WHAT IS THE LPC – AND WHY SHOULD I CARE?HOW TO DESIGN IN A PROTECTED DISTRICT The LPC, or Landmarks Preservation Commission, is a city organization charged with protecting various historic districts and buildings. If your project falls within a historic district or is an individually landmarked building, you are required to gain approval from…

Louis Kahn + The Salk Institute During a recent trip to San Diego, we were lucky enough to take a quick detour to the Salk Institute, a research facility about an hour outside of downtown. It was built in 1965 and designed by Louis Kahn – one of the world’s greatest architects. What is startling…

What you need to know about Architectural Fees A good architect should ask about your budget in your first interview. Do not dodge this question. While money can be difficult to talk about, you should never be uncomfortable about answering honestly. The Architect works for you, and one of the Architect’s most important responsibilities is…

Do I Need an Architect? There are many reasons why you should hire an architect. Architects are designers and can typically deliver more creative, useful, and pleasing spaces than contractor’s or engineers (or you;) alone. Architects are trained project-managers and like a symphony conductor can help get all the various consultants, GCs, and sub-contractors to…

Where Marble Comes From… It is sometimes easy to forget the immense effort that goes into getting the materials that we use to build and outfit our buildings.  It can be easy to specify marble as if it just comes to this earth as slabs ready to become kitchens and bathrooms.  This beautiful film by Yuri…

WHAT IS AN ARCHITECT? An architect is not simply somebody who works in an architecture firm or one who has graduated from architecture school. An architect is a licensed professional deemed by their jurisdictions to have met all criteria required to hold the license. It is a protected professional title. Each state has slightly different…

UNDERSTANDING PASSIVE HOUSE Passive House design is a strict design standard that limits the energy use of the house. While LEED concerned itself with many different factors, such as indoor air quality and embodied the energy of materials, Passive House only deals with energy usage. In the most basic terms, to achieve a Passive House…

FAR – Floor Area Ratio FAR is a zoning acronym that stands for ‘Floor Area Ratio.’ This number will dictate how much ‘floor area’ you can have in relation to the size of your lot. It is one of the methods used by city zoning regulations to control the overall size of a building. For…