Home Builder Developer - Interior Renovation and Design

The water tank, like a white droplet, helped Paul Morgan's Cape Schanck House won an Australian Institute of Architects award.

The Sunburnt Countrys obsession with drought and flooding rains has received some poetic architectural expression in recent years. In his Cape Schanck House, Paul Morgan replaced one essential natural element for another by inserting a water tank rather than a fireplace as his homes hearth. Elegantly shaped like a pure white, water droplet, the tank helped win the home the Australian Institute of Architects 2007 national residential prize, the Robin Boyd Award.

Now ARM Architecture has raised the water tank to new levels with the H House in Port Melbourne. Making a virtue of this ubiquitous asset, 18 black 2000-litre Aquarius Slimline tanks have proliferated up the street sides of this corner-facing house like giant Mobilo blocks.

The bold geometric patterned effect resembles a modern Italian palazzo, according to ARM co-director Howard Raggatt. All that big rugged stone that the Italian palaces were made out of with a strong urban front on them. Rather than it actually being defensive in a militaristic way, this is defensive in terms of the environment and issues that are affecting everybody regarding water and sustainability.

The H House in Port Melbourne. Photo: Aaron Poupard

The tanks supply toilets, laundry and roof garden. They will also water the facades on the buildings remaining two sides. Currently these are completely clad in black drainage cells that form a trellis, but during the year a mix of native climbers will flower. Meanwhile a ground cover growing from the dissected tank planters on the roof will hang over the edge like a green furry top.

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In a way the whole building is designed as a green wall, says Raggatt.

Obscuring it, though, would be a pity. Ironic, too, if the building should transform into a lush hedge that required a defensive sign declaring water tank in use.

For Raggatt the crenelated roof furthers allusions to the bastion and images of home being a persons castle. An empty tank also doubles as an entrance gate or perhaps a drawbridge. Meanwhile the giant window frames take their cues from the water tanks rectangular portals and cross members.

Excerpt from:
Architects take water tanks to forefront of climate change battle

A recent survey on Houzz.com shared the top five remodeling challenges for U.S. homeowners.

Trina Knudsen

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We recently saw an interesting survey of homeowners posted on Houzz.com titled "Transforming the American Home: Findings from the 2014 Houzz and Home Survey." Houzz is a website that posts literally millions of pictures of homes and everything to do with them, including the kitchen sink. It is a great resource for gathering and communicating ideas if you are considering building or remodeling a home.

The study surveyed 200,000 Houzz.com users across the world and discovered general patterns and perceptions in the current remodeling and housing market, including some of the most common challenges. The top renovation challenges identified by the survey were: "finding the right products to use," "defining my style," "making decisions with my spouse or partner," "staying on schedule" and "educating myself."

As architects, the most obvious thing about the results is that design was not mentioned as a challenge. We do not think this is because it is so easy but because people often overlook it as the first and most basic element of a great project. We also find it interesting that undertaking the design process with an architect can lessen (and in many cases eliminate) the challenges named in the Houzz survey. Bear with us as we put on our architects' hats and take a look at the survey results:

Forty percent of those surveyed identified the greatest renovation challenge to be finding the right products to use. This may stem from the fact that we are bombarded with an overabundance of information in this day of the Internet. Rather than having too little from which to choose, we have the opposite problem: Like a single person who cant commit because something better may come along at any time, we have issues making a choice due to the fear that we are missing something better that we havent yet discovered.

As challenging as selecting products may be, remember that even the most superior products installed in an inferior design cannot save the day. A poor floor plan that directs traffic through a kitchen instead of past it will still function poorly despite the most amazing gas range. We have been known to use the phrase, Dont put lipstick on the pig.

The second greatest challenge identified by 29 percent of those surveyed was "defining my style." While this may be a personal quest to learn about oneself, an architect can help by discussing the style of the existing structure in terms of materials, the shape of the house, also known as massing, and historical context.

Lets say a homeowner determines her preferred style to be Craftsman. She can then select a lovely Craftsman front door and sidelight, the design of which delights her. However, installing that terrific Craftsman door in her mid-century modern home will not be as successful of a curb appeal update as she may have hoped. Unless a complete tear-down is contemplated, an effective remodel will require a subtle blending of the owners style with the style of the home itself.

Continued here:
Renovation Solutions: Top remodeling challenges decoded

Even though MNK Architects was selected two months ago to perform a study on whether the Downtown Jail should be replaced or fixed, Commissioners Court has not reached an agreement with the company.

On June 1, Commissioners Court authorized county staff to begin negotiations with MNK Architects to come up with a price on the study.

As of Thursday, Commissioners Court has not signed a contract.

Commissioners discussed the topic Thursday in executive session.

Details were not revealed.

Commissioner Vince Perez said MNK Architects is charging the county a much higher price than what Commissioner Court had expected.

Commissioners had allocated $250,000 for the study, which will compare the cost of building a new jail and of remodeling the existing 30-year-old facility.

MNK is charging the county almost double, Perez said.

Perez said he did not know how long negotiations are going to take.

"The jail is the most expensive component to our budget, so we want to be sure that the study is going to give us all of the answers that we are looking for so that we can make the best decisions in the future on how to cut cost," Perez said.

The rest is here:
El Paso County Commissioners Court: No contract reached in jail study

Now an Arkansas Heritage Site, Johnny Cash's boyhood home in Dyess has been restored and opens for tours on Saturday, August 15, 2014.

DYESS, Arkansas Want to Walk the Line where Johnny Cash once played as a child?

Before he changed the music industry with songs like Ring of Fire and Folsom Prison Blues, Johnny Cash spent his hardscrabble childhood in the small community of Dyess, Arkansas.

The Johnny Cash Boyhood Home, the newest of Arkansas State Universitys Heritage Sites, opens Saturday for public tours after a restoration project that includes other historic buildings.

When visitors walk into the home, they are stepping back into the 1930s. Cash family artifacts original to the home include the piano that belonged to Johnnys mother, his fathers shaving mug and even the original flooring in his childhood bedroom and the living room. The living room linoleum still has burn marks caused by the wood-burning stove.

Johnny Cash in 1969.

Other furnishings and objects are of the time period and mostly contributed by donors, said Ruth Hawkins, director of Arkansas Heritage Sites at Arkansas State University. They are based on the photos and memories of Tommy Cash and Joanne Cash Yates, two of Johnny Cashs siblings.

Period details include a pedestal sewing machine, a battery-operated radio like one Johnny Cash would play at night and the living-room sofa. The period icebox and corner cabinet were painted the apple-green color the siblings remember.

The Dyess Colony was a federal agricultural resettlement community created in 1934, part of President Franklin D. Roosevelts New Deal program in response to the Great Depression. The colony provided homes and jobs for about 500 poor farm families, including the Cash family.

Johnny, called JR at the time, was 3 years old when his family moved into a Dyess home in 1935. Johnny spent his childhood in Dyess, attending school and church in the town. He also suffered an enormous loss when his brother Jack was killed in a sawmill accident in 1944. Cash left JR behind and became Johnny when he left Arkansas for the Air Force in 1950.

More:
Johnny Cashs boyhood Southern home opens for public tours

Not until architect Witold Rybczynski built his own home did he discover at first hand the fundamental poverty of modern architectural ideas, he writes in Home, A Short History of an Idea. I found myself turning again and again to memories of older houses, and older rooms, and trying to understand what had made them feel so right, so comfortable.

During the first 110 years after Topeka became a city, its residents built in a surprising array of architectural stylesusing native materials including brick, limestone and wooden planks. Surviving examples, lovingly maintained or restored, anchor the citys neighborhoods in North Topeka, Oakland and north of 10th Street, along a northeast to southwest corridor that runs between Kansas Avenue and Gage Boulevard. [See accompanying map and photos on cjonline.com.]

Historic Topeka, Inc., honored that diversity in a brochure produced nearly 20 years ago, identifying the unique architectural styles found in Topeka, locating each by neighborhood and identifying photograph. Our acknowledgements go to that group, which was active in local preservation efforts for more than 20 years. When the group dissolved its membership, continuing responsibility for local building restoration efforts and preservation activism was bequeathed to a new generationappreciative of the craftsmanship and architecture distinctive to a Topeka their grandparents might have known.

Many examples of this architectural diversity, some peculiar to the Midwest and Frontier Kansas, still can be seen on a tourby foot, bike or carthrough the neighborhoods they distinguish. For a helpful guide, when viewing these stately mansions, elaborately-trimmed Victorians and geometrically solid Prairie Style houses, refer to the re-creation of that Historic Topeka pictorial that follows.

Architectural styles are located by Topeka neighborhood and national region, a description follows of distinctive features and design influences, with photo illustrations. Road or street locations of local examples are provided. Navigate the vocabulary list and look over the accompanying map. Then get your bike out, grab a camera and some bottled water, and travel back a few centuries in time.

North Topeka

Style: Two or three stories, seldom one, built from brick, stone and wood; overhanging eaves with decorative and often paired supporting brackets beneath a low-pitched, hipped roof commonly topped by a square cupola or tower; tall, narrow windows, arched and set under inverted U-shaped hooded or pedimented crowns; elaborate, bracketed cornices and single-story porches.

Regions: This was a popular style in the Midwest, the Northeast seaboard area and in San Francisco; it is least common in The South, where there was little construction till after the Civil War and Reconstruction. The style began in England as part of the Picturesque Movement--a reaction to the formal, classical ideals dominating art and architecture for 200 years. Similar styles: Renaissance Revival, Informal Italian Villa. Local: Lower Silver Lake Road.

Style: Eastlake and the earlier, Stick Style, 1860-1880, refer to woodwork trim. This included lathe-turned spindle posts, balusters and railings and scroll-sawn cornices on porches; decorative brackets supported extended eaves; gable ends, window and door cornices were worked floral or geometric designs of raised wood. Named for English furniture designer, Charles Eastlake, the ornate trims and wood turnings also appear on the exteriors of Stick style houses.

Regions: Eastlake style is common in Northeast suburban and resort areasit was considered appropriate for wood-built summer cottages but not for urban homes. Brick versions create picturesque detail by pattern or color of brickwork. A West Coast Stick style, 1880-1895, developed unique features including a squared bay window and pilaster-trimmed windows and doors. [Local Landmark: The Segar Place, built in 1888 at 1132 NW Harrison in North Topeka, is Eastlake Victorian.] Local: NW Harrison Street.

The rest is here:
At Home Living: Architectural types shaped early Topeka

Want to "Walk the Line" where Johnny Cash once played as a child?

Before he changed the music industry with songs like "Ring of Fire" and "Folsom Prison Blues," Johnny Cash spent his hardscrabble childhood in the small community of Dyess, Arkansas.

The Johnny Cash Boyhood Home, the newest of Arkansas State University's Heritage Sites, opens Saturday for public tours after a restoration project that includes other historic buildings.

When visitors walk into the home, they are stepping back into the 1930s. Cash family artifacts original to the home include the piano that belonged to Johnny's mother, his father's shaving mug and even the original flooring in his childhood bedroom and the living room. The living room linoleum still has burn marks caused by the wood-burning stove.

Other furnishings and objects are of the time period and mostly contributed by donors, said Ruth Hawkins, director of Arkansas Heritage Sites at Arkansas State University. They are based on the photos and memories of Tommy Cash and Joanne Cash Yates, two of Johnny Cash's siblings.

Period details include a pedestal sewing machine, a battery-operated radio like one Johnny Cash would play at night and the living-room sofa. The period icebox and corner cabinet were painted the apple-green color the siblings remember.

The Dyess Colony was a federal agricultural resettlement community created in 1934, part of President Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal program in response to the Great Depression. The colony provided homes and jobs for about 500 poor farm families, including the Cash family.

Johnny, called JR at the time, was 3 years old when his family moved into a Dyess home in 1935. Johnny spent his childhood in Dyess, attending school and church in the town. He also suffered an enormous loss when his brother Jack was killed in a sawmill accident in 1944. Cash left "JR" behind and became Johnny when he left Arkansas for the Air Force in 1950.

Arkansas was an important influence on Cash, who told audiences how "Five Feet High and Rising" and many of his other songs were influenced by his time living in Dyess.

"The little church in Dyess, Arkansas, has been such an inspiration to me, and (so have) the people from Dyess," Cash said at the 40th reunion of Dyess High School in 1990, in a video exhibited at the Dyess Colony Museum.

Continue reading here:
'Walk the Line' at Johnny Cash's boyhood home

In a clearing off of a wooded lane in Stevenson is a white stucco, Tuscan-style villa with ornate cast-iron window boxes spilling summer vines, looking like the subject of an impressionist painting.

Inside, beyond the driveway and the arched, two-story center bay, the Iliev family Martin and Jessica, their 3-year old son, Max, and a pair of toy poodles, Sophie and Tiger welcome visitors to their newly built home.

In a large, open kitchen dominated by a center island that's topped with a 9-by-6-foot slab of white quartz, the Ilievs, who own Carbiz, recalled purchasing the 4-acre parcel of land. They donated the property's original house to Second Chance, a nonprofit that deconstructs homes and sells the salvaged materials at a discount.

"They came and deconstructed the whole thing," 28-year-old Jessica Iliev said. "Jon [Skarda of Shoreline Construction] built us this very green, geothermal house."

From the beginning, the Ilievs knew they wanted a contemporary, provincial look with the contrast of light and dark found in the alabaster walls and white cabinets against the dark pine trim of the windows and dark oak flooring throughout the first level.

The architecture shines in the details, such as 10-foot ceilings (both coffered and tray) with recessed lighting, bump outs, wide-width baseboards and interior door molding, and decorative uses of paneling.

In the home's first-floor open layout, rooms flow effortlessly into one another through the 50-by-30-foot space, with areas defined by furniture and rug placement. The decor is understated but dramatic.

"For the interior, we don't ascribe ourselves to any certain decor, and prefer a more eclectic mix of styles from new and old," Jessica said. "The common spaces reflect this the most. We've anchored the large spaces with traditional pieces and added color and flavor through accessories."

To balance the weightiness of the kitchen island, the couple chose glazed maple cabinetry with brushed nickel pulls and, for contrast, dark Portuguese soapstone countertops and backsplash.

A formal suite from Restoration Hardware in Baltimore fills the bump-out dining area. Belgian linen-upholstered oak chairs surround the 2-by-10-foot oak dining table. Shoreline constructed a built-in bar/buffet area on one side of the room, opposite a floor-to-ceiling china cabinet with intricate glass panes and the same glazed maple as the kitchen cabinets.

Continue reading here:
Custom-built Stevenson home charms down to the details

Arkansas Culture and Characters Restored Johnny Cash Boyhood Home opens to visitors tomorrow Posted By David Ramsey on Fri, Aug 15, 2014 at 4:48 PM The Dyess Colony Museum and Johnny Cash's restored boyhood home will be open for visitors tomorrow after a restoration project that began in early 2012.

The Dyess Colony was created by the New Deal in 1934 as a community for farm families struggling during the Great Depression. Johnny Cash's family moved to the community in 1935. Check out our story on the Dyess Colony and the restoration project from a few years back. There will be exhibits on the colony and its impact on Cash and his music. His boyhood home is restored and furnished as it was when the Cash family lived there.

Tours are $10 per person, more info here.

Photographer Kat Robinson got a sneak preview last May and did a big post on her blog.The Encyclopedia of Arkansas has lots more on the Dyess Colony.

Tags: Johnny Cash, Dyess Colony, Arkansas Culture and Characters, Image

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Restored Johnny Cash Boyhood Home opens to visitors tomorrow

Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta on Thursday (August 14th) announced that National Intelligence Service (NIS) Director General Michael Gichangi has resigned for "personal reasons".

Gichangi was appointed in 2006 for a five year term and his appointment was renewed in 2011.

"Gichangi had a distinguished and colourful career spanning four decades in Kenya's defence forces, where he rose through the ranks to major general," Kenyatta said in a statement. "He has played his role as director general of NIS with commitment, dedication and professionalism, for which our country is grateful."

Kenyatta added that he has asked Gichangi to remain in the post until a replacement is found.

The president also announced a host of other personnel changes, including a reshuffle of eight principal secretaries, notably Mutea Iringo who moves from the Interior Ministry to the Ministry of Defence and Monica Juma who moves to the Interior Ministry.

Head of Public Service Francis Kimemia was also moved to the less powerful position of Secretary of the Cabinet, Kenya's Daily Nation reported.

Kenyatta said the changes were necessary in order to improve service delivery and "realign the assignment of portfolio responsibility of the government".

Kenyatta also announced former Finance Minister Njeru Githae as the Kenya's new Ambassador to the United States, filling a post that has been vacant for a year.

Continue reading here:
Kenya: Intelligence Chief Resigns, Kenyatta Announces Cabinet Reshuffle

Marshall County Engineer Paul Geilenfeldt has plans so replace a concrete box culvert bridge on Marble Road (E18) with and expected price tag of $225,000.

The culvert is more than 20 feet long, so technically it's known as a bridge, he said.

It is located less than a mile west of Highway 14 toward Liscomb.

T-R PHOTO BY ANDREW POTTER This concrete box culvert on E18 (Marble Road) west of Highway 14 and east of Liscomb is in line to be replaced next year.

Geilenfeldt said there are problems with the sidewalls of the current culvert.

"The structure is not sufficient to carry overweight loads that are often permitted to use county routes," Geilenfeldt said. "Any further deterioration of this structure would cause us to place weight restrictions on the culvert."

The current concrete box culvert was built in 1958. The county expects to let the project out to bid in December with construction planned for 2015.

The board of supervisors recently approved temporary easements with landowners in the area including Dean Sharp and William Elliott to allow construction crews to utilize their property for the work.

This will be the first of two box culverts to be replaced on E18 as another at Oxford Avenue is planned for next year due to the same set of concerns, Geilenfeldt said.

See original here:
County plans $225,000 culvert replacement