Monday, May 19, 2014

THE NICK OF TIME


In architecture, the surest way to achieve a timeless design is to use materials that are familiar, durable, and that become more beautiful the older they get. Not surprisingly, most of the materials that qualify have been around for ages.

Brick is a classic example. It’s among the most ancient building materials--the oldest known bricks, found in the upper Tigris region of what is now Turkey, date back to around 7500 BC. In all the intervening millenia, not much about brick has changed, either: Even here in twenty-first century America, where nothing happens fast enough, genuine brick is still installed at a relative snail’s pace, one little piece at a time. 

Other common examples of timeless materials include stone, heavy timber, and metals with so-called “living finishes”, such as copper, brass, and bronze. All of these can shrug off decades and sometimes even centuries of abuse without losing any of their visual appeal. In fact, most people find them more beautiful when they’re old and weathered--”patinated”, in the parlance of the trade--than when they’re brand new:  

The value of a patina shouldn’t be underestimated, either: we’ve all seen episodes of Antiques Road Show in which an expert tells the hopeful owner something like: “Well, if you hadn’t polished this 17th century bronze door knocker, I’d have valued it at six thousand dollars, but all shined up like this it’s worth about $17.50.” That’ll teach a guy to keep his hands off the Brasso. 

The funny thing is that, while almost everybody finds the greenish patina of an old copper gutter beautiful, almost nobody feels that way about a weathered plastic gutter. The reason, I think, is that no matter how old the copper gutter gets, we know that it will still serves its purpose perfectly. On the other hand, we can also presume that a weathered plastic gutter has already bought a one-way ticket to the Dumpster. We’ve learned to associate visual cues of aging with intrinsic durability. We see beauty in the aging of certain materials, and just plain failure in others.

At the larger scale of architecture, though, there’s more to a timeless finishe than just aging gracefully. The appeal of a brick wall, for example, has just as much to do with its ability to reflect the human being who created it. Flaws and all, the wall becomes a compelling record of the mason’s skill and personality, frozen in time right before our eyes.

Other largely handcrafted finishes such as wrought iron, stucco, shingle, shake, and tile, all of which have been around for thousands of years, can also provide this sort of snapshot in time, precisely because they’re never perfect. The telltale flaws of hand workmanship are so integral to a timeless finish, in fact, that the manufacturers of mass produced wannabe products such as artificial brick and imitation slate routinely design in fake defects, straining mightily to evoke the charm of the real thing. 

Well, just keep at it. You’ll get it wrong enough eventually.

Monday, May 5, 2014

LOFTY MARKETING


A while back, I got a solicitation from a local real estate agent whose client was ostensibly in the market for a loft. The agent described her buyer’s ideal “loft”--apparently without irony--as having “at least 2 bedrooms, 2 baths, (and) 1500+ square feet.”

I wondered why the agent bothered using the term “loft” when it sounded more like her client was really in the market for a huge condo apartment, if not a fair-sized house.
Webster defines loft as “an upper room or floor” or “one of the upper floors of a warehouse or business building, especially when not partitioned.” The real estate and development industries, on the other hand, seem to define loft as “a chic new label that can be applied at will to a standard housing formula.”

Initially, the entire point of developing lofts--and perhaps we should be precise and call them commercial or industrial lofts or live/work spaces--was to utilize America’s growing stock of disused but often architecturally praiseworthy commercial and industrial buildings. Artists, musicians, and other people seeking wide-open, rough-and-tumble interior spaces were the first to occupy such buildings, often illegally. They were soon followed by other independent minded occupants of all kinds. 

Despite staunch early resistance from staid city governments and code-thumping building departments, it soon became clear that intelligent rehabbing of nonresidential buildings for living made perfect sense: It put substantial and often ruggedly beautiful structures to good use instead of consigning them to the wreckers. It offered inexpensive living space--initially, at least--along with unparalleled interior flexibility. And at the same time, it revitalized declining industrial areas by introducing a lively, round-the-clock population. 

So, despite bureaucratic opposition by the usual suspects, the loft movement became tremendously successful. Too successful for its own good, alas: It wasn’t long before a certain stripe of developer learned to exploit the profit potential inherent in this formula, while at the same time neatly circumventing the apparent annoyance of having to actually rehab old buildings. Instead, they simply started erecting new ones and tarting them up in quasi-industrial costume. Corrugated siding, metal windows, and a few exposed steel beams suddenly qualified a run-of-the-mill condo development as a “loft” or a “live-work” project.

Well, so what? Who cares what a building is called as long as it serves its purpose? You might as well ask the difference between apples and Apple Jacks. Calling an ordinary, new-from-the-ground-up condo development a “loft” simply plunders the most salable aspects of a valid and environmentally responsible concept without providing any of the social benefits in return. 

Like the US auto industry with its oxymoronic “hybrid SUV” offerings, developers who apply the term “loft” to otherwise unremarkable new projects kill two birds with one stone: They makes buyers--like that lady pining for a two-bedroom, two bath “loft”--feel warm and fuzzy about supporting the same old paradigm. At the same time, they sidestep the bother and expense of genuine innovation, conveniently ignoring the fact that true lofts are a lifestyle, not just a label.