Blog Posts | Bjella Architects

What Did You Do Over the Weekend? I Built an Ultimate Fighting Death Ring.

Problem: How do you keep the young neighborhood whippersnappers off your lawn?

Solution: Cull the herd with an octagon of death.

It took all my years of intense design study and many trips back to the drawing board to get here, but it is complete. Well, mostly. Due to unexpected budget overruns, I was forced to eliminate the chain link and barbed wire. Do you know how much that stuff costs?

Sadly, the octagon of death cannot contain the little urchins without it, so now it’s just an octagon. Happily, my son Beck suggested we repurpose it and use it as a Gaga pit. For those of you older than fifteen, it’s a game like dodgeball and has nothing to do with the Lady.

Now my yard is regularly trampled by even more tiny little feet than before, proving the adage, if you build it, they will come. Much like the Coyote, I am relegated to forever dreaming up new, fiendish traps. The spinning-tree-swing-of-death, for example (that didn’t work either, btw). If only Acme sold something useful…

It started out as a chunk of forest. A little work with a chainsaw and Bobcat, and voila… a mudpit.

I enlisted grandpa and a few of the neighborhood kids to help out while I oversaw the construction. As an architect I never actually build anything. Rather, I nurture others in their dreams of building (or as many of my contractor buddies would say, sit on my ass and dream up stuff that’s impossible for them to build – eh, one or the other).

If you were wondering, my wife, Robyn, gave me that shirt in the pictures. It says “50% Architect, 50% superhero.” Sweet, huh? Now everyone asks me which I am today, a half-assed architect, or half-assed superhero. I’m giving her the benefit of the doubt that her intentions were good.

Note: No children were harmed in the making of the octagon of death.

The wood wasn’t even cold before word spread across the neighborhood

Tiny Bathroom = Tiny Vanity

Sometimes there isn’t much space available to fit a bathroom into a home. The idea behind this custom cylindrical vanity was to avoid filling the small room with bulky cabinetry and making it feel even smaller.

Random Sketchbook Dump – Sans Sketchbook

I’m a modern traditionalist who likes his pens and paper. But I have to say, technology has made great strides and may someday even supplant my old-school sketchbook. I drew this quick concept sketch of a house on my phone. My Phone! Using my fingertip! Not too shabby.

My Morning Haiku – Searching the Stars

Is That a Curtain Made of Stone? Yep.

Here’s something I don’t do every day: design a stone wall with the fluidity and movement of a curtain, except that it doesn’t actually move and is not fluid (but it is stone, anyway).

It took an exceptional contractor and group of dedicated craftsmen to make this happen. Thanks and Kudos!

Simultaneous Sketching (a New Artform?)

When my son, Beck, was quite little I taught him the fine art of drawing monsters, mostly to show him what was lurking under his bed at night. While sitting on my lap trembling (hey, it was his idea!), we created a whole new concept in artistic teamwork: Simultaneous sketching. One piece of paper and three hands (to be fair, one of mine was tied behind my back). I’ll leave it up to you to determine who contributed what.

Simultaneous sketching by Beck and Dad-5

Simultaneous sketching by Beck and Dad-3

I think Beck wandered off during the drawing below, or I hid his pencils, or something):

After the lesson, I nudged, alright shoved, the little bird out of the nest. Here’s his final exam:

Honestly, I’d rather find one of my monsters under the bed than his.

Visualizing a Home Before it’s Too Late – An Example, via a Modern Home Plan

Here’s a plan of a home. Can you tell what the home looks like by looking at the plan? No? I can’t either.

How about the elevation below? Does it help? My answer would be, “a little, but I still don’t really get it.”

Part of my job is to help clients visualize the home I designed for them before it’s built to ensure they are satisfied with my work. Plans and elevations are not enough. These two dimensional representations simply cannot convey the feeling of three dimensional spaces or the impact of the architecture on the site. Virtually walking through the home via a 3d computer model provides a much greater understanding, but does not quite paint the whole picture, either.

Modern Glass Island Home Computer Model by Arteriors Architects-4

Modern Glass Island Home Computer Model by Arteriors Architects-2

Modern Glass Island Home Computer Model by Arteriors Architects-1

Modern Glass Island Home Computer Model by Arteriors Architects-3

But a rendering… now that can capture the essence of a design in an artistic way like nothing else can.

A picture is worth a thousand words. Here are four thousand:

Raw Computer Model of Proposed House Design

Throw in a view or two from another perspective, and now you actually understand what you are building.

To this day, it amazes me that the vast majority of homes, even very expensive ones, are built with, at best, a few elevations and a plan. No physical model. No computer model. No renderings. I don’t know how they know what they are getting. Maybe they don’t care.

I Have Seen the Light!

I put in hundreds of lights in every home I design, mostly in the kitchens to accentuate every glorious crumb on the counters, but sometimes in the dungeons, too (occasionally the homeowners want to clean out some of the dank or buff the chains). My go-to fixtures use halogen, MR16 bulbs because of their gorgeous light quality. But, LED’s are taking over the world, and while they are much more energy efficient, the light quality tends to bluish and sickly, even the supposedly “warm” bulbs. They sometimes make me long for fluorescent. A part of the light spectrum is missing.

I received a new bulb sample today, the Soraa. It set me back $20. But, finally! I have found the holy grail of lighting, an LED light bulb that not only doesn’t make me bilious, but that I can honestly say I like.

If you have any Low Voltage, MR16 light fixtures in your home, I recommend you give these a look (literally).

Solution to ‘House on an Island – An Architectural Logic Puzzle’

Designing an island home led to this logic puzzle. If you haven’t read the puzzle, follow this link (preferably before reading the solution below).

Solution:

The ferryman takes the contractor across to the island, leaving him there, alone.

He goes back to the shore and brings the architect across to the island. But instead of leaving the architect and contractor together, he brings the contractor back with him to the shore.

The ferryman then takes the engineer across to the island, leaving him and the architect to swap recipes.

Finally, the ferryman goes back to the shore and takes the contractor across to the island.

All ends well.

A One-Word Poem on Life

Inspired by the shortest novel ever written, a six word story attributed to Hemingway, I have finally penned the penultimate poem (say that three times fast). My magnum opus. A single-word poem encompassing life, the universe and everything [pan to Douglas Adams turning in his grave].

Having previously unraveled the sound of one hand clapping, my focus is now on solving the conundrum of a single word rhyming. Here’s my poem (and no, it’s not 41 or 43, because that would be silly):