Architecture, Buildings

Art Moderne building needs home

2010-06-08T03:20:42Z

The Capitol Area Development Authority is hunting down a new home for a historic fourplex in an effort to save the Art Moderne building from a wrecking ball.

The stucco apartment building known as Capitol Gardens was built at 1517 N St. in 1949 by Sacramento architect and engineer Jacob Loyth. In fall 2011, construction will begin on the site at the northwest corner of 16th and N streets on a $43 million, nine-floor building with 117 condos.

CADA is trying to find a way to relocate the building's historic four front units to reduce the cumulative loss of historic resources and impact on a potential historic district, as directed by an environmental report for construction on the site.

The agency is facing relocation challenges involving the building's size and obstacles created by freeways and light-rail lines.

"So far, we haven't gotten a taker who's actually got a site that's appropriate," said Marc de la Vergne, CADA’s capitol area development manager.

CADA is willing to give the building away and provide $60,000 to move the building in order to preserve it. The apartments are expected to be occupied until summer 2011.

The building is 40 feet wide by 40 feet long — the exact dimensions of a standard city lot. The structure needs to be moved to a location where two lots are combined, unless a zoning administrator were willing to waive the requirement that buildings be smaller than the lots they sit on, de la Vergne said.

At 23 feet, the building is also too tall to fit under light-rail lines, such as those that run down R Street, and raised freeways running along the east and south sides of the city. The top of the structure would reach 26 feet when loaded onto a flatbed truck.

CADA staff identified several central city lots that could hold the building, but none of the property owners have been interested. The owner of a lot at 15th and W streets considered it until learning the building would have to be cut in half horizontally to fit it under light-rail lines.

The site's developers, Em Johnson Interest of San Francisco and Nehemiah Community Reinvestment Fund Holdings of Sacramento, are working with other people in town to find a new location, he said.

The building is among several constructed in the 1930s and 1940s in an area southeast of Capitol Park that has been discussed as a potential historic apartment district. The area contains Moderne and Revival apartment buildings.

A 2002 evaluation determined the building may be eligible for the Sacramento Register of Historic and Cultural Resources, as well as the California Register of Historic Resources — established to help identify and protect historical and archaeological assets.

"CADA has been really concerned to find a way to move it and get it saved, rather than end up demolishing it," said Karen Jacques, who restores historic buildings and sits on the city's Preservation Commission. "CADA has had a really good history with trying — and often being very succesful — with saving historic buildings."

Photos by Suzanne Hurt, a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press.

Designing for climate discussed in Sacramento

2010-01-29T05:28:30Z

Sacramento architecture can and should be designed for the city's climate, architect and green builder Matthew Piner said Wednesday.

With its temperate Mediterranean climate, Sacramento usually experiences hot, dry summers and mild, wet winters. Its location on two rivers in a valley between the Sierra Nevada mountains and the Pacific Ocean contributes delta breezes to cool off most summer nights, he said at a monthly architectural design forum, Design Dialogue, sponsored by the Urban Design Alliance of Sacramento.

Builders here — the same as builders throughout the world — once worked with Sacramento's natural climate to keep people comfortable when they sought shelter inside houses and other buildings. But builders moved away from such design with the inventions of conveniences such as electricity and air-conditioning.

That trend must change if Sacramento wants to reach a goal for carbon-neutral architecture by 2030 and join other Northern California cities on the cutting edge in developing clean, green technology, he said.

"We need to change the way we think — not just rely on using little boxes on roofs and pumping air around," said Piner, who owns PinerWorks Architectural & Building Group. He was guest speaker for Wednesday night's forum, "Integrating Climate + Form: A Valley City in Paradise," held at the local office for the American Institute of Architects.

Piner discussed the idea of architectural regionalism, a design approach developed for a unique place. He talked about experiments with such design and new technology and materials including photovoltaic paint and solar fiber. Piner also shared "ecofantasies" from designers in other areas, such as vertical urban farms and a phototropic skyscraper that uses biomimicry.

Climate-appropriate architecture can still be found throughout the world. Desert homes are cooled by wind towers on the Arabian Peninsula. Some Australian homes use fly roofs to provide ventilation. There are also Southeast Asian homes shaded by palm trees and raised on stilts to allow air circulation, Inuit igloos dug into the ground for warmth and earthern-wall adobe houses in Mexico.

Historic examples include the Native American cliff dwellings of Canyon de Chelly in Arizona and Mesa Verde in Colorado.

Sacramento has unique historic architecture designed for the climate before air-conditioning and even electricity existed. "High-water" Victorians and Arts and Craft bungalows were often built with basements and raised first floors that helped protect against flooding but also allowed cool air circulation underneath. High ceilings also provided circulation. Early city dwellers planted elms and other trees to shade the streets and houses, he said.

Piner presented a slide show with dozens of images, including photos of local buildings adapted to the climate and those that seem to ignore it. The state Department of General Services Resources Building, 1416 Ninth St., was one example of the latter, with an exterior that was the same on all four sides.

"This is a building I don't think gets it," Piner said. "This could be anywhere."

This city is most impacted by radiant heat. Now that most people no longer migrate with the seasons, those living here adapt to the heat first with the use of clothing. Designers and builders should take a cue from how our bodies are best heated and cooled when planning new buildings, Piner said.

"If we look at how we control the temperatures of surfaces, rather than air, we can look at different ways to build," he said. "We need to start thinking of our buildings as places for living things, rather than as mechanical boxes. I think that's how we unlock the (future of building)."

One way to do that is by orienting the building in relation to the sun to take advantage of daily and seasonal sun angles, he said.

More than 50 people attended the forum. Those in the audience included developers, neighborhood activists, preservationists, designers, builders, planners and government workers. During the discussion, one person pointed out that the dominance of mechanical solutions have allowed many people to forget why houses and other buildings were built the way they were years ago.

Others discussed ways the city will need to adapt to changing realities in the future. People will need to decide how to replace mature, dying trees that have shaded Sacramento throughout decades of summers, said Tina Suarez-Murias, a state environmental planner.

"Sacramento is known for its trees," she said.

"If we really want to look at how Sacramento as a city adapted in the past — they planted those trees for us," Piner added.

Ideas for the future include buildings with plant-shaded "green" walls, incorporating solar panels into buildings as shade canopies, roofs that allow rainwater collection, and breaking up boxy buildings with balconies, porches, rooftop gardens and more.

Obi Agha, a designer and planner who grew up in Africa, said his family and others living around them had no choice but to live in harmony with the earth. But they and other indigenous cultures are moving away from that because they are developing "Western tastes."

"They want to be like America," he said. "They want to have air-conditioning — because that shows they have arrived. They have made it. So they are losing all those things."

While many people want to have the comforts and conveniences of the West, the planet simply can't sustain such a lifestyle for the whole world, several people agreed.

"We would need seven planets for all the world to live like that," Piner said. "We may be conveniencing our way into oblivion and destroying this beautiful place."

As world leaders, the United States and other Western countries must now lead the way in designing climate-appropriate architecture and developing technology to create more energy-efficient conveniences, then export that to the world, he said.

Architectural challenge: Overcoming mediocrity

2009-08-29T14:48:16Z

A group interested in shaping Sacramento's architectural future had quite a challenge Wednesday night: discussing how to design urban infill in a city whose buildings are viewed as largely mediocre.

Figuring out where to go from here is the whole point of the Design Dialogues, sponsored monthly by the Urban Design Alliance and the Sacramento chapter of the American Institute of Architects (AIA).

On Wednesday, 40 design and planning professionals, community residents and others met at the AIA offices to discuss how to move the city's structural landscape forward despite the architectural challenges of designing infill projects.

The 90-minute dialogue was a give-and-take between participants and the presenter, architect Bruce Monighan of Monighan Design. Monighan was chosen to lead the discussion on infill due to four decades of experience, in which he has designed reconstruction, historical preservation restoration, adaptive reuse projects, urban residential, retail and more. His work includes reconstruction of Old Sacramento's Eagle Theater, a replica Kuskov House at Fort Ross and the Twohy Building in San Jose.

All but 10 percent of the buildings in Sacramento are "junk or no longer purposeful," he said.

Responsibility for the current situation belongs to city planners and officials, community residents, developers and architects, said Monighan and others at the meeting.

The problem is that Sacramento is being defined by people who don't have broad perspectives, he said. They'd rather "take the easy way out" by copying an existing building or style than construct something horrible, he added.

"The city tends to do the same thing all the time. That leads to mediocrity," he said.

International destinations such as Dubai, Beijing and Paris show that a variety of architecture is needed to help cities bridge centuries, said Walter Horsting, owner of Business Development International. Horsting has proposed that a landmark state office building -- something that represents a golden spike -- be developed for The Railyards.

"I think we haven't been bold enough in this town to take on more significant work," he said. "The city needs an iconic landmark."

The most difficult hurdle for infill projects to overcome is that they are infill, or, in other words, that people already live and work in the areas where the buildings must be constructed, said Monighan, adding those people want to protect what's there.

Community groups have formed to preserve historic neighborhoods and fight changes members don't want, such as massive buildings, a denser population, and traffic and parking problems.

"Preservation doesn't mean cities or districts get frozen in time," he said.

A mechanical engineer participating in the dialogue questioned why designers "allow" communities to have input on the design of infill construction. Community residents aren't trained and don't understand architectural concepts, he added.

While architects would have total control in a perfect world, Monighan said, the work of mediocre and poor architects led to oversight from planning commissions and residents.

"We earned that by being bad," he said. "Too many people don't care about what they're building and the legacy of what they'll leave."

Monighan also led discussion of the controversy about whether historic buildings and styles should be copied, and, if not, how architects can begin to determine what to build.

The context or "character" of the place, rather than the style of buildings, should lead the design, he suggested. Urban design guidelines recommend "creative interpretation" of existing patterns of such things as building materials, scale and how people move around.

"I think we look at something and say, 'What's it look like? — that's the character,' " he said. "I think that's where we've been wrong."

Photos by David Roberts. Suzanne Hurt is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press.