Powell River residents have an opportunity to participate in design discussions for a new public library at an interactive design workshop. The event takes place from 6 to 9:30 pm on Tuesday, February 14 at Powell River Recreation Complex.

The workshop is the second of three sessions providing the community with an opportunity to shape the design of a new library. At the first event in November, 75 people explored the major features of the library, which is proposed for the vacant lot on the corner of Marine Avenue and Abbotsford Street, known as the old arena site. The outcomes of the first session focused on core requirements, additional functionality, the environment and site use.

Architects from Miller Hull Partnership in Seattle, Washington, along with Public Design from Vancouver, have incorporated these ideas into preliminary designs. These drawings will be on display and will provide the basis for discussion and further development of the program.

A group of concerned citizens who are opposed to the location of the new library are planning to attend the workshop. “We’re telling people to come and see the sweetheart deal,” said Gaye Culos, one of the organizers. “We’re planning on a peaceful demonstration to show our opposition to the location.”

The group has collected over 1,200 signatures on a statement that opposes the proposed site. As well, people are concerned about the cost of a new library.

Culos pointed out that with Catalyst Paper Corporation’s unstable financial position, the community doesn’t know what the future holds. “We need to be fiscally responsible,” she said. “We need to differentiate between want versus need. We need to stand up and tell council enough is enough, we can’t spend anymore.”

A delegation representing the concerned citizens is planning on making a presentation to City of Powell River council on February 16.

Culos said she is not against libraries and the staff at Powell River Public Library are wonderful and helpful. She said she thinks the children’s area at the library needs to be improved, but the city has to live within its means. “I don’t want to divide the community,” she said. “We’re not saying no to the library; we’re saying no to Willingdon Beach.”

The concerned citizens have a table set up at Powell River Town Centre Mall where the statement opposing the site is available. “I encourage people to come out to the meeting on February 14,” said Culos.

The architects are also briefing city councillors and Powell River Regional District directors about the project at 11 am on Tuesday, February 14 at city hall.

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Architects unveil preliminary drawings for new library

JOPLIN, Mo. — Reaction appeared mostly supportive Thursday night among the roughly 50 people who attended a community meeting at which architects presented their preliminary site plans for the future combined Joplin High School and Franklin Technology Center.

Architect Chad Greer of Corner Greer & Associates, of Joplin, and Kevin Greischer of DLR Group, of Overland Park, Kan., consultants to CGA, presented design plans that were approved by the Board of Education in a meeting Wednesday night. The firms are the same ones that designed the temporary campus at Northpark Mall, which was the site of the community meeting.

“I’m really liking the layout and the separate buildings,” said JHS sophomore Preston Miller. “I’m hoping that although they have the covered bridges, we can walk on the grounds from building to building because that was just a nice part of the school. At the rose garden, you could just take a breath of fresh air.”

The Board of Education has approved a $62 million bond issue for the April 3 ballot. The bonds, district officials say, would offset costs not covered by state and federal aid, insurance and donations for the rebuilding of schools destroyed in the May 22 tornado, along with community safe rooms across the district, and renovations and repairs to undamaged elementary schools. The total project cost is estimated at $185 million. The high school project cost is estimated at $104 million.

Some who attended the meeting said they liked the vision of the district, but they want to know more and are worried about the bond issue’s possible impact, especially on the elderly with fixed incomes, those directly affected by the tornado and those affected by the economy in general.

“It’s a big concern we keep hearing over and over,” said Virginia Denham, a member of the JHS class of 1951. “We have always supported the schools, and we probably still will. But there are a lot of questions out there about the bond. I think they need to get more answers out. There are whole sections of houses gone, and (the schools) aren’t getting that revenue.”

Denham said the preliminary designs were too vague to really imagine, but she liked that the new school is to be integrated into a hillside, possibly affording it more protection.

Assistant Superintendent Angie Besendorfer gave a presentation about the school district’s vision for the new career-cluster curriculum that will focus on five career paths: business/information technology, technical sciences, human services, arts/communication, and health sciences.

One attendee, Paul Mosbaugh, of the JHS class of 1957, said he thought the integration of JHS and Franklin Technical Center was a good idea, and likely would change the outlook of some JHS students regarding the students who attend trade classes at the technical center.

“I went to the vocational school when I was in high school, and at that time, everybody kind of looked down on us,” Mosbaugh said. “So I dropped out of vocational school and went just full time as a student for senior high. I think this will help people relate to them, and they won’t look down on them.”

Several high school students who attended the meeting said they were excited about the new direction of the school’s curriculum, and how the building design was influenced by it. JHS senior Nontapoth Vongkittiargorn, who someday wants to be a biomedical engineer, said he likes the idea of students trying out careers while they’re still in high school so they can be prepared for the real world. He also has a more personal reason for his interest in the future school.

“The very first thing I’m really interested in is seeing the new ideas,” Vongkittiargorn said. “Also, my brother, who is 2 years old right now, may be participating in this whole program eventually, so I’m here for my family.”

Greer said he hopes to have more conceptual images to present to the school board by the end of the month. From there, he said, the architects will present those images and gather more feedback from students, staff members and residents.

Temporary campus

AFTER THE MEETING, attendees could tour the temporary 11th- and 12th-grade campus at Northpark Mall.

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Architects present preliminary JHS plans at community meeting

The home renovator is well served on the iPad and iPhone, with apps that do everything from measure square footage to provide information on more than 150 kinds of wood. But what about the architecture geek, who longs to spend hours scrolling through the blueprints of a Case Study House?

In recent months, several new apps have focused on specific works of architecture, like Richard Neutra's VDL Studio and Residences, Pierre Koenig's Case Study House #22 and Frank Lloyd Wright's Fallingwater, bringing those masterworks into the digital age. The latter two were created by in-D media, a California-based company that has been producing architecture videos and CD-ROMs since the late-'90s and last year began transferring its wealth of content into mobile app form.

With videos, sumptuous color photography and virtual room tours, the company's apps, which sell for about $5 to $10 at the iTunes store, are so transporting you may find yourself looking for the gift shop afterward.

The company's founder, Timothy Sakamoto, who created the apps with his business partner, Jochen Repolust, recently talked about the small but growing niche of i-architecture.

Given how detailed these apps are, I'm curious if you have a background in architecture.

I'm a licensed architect in California. I discovered early on that working for one architect limits you in learning about other types of architecture being created. By making videos and interactive CD-ROMs, I thought I'd be able to visit historically significant buildings, learn from them and convey that knowledge. When the iPad came out, I started researching what making an app would entail.

Do you think apps are a better way to experience great architecture than the videos you produced?

I think the ideal platform is a mobile app: it gives you intimacy, a connection. You interact with it more like a book, but it comes with advantages that you just don't have with books, like being able to watch video or take an interactive tour.

Another thing is the color quality of the photographs. The colors are luminous. Even an art book with high-quality printing doesn't compare to the iPad.

One of the best features about the Fallingwater app is the way you can zoom in and out on the home's floor plan and select photos.

I think the big difference is how you interface with the iPad. With a CD-ROM you use a mouse, so you're two feet from the computer screen, removed from the process. On the iPad, by swiping your finger, you get this tactile experience that's closer to experiencing the tactile world of architecture. It feels that much closer to being there.

Who is downloading these apps? Architecture students? Design geeks?

The users tend to be architects and people in the design field. Often they haven't been to these buildings, even though they've been to architecture school.

You get some people saying, "Nine ninety-nine for an app, that's outrageous!" People think of apps as games, and they want to pay 99 cents. But a book of this nature would be $50. If anything, with the Fallingwater app, we put too much content on there.

Zaha Hadid has released an app to showcase her firm's work. Do you think other architects will follow suit?

I think architects in general are into gadgets, and some have approached us about making an app for them. The reality is the cost is prohibitive, and it doesn't make sense right now because it wouldn't do much more for them than having a Web site.

Yes, there's the cachet of being on the iPad, instead of saying, "Go to my Web site." But there's also an ongoing maintenance cost, an upgrading cost. And because you need an iPad to view the material, it has a limited audience.

What other buildings or architects do you plan to give the app treatment to?

We're working on one for Taliesin West. It's an update of the DVD we produced and should be out in a month or two. I think we might be heading to Europe. There are some early Modernist architects like Le Corbusier that have a lot of appeal.

There are a lot of fantastic buildings all over the world, and only a few people can visit many of them in person. But we could make a super app.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

First published on February 10, 2012 at 12:01 am

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Architects' Works Find a Niche in the Digital Age

Summary: ‘It’s no longer enough for EAs to put a shared infrastructure in place and stand back and declare the business to be enabled.’

Some of the best service orientation case studies have been built on changes to the way enterprises view their business: transitioning from cultures centered around products to cultures focused on customers.

Jeanne Ross, director and principal research scientist at the MIT Center for Information Systems Research, recently spoke with SearchSOA’s Jack Vaughn about the impact that enterprise architects can make on corporate culture:

“A large insurance company such as Aetna, for example, may have built up thousands of products and all of their systems were organized around insurance products. And what they realized is that was not how they were going to ever satisfy their customers. They wanted to know their customers and the customers’ products, not the Aetna [view of] products and all the customers that bought it. If you want a single face to the customer you think of the customer as the center of universe, not the product.

Now, that’s a huge transition - to say, ‘I’m going to fix that. I’m going to change my capabilities so instead of knowing products I’m going to know customers.’ You basically turn your company upside down.”

Ross says it it’s no longer enough for EAs to put a shared infrastructure in place and stand back and declare the business to be “enabled.” EAs need to follow through on the process, she advocates. “People are too busy. They don’t take it on. Architects are going to have to take on greater responsibility and/or concern for the exploitation of capabilities.” That means a lot of follow-up with end users as they roll out new capabilities.

Many companies have built up rigid silos and structures built around products. The move to service orientation shouldn’t be limited to exchanging services between siloed systems, it means becoming service oriented toward the customer.

Joe McKendrick is an author, consultant and speaker specializing in trends and developments shaping the technology industry.

Disclosure Joe McKendrick

Joe McKendrick is an independent consultant, editor and speaker.

Joe has performed project work (white papers, articles, blogs, research and presentations) for the following companies in the IT marketspace:

CBS Interactive/CNET/ZDNet (this blog) ebizQ Evans Data Gartner IBM Informatica IDC Microsoft Systinet/HP Teradata Unisphere Reseach, a division of Information Today, Inc. WebLayers

Joe has also performed research work for the following sponsoring organizations in partnership with Unisphere Research, a division of Information Today, Inc.

IBM Luminex Noetix Oracle Corp. Teradata Informatica International Oracle Users Group Oracle Applications Users Group Professional Association for SQL Server International DB2 Users Group International Sybase Users Group SHARE (IBM large systems users group) Biography Joe McKendrick

Joe McKendrick is an author and independent analyst who tracks the impact of information technology on management and markets. Joe is co-author, along with 16 leading industry leaders and thinkers, of the SOA Manifesto, which outlines the values and guiding principles of service orientation. He also speaks frequently on Enterprise 2.0 and SOA topics at industry events and Webcasts. As an independent analyst, he has also authored numerous research reports in partnership with Unisphere Research, a division of Information Today, Inc. for user groups such as SHARE, Oracle Applications Users Group, and International DB2 Users Group. Joe is also an active SOA contributor for ebizQ/TechTarget. In a previous life, Joe served as director of the Administrative Management Society (AMS), an international professional association dedicated to advancing knowledge within the IT and business management fields. He is a graduate of Temple University.

Read the rest here:
Enterprise architects: 'turn your company upside down'

Architects live and breathe design, blissfully losing themselves in details most people would never notice — the bevel of a trim, the way light falls across a room, squared legs or curved.

So what happens, we wondered, when two such aesthetes come together under one roof?

Do they lie awake at night, pondering three-inch moldings or four? Is there a prenup for the Eames chairs? Do they fight tooth and nailhead?

Judging from the example set by these married Baltimore architects who live and work together, it all comes together much more smoothly than any of that.

These couples each share a style philosophy. Considering how essential such matters are to architects, one can imagine them writing it right into their vows … for richer, for poorer, for mid-century modern …

Their homes are not just harmonious; they speak to the principles their inhabitants live by.

One of the couples, Laura and Jeffrey Penza, have a piece hanging in their entryway, a poem written in calligraphy and framed, that gets to that very point.

"If two should architect one house, what would happen when the two should join? And one imagines wires and mortar and pipes that never somehow quite do meet. But when it comes to building a dream and a life of two in one, ah, then indeed the two must architect together and build their home of love."

Laura Thul Penza and Jeffrey Penza

Penza Bailey Architects

They met, as so many architects seem to, studying their field. Laura Penza can pinpoint her first brush with Jeffrey nearly down to the minute. It happened during their fourth year at the University of Cincinnati, the first day of spring quarter, to be precise.

"The eyes locked," she says, as he nods in agreement. "It was one of those."

They married in 1983, not long after graduation, and migrated to Baltimore. They weren't working together right away, but when Jeffrey began took charge of a firm, it wasn't too long before Laura was at his side.

In the office, they complement one another but have their own roles. But at home, it seems to be a tandem project.

The couple looked at nearly 200 houses before deciding on a 1930s deceptively large stone cottage on a corner lot in Homeland. They had wanted a fixer-upper, something they could gut and revive, where they could put into practice everything they had learned in school. They got a near-faultless house but spent years making it their own anyway.

They like to say they touched every side of it, adding a bay window to the front, a breakfast nook on one side, a family room for the back.

But it's in other, smaller, touches that one really gets a feel for the Penzas — in the vibrant, creative accessories.

"It's a very traditional house in a very traditional neighborhood," Jeffrey says. "It stayed traditional, but it has a contemporary flair."

The living room started with an Azeri rug from Turkey that they found at Alex Cooper. Big and bold, with reds, pinks, and blues, they balance it by keeping the rest of the room neutral.

Read the original here:
SUN MAGAZINE COMING SUNDAY When architects build a marriage — and design a home

Architects live and breathe design, blissfully losing themselves in details most people would never notice — the bevel of a trim, the way light falls across a room, squared legs or curved.

So what happens, we wondered, when two such aesthetes come together under one roof?

Do they lie awake at night, pondering three-inch moldings or four? Is there a prenup for the Eames chairs? Do they fight tooth and nailhead?

Judging from the example set by these married Baltimore architects who live and work together, it all comes together much more smoothly than any of that.

These couples each share a style philosophy. Considering how essential such matters are to architects, one can imagine them writing it right into their vows … for richer, for poorer, for mid-century modern …

Their homes are not just harmonious; they speak to the principles their inhabitants live by.

One of the couples, Laura and Jeffrey Penza, have a piece hanging in their entryway, a poem written in calligraphy and framed, that gets to that very point.

"If two should architect one house, what would happen when the two should join? And one imagines wires and mortar and pipes that never somehow quite do meet. But when it comes to building a dream and a life of two in one, ah, then indeed the two must architect together and build their home of love."

Laura Thul Penza and Jeffrey Penza

Penza Bailey Architects

They met, as so many architects seem to, studying their field. Laura Penza can pinpoint her first brush with Jeffrey nearly down to the minute. It happened during their fourth year at the University of Cincinnati, the first day of spring quarter, to be precise.

"The eyes locked," she says, as he nods in agreement. "It was one of those."

They married in 1983, not long after graduation, and migrated to Baltimore. They weren't working together right away, but when Jeffrey began took charge of a firm, it wasn't too long before Laura was at his side.

In the office, they complement one another but have their own roles. But at home, it seems to be a tandem project.

The couple looked at nearly 200 houses before deciding on a 1930s deceptively large stone cottage on a corner lot in Homeland. They had wanted a fixer-upper, something they could gut and revive, where they could put into practice everything they had learned in school. They got a near-faultless house but spent years making it their own anyway.

They like to say they touched every side of it, adding a bay window to the front, a breakfast nook on one side, a family room for the back.

But it's in other, smaller, touches that one really gets a feel for the Penzas — in the vibrant, creative accessories.

"It's a very traditional house in a very traditional neighborhood," Jeffrey says. "It stayed traditional, but it has a contemporary flair."

The living room started with an Azeri rug from Turkey that they found at Alex Cooper. Big and bold, with reds, pinks, and blues, they balance it by keeping the rest of the room neutral.

More here:
From Sun Magazine: When architects build a marriage — and design a home

Architects live and breathe design, blissfully losing themselves in details most people would never notice — the bevel of a trim, the way light falls across a room, squared legs or curved.

So what happens, we wondered, when two such aesthetes come together under one roof?

Do they lie awake at night, pondering three-inch moldings or four? Is there a prenup for the Eames chairs? Do they fight tooth and nailhead?

Judging from the example set by these married Baltimore architects who live and work together, it all comes together much more smoothly than any of that.

These couples each share a style philosophy. Considering how essential such matters are to architects, one can imagine them writing it right into their vows … for richer, for poorer, for mid-century modern …

Their homes are not just harmonious; they speak to the principles their inhabitants live by.

One of the couples, Laura and Jeffrey Penza, have a piece hanging in their entryway, a poem written in calligraphy and framed, that gets to that very point.

"If two should architect one house, what would happen when the two should join? And one imagines wires and mortar and pipes that never somehow quite do meet. But when it comes to building a dream and a life of two in one, ah, then indeed the two must architect together and build their home of love."

Laura Thul Penza and Jeffrey Penza

Penza Bailey Architects

They met, as so many architects seem to, studying their field. Laura Penza can pinpoint her first brush with Jeffrey nearly down to the minute. It happened during their fourth year at the University of Cincinnati, the first day of spring quarter, to be precise.

"The eyes locked," she says, as he nods in agreement. "It was one of those."

They married in 1983, not long after graduation, and migrated to Baltimore. They weren't working together right away, but when Jeffrey began took charge of a firm, it wasn't too long before Laura was at his side.

In the office, they complement one another but have their own roles. But at home, it seems to be a tandem project.

The couple looked at nearly 200 houses before deciding on a 1930s deceptively large stone cottage on a corner lot in Homeland. They had wanted a fixer-upper, something they could gut and revive, where they could put into practice everything they had learned in school. They got a near-faultless house but spent years making it their own anyway.

They like to say they touched every side of it, adding a bay window to the front, a breakfast nook on one side, a family room for the back.

But it's in other, smaller, touches that one really gets a feel for the Penzas — in the vibrant, creative accessories.

"It's a very traditional house in a very traditional neighborhood," Jeffrey says. "It stayed traditional, but it has a contemporary flair."

The living room started with an Azeri rug from Turkey that they found at Alex Cooper. Big and bold, with reds, pinks, and blues, they balance it by keeping the rest of the room neutral.

See the original post:
SUN MAGAZINE When architects build a marriage — and design a home

I NDIANAPOLIS -- Tom Lewand did his usual drive-by at the Super Bowl this year.

He showed his face at a few league functions, made small talk over a couple of meals, and by the time the Giants and Patriots kicked off Super Bowl XLVI on Sunday night, the Lions' president was back home, far from the spectacle of the game.

"For me, it's always a reminder that we're one of the 30 teams that isn't here, and that's not what we aspire to," Lewand explained of his annual pilgrimage home before kickoff. "I used to come down to Super Bowls with Roger Penske before we hosted because Roger was our chair of the host committee and Roger would always wonder why I left on Saturday night or Sunday morning, 'What are you doing?'

"I said, 'Roger, if your car doesn't qualify for the Indy 500 in the month of May, do you stick around for the race?' And he said, 'Say no more. I'll see you back in Detroit.' That's the feeling that you get here more than anything else."

Lewand's approach is understandable. Plenty of players in the NFL do the same. They want nothing to do with the Super Bowl until they're in one.

But had he chosen to stay Sunday, Lewand would have seen the Giants validate his team's blueprint with a thrilling 21-17 victory at Lucas Oil Stadium.

New York won its second championship in four years with the same plan the Lions hope will pay off for them. Start with a cold-blooded quarterback on offense, mix in a dominant pass rush on defense, let the two marinate with some good personnel moves and harden into a Super Bowl ring.

Designing a brilliant building isn't the same as constructing one. You need the right materials and the best workers, and there are 31 other architects in the NFL eyeing the same piece of real estate.

But to the Lions' credit, they appear to have a foundation in place.

Matthew Stafford isn't in Eli Manning's class as a quarterback yet, but he has the talent to be. He just threw for 5,000 yards, the fourth player in NFL history to accomplish that feat, and he turns 24 today, the same age Manning was when he became a full-time starter in his second season in the league.

Manning, of course, has two titles and two Super Bowl MVPs to his name -- Tom Brady, Joe Montana, Terry Bradshaw and Bart Starr are the only other players with that distinction -- and after 119 straight starts he has a staying power Stafford can't claim yet.

Likewise, the Giants have constructed a defensive line that, through four years and countless changes, has been the fuel for two Super Bowl runs. Justin Tuck, one of the few holdovers from New York's Super Bowl XLII team, had two sacks in both games, but Jason Pierre-Paul replaced Michael Strahan as the Giants' top pass rusher, and New York has new starters at both defensive tackle positions.

The Lions have cornerstone pass rushers in Ndamukong Suh and Cliff Avril, a pending free agent who's likely to return to Detroit, and general manager Martin Mayhew has made no bones about his desire to keep the line well-stocked for years to come.

Mayhew jumped at the chance to draft defensive tackle Nick Fairley 13th overall last year, adding to a position of strength, and it wouldn't surprise anyone if he winds up with another pass rusher in April.

Beyond Avril's contract situation, Corey Williams and Lawrence Jackson are entering the final years of their deals and at 33 there's no telling how much longer Kyle Vanden Bosch will be around.

Coach Jim Schwartz said last week it's impossible to tell how close teams really are to winning a Super Bowl in the NFL. The last two winners needed victories at the end of the regular season to get in the playoffs, got hot and went on miraculous postseason runs.

The NFC will be a grind next season. Manning and the Giants aren't going anywhere, the Packers are still the team to beat in the NFC North, the Saints and 49ers are coming off 13-win seasons, and the Bears were a playoff-caliber team until Matt Forte and Jay Cutler got hurt.

But the Lions at least have a plan in place that has been tried and tested and proven to work.

"I think we're close," Stafford said. "I think we've got some steps to make. Obviously, there's teams year in year out that make it to the playoffs and don't go back to the playoffs for a couple more years. Hopefully we can avoid that, we can be smart enough and tough enough to go out there and make it back to the playoffs, and then anything can happen from there."

Contact Dave Birkett: 313-222-8831 or dbirkett@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @freeplions.

View post:
Dave Birkett: Lions' architects following a super blueprint for success

Design costs for the Beale Street Landing project shot up by more than a half million dollars as architects modified plans to deal with unstable soil along the Mississippi River, records show.

The Riverfront Development Corp., the nonprofit firm under contract with Memphis to oversee parks along the Mississippi, so far has paid $4.42 million in architectural fees for the project, according to figures provided by RDC.

That's an increase of almost $570,000 from the $3.85 million RDC said it had spent on design as of July 31, 2010, in a report filed with City Council last year.

And design costs could increase by at least another $100,000 as work continues, said RDC president Benny Lendermon.

Nonetheless, Lendermon said, the RDC will not be asking City Council for additional funding for the landing, relying instead on other revenues it already has.

"There's no more (city) money going into this project," he said.

Including the $38.1 million committed for construction, the rising architecture expenditures have increased the total cost of the project to at least $42.52 million -- more than twice the original estimate of $20 million of nearly a decade ago.

RDC has paid the $4.42 million in fees to the architect of record, Bounds and Gillespie Architects, a Memphis firm. Bounds and Gillespie, in turn, has hired several consultants that it pays from the RDC funds it received.

Located between Tom Lee Park and the historic cobblestones, the landing will feature a riverboat dock, a building for a restaurant and other operations and a terraced park leading to the river.

The project has been paid for by funds from the city's capital budget as well as state and federal grants. But it has been plagued by cost overruns, many of them attributed to increases in steel and contracting prices that occurred as the project was delayed by budget issues.

Just last year, the council agreed to ante up almost $9.75 million more to cover shortfalls.

The council would be hesitant to provide any more funds for the landing, member Shea Flinn said.

"Any request for additional money would come under very, very serious scrutiny," he said.

The dock and building are nearing completion, but the park phase, with intricately designed islands connected by walkways, has been undergoing redesign because of soil problems that weren't revealed by initial borings before work began.

In late 2008, during an early phase of construction, a retaining wall held back by sheet piling "slid" after soil shifted, Lendermon said.

"It wasn't catastrophic or anything, but it was something everyone knew shouldn't have occurred," he said.

Subsequent borings revealed more serious problems, which would require millions of dollars worth of extra steel reinforcements to prevent the concrete walkways and islands from settling in the mucky soil.

To eliminate the need for the extra steel, architects modified the design to remove some of the concrete walkways and slightly reduce the size of the guitar-pick-shaped islands. The latest design drawings are expected to be finished this week.

-- Tom Charlier: (901) 529-2572

See the original post:
Costs rise for Beale Street Landing project on Memphis riverfront

We are exhorted, vividly and unequivocally in bold block letters signed over a stairwell: BELIEVETH.

It’s almost the only hint of churchiness left in the former First Church of Christ Scientist on Capitol Hill, just reincarnated as The Sanctuary in a conversion to a dozen high-end townhomes. The stained glass windows feature geometric abstractions rather than religious motifs. The rest of the architectural flourishes could as easily belong to a bank or school building from the early 20th century. But BELIEVETH remaineth from the Christian Scientists, and it’s a worthwhile exhortation even for secular Seattleites.

Believe in community, in beauty, in architecture — you name it. Just go forth and honor it.

Whether this conversion will help us to believe more deeply in adaptive re-use is a good question. The architects and interior designers have done a lot of things right, and it’s decidedly a good thing to have an important and exquisite historic building preserved. But some things weren’t done right, and they’ve diminished the integrity of the original. It’s worth pondering them as wider issues in preservation, because they’re common practices that nobody seems to be questioning.

First, the good. The original building was designed by Charles Bebb and Louis Mendel, European-born architects who had the most prominent design firm in the Seattle of a century ago. Like most architects of the time, they worked in a wardrobe of styles from German Medieval to Mission Revival. This church, completed in 1914, is supremely assured but just-short-of-grandiose neoclassical revivalism.

It’s solid and stately, but its heroic stance is softened by restrained ornamentation. It’s a better building outside than the more talked-about First United Methodist, which is more pompous and less coherent.                     

The Sanctuary’s modern architects, the Runberg Architecture Group, and interior designers Robin Chell Design, preserved the shell of Bebb & Mendel’s church and essentially grafted a new residential compound inside it. There’s a central atrium under the great egg-shaped stained glass skylight, with swankly sculpted individual entrances to all the units on its perimeter. Wisely, Runberg raised the apparent ground floor of the atrium 12 feet so residents wouldn’t get that mouse-in-a-cathedral sensation.

The residence interiors are endlessly intriguing, featuring tall and skinny but often exhilarating spatial volumes. There’s stirring built-in wall decoration in the form of the church’s original pilasters with leafy Corinthian capitals, and a good variety of textures from exposed brick walls and stair treads recycled from fir flooring and oak pews. Wherever possible, the architects carved out decks and roof gardens. They weren’t afraid to give the units a strong vertical orientation; most of them are four levels deep—some five, counting their roof decks.

But now the problems, which begin in that atrium. There’s a wierd and intrusive visitor from the planet Mongo, a tall, oval-shaped fencelike structure made of colored resin panels, occupying prime real estate right in the middle of the space. Peer inside, and you’ll see there’s nothing but a pair of large mirrors, intended to bounce some of the light filtering through the skylight around the atrium.

Architect Michele Wang, Runberg’s principal in charge of the project, says the city building department insisted on something to keep human bodies out of the space directly below the skylight, just in case a quake might happen to shake loose a piece of glass. More fetching solutions such as a decorative pool were considered, Wang says, but fell by the budgetary wayside. It was a ridiculous requirement by the city, and the solution is antithetical to the classical logic of the original building. It’s like stuffing a Batman bookmark in a Bible.

The residences tend to be dark, which may discourage some buyers. The architects ingeniously remounted some of the stained glass windows on sliding tracks where they can move aside and expose clear glass windows, but many more remain fixed in place.

The result, unfortuntely, is many rooms that feel claustrophobic. Some, buried deep in the building’s bowels, have no outside exposure at all and interior “windows” to the atrium don’t much help. There was probably no good solution here; replacing the stained glass would have provoked existential howls from the preservation establishment. Light wells might have helped, but it wouldn’t have been easy to plumb adequate daylight all the way to the lowest floors.

In some places, pieces of new structure butt rudely into old, like a heckler interrupting a professor’s lecture on classical aesthetics. In one of the units a steel mezzanine rail smacks right into the middle of a pilaster. You wish it had shown a little respect. This is one of those things that happens all too frequently in renovations of historic buildings. The widely accepted philosophy is to clearly distinguish new construction from old, so there’s no cheap faux-historicism and the building forthrightly displays its evolution through time. This is as it should be, but too often in practice it plays out as the new simply dissing the old, the conjunctions between the two executed carelessly or gracelessly.

With all these conjunction issues, the four units on the building’s west side — the back alley, essentially — may be the most attractive in the complex. Since this back-alley facade didn’t have historic value, all the windows can be clear glass; and there are no built-in classical ornaments posed in uneasy counterpoint with the modern design theme inside.

These units also sport rooftop decks and views of Elliott Bay, no minor perk.

Is there a preservation lesson somewhere in this mixed bag? Yes, a couple. One is that building codes need to be flexible enough to let common sense prevail. The other is that projects such as this are absolutely worth the risk and nearly inevitable criticism, even though perfection is unattainable.

There’s a near-100 percent probability that if the church had been demolished, whatever modern condoplex replaced it would be a poorer building. That’s a hell of an indictment, but look around Seattle — and believeth.

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The architectural pitfalls of refitting urban churches