Sacramento is home to many interesting buildings, from the Capitol to the elaborate Cathedral of the Blessed Sacrament. On Wednesday, The Sacramento Press asked professional architects along with people on the streets what their favorite building is in Sacramento. Twenty-five-year-old state worker Megan Samuelson said that her favorite building in Sacramento is the Park Tower, located at 980 Ninth St. “I think it’s clean and simple,” she said. Samuelson said that she likes how the building is right across from Cesar Chavez Plaza. “Driving on I-5 south coming into Sacramento, you can see it in the distance,” she said. She added that she thought it is representative of Sacramento’s char

An array of designs submitted as part of the Catalyst Capitol Mall Design Competition in an effort to spark a “big idea” for future enhancement of the corridor from Tower Bridge to 10th Street were reviewed by a jury Oct. 7, and winners will be announced Nov. 9. While the winner can’t yet be revealed, Kris Barkley, competition adviser to the city on behalf of the American Institute of Architects, described some key assets of the winning proposal. “The first-place winner, I think, is really, really focused on what I think the people of Sacramento are feeling will work there,” he said. “It’s a tree-centered development that improves the urban canopy we have in Sacramento and brings it more

Due to continued public interest in “above ground” walking tours, the Historic Old Sacramento Foundation has extended the touring season to include two educational yet entertaining tours each weekend through October.   On Saturday at 1 p.m., the Sacramento City: California’s Gold Rush Legacy Tour is offered.  Then on Sunday at 1 p.m., the From Canvas to Brick: Old Sacramento Architectural Tour is available. For the Gold Rush Legacy Tours, docents in historically appropriate attire take guests on a journey back to the 1850s using original and reconstructed Gold Rush-era buildings as a compelling backdrop to describe what the town was like during that fascinating period in California’s hist

My close parent once suggested that I attend the California State Capitol Museum tour, because I was so obviously enamored with political pluralism. Eccentric and famous because I was republican, I resolved to complete a dream in a cup of brew. There before the mainstream again was a ambassador and mutual supporter seeking the approval of the pub Rubicon and its web address. Fortunately, the California State Capitol Museum has made assessable to me and your public, local tours. And its free admission 10:00am-4:00pm Monday thru Sunday isn’t a bad choice. Beginning out of the basement in room B-27 is your ease of tour reservation. One does suppose, there are different reasons we are intere

More than 70 design entries have been submitted for the Capitol Mall design competition to redo the section of the street west of the Capitol building, and organizers said Thursday that they expect to get up to a total of between 150 and 200 over the next couple of weeks. The competition’s goal is to draw interest from international designers, architects and urban planners as well as from locals, with the winner taking home a $20,000 prize. “We’ve been really pleased with the turnout,” said Kristopher Barkley of the American Institute of Architects Central Valley Chapter, which is advising the city on the competition. He added that the 70 entries have come from all six inhabited contine

 Join The Sacramento Press Saturday evening for Launch 2011, a design, music and fashion festival. The third annual Launch is a spectacular festival of sight and sound that provides the opportunity for creative people from Sacramento’s art, music and fashion communities to come together to showcase their talents and celebrate local and national works of art, music and design and share the experience with the community as a whole. Launch will include live music by Little Foxes, Exquisite Corps, ReSA, The Dreaded Diamond and many others. Artists on-site Saturday include Brady Tuazon, Chelsea Greene Lewyta, Jeff Dojillo, and too many more to mention. Fashion designers Miss Chief of Califor

There's a lot more green on a tree than just its leaves! At this month's 4WDD ISA-Certified Arborist Scott Gregory will talk about assessing the economic and environmental benefits of the urban forest. In April, Scott successfully defended his master's thesis, "Quantifying Street Tree Function and Distribution: Analysis of Environmental Services, Population Characteristics, and Sidewalk Uplift in the City of Chico, California". His thesis entailed inventory of 34,950 street trees, stumps, and available planting sites within the City of Chico and subsequent data analysis to quantify environmental services provided by the City's street trees. By identifying public and private trees in adva

Please join us on Wednesday evening, May 25th beginning at 5:45pm at the AIA Central Valley Chapter office for the this month’s 4th Wednesday Design Dialogue (4WDD). Gus Fischer, Architect and Partner with Dreyfuss & Blackford Architects will present their project, The California Independent System Operator (CA ISO) Headquarters facility. Gus will discuss how they are achieving LEED Platinum and its impact on the culture and community. This secure 275,000 SF complex on a 27 acre site is a consolidation of the organization’s operations, offices and public education components and just completed construction. The event is FREE and open to anyone. Refreshments provided. Please RSVP to info@

How can we design ‘greener’ landscapes in Sacramento?  With the growing focus on water conservation, responsible use of resources, and the impacts of the built environment on human health and well-being, the conversation about what makes a site design ‘green’ is being elevated to a higher level. From pre-design and planning through construction and operations, a new rating system, dubbed ‘SITES’, has been developed which sets the bar for what we can do to design more sustainable places.  Developed to be incorporated into future versions of the USGBC’s Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) rating system, SITES is currently in its pilot project phase.  Please join us on Wed

In the residential sector, a building that produces as much energy as it consumes, or a Net Zero Energy (NZE) Building, is increasingly technologically viable. Yet, to achieve true scalability, these high-quality, efficient and architecturally advanced buildings must be coupled with affordability. Please join us on Wednesday Evening, Feb 23th beginning at 5:45PM at the AIACV Chapter Office for this month’s 4th Wednesday Design Dialogue (4WDD) where Shilpa Sankaran and Taeko Takagi of ZETA Communities will discuss an innovative approach to achieving affordability with offsite precision-building. The team will also present project case studies and live energy performance tracked by the DOE

Seven months of review and countless hours of debate and negotiation came down to a 20-second vote Tuesday night as Sacramento City Council voted 7-2 in support of redesigning a single-family home proposed for an alley site in Boulevard Park. The action prevents the infill project from moving forward without changes to either the height or design style. The builders of the proposed home, Nathan and Erica Cunningham, said they are done and cannot take on redesigning the home. The council listened to two hours of discussion about the project, including testimony from neighbors, city Design Director William Crouch, the builder and the architect. More than 20 area residents showed up to opp

When the Zelda Stone Quarry closed its doors in 1931, it left behind two enduring legacies in East Sacramento: East Portal Park and the “stone sisters” houses. Peppered through East Sacramento are craftsman bungalows built with large cinder blocks and granite. The cinder blocks are composed of stone excavated over the years from the East Portal pit. Most of these houses were built in the aughts of the last century, and the homes are easy to recognize. They tend to be squarish, have small rooms and the exteriors have rough-hewn, chiseled and buffed blocks. Many of these houses also have granite in the construction and exquisite interior detailing. Longtime residents of East Sacramento see

By Debra Belt It is a small, unkempt patch of land on a dirt alley in Sacramento’s Boulevard Park neighborhood. Yet, the modest site at 2207 C St. is the subject of an intense debate that is expected to heat up as a proposed residential project for the alley lot heads to City Council Feb. 1. At issue is a single-family home, a modern infill project that has neighbors, preservationists, politicians, architects, the city and the builders deadlocked over the design of the residence and its alley location in one of Sacramento’s oldest neighborhoods. As Midtown’s alley development movement advances, interest in the project is high, and followers say it could set a precedent in residential nei

Three new façades add a bit of “wow” to K Street Mall. Work is close to wrapping up on San Francisco nightclub owner George Karpaty's new businesses, Dive Bar, District 30 and Pizza Rock. A month away from the expected openings, contractors applied some of the finishing touches to the exteriors Thursday. The bar, club and restaurant technically occupy one building, owned by Sacramento developer David Taylor and CIM. But the exteriors were rebuilt to look like three distinct, separate spaces – from sleek contemporary to slightly edgy to quaint, Old World charm. The façades are like book covers, designed to entice by giving just a taste of what's inside, said the project's architectural d

For the 37th year, homeowners in the “Fabulous Forties” neighborhood in East Sacramento have opened their homes for the Sacred Heart Holiday Home Tour. The annual event, which benefits the Sacred Heart Parish School, is a singular opportunity for the public to tour some of the most gorgeous homes in the city and view the efforts of a small army of professional decorators, florists, artists, and garden designers.  Each home has a principal designer who brings together a holiday masterpiece incorporating the history and architectural features of the property and the individual style and taste of the homeowners.  Said Margo Reid Brown, whose lovely home was opened for the tour: “This is such

AIACV / UDA Present: Open Design Dialogue   What does the future of Architectural Design hold for our City? This is an open discussion about the role that architecture and design plays in our regions post-recession rebound.   Free Admission Wednesday, Oct. 27th Doors open at 5:30pm Program from 6:00-7:30pm AIA Central Valley Chapter Office 1400 S Street (Enter on 14th Street)  

On Thursday, October 21st, the Center for Sacramento History (CSH) and California State University, Sacramento (CSUS) will unveil a new self-guided walking tour of Central Oak Park. The brochure highlights the community’s architectural and historical significance. The evening will include an address by the brochure’s author, Dr. Robin Datel, a professor in CSUS’ Geography Department. The lecture will be held at the historic Guild Theater in Oak Park (2828 35th Street at Broadway); doors open at 6:30 p.m. and the presentation begins at 7:00 p.m. The event is free and open to the public. The 32-page walking tour brochure includes historic photographs of nearly forty selected locations with

Q Street’s historic “Bungalow Row” was opened to the public Sunday as part of the Sacramento Old City Association’s 35th annual home tour. Six occupied residences dating from 1894 to 1910 put on their Sunday best to impress the Sacramento homeowners, architecture enthusiasts and history fans who milled about the Q, P and O Street homes, enacting a sort of live-action Home and Garden program. Winn Park’s emergency relay station, built in 1937, was also on display, and booths and tents on the East side of the park displayed presentations on art, history, home maintenance and preservation efforts. Young men with acoustic guitars sat under trees and played songs to audiences of 10 or 12 in an

In 1900s Sacramento, the 2500 block of Q Street was a new middle-class neighborhood of railroad workers, pipe fitters and small business owners whose dreams of home ownership were largely made possible by the extension of the nearby streetcar route. Their homes were the example of early suburban living, and three of them on the historic Bungalow Row – as well as four other historic buildings – will be open as part of the 35th annual Sacramento Old City Association home tour from 10 a.m. - 4 p.m. Sept. 19. In addition to the bungalows are several other homes – with the oldest being an 1889 Victorian – and a Winn Park oddity: an emergency relay station built in 1937 that served as a 24-hou

Please join us once again for this month’s Fourth Wednesday Design Dialogue (FWDD) as we discuss Original Projects with Nathan Wieler. Nathan Wieler, originator of projects like the Dwell Home, Modern Birdhouses, The Greenbelt House, Harvest Farm Community, Development Supported Agriculture, and Zoom Culture talks about the stories behind each project, along with lessons learned and applied to his new collaborative venture Original Projects. Topic: “Original Projects” Date: Wednesday, August 25th Time: 5:45 – 7:30 PM Location: AIACV Chapter Office – Gallery, 1400 S Street (please enter on 14th Street) Info: Free Admisson Please click on the link to view the flyer