Architecture for the joy of being
Old growth redwoods outside of Crescent City CA, September 2021 (c)mlRobles
I have lived in Boulder since 1978 when I stopped on my way to Seattle from Tucson. I was a bright-eyed romanticist architecture graduate from the University of Arizona College of Architecture. Boulder struck me as so very very obviously beautiful, it hurt my eyes after the austere and sublime desert of Arizona. I was annoyed at all this beauty just oozing out everywhere I looked. But the city was so sweet and kind and accessible after the endless sprawl of Tucson, so I stayed, and stayed, and stayed.
I began to see beyond the obvious beauty of this natural setting and to love the seasons that transformed verdant landscapes into wet yellow clumps and to find streaks of ochre and lime green in the dirt and rocks and to engage the fog in hide and seek and allow the clouds that sweep over the foothills to blow my mind.
As the decades passed it was the city that began to hurt my eyes and ears. I would travel away and come back to a renewed letdown at the small-mindedness that was driving change in my city. What had been a remarkable Frank Shorter running through the city became every wannabe in spandex flashing through the neighborhoods. What had been neighborhoods of modest bungalows and ranch houses with big mature trees became neighborhoods of houses and trees scraped clean to make way for shiny super-sized and paved mcmansions to satisfy the appetites of the increasing influx of people wanting something from our city. As though that early sweet kind accessible city that nurtured the likes of Frank Shorter and Mo Siegel could be had with a bulldozer!
I have sat in stillness these recent years as bulldozers’ dust made my eyes tear and the loudness of STUFF moving in and around made me deaf. The quieter I got, the less the influx mattered. The raw greed, massive consumption, and little regard for what was already here became innocuous. I stopped fighting and surrendered. And then something remarkable happened. The simple joy of being began to rise. And the questions that pressed my mind had little to do with annoyance at the state of my city, rather they became instances of insight that touched my heart. You can read about this evolution in my previous posts, today, we feast at the center of this insight: architecture for the joy of being!
If this sounds dubious to you, stop and look around. Take a few breaths. What do you feel? Then take another breath and see what you feel, then another and another until you find you aren’t looking around but rather looking within. And all you feel is space. This is the point of architecture: to articulate space such that its inhabitants can find their way to inner space. The noise stops. Joy rises. It is the highest calling of my profession.
I return to being a bright-eyed romanticist but I am also a mature architect and I know that not everyone is ready to be still and to find their way to the space within. The dazzle of stuff remains strong. Architecture for the joy of being, however, is here, for those who are ready.
01 Poche_Truss: a patent-pending building system
Say you woke up tomorrow and found that the world no longer held to the rules you had invested a career holding on to. Rules such that land was malleable and light was functional, and that stillness was a phenomena to be debated but not apparently useful. And you found that instead, there was a growing awareness of a web of life stirring just below the surface of the land; and that light began to give way to emotion wrapped in atmosphere; and that stillness revealed its power to manifest everything. Do you think this would change anything?
I have invented a new way to build. And it solves many of our current day construction issues such as lack of skilled labor, unstable material cost, and the lean toward making more environmentally robust buildings. As an architect, I am a problem solver, intelligent solutions come from fixing attention on the situation. And so it did with the Poche_Truss. The image below claims all of the above in its patent application.
The thing, though, is that parallel to my inventing the Poche_Truss Building System, life happened. It brought with it tragedy beyond comprehension of a magnitude that dissolved my world. The conceptual way of thinking that is so prevalent in architecture slid away with it. 
I feel like Peter Zumthor must feel; I see like Glenn Murcutt must see; I hear Ray Kappe’s quiet gaze, yet, more than anything from my learned world of architecture, I sense the presence of a profound reality that I can no longer dismiss.
No – I have not gone all woo-woo. I have held death in my arms and the gift has been to have life implode, snapping presence right here, right now, into the very current of life. This phenomena is not held by thinking, but is simply present in a humble breath.
Here is what remains: I have a patent-pending building system that addresses many of the challenges in our residential construction reality. The Poche_Truss Building System is an audacious disruptive innovation that will rock the construction world. I am just saying…this IS a tangible solution.
Have a look here, though. The thing about poche is that it has a substantive thickness capable of creating a threshold between a deeply human interior and the forces of nature and society on the exterior. If we engage this inherent quality of poche with rapt attention, we can reach a dimension of profound wellbeing. Confucius said that the beginning of wisdom is to call things by their proper name. The poche in our truss building system not only sets up for tangible intelligence, it suggests a new way for buildings to Be* by upping their capacity to change our environment.
*The extent to which a building can Be is determined by its ability to enable the currents of light, air, views, and precipitation to flow and by it being situated such that people can inhabit these currents.
4-06-2021 Boulder, CO
Many of us woke up and have found that the world no longer holds to the old rules and that this in fact changes everything. If you are interested in attending a presentation on the Poche_Truss Building System and/or if you are interested in executing and/or co-founding the Poche_Truss Building System project, please get in touch: ml@studiopoints.com
Poche_Truss
It is said again and again in the recent decade: housing is the one major industry that has resisted disruption. In spite of the facts that material costs are all over the map; there is a severe labor shortage; buildings account for upwards of 30% of greenhouse gases; extraction, manufacturing, and construction carbon and waste are generally unaccounted for or to; and, there is a severe housing crisis for those having no home to those affording a house on a middle income. Yet the industry barely budges. Small residential projects and developer houses are built as they have been for centuries, with few innovations. Aren’t we done with this? I am.
Introducing the Poche_Truss (PatPend), an audacious disruptive innovation in residential construction. It is a low tech invention that sits right under our collective construction noses, embodied in the humble truss.
What is not to love? The thin profile of the structural frame and the spacious unfolding of setting them sequentially to magically create space. In my career it was inevitable that this humble construction strategy would take hold of my imagination. In 1997 I flipped the trusses upside down on the Shaffer house and never looked back.
A short two dozen years later, On January 22, 2021, a provisional patent was filed with the US Patent and Trademark Office: Wall Roof Truss Building System, Inventor: ml Robles. Presentations on this building system are ongoing.
ADUforMe 2021
Our first wee house in a backyard is done! #14 under Boulder’s revised ADU regulations. Its total cost, excluding land, in 2019-2020 was $190,600, at 540sf that translates to $353/sf.
Our second wee house in a backyard is under design. This one is substantially different. For one, lumber costs have more than doubled in cost and preliminary cost came in at almost $500/sf. A 41% overall increase! Plus – Boulder adopted the IECC’s 2018 energy conservation standards. But wait, there is more – COVID-19 happened and the city approval process is spiraling in excess and redundancy. Yikes. I, however, remain undeterred in building ADUs to change the way we make small houses and use our urban land. ADUforMe and Studio Points are making their way through all of this. We bring a solution to the table. Coming soon…the Poche_Truss!
ADUforMe.com Forum
ADUforMe ONLINE Forum & FAQ
The purpose of this forum is to give ADU users, owners, or builders a place to seek answers and find community. Although we see ADUs increasingly referenced these days, they are still somewhat of an enigma as some folks think of them as small versions of big houses or house versions of cheap condos; others see them as prefab boxes; others consider them high yield income options; others see them as opportunities to provide housing for many who might not get to live (or remain) in amenity rich neighborhoods. Essentially folks come to ADUs from many and varied perspectives. As an architect I defer to the notion that in providing site specific housing, there is no one-size solution. Single family house’s backyards are always specific sites and the owners’ needs and goals are going to differ across the spectrum of ADU owners. All that being noted, however, there are definitely many things all ADUs have in common. Size and backyards being two obvious ones. Having non-developer homeowners is another.
I will kick off the forum with my takes on the common ground:
ADU size: Where will all my stuff fit? is a common reaction to size. I can definitely feel the pain of one’s attachment to their stuff. You have to be uber awake to dodge the constant temptation to consume this or that, even in the grocery store we over purchase from a make-believe reality that we will hurry home and chop and dice and simmer and produce those picture perfect morsels. Truth is, we throw away one pound of food each day! It is supremely hard to back off from the consuming we have undertaken most of our lives. Yet read any of the stories of the ones who have escaped and are living a minimalist ideal. By hearing how those few are shedding the stuff and all the stress that comes from buying and living with it, we can feel an exquisite exhale. Now this is what I am interested in: losing the drive to buy, buy, buy and replacing it with empty. Just space, and light. This is the start of right sizing your ADU.
Backyards: used to be this is where most of our urban nature living took place, where we kids were free to imagine. Today’s backyards have been usurped by rarely used designer outdoor kitchens, electric pump activated babbling brooks, and manicured landscaping. No self-respecting kid would play ‘fort’ in those bushes, do kids even know how to play ‘fort’? It seems backyards are up for a revelation. Without getting into all the social justice issues of zoning, my take on backyards is that they are gems of nature waiting to be of use once more, waiting to burst us open with imagination. Hold on to that feeling and it will guide these backyard houses toward a right fit.
Non-Developer homeowner: changing regulations in cities and municipalities across the nation have hurled hundreds upon hundreds of homeowners upon the doorstep of building a small house in their backyard. Talk about lost! ADUs wobble like Jell-O as builders and bankers drool over an untapped market. The good news here is that most of the folks peering into the ADU market are gearing up at about the same speed. Will it be the profit-seeking developer or the game-changer agency or the one-by-one builder who will slide ahead and define the future of ADUs? If I am to believe in a right sized ADU of space and light guided to land in service of an emerging societal shift, then my two cents are with the game-changer. And I do not take the lost homeowner as truly lost but rather momentarily disoriented. Here is where my decades of architecture practice and studio teaching will guide. We may all be gearing up at the same speed, but the path I take cuts directly into a world where we will want to live.
FAQ
What is an ADU? ADU: Accessory Dwelling Unit, backyard house, granny flat. ADUs are basically a second house on your single family property. They can be inside your existing house or stand alone as a separate house.
Where can I find out if my property can have an ADU? ADUs are subject to zoning law. In most states these are established by your local county or city. In California and New Hampshire the state has established base ADU regulations making them legal on every single-family property in the state, local government cannot deny them. You find out what your local ADU regulations are by checking with your local planning department, it might be your county or city. Some cities and private developers have set up very cool planning tools where you can check your property’s capacity for an ADU online.
What are some resources for getting ADU information? First place to check for resources will be your local planning department, this will lead you to the specific requirements for your property. There are also many non-profit agencies dedicated to ADUs as well as university programs. Additionally you can check online for local architects and builders who specialize in ADUs. When I provide ADUforMe presentations giving the general public basic how-to information, I announce them on my local Nextdoor. You could also try MeetUp. Coming soon, ADUforMe.com will provide a comprehensive resource for all things ADU, so save the link and be sure to check back as we launch.
ADUforMe ONLINE Forum will launch with our ADUforMe.com platform. In the meantime if you have an ADU relevant subject you would like to bring up, please leave a message and I will get back to you.
ADUforMe.com
ADU for Me.com will be the platform for all things ADU. Looking to build one? Rent one? Find architects or builders who specialize in them? Just wondering how and what others are doing? ADU for Me.com will be the AirBnB for ADUs plus the HomeAdvisor of ADUs plus the NEXTDOOR for ADUs. Accessory Dwelling Units – aka ADUs – are swelling across the country and placing regular folks in the position of being a developer and landlord. ADU for Me.com is the resource to help successfully make those transitions. So, interspersed with the Good Design is Like That writing, you will find information about ADUforMe.com until that site gets launched. Pardon the dust.
ADUforMe Boulder – Do you wonder if you can have an ADU on your property and where it can be located and what size it can be? I can help find answers.
Why Does Housing Need to be Brave?
Why does housing need to be brave?, you might wonder. Do you remember the pressure in high school to fit in? Or the challenge in your profession to do as everyone else does? These days it seems that value has been found in making mistakes and stepping outside the lines, essentially in following an untried path. Yet some things, no matter the unconventional line you might be walking, some things seem to be held in place with much deeper roots. Housing is one of those things. To convince your neighbors or city council or even your spouse that providing a place for a stranger to live in your backyard in a modest small house is a good thing, can be an unexpected uphill battle. Most of us living in desirable cities realize that the oft spoken housing crisis is quite real. Land is valuable beyond what any of us imagined when we bought into our single family houses decades ago. And population growth is not a far off phenomena going on in lands far beyond our reach. This is going on right here, right now with ever expanding consequences. And as I often have pointed out to my city council, you would not know we were in the midst of a climate crisis to walk through our city and see the smashing up of old structures and tipping them into the landfill and the super sizing of new constructions with barely lip service to green building much less renewable energy or regenerative practices.
When will the immediacy of climate change disrupt our patterns?
I like to think small. I like to think about the single things any one of us can do in our daily routines. Like recycle that can or bottle. Like walk or take a bike. Like turn off lights and grow native grass to reduce water use. Things we have heard a million times over the past decades, these should all be second nature by now, you think? I met a man at a political event just a day ago. As we got to talking something steered the conversation to recycling and I matter-of-factly acknowledged that we certainly would know that cardboard and wood are recyclable and reusable. His response shook my reality. He said, no, he did not recycle. Yes he lived in Boulder, yes he lived in an apartment building with massive recycle bins. But no, he did not recycle. That was for white people. SILENCE
How does this happen? How is it that the consequences of our actions do not trickle upward to the consequences for our planet? Do I recycle because it rocks my little green world or do I recycle because I know that we live on a planet of finite resources with a population explosion that is severely taxing the ability for this planet to supply our growing needs? I saw that vulnerable little blue marble of a planet in those photos from space. They made my heart swell as I thought of the millions of creatures that make this home. It is nothing short of a miracle, that this much life has arisen in ecological cooperation for billions of years. And in a couple of hundred years humans have taken the path of dominating every other specie on the planet.
I return to thinking small. Because that is where you and I can still see the wonder of life. I practice architecture. And what I have noticed is that it is increasingly difficult to include the word beauty and even sustainability into the client conversation. I am convinced that the Internet has made us stupid. It provides a means for untrained people to gain limited information about things they truly know nothing about and cannot begin to know from a stroll on the Internet. This may be nice for looking up facts like, what year was Elvis born? But it is such a disservice to use it to educate yourself about how to make a house or a space. It provides false understanding and closes you to the true sources of a great house or a delightful space.
In today’s world we can still find many places to hide our heads in the sand. While you are there, check out that gain of sand for it holds all the connections to everything else.
I see small houses that way. Although backyard houses are just bit players in the housing options, they are a key nexus that can nudge us to use less and to participate more and with good design, small houses can provoke us to feel our interconnection. That is no longer small, that is brave.
Went to the loo in Austin
I had a family reunion in Austin this past weekend. And you know how reunions go, you are so involved with enjoying the get together you push other things to the back of your mind. Like visiting the loo.
I, however, had a loo – front and center in my mind.
Lady Bird Loo, Austin Texas, Mell Lawrence Architects, Austin Buildings need to work amazingly well. Ours do. They reflect a deep sense of place and life pattern. Mell Lawrence Architects, Austin
It was late morning on a hot and humid July day, typical for Austin. The Colorado River looked serene in its placid state of pale green and blue water. A cooling breeze seemed to drop the temperature to bearable as we walked the gravel trail along its bank.
Two awkward looking rusted steel structures came into view. I instantly recognized them from their published photos. They looked more shadow than structure as the tall steel sheets rose directly from the ground.
When you are on an architectural pilgrimage, no matter how humble, attention is moreso. I walked around the structures, peeking into the narrow gap between the steel panels and the concrete end wall, noting the carefully detailed clips that held the steel panels to the frame. The panels were already covered in rust, the intended end game of Corten steel that allows the natural salt and humidity to corrode its surface to a point of patina before further corrosion is inherently stopped. This rust felt almost dangerous as I carefully inspected the corrosion flakes.
I ran my hand along the board formed concrete end walls, feeling the wood grain and the concrete bits that leaked through, forming thin rough rows across the wall.
As I continued to walk around the buildings, sensing the tall and folding walls, I eventually realized that they were locked for maintenance. Actually, that had not in the least diminished my experience. The buildings were quite available as simple structures along a trail. Belonging to the site regardless of their use. Good design is like that.
He stood before the tall granite wall and surrendered
Ansel Adams – that American icon of photography and champion for wild places. But he didn’t start out with the capacity to translate into his medium – photography – the power of wild places. It all began with the wild places lighting him up and then building within him an insatiable need to express those experiences. Like the time he stood before the tall granite wall in Yosemite and could not find peace until he uncovered a means to express the feeling.
If I feel something strongly I would make a photograph that would be the equivalent of what I saw and felt. Ansel Adams (American Experience: Ansel Adams)
‘A photograph that would be the equivalent’ to what he saw and felt, there is perhaps no greater challenge to those of us who make things than the leaps we must take to embed into the work the profound sensations that we have experienced but cannot explain except by provoking them through our work. As the career of photographer Ansel Adams attests, artists must stand on that fine line where on one side normalcy and usual perception prevail while the other side touches the abyss where infinity whispers.
I trust the first impression, the initial glance at an image seems to reveal its inherent qualities. Ansel Adams (Ansel Adams, an autobiography)
Adams professed a process he called the Zone System which commenced with an intuition-driven visualization where excitement and perception held him to account. He accordingly set his camera, with the vision in mind, to capture the sensations he experienced – using his framework of camera exposures to capture areas of different luminance in the subject, each related to exposure zones and these in turn to approximate values of grey in the final print. He was a master of light and he bade the camera to do his bidding as he tuned the exposures to grant him the qualities that would explode through his pictures.
I am interested in expressing something that is built up from what is within rather than this extraction from without. Ansel Adams (American Experience: Ansel Adams)
It is impossible – totally and utterly impossible – to make anything of any consequence without having had that profound and altering experience in knowing the thing you are attempting to translate. Detachment is not an option, you must hold an intimacy of excruciating vulnerability to first have the experience and then, to believe it, you must be courageous because as an artist it will be your job to provoke that profound experience. This is the consequence of stepping into the realms that cannot be explained: we are haunted to bring back the bits and to make portals that guide back to their source.
Architecture knows no other means for manifestation. Do not be fooled by the computer renditions, it is from the hand that the charge of the sublime must flow. Adams developed and used his Zone system in such a way that the camera was altered to reveal what he saw not what the mechanics of its predisposition proposed. As in computer drafting/design – the machine has a predisposition that lulls you into its reality. My design process is surprisingly akin to what Adams devised, it begins with almost meditative intuitive hits about the land and program (this is where I make power-filled little models that hold the gesture – the fullness of the experience) and then I make geo maps and physical models – lots and lots of them – to capture the areas of different luminance – each related to material and scale and sitting. The building sections and plans toggle back and forth and in turn develop into details and constructions. I hold the original intuitions as a reference throughout the design even as construction materializes. That initial seeing holds the inherent qualities that will become the architecture.
We all move on the fringes of eternity and are sometimes granted vistas through the fabric of illusion. (Ansel Adams, an autobiography)
Do not even for a blink suppose that the creative life is other than this. We must hone our ability to see through the fabric of illusion if we are to make good design.
