Housing and Community Development

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  • 1.  How "One Plus Five" Wood Buildings Shape American Cities

    Posted 03-27-2015 06:08 PM
    This message has been cross posted to the following Discussion Forums: Housing Knowledge Community and Regional and Urban Design Committee .
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    Nobody would for one minute mistake a car or an airplane from 1955 for one from today. Everything, from technology to style is just too different.
    By contrast, enter a new house or an apartment and clues that give away the newness are harder to find: They may be obvious in kitchen and bath, but even that is not certain, since fashionable retro stoves and claw-foot tubs could be deceiving even in those places where technology would be most likely. The new house would probably be more open and bigger, but from light switches to receptacles, from door hardware to double hung windows, things look essentially the same. On second glance, though, things in the new house feel flimsier, thinner and less substantial. Maybe there is a white plastic porch railing masquerading as solid wood or vinyl siding doing the same, maybe the doors are light, hollow and molded instead of being made from actual wood panels.  This general impression might deepen when one starts looking "under the hood": copper and cast iron pipes replaced by PVC, true dimension heavy wood joists and posts replaced by engineered trusses, strand board, and quick growth studs light as cigar boxes. Slate has yielded to asphalt shingles, wood floors have become laminate, and porcelain sinks replaced by cultured stone. Brick now comes as a thin cement imitation, cornices are made from Fypon, and flagstone water tables are only paper thin. 
    One could discuss all that in the context of cultural criticism and bemoan what did change ("nothing is like it used to be") or, alternatively, decry that not enough has changed ("the construction industry is stuck in the Middle Ages"). Both cases could be made with ease.  Change in the construction industry, indeed, seems to be glacial.  On the other hand, the critique of the loss of a more substantial architecture could be based on more than nostalgia. It could be based in resilience (withstanding forces of nature) or sustainability (flimsy construction and rapid decay as waste). 


    The Baltimore Jefferson Square project is a typical One-Plus-Five
    (photo: ArchPlan Inc.)

    The rather recent appearance of the "one-plus-five" formula has moved the debate from the suburbs to the city and from a discussion about components to one about whole buildings and even urban form. What is "one plus five"? It is the wood construction, "stick-built" urban mixed-use building, exactly five stories tall, erected on a concrete podium. The first level capped by the concrete deck is retail, parking, meeting rooms or amenities and the floors above it are apartments, condos, or dormitories erected under the 3A construction type classification of the building model code IBC. 
    The International Building Code (IBC) allows wood-frame construction for five stories and more by meeting Type III-A construction requirements. Another level above grade may be added if the building includes a concrete podium, per Section 509. This allows the wood structure to be considered as a separate and distinct building for the purpose of determining area limitations, continuity of firewalls, limitation of number of stories and type of construction.
    Read all

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    Klaus Philipsen FAIA
    Archplan Inc. Philipsen Architects
    Baltimore MD
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    AIA26 San Diego June 10-13


  • 2.  RE: How "One Plus Five" Wood Buildings Shape American Cities

    Posted 03-31-2015 10:19 AM
    My Dear Mr. Philipsen:

    Just when the foundation of your essay has been well expressed I find that I need a google account to read the balance of the post.  I don't.  I have an AIA account which should suffice.  This is not a forum to promote google accounts.   SOP - Commercial links are inappropriate to a professional forum.  Please post the complete article.  I suspect that the balance is worth reading and will start an interesting thread.

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    David Ringer AIA CCS
    Architect
    Minno & Wasko Architects
    Lambertville NJ
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    AIA26 San Diego June 10-13


  • 3.  RE: How "One Plus Five" Wood Buildings Shape American Cities

    Posted 04-01-2015 05:44 PM
    David,

    Klaus just attached the wrong link to the article. Here's the proper one that will take you to the article, without any need for signing in. I think it was just an honest error, not an attempt to convert!

    http://archplanbaltimore.blogspot.com/2015/03/how-one-plus-five-is-shaping-american_27.html

    I remember when the 1+5 arrived full force in Houston. It was somewhere between 2003 and 2005. It was amazing to see the change in what was being built and how ubiquitous it became.

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    Jared Banks AIA
    Owner
    Shoegnome, LLC
    Seattle WA
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    Original Message
    AIA26 San Diego June 10-13


  • 4.  RE: How "One Plus Five" Wood Buildings Shape American Cities

    Posted 04-01-2015 06:05 PM
    Link to entire blog:
    http://archplanbaltimore.blogspot.com/

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    Randy Sovich AIA
    Principal
    RM Sovich Architecture, Inc.
    Baltimore MD
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    Original Message
    AIA26 San Diego June 10-13


  • 5.  RE: How "One Plus Five" Wood Buildings Shape American Cities

    Posted 03-31-2015 03:19 PM


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    Eugenio Aburto AIA
    architect
    Eugenio Aburto, AIA
    Palm Desert CA
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    Your observations are correct, what I can add is the lack of building resilient structures to natural disasters.
    The practice of stick framing is good for news paper sales: 13,635 destroyed by fire from 2006 to 2012 in Texas, Colorado, New Mexico,, etc. Tornado: 1,800 structures flying in 2013 in Illinois and Oklahoma.
    Maybe is time for the professionals look for some green and sustainable materials  to design, as you say, and forget of the  "stick-built", than you noticed in your observations.
    Congratulations,
    AIA26 San Diego June 10-13