard (cupb). Ahhhhhh….

3.       Re the quote – a single 10,000L tank won’t be enough; in addition we would need a further 20,000L tank, AND another 10,000L tank as a dedicated fire tank. So some kind of slab / platform / base will need to be allowed for as well Do you have any preference for where these are located? Neal probably has some ideas on where he’d like the bigger tank located, but I think that there may be legal requirements on the siting of the fire tank (there are in Qld, so I assume there would be similar in Tasmania).

4.       What are the spec of the solar system? Ie what type / number of panels, batteries etc have been allowed for? We can get some more information for you, however at this stage only a 5KW generic system has been allowed for with no specifics on brands/nos.  That would be good – thanks!"

So we are just awaiting the updated plans, and further info as detailed above.

We'll let you know how we get on.

V&A

Reclaimed front door handles

Here is a photo of the handles we bought for the front door.

No, really.

So, we don’t actually have a door or anything to put them on yet…



Now we just need a front door...

They were found in the basement of the old St John's War Memorial Hospital which was once part of St John’s Cathedral in Brisbane, and is now St John’s Admin building. It is believed that they came from the demolition / construction of the new cathedral in Ann Street. The hospital basement had been closed since 1913, and recently re-opened because there was termite damage to the floor. So whether they were from the original church of 1857 or not, they were lost for the last hundred years.

They are about 46cm long and, whatever they are made from, they weigh a tonne. And at $132 for the pair, it's a little piece of Brisbane history we can take down to Tasmania with us.

This is part of the reason we were thinking of having either a double door or an over-sized front door (purely to support the handles).

Viktoria cleaned the hundred years of grime off them, but left the patina. Just because.

V&A

The Cleared Building Site

Almost an acre of forest gone from our original 57 in under 2 days...


Cleared site to the right of the road

The road in the left of the photo is not our driveway, but the road that bisects our land. Our driveway is yet to be created. The eventual position of the building will be down past where the grader is... the cliff is further down again (fortunately, we didn't lose any machinery or people over the edge during the clearing). Although there is a lot of empty space, it gives us more options for effectively positioning both the on-site waste management system and the important solar system (especially as we won't be connected to the electricity grid, we will need all the sunlight we can get!).
And it means that we can replant with appropriate endemic species (which also satisfy the bushfire management requirements).
We just hope that all the wildlife had enough time to fly, scamper or slither out of harms way, and that new homes have been found for all.
V&A