April 21rst 2023
by Sean McGadden
Savoie Nolan Architects
Architectural practice has been salaciously rewarding in its incremental exposure to ceaselessly growing problems sets having both nuance and complexity. In one year of practice I have tendered a passion for more ambiguous solutions to problems which I had not been forced to critically access while at school. A few things are now clear to me: design is endless in its possibilities and even timelines as projects have a life cycle that far exceeds a proposal for building. Design in my eyes has been a troubled, sometimes viscous cycle of creation. I have had the chance to personally manage many complex and simply projects such as the one above which required a discrete and generally conventional steel moment frame system which functions to support a large atrium family room and support a curved front façade. We initially hoped to use a curved beam across the moment frame. However, with some of these decisions, came a necessity for execution and precision at the level of the anchor systems and the foundation heights. Perhaps the lack of confidence in my limited skill on the part of the general contractor leveled this idea and we moved for a conventional linear length of steel which would be less complicated to install and there would be less risk in the possibility of failure. The coordination required for all of the framing, foundation, steel install and flooring systems to accommodate one another has taught me much about the necessity for planning prior to breaking ground. I will admit this project did not commence as smoothly as it might have, if I had more experience understanding how all these structural systems begin to work together in practice beyond just the documentation of the systems themselves, I am certain I might have convinced the rest of the team at the critical moment. I have realized how easily certain important conversations that take place in a project have the capacity to dilute its prominence as an idea. The basis of this home on Great Neck was a curved façade to track sunlight exposure and leverage the polished concrete slab as a heat gain element and as such the importance of using the curved beam assembly to emphasize the curved façade was the intent.
The construction and structural assemblies for this project include three moment frames joined in three distinct planes of lateral force on the front façade, three separate heights of polished concrete slabs and foundation walls, a first floor continuous polished and heated concrete slab and a steel metal decking beneath the first floor floating over the basement. Not many homes incorporate such complexity in their structure and I am grateful to have been able to directly oversee this project.
I am constantly reminded of the cyclical nature of design. Over the course of the past year, the projects I have had a chance to draught and design have ranged from mixed use, custom residential design with a wide budgets, to small scale renovations and improvements with clients seeking to leverage the use and value in their homes.
There exists a relationship between prophesizing ideas that exist only in the subconscious of the client compared to delivering a uniquely precise version of the explicit wishes of the client. I have found interesting dynamics between making a strong decision in a project which would objectively improve the quality of the spaces and the outstanding practical realities of the project in general. The choices I have made have been received well by clients but might have resulted in excessive budgetary restraints which the client had not realized would add complexity to structure, installation, and overall construction.
In this specific case the implementation of some clerestory windows which resulted in the project coming in over budget. The client had to find a new contractor because the GC, who was prepared to do the work at a price of $250,000 had not included a long beam to support the cathedral clearstory windows bringing the new design over budget.
What I have reflected on with this small project, requiring a sizeable budget of nearly $300,000, is that cathedral ceilings with high north facing windows improve the space without doubt. However, the general contractor who came in with this job, had been fired for not being able to deliver an adequate price proposal, most likely because he struggled with quoting the requirements; for increased slab and foundation on the garage level as well as the install of a large steel beam and multiple lengthy LVLs which may have required a crane of some kind to install safely. This is all to say, I was proud that I had the boldness to propose this kind of design element which is not often seen in conventional homes in New England. However, I wonder if it affects the owners ability to move their mother into this accessory apartment more quickly as she gets older due to the increase in budget. It makes me wonder, how valuable is it, to have a space of higher experiential quality, if it lacks the price tag to get it built in a reasonable timeframe which would be of immediate use to its occupants. As inexperienced as I am, I'd like to think that the owners can and should save some money and be patient in order to achieve a higher quality of living in this design.
Among other general thoughts on practice, I have found similarities in the differences that make every project a complex set of distinguished problems to solve. Every single project has an opportunity to occupy a new space of its own in the design process. This is fascinating and debilitating at times. There have been clients who have loose pockets and enjoy milking the design process, circling around three, four or even five different schemes, resolved to the final pinnacle that the schematic process allows only to scrap and start over. Others have very clear intentions and sometimes prefer a discrete and precise solution to their exact functional requirements. Often times I see that many people although they may know what they want or have a certain preference for style and perceived aesthetics for their project, often times they have hardly any real idea for what it is they want to achieve. Many people need an architect to imbue a degree of expertise and ideals into the physical manifestation of their base functional needs.
The clients I have found which know the most about exactly what they want and why, tend to even overlook the advice and proposals of the architect. These clients have experience in construction and real estate development and often only use an architect to deliver a permit. They have a very different intention with their projects. That is, to make as much money as possible; they are extremely cost conscious. These clients will consistently avoid spending money in building systems or layouts where they understand the construction process well enough to skirt the code, or evade higher costs of installs and layouts. It is questionable sometimes when I consider what would have been required for safety, better livable experience from design in lieu of a better return, or changes occurring after permitting from pricing by sub-contractors. I've seen on two separate projects developers who have had to get a building permit only after they had initiated construction and then eventually just decide their own interior layouts on site with the framers after we had proposed a more useful and functional layout. These dynamics in construction are interesting to me, not in any positive or negative light but simply just as a product of the realities of building. It is what it is. I want to believe there are nuanced ways to improve and convince people of having a higher level of ethical commitment to the built environment, but the reality is the notion of ideals in American construction are distant proclivites.
There is real opportunity to deploy quality aesthetic sensibilities in projects, even at minimal costs. When I reflect in an ongoing mixed use project, there is a real chance to explore a façade which could occupy a strong node of the downtown main street in Ipswich, MA. However, due to ambiguous conventions and the nature of building general when dealing with developers, there seems pushback from breaking too many conventions because of the obvious investment in time and materials it requires to achieve something non-conventional.
For example see below, how these previous initial sketches have been reduced to something devoid of life, irrespective of the representational quality of the drawings. Perhaps this is simply the way of things, and architecture requires a degree of grit and vigor to latch on. The initial idea must be more than a drawing, it must be about a way of life, an existential dramatic necessity that is greater than mere existence in order to maintain design at a high level of refinement when more and more practical systems begin to dilute the original intention.
At this point in my career, one year in, still merely a fledgling of the practice of architecture; I am hopeful for everything I have yet to learn and the possibilities that exist in being an architect. The promotion of ideals, conducting a kind of sermon in the name of a higher quality built environment as well as serving a purpose to those who come for direction and seek help in deciding what it is they truly want has captured my interest. More than anything I am realizing, not all of the magic in architecture comes simply from a design or even the execution of the drawing but in some greater force of will, that lies above the material. Architecture is an art, in the way that it is a practice of convincing people that the greater quality, the more nuanced expression of materials and experience, can be achieved if only they'll allow themselves to be pleasantly surprised by what is possible rather than what they are comfortable and certain of. The Architect delivers certainty, in a mélange of collective systems and people, which as an assemblage has no indication of any certainty whatsoever. And thus is the art within architecture. Conducting a vision out of a palette of drab and simply incongruous elements.
All images and drawings created by Sean McGadden