R.Kaz

This mountain residence developed into a style we ended up describing as "Mountain Modern". The homeowner wanted a contemporary designed home incorporated with the rugged materials indicative of the mountain lifestyle. Stone, metal and wood were utilized throughout the home to anchor the house both visually and structurally to its steep and rocky mountain environment.
Outdoor living and the views are some of the most important features of this Colorado mountainside. Over 2600 square feet of exterior deck spaced was designed and cantilevered from the structure to take advantage of the panoramic views.
Being located on a steep hillside presented several challenges, including connection and circulation between spaces. A spectacular four story central stair and elevator core creates the “spine” of the structure and vertically connects the various spaces and functions of the home.
Throughout the home large expanses of glass doors and windows again connect the interior visually and physically to the outdoors. Taking advantage of Colorado’s over 300 sunny days per year, the large sliding doors blur the line where the indoors ends and the outdoors begins.

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Our shop formn has been wanting to utilize this slab of walnut as small writing table for quite some time. The piece is rather small at about 20" x 24". A few of us are working on some conceptual designs for what it might become. Here's my conceptual design based on a stylized version of the butress roots of many tropical tree species.

What would your's look like?

3D photorealistic rendering software is evolving at a tremendous pace. In the past, a project might include a few perspective sketches or maybe a couple of presentation hand drawn color renderings (if the budget was large enough).

The more prevalent and part of the culture, 3D photorealistic renderings become , the more it seems like clients expect them in your normal architectural services rather than an additional provided service. Even in smaller projects where budgets normally wouldn't allow.

How do you manage your client's expectations when it comes to renderings now that they've become the norm rather than the exception?

In Denver Colorado, there is a project to redevelop Union Station. The historic train station in central Denver is being redeveloped, in part, to make connections to other public transportation (bus and light rail). There are two firms with different concepts competing for the rights to develop the site.

One of the concepts is to turn the historic station into a private hotel and utilize the main station as the hotel lobby. (They’ve now moved the conceptual lobby to the second floor after much public outcry.)

What do you think about privatizing public projects?

In a culture where people use their homes as financial investments - gambling on cashing in and trading up every five years; when how many square feet of space can be crammed onto a postage stamp lot; and when an entire neighborhood can be comprised of four different model "homes" situated with no thought as to orientation or context: DOES SOCIETY REALLY PLACE ANY VALUE ON GOOD ARCHITECTURAL DESIGN?