What About Solar?

Recently I walked into a Home Depot and was greeted by a sales person who was selling photovoltaic systems. Finally, I said to myself, this technology is mainstream. The technology this person was selling is at least thirty years old. As a proponent of alternative energy technologies,

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Thinking about Entries

Obvious House Entry

Architects spend a lot of time thinking about the entries to the buildings they design. The main building entry will set the tone for the user’s experience and will communicate many of the intentions of the owner and architect. Sometimes the entry experience is planned to start

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Restoring The Robie House

  I was estatic to hear that the Robie House desgined by Frank Lloyd Wright is going to be restored. I am a big Frank Lloyd Wright fan and have been studying his work for years. For most people and architects, architecture is about aeshetics. Without question,

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Porch Floors

Stone Floor

I’ve always found it exciting to sit on a porch during a thunderstorm. A porch provides sufficient protection from the rain but lets you experience the storm more closely than from behind closed windows and doors. Porches are desired for many reasons; they come in varying shapes

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Help Thorncrown Chapel

Thorncrown Chapel Interior

  In a previous post “Architecture in Arkansas” I wrote about one of my favorite structures-Thorncrown Chapel.  A friend, who knows I love this building, sent me a link to a post at the Inhabitat site by Diane Pham. Diane writes about the local utility company that

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Design for Fun

  I had a classmate in graduate school who was from India. Her dream was to become an architect who designed amusement parks. I can’t say I ever felt compelled to do the same, but after winter storm Nemo, the child in me came out and my

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Energy Saving Nest

Nest Thermostat

  For many years homeowners have desired to be able to control their home heating systems remotely and the only way to do so was through a home security system. Now there is The Nest-a thermostat developed by Tony Fadell who designed the hardware for the ipod.

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Architecture in Arkansas?

Thorncrown Chapel Exterior View

Of stone, wood and glass Thorncrown Chapel stands in the woods outside of the village of Eureka Springs, Arkansas. Architect E. Fay Jones received the gold medal award from the AIA for this dynamic structure in 1990. The building ranks fourth on the AIA’s list of most

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A View

I’m not really sure why views are so important to people. My favorite things to look at are open bodies of water and mountains. When I am gazing at these landscapes I ask myself, “Why am I looking at this?” The answer “it’s beautiful” doesn’t satisfy me.

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Obscure Structures

Cape Vincent Lighthouse

This past summer the family and I took a trip to the eastern basin of Lake Ontario. This area is not known for its great architecture, but as an architect I look at everything and my head is always on a swivel. This often results in the

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