From Greyhound Buses to Architect's Trusses

We are excited to inform that the old greyhound bus station is officially on its way to being Kinney Franke Architecture's new home. It is exciting for us to inhabit a space that was once an essential staple in urban living and travel. As seen in the photo below, many travelers have left proof of their journey on a limestone ridge that likely once functioned as the smoker's alley.

Once we discovered this, we glanced at the plans for our office and were relieved to find out that this small piece of people's history is being preserved. 

The construction workers are working hard! The building has now been framed.

As you can imagine, architects getting the opportunity to design and create their own work space is no chore. Working daily in a building is quick to teach one which spaces function and which do not. We get to tailor the building to our own firm's preferences, within certain boundaries of course. Some of the things we aim to accomplish in our new office space are:

•  A layout that creates a sensible and natural flow for anyone who enters the building.  
• To create an open central space, the conference room in this case, that is energizing, unique, and encourages dynamism and dialogue. 
• A few offices that are separate, to allow for our expanding firm, but do not feel isolated or stuffy like cubicles. 
• A sensible divide between our office and the retail space we have created at the front of the building that functions seamlessly. This retail space will hopefully be rented out by a chef with a vision in not too long!
• Signage and parking that is easy for the public to locate and access, but that isn't invasive.
• And... a functioning kitchenette of course. 

Another benefit of moving our office to this location is that we will be across the street from the lovely artist doing lots of work for the river project, Julie Raymond's studio. We caught a few of San Angelo's trademark sheep, waiting to be painted and peeping at us on our way out. 

We'll keep posting updates on the progress of our new office. What an opportunity.

'The Used Car Lot' to transition once again

What looks to have once hosted many car operations such as 'The Used Car Lot', then 'Tito Kustoms', and then possibly 'Fat Pop's Shop' is now the future site for the San Angelo Area Foundation's new building. There is something unique and almost humorous about the tiny, asymmetrical 50's shack plopped on the spacious corner lot of Concho and Irving St. downtown. It seldom gets noticed and now it is about to be demolished to make room for the San Angelo Area Foundation. We wanted, however, to document what we believe is a very vintage piece of architecture. 

'The Used Car Lot' in all its vacant, rundown glory. The flat, straight lines in the building echo the West Texas landscape. 

There were still spare parts laying around everywhere. Anyone need a windshield replacement?

 So many great, bold shapes! They give the building forward momentum. We are hoping to translate this momentum and sense of place into the new foundation offices. 

The graffiti and paint jobs remaining gave us a taste of what the building's past lives may have been like. 

We feel that it was important to document these buildings and the site so that they can help to inform what happens in the future. 

From one life and generation to the next - such is the nature of buildings... and people! Much excitement comes from being able to be a part of these transitions as architects.  

Thoughts on building a new house

Our family lived in a large fifties “ranchburger” style house (see photo on right) ; It was a nice place to live and raise a family, in a lovely neighborhood, with large oak trees arcing over the roof.  Problem was, after ten years, I had had enough.  The lovely trees and yard could only be seen thru small divided lite windows and the ceilings were low.  There was little connection to the outdoors.  I was claustrophobic.  Something had to go.  Likely it was Middle Age catching up with me but I felt I needed light and air.  I needed something.

In our established 1920’s era neighborhood were perhaps three lots that were clear and unbuilt.  The most beautiful of these—by far—was on Sulphur Draw.  It had a small creek running thru with trees lining the water’s edge.  Old timers told stories of exploring this area in the thirties.  Neighborhood kids had installed a rope swing in the deeper pool.  It had the feel of being in the country.  It was also considered unbuildable due to being in the flood plain. 

Here is a photo of the site, pre-house, from Google Earth My wife and I had talked for years about moving out of the ranchburger, so she was on board.  As an artist, she needed light and air also. We had been looking for years to find a different house in the same neighborhood—with no luck.

We made a list of For and Against the move to build a new house:

For:

1. Being an architect reduced architectural fees considerably

2. Having engineers donate their services for “a good cause” helped the budget.

3. Having good relationships with subcontractors allowed us to get some really good pricing

4. Having good relationships with local contractors allowed us to accept certain valuable materials that would otherwise have been discarded in the landfill (ie: select fill from ditches).  We needed a LOT of this to raise the house out of the flood plain.

5. Most importantly, we had/have a father in law who was/is a master builder…and who volunteered his time to build the house.  He is retired which allowed him the freedom to really spend time at the construction site.  Needless to say, this was invaluable and something that was crucial if we were to proceed.  Neither my wife nor I had the time to babysit a construction site.

Against:

1. Lack of funds.

2. Wanting to do something that would really connect to the outdoors and the site required something we didn’t have: funds

3. Not enough money.

“For” won.  In the end, no list was going to make the decision.  What was money?  This was emotional.  My wife called the number on the For Sale sign of the flood plain lot and worked the owner down to $25,000.  We were committed.

Sustainability:

What does it mean to be “sustainable” when you’re in the building business?  Isn’t that an oxymoron?  To build anything requires more “stuff” and energy.  Architects are trained to make things and things require energy and materials.  The most sustainable thing we could have done would have been to stay put in the ranchburger or renovate an existing house instead of building new. 

Clearly, we didn’t do the most sustainable thing.  But given that we were going to build we were committed to doing so with as little impact on the world as possible, as much as our budget would allow—not easy.  Though I am LEED accredited, I didn’t have the time or desire to do paperwork so we opted to simply do everything we could, within our budget, to “build green.”

Some primary goals we worked towards:

1. We researched energy efficient ways of building the shell: earth blocks, insulated concrete forms, straw bales, and structural insulated panels.  SIP’s won in the end due to the advertised ease of construction (not so, in our case) and because the factory is located two hours away (next door in West Texas).

2. An efficient, zoned, HVAC system.

3. Water saving features.

Some things we included in the house:

1. Across from our office, the two owners of a house built in 1901 were tearing it down themselves, board by board.  I asked if we might buy the lumber.  They were thrilled and so were we.  As I type this, I look down at our longleaf pine floor boards from the house (originally the shiplap interior siding in the rooms) that date back to the time of Jefferson and Washington.  I counted 223 rings on some of the boards—so I come up with 1779 as the date of the pine seedlings.  The floor is beautiful, dense, and lustrous not like the quickly grown wide grain pine wood of today. Not to say there wasn’t work involved in the reclaiming.  We planed and sawed and tongued and grooved.  Overall, it ended up costing about $9/sf.—pretty good

Additionally, the soffits above our patios came from the floor of the old house.  Glue from old carpet still stains them—we left all the “history” on them even though our workers begged to sand and finish them. 

Finally, we bought all of the old studs from the house. They were straight as an arrow and hard as nails.  All the lumber used in our house ended up being reclaimed.

2. We installed a white PVC roof (Durolast) that reflects the heat away in our desert like climate.

3. Installed a 10,000 gallon water cistern to catch rainwater off the roof.  This feeds our large grass lawn that leads down to the creek.  All other landscaping is xeriscaped.

4. We installed low water flow fixtures and used a continuous loop that circulates hot water to fixtures only when there is activity in the house.  This has been one of the things we like most: no wasted water waiting for a shower.

5. Installed insulated Low-E glass with thermally broken window mullions.

6. We carefully positioned windows so that they rarely receive direct sunlight and so that, during the day, we rarely turn a light on.

7. Used a high SEER rated air to air heat pump, zoned.  When the kids are at school, we turn their systems off.   During temperate months, we try not to use the system at all, using natural ventilation and ceiling fans.

8. We tried to minimize trips to the dump by creating a dumping ground of our own for discarded building materials.   Below the extensive fill used to create the slope up to the house we encouraged the tradesmen to dump scraps of lumber, stone, cmu, and other non-toxic materials.  This was the PHOTO donated fill saved from the dump.  The SIP panels, to their credit, had little waste due to their being built (to our design) in the factory.

9. Lastly, we reused a great old fifties globe chandelier that was pulled from a dumpster—it used to hang in the local Junior High School Library and was thrown away(!) during a renovation.

Site:

What does it mean to “site” a building?  Aren’t the “Builder” houses on the west side of town “sited?”  Or the office buildings and strip centers along the street that lead to the west side of town?  What does it mean to have a “dialogue” with the physical environment?  That sounds very noble but it also sounds like academic “architectural-speak.”  Genuine dialogue is hard enough between people.

Yet, during this project, it became more clear that it is crucial to “listen to a site” and the only way to have a successful building.  And when I say site, my hunch is that Site is larger than merely the physical environment of land features and solar orientation.  It includes more abstract things such as Client, Budget, Program, and the Cultural/Social/Geographical meaning of a place.  Really, it is the thing that will help to create a PLACE—and places are where people want to be, isn't it?

Our site had the creek running thru, it had a small thicket along the creek, it was in the flood plain.  The best view faced East, toward the creek, a good thing for this site because the West sun in West Texas can make you cry.  For our small city, there is a fairly busy street along the south boundary.  It seems the stars had aligned for placing the house facing the creek, towards the best view, and out of harm’s way (the sun!).  The view was everything.  If the house didn’t pay more attention to the view than itself, I believe it would be a failure.  The entry and garage would be on the south where we would keep things simple with few windows to avoid a connection to the traffic of the street, as well as providing a buffer to the sun.  The south side could help to shield the rest of the site and house from noise and unwanted onlookers.