Ryland's Farm

Just returned from Southwest Virginia, where we enjoyed a much needed break from city life. We spent a lot of time walking around in the woods, visiting with family, and enjoying some fine country cooking...banana puddin' - I miss you already.

We spent part of our time on my great aunt and uncle, Jan and Ryland's [pictured here as a boy] 100 acre tobacco farm. Tobacco is no longer grown here and it's amazing to climb through the old log houses where the leaves were hung to cure. This is where my dad brought us to hunt with Ryland when we were kids.

I no longer hunt, but I still get very nostalgic and long to be out in the country around this time of year. After seeing these old buildings again, I realized how much growing up in this environment has influenced my work.

SAIPUA

Located in the industrial neighborhood of Red Hook, Brooklyn, this is a project we recently designed and built for Saipua - a small, family-run business dedicated to small batch production of handmade soaps and unique floral arrangements.

As their business evolved, and having outgrown their original storefront space, owners Sarah and Eric sought to relocate their shop in a new facility that could house both production and retail under one roof, without compromising the unique identity that is Saipua.

This identity is more of a spirit than an aesthetic which emerges from the ever-changing juxtaposition between the handmade and the found object. Here, vintage everyday objects meet hand-wrapped soap and delicate, rugged floral arrangements in a way which evokes a sense of familiarity and fosters an intimate connection with the visitor.

With this in mind, one could not merely reproduce the old shop in a new location; rather we sought to create a new timeless space that simultaneously serves as a quiet backdrop and as an active participant in the ongoing act of making that defines Saipua.

See more below.

SAIPUA

There is a life and beauty that exists in an old dressmakers sewing box. That life lies not in the wood and brass hinges from which the box is made, rather it is found within the multi-colored jumble of spools of thread and the assortment of pins placed at random in the pincushion. This is an arrangement that could only emerge from use - the result of an ongoing act between the dressmaker, the dressmaker’s tools, and the thing being made.

For Saipua's new location, situated in an existing warehouse, we sought to create a freestanding, inhabitable box that, like the sewing box, provides a timeless place for making - timeless in the sense that this place is only "complete" when occupied and filled with the life and beauty that results from the ongoing act of making.

Here a silver skin of weathered barn siding wraps to enclose two box-like rooms - one nested within the other. In the smaller interior volume, rows of siding seem to slide back, revealing an assortment of wood box vessels - nooks, primed to receive Saipua's wares. With a stage-like street facade the box mediates the space between the life of the street and the workshop at the back of the warehouse.

This space functions much like the front porch of a house, serving as a place of gathering and performance: a stage where visitors take on the interchanging roles of performer and audience set against an ever-changing backdrop provided by both the interior life of the shop and the life of the street.

Curtain rises at noon on Saturday August 22nd. Please visit Saipua's blog for more photos

School's Out...

Just finished teaching the summer Intro to Architecture Program at Columbia...I can't believe it's over already. It was an intense 5 weeks with one of the best studio groups I have ever worked with.

Maybe it had something to do with the wide range of backgrounds of the individuals who made up the group. From what I remember we had:

a real estate developer, a skateboarding student from TN, a national rowing champion, a student of economics, a structural engineer, a lifelong student with a phd in poly-sci [getting ready to start his next [3rd?] degree in arch], a paralegal with a background in psychology, a musician/inventor...

A four hour design studio, 4 days a week [during the summer] is a lot to ask of anyone...but this group dove right in and embraced [and mostly exceeded] the expectations of the studio.

Congrats to everyone in the program and a special thanks to my t.a. Jordan!

In the News

A big thanks goes out to Ingrid Spencer for putting together such a nice piece and getting us into Architectural Record2! Read it here online or pick up a copy at the newsstand!

Sorry for the lag in posts...in the middle of a crazy busy week. Final review for the studio is this coming Thursday. Have a stellar group of critics lined up and the students' work is looking very promising.

We shot Saipua last weekend, and Sarah and I are meeting at a secret subterranean location on Thursday morning to pick the winners. I promise we'll both be posting those images soon!