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raderator
Joined: 12 Dec 2008
Posts: 3
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 Posted: Fri Dec 12, 2008 10:19 am Post subject: Great Forum! |
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I can't believe I've never stumbled upon this forum before!
I've been an amateur designer since I was 11 yrs old and made a house out of Popsicle sticks. Growing up, I was a big fan of all the great modern architects and the more mundane ones. I loved the practical designs of Pollman and Palmquist (if you're old enough to remember them). I had all their plan books but lost them in a flood. You can still find a few of their plans online, but not many.
I've sketched hundreds of modern-design houses over the years on graph paper. Recently, I noticed a neighbor was clearing the land on a very, very steep lakeside plot and I wondered if I still had any creativity left in my middle-aged brain. So I designed a three level "upside down" house for it with a carport on the top, living floor underneath that and bedrooms on the bottom floor so the kids could get to the lake easily. I never showed it to him and he ended up building a typical, ugly house precariously clinging to the slope with a very long climb down to the lake. Oh well. It would have had to have been engineered by a real engineer. But my plan was pretty good, supported by steel columns.
I've lived in a lot of boring, un-designed "normal" houses, the kind where they never even thought about solar orientation and all the windows face west. I sold my last house cuz I only lived in half of it. I really don't need anything bigger than 1,000 sf. So lately I designed a couple of those.
I've tried architecture software but find it too complicated and not suited to my odd designs which always have things like shed roofs, "flat" roofs and atriums. So I end up going back to the graph paper. I should at least master SketchUp , I guess.
Here are some of my sketches. Don't laugh.
http://home.earthlink.net/~jerry1784/design/
They are all to scale and all the dimensions add up, to the inch. I design on a 2' model and know the standard sizes of closets, fixtures, cabinets, stairs, etc. I always design WITH furniture! The "Square House" is the one I would build for myself.
BTW, I am fully aware that houses should, ideally, be designed for the site. But I'm thinking of buying a few acres in a flat part of South Carolina where I can have a couple of palm trees 
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csintexas
millennium club
Joined: 06 Feb 2006
Posts: 2174
Location: USA
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| Posted: Fri Dec 12, 2008 10:49 am Post subject: |
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Hi raderator,
It is good to see such enthusiasm. Sketchup could do all these and isn't hard to learn.
_________________
-Chris Stewart
http://bcshdb.blogspot.com >
The B/CS Home Design Blog |
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djswan
millennium club
Joined: 17 Aug 2007
Posts: 1119
Location: Montana, USA
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| Posted: Fri Dec 12, 2008 11:05 am Post subject: |
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Howdy raderator and welcome. I stumbled on this site, too.
gotta luv graph paper and popsicle sticks.
Did you build forts as a kid?
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T. Damon
Joined: 26 Jul 2008
Posts: 4
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| Posted: Fri Dec 12, 2008 3:21 pm Post subject: |
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I think you've done some pretty cool designs. Keep it up. I also think you should get into sketchup to begin to incorporate the volume of the designs even better. I also designed a home for my neighbors empty lot just for fun and practice (in an urban historical neighborhood) and he also built something far more conventional though still nice.
Actually showed it to him and his wife just as they had finished up paying $30K the design (unbeknownst to me), they said they liked some aspects of mine better. I should've gotten to then sooner 
http://img155.imageshack.us/img155/5005/craftsmancottagevf7.png
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raderator
Joined: 12 Dec 2008
Posts: 3
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| Posted: Fri Dec 12, 2008 4:33 pm Post subject: |
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| djswan wrote: | Howdy raderator and welcome. I stumbled on this site, too.
gotta luv graph paper and popsicle sticks.
Did you build forts as a kid? |
Yep, I was the neighborhood fort designer, usually tree forts. But they would always get wrecked by the bigger kids or the land owners. One guy just cut down the tree our fort was in.
I finally tried a mobile fort on wheels but I used big spikes for the axles and they bent. Then I hit on my most successful design...The Underground Fort! It was in a clump of small trees in the middle of some vacant land. It even had a fireplace, light, and a hatch with a lock. It survived for a couple or years until the land owner dug it up.
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raderator
Joined: 12 Dec 2008
Posts: 3
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| Posted: Fri Dec 12, 2008 5:26 pm Post subject: |
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| T. Damon wrote: | I think you've done some pretty cool designs. Keep it up. I also think you should get into sketchup to begin to incorporate the volume of the designs even better. I also designed a home for my neighbors empty lot just for fun and practice (in an urban historical neighborhood) and he also built something far more conventional though still nice.
Actually showed it to him and his wife just as they had finished up paying $30K the design (unbeknownst to me), they said they liked some aspects of mine better. I should've gotten to then sooner
http://img155.imageshack.us/img155/5005/craftsmancottagevf7.png |
Wow, very professional. But those west-facing windows would fry me, without shade trees. And few windows on the south. But that's the problem with "traditional" neighborhoods. Gotta face the street or they lynch you. It would be fun to do a modern takeoff on craftsman and try to get a southern orientation despite a nearby house on that side.
Some neighborhoods let you get away with modern. Thank God "mid century modern" has finally made a comeback. I knew if I lived long enough it would! It's trendy, lol. And it's more practical now too...double-paned glass, spray-foam insulation means low-pitched roofs don't need to be ventilated. Too bad the world is coming to an end.
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csintexas
millennium club
Joined: 06 Feb 2006
Posts: 2174
Location: USA
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| Posted: Fri Dec 12, 2008 8:50 pm Post subject: |
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T. Damon,
I agree good job on the plan. Surely you are more than a hobbyist?
I think with as many designs as you have done raderator that you would enjoy going to that next level of CAD and 3d that sketchup could provide.
I had a fort in a pile of sticks once, I guess it might count as simi submerged.
_________________
-Chris Stewart
http://bcshdb.blogspot.com >
The B/CS Home Design Blog |
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djswan
millennium club
Joined: 17 Aug 2007
Posts: 1119
Location: Montana, USA
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| Posted: Sat Dec 13, 2008 8:51 am Post subject: |
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The underground fort was my crowning achievement too! I miss those days, pure unadulterated architecture.
cs ever dam up a creek to make a swimming hole?
I found those house plans a nice fit to the eye. 
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csintexas
millennium club
Joined: 06 Feb 2006
Posts: 2174
Location: USA
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| Posted: Sat Dec 13, 2008 10:01 am Post subject: |
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We tried but the cement didn't set
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http://bcshdb.blogspot.com >
The B/CS Home Design Blog |
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T. Damon
Joined: 26 Jul 2008
Posts: 4
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| Posted: Sun Dec 14, 2008 4:11 pm Post subject: |
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Thanks for the comments. I finally went from hobbyist to a professional about a year and a half ago. It took me until my 40s to get paid for doing what I love. I am mostly self taught with a couple of years in a good architectural program at a local community college. I do all the production and presentation drawings and 3D modeling, and collaborative designing for a two person firm.
This is my first house designed from the ground up- a fire rebuild in a rural area in Southern California. Some of you will be scratching your heads but the design arose from a complicated program and a eccentric client. After the client rejected a design from a well known local architect, then hiring my boss and driving her a bit crazy with the ever changing and often contradictory program requirements she threw this over to me- I think it was a test
After I designed two more conventional houses for him which the client liked some aspects of but also rejected this is the unconventional house which is being built now.
The most challenging part of the design was the mandatory inclusion of the 30' diameter "Friends Circle" to the program which was limited in budget and allowable square footage per the fire rebuild regulations. Since the client now lives in a tiny one bedroom cottage that survived the fire storm and really enjoyed many aspects about that compact simple space-a covered porch and an outdoor shower especially-the final solution was to break up the large house into two different buildings and insert the Friends Circle between as a covered pavilion.
Each building is angled 15 degrees off center and I kept moving them until that 30' circle fit. An entry tower anchors and centers the compound-like arrangement of buildings, courtyards and garages. Each building, which were dubbed the "Social House", and the "Private House" were to potentially function as separate houses (further complicating the already complex program) and so the Private house has a kitchenette and a media room which can be the Family Room of this house or can be closed up for an additional bedroom by way of pocket doors. The design is very site oriented for views, capturing the breezes and minimizing the effects of the often blazing sun out here.
Additional outbuildings, and barns remain and or will be constructed on the rural 18 acres not far from wealthy subdivisions in North County San Diego. Most of the house is stucco but I clad the service areas in a board and batten siding to give the effect of saddlebag additions to original buildings.
The overall design theme is a contemporary interpretation of the rural Ranchos of 19th century California.
Definitely an unconventional design but I think it came out pretty good.
Comments and critiques are welcome. I can take it.
Thanks
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csintexas
millennium club
Joined: 06 Feb 2006
Posts: 2174
Location: USA
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| Posted: Sun Dec 14, 2008 6:55 pm Post subject: |
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| Quote: | | Comments and critiques are welcome. I can take it. |
That is brave.
Well at least it was probably an interesting job. I don't mind working with those people who want odd things. It beats doing endless variations of the traditional McMansion.
_________________
-Chris Stewart
http://bcshdb.blogspot.com >
The B/CS Home Design Blog |
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T. Damon
Joined: 26 Jul 2008
Posts: 4
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| Posted: Sun Dec 14, 2008 7:51 pm Post subject: |
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| I was just thankful he didn't want something "Tuscan" which is the overwrought style of the moment.
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csintexas
millennium club
Joined: 06 Feb 2006
Posts: 2174
Location: USA
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| Posted: Mon Dec 15, 2008 9:26 am Post subject: |
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I agree, just finished a plan with a turret, some Tudor and misc. other parts Still plenty of McMansions being built here in Texas.
_________________
-Chris Stewart
http://bcshdb.blogspot.com >
The B/CS Home Design Blog |
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cousinbirgco
Joined: 15 Aug 2008
Posts: 148
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| Posted: Mon Dec 15, 2008 4:45 pm Post subject: |
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Saints be praised, laddy. Now with the new administration a
comin' in January, everyone will have a McMansion and
a pot in every spam. 
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T. Damon
Joined: 26 Jul 2008
Posts: 4
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| Posted: Mon Dec 15, 2008 5:56 pm Post subject: |
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| Well if it means we actually will have some design work to do then even I will begrudgingly but quite willingly design the McMansions for the masses...
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