Norman Alston Architects

Airborne Architects

As if we were not having enough fun working with beautiful historic buildings, now even the trip to visit the site can be a little shorter and a lot more fun. After a remarkably long, but thoughtful effort, I achieved my Private Pilot, Single Engine, Land certificate in April.

Achieving this goal has long-sought after benefits for our architectural services. One of the unique characteristics of historic preservation centered practice is that there is almost always an existing building with which to interact. This painfully obvious observation nonetheless represents a fundamental difference from a "standard" practice where totally new buildings are conceived. Yes, one should visit the site prior to design of a new building, but the bulk of the work is initially performed in offices, sometimes hundreds or thousands of miles from the building site. Our practice, by contrast, involves a great deal more involvement with the building site for documentation of existing conditions, historic research and ongoing verification of building issues.  Most meetings, even during the design phase, are accomplished on site or in the vicinity. It only stands to reason.

Light Bulbs: We're not sure what a bright idea looks like.

I just read an article in the Wall Street Journal about Compact Fluorescent bulbs (CFL) and how the struggling economy has been manifested in lower sales of CFL's, both the total number sold and as a percentage of all light bulbs. Seems that energy is still not expensive enough to motivate folks to go to the much more expensive bulbs. I have written previously about my concern regarding these bulbs, here and here. I just don't see them as the solution. Judging from the comments posted at the WSJ article, I'm not alone.  So bring on the next technology, be it LED or whatever.

However, the article also got me thinking about this issue in another way. Maybe it's all perception and timing. What if the roles of the bulbs were reversed? What if things had develolped differently over the years, and most light bulbs in common use were CFL's? Most of that technology has been with us since the 1930's anyway so it's not too far fetched. So what all we had known over the years were CFL's. What, then, if the incandescents and halogen lights were a relatively obscure technology that had burst upon the scene, championed by government initiatives and Wall-Mart? Imagine how they would be marketed and how we might feel about them.

The new bulbs (incandescent) would be promoted based on their advantages. They would be the new bulbs that were Mercury-free and more environmentally friendly than the standard CFL's. They would have a whiter light that performed much better on the Color Rendition Index, giving you more realistic skin tones and better color in fabric and artwork, or even wall paint. They would be truly, completely and elegantly dimmable (which the CFLs really are not), allowing previously unknown flexibility in lighting design and mood setting. Best of all, they would be a tiny fraction  of the price of the current bulbs, which would be more than a fair trade for the added energy they use or their shorter life span.

That sounds like a technological advancement to me.

Memorial Day 2009

Remembering those to whom we owe so very much.

LEED Accredited Professional

The process technically began back in college at the University of Texas in the mid 1970's. I became involved, mostly by accident, with an effort within the School of Architecture that focused on what was generally referred to as "Alternative Energy". We studied issues like capturing solar energy through solar collectors and Trombe walls. We worked with recyclable materials, oriented buildings and building components to capture breezes, developed site plans that incorporated natural water collection and rotating pond locations, studied wind power, promoted natural lighting and the like. The husband and wife teaching team I studied under the most lived in a 100 year old, stone farm house in the hills west of Austin. They had no electricity and cooked over a fire in the fireplace, by choice.

Downstairs, at the Architecture Annex where all of this took place, another professor was "growing" buildings by submersing electrically charged chicken wire forms into brine tanks, a process that sped up crustaceous growth that naturally occurred in seawater. As a quick aside, I should mention that one of the student stars of alternate energy program was the now well known movie producer and director, Katherine Hardwicke. It  was an, uh, interesting time. Little of this, however, had any real application when I graduated and began working in architecture in the late '70s.

When I started to focus on historic preservation in the late 1980's, many of the lessons about natural lighting and ventilation, site use and orientation and materials conservation came roaring back. It seems that many of these practices we had learned in school had been in common use for centuries.  They remained so through the early part of the 20th Century, but had been cast aside in the technology boom following World War II. By 2000, we had begun to refer to historic preservation as "The Ultimate Recycle".

Thirty years after those interesting days at university, those same concepts of energy efficiency and conservation of natural processes are now referred to as collectively as Sustainability and are being promoted, even required, in all areas of architectural and engineering practice. This effort has come to be embodied in the program known as Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, or LEED, administered by the US Green Building Council (USGBC).

Included in this program is a process whereby those involved in a variety of building disciplines can demonstrate their understanding of the principals of LEED and can be recognized as a LEED Accredited Professional.

After more than 35 years of various levels of involvement of this effort, I am pleased to note that I obtained LEED AP status this past week.

Celebrate Downtown Dallas this Saturday

It's the hot time of year for preservation in Dallas. Two weeks ago was the Preservation Dallas 2009 Spring Architectural Tour featuring homes from 5 different decades. Last weekend was the venerable and still popular Swiss Avenue Mothers Day Home Tour. (Both of which, I might add, included the Parks/Lind Estate).

This Saturday, historic architecture in Downtown Dallas is featured in Celebrate Downtown 2009 Art and Architecture Tour, a joint offering from Downtown Dallas and Preservation Dallas. It's from 3 to 7 pm and gives participants an opportunity to experience some of the most recent and exciting developments in the Downtown area.

You can download the tour map here.