Toward the end of the summer of 2005 my Dad approached me about re-designing his house. I was half way through a master's program for architecture, which is to say: completely inexperienced and almost unprepared. My father and his wife, Maribet, had been searching for a new house off and on for months, if not a full year. They made many low offers, but in the bubble, they’d had no takers. They had seen many houses and figured out what they liked. They also realized that their current location and neighbors, were close to ideal – they just hated their house.
Actually, 'house' might be the wrong word. They would have probably remodeled if they could. This was a structure that had begun life in 1920 as a lake cabin, and which had been added onto rather haphazardly. Eventually a basement was dug out from underneath it and reportedly, debrazza’s monkeys were kept there as pets. I prefer to imagine that the monkeys were actually the ones who constructed it: floor Joists had been precariously cut through, causing floors above to sag and slant. The bathroom was plumbed on the outside of the foundation walls and predictably, pipes would freeze up on winter days. Even the chimney was not structurally sound. None of the doors closed properly. Nine years earlier my father had purchased the one and a half lake lots at a price that assumed it would be torn down and rebuilt.
Actually, before they spoke to me about designing a home for them, they had taken a stab at designing it themselves. This proved extremely useful in understanding what they had liked in the houses they had toured. Looking at images in books and magazines together, I began to understand what design ideas they were drawn toward, what materials they preferred and then to unify these things with the city's requirements, passive environmental controls, the site and context and to ultimately bring these forces together into a cohesive, structurally sound, build-able form. Oh, and there was the budget too.
Working between school deadlines, by the following May we felt like we had a reasonable design that everyone was happy with. I was scrambling to figure out how to fly back to MN, get city approvals, find a contractor and get the project underway that summer. Then I was offered a summer job by one of my professors, it was just an summer position, but this was an internationally recognized, award winning firm– the kind of firm an architecture student dreams about as they slave away at 4 AM. I had to accept. ‘The clients’ indulged. I felt terrible about my selfishness: I knew they didn’t want to spend another winter in their old house. In hindsight I think it was worked out for the best, giving us needed time to put the project in order.
Between work and the second half of my thesis project it was December before we had the approvals from city in place. In reality, it couldn't have happened much faster than that, certainly not by June. The city council had a 45 minute debate about our roof color, we wanted white to reflect heat gain, our sub-riprarian-lot limited us to grey, green and brown. In the winter it would be white regardless – they granted our variance. The design also evolved in that time. Bits of projects I had worked on in school and in the office had crept in to inform the spaces. The TV was now on a track that pulled down from behind book cases above the windows so that its presence in the living room as entirely optional. Dimensions and graphics became a little more detailed. Materials were chosen, window modules sized. We found a contractor, Flannery Construction.
All the bids had come back over budget. We tried to lower the costs, clarifying: “he basement is unfinished” and changing. We did a lot of bargain hunting. Nothing in the project that was only there for ‘looks alone’ survived. Even the overall massing was requestioned, but retained because it had been carefully sized as a solar strategy. By then, I had taken a leave of absence from school and returned home. Demolition happened in May and after some issues with excavation, and a rush of last minute changes, construction began in earnest in late June.
The site super, Denis, was kind enough to allow me to show up throughout the Carpentry Phase with a hard hat and a hammer to help out. Its a lot easier to draw a 20' glue-lam-beam standing straight up and down on the edge of a 13' drop than it is to actually put it there. I hope construction was smoother for my presence clarifying my drawings before they were built, rather than after.
As the walls were going up, ‘the clients’ and I toured of the house: "we have a view!". They had lived on the lot for years, and this was the first time they had noticed that. I returned to finish school in the fall. The drywall just going on, and I'll admit, I was nervous about how it would all turn out. By November they had moved in and I was hearing favorable reviews. I'll admit, I'm jealous, but at least I get to visit often. Actually, I think that's better than a lot of architects get; to really see and feel the house go through occupancy from day to day. To figure out if the stack and cross ventilation strategies are going to be enough to combat Minnesota's summer heat without air conditioning. To feel whether or not all that extra R-value in the roof is really enough in the winter. Images are what most people think of when they think of architecture, but even worth 1000 words, they’re no substitute for actually feeling a space. They’re happy, both that the process is over, and that they went through it and have the home they wanted.
