Archive for July, 2010

Commercial Timber Frame Architecture

Sunday, July 25th, 2010

The Rand Soellner Architect firm has been recently asked to consider designing several commercial timber frame projects.  Soellner’s answer is: YES!  Just this last week, Rand Soellner was approached by a large manufacturing company to create a timber framed shop for them.  Also, Soellner was asked to consider a 9 acre retail – commercial – hotel – restaurant – nature development.  Due to client confidentiality, the location cannot be revealed at this time.

The clients want mountain – themed timber frame / post and beam design approaches.  For the timber frame shop, the client has also asked Soellner to create some exterior appearance renovations for the surrounding industrial structures to refresh a 12 acre manufacturing grouping of buildings into a timber-framed themed cohesive public image.

While Rand Soellner’s website is strong on residential architecture, if you look on the right side menus for PROJECT INDEX, then once there, look for Mountain Resort Architects, that will give you some idea of the Soellner firm’s commercial timber capabilities.  Or click here: mountain resort architects .  There is more information about commercially related post and beam design work on the Multi Family Housing selection on that Project Index page.

Also, if you look in the Popular Design Services portion of the right-side menu of the website, click on “Timber Frame Architects.”  That gives some general background on that specialty.  Or click here:  timber frame architects

Rand Soellner has been designing, managing, detailing, specifying and working on post and beam projects for a long time.  He was the architect of record on about half of Jurassic Park in Orlando.  That project had a great deal of large timbers, timber trusses, special post and beam arrangement and special conditions to suit that world-class theme destination.  Click here: recreational architect to see images and read more information about that amazing project.  Project cost was between $50 million to $74 million.

The information being conveyed here is that Soellner designs much more than post and beam houses.  If you are a developer or land owner, or are looking for a commercial timber frame architect to create a special project for you, Soellner may be the architect for whom you are looking.

Or, give Rand Soellner a call: 1-828-269-9046 from just about anywhere in the world.  He would be glad to discuss your project.

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Shear Walls, Anchor Bolts & Hold Downs

Friday, July 23rd, 2010

Not a very exciting topic for residential architects to be talking about is probably what you’re thinking.  We agree.  Only, we want our clients to never be excited about these things, because they keep the homes we design safe and sound.  The structural engineer, with whom we always coordinate, works together with us to determine the best locations for shear walls, the anchor bolt spacings and the shear wall hold downs.

What’s the difference between an anchor bolt and a hold down?  An anchor bolt, as defined by the International Residential Code: anchor bolts resist lateral forces that could cause a building to lift or slide off the foundation.  Anchor bolts must have sufficient embedment to resist pullout and must be spaced properly to secure the sill in place.  Washers must be capable of distributing a load across the sill without it cracking or splitting.

We would also add that anchor bolts help resist vertical suction loads as well, such as during heavy winds.  Many of our projects are in mountainous wind zones of between 110 mph to 130 mph.    We would also modify the definition of the washer at the sill plate to primarily distribute a compression load across the wood plate.

Hold downs are essentially the anchor bolt’s big brother and are typically required to be installed adjacent to several studs, typically called a “studpack.”  The hold down is a premanufactured item out of heavy gauge galvanized steel and its anchor bolt rod typically extends down all the way into the footing.  The main purpose of hold downs are to secure the wood stud walls in the structure from dislocation during seismic shaking and wind.

We typically look at our floor plans and evaluate where the structural engineer would likely want to see shear walls.  We normally accomplish this with manufactured wood sheathing panels securely attached to both sides of stud walls that run perpendicular to our “View Walls.”  Because the view walls normally have large amounts of windows and glass, we look for every opportunity to brace these “normal” to their geometry, to strengthen them against horizontal wind and earthquake movement.  According to what the contractors and building officials tell us, our designs normally have more bracing for wind and earthquakes than most home design plans coming through their offices.  This is because we are architects and want it done correctly.

Within the shear walls, we locate the hold downs, near ends and at structural discontinuities like windows and doors, fireplaces and the like.  Therefore, our hold downs brace the already panel-sheathing-braced shear walls, which results in a super-secure arrangement making the houses we design more solid than most in the United States and the world.

Once again, perhaps this does not sound very glamorous, but if you are sleeping and up gusts a high wind or a little tremor, you should be able to continue sleeping comfortably, knowing that your structural engineer and architect have resolved these issues.

Contact for:  properly braced residential design:

Rand Soellner, AIA/NCARB  1-828- 269-9046
rand@HomeArchitects.com
www.HomeArchitects.com

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Compact Homes That Live Big

Saturday, July 17th, 2010

Rand Soellner Architect is receiving as many requests for smaller high-quality homes that live big as for larger residences.  Many people want to downsize, or simply pay less during challenging economic times.  Soellner has responded with a series of higher-quality compact houses that have spacious organizations that defy the imagination as to how small or large they are physically.

This is a perceptual art, refined by Soellner over decades; since his days working on his Master’s Degree in Architecture at the University of Florida.  He also has a minor in Environmental Psychology, in which he researched people’s reactions to space.  Soellner also designed projects for one of Frank Lloyd Wright’s main apprentices, Nils Schweizer, FAIA.  Wright was a master of overlapping spaces in residential design.  Soellner learned this while studying the buildings at the Florida Southern campus and designing for one of Wright’s main proteges.

Soellner has created an assemblage of compact plans that are just about unbelievable, in terms of features and rooms, when compared with the square footage.  For instance, he has a Cardinal Camp Cottage series that has a 3-story design with 2 stories over a walkout basement.  It has 5 bedrooms (one an optional den/home-office), and 3 bathrooms.  It is a very compact 2,472 hsf (heated square feet).

That also includes: a recreation room in the walkout basement, a laundry room (yes, with the large washers and dryers of the 21st century), a mechanical space, a pantry closets, walk in closets in bedrooms, ample large door areas facing views and exterior living area porches, a larger than normal gourmet kitchen with a center island AND another bar for pull-up stools, a 48″ wide gas range, dining space on the view, a great room/living area with a fireplace, a foyer, a master suite with its own fireplace, a master bath and master walk-in closet, an optional pop-out luxury master bath, a sleeping porch, an outdoor living room, outdoor dining with summer kitchen, stairs, a front porch, an optional garage (2 car oversize standard), an optional powder room, an optional shop in the garage, an upper loft level with loft/bridge overlooking the great room below, a bathroom for 3 people at once, and double doors to the upper loft bedrooms.   Yes!  All of that in under 2,500 hsf!  Seem impossible?  Soellner himself would have thought so, until he created it.

Be among the first, few lucky homeowners to experience this luxury in such an affordable package.  Just recently, clients visited Soellner to review these schemes with him and were delighted by the affordability, luxury, and functionality offered by these amazingly spacious arrangements.

Soellner has created about 7 main optional arrangements, with scores of options for each plan, to allow people to tailor a custom house for each family. “People are special,” said Soellner, “Everyone is unique and has particular needs, desires, and dreams for their house.  Consequently, each design for each client develops their signature on it.”  The method developed by this custom residential architect is to allow people from all over the USA and the world to come and visit him in his studio, where he will enthusiastically display his designs, discussing the direction that new client might wish to pursue.  Then, when contracted, Soellner creates the scheme appropriate for each client’s wishes.

“Part of the secret to accomplishing these compact houses that live big is to use Wright’s principle of overlapping spaces in open plan arrangements,”  said Soellner, “this is something I studied decades ago and have used in my designs since I was a young designer.”  Soellner explained that his new compact residences still have internal views as long as 34′, a distance not expected within smaller housing.  The secrets as to how this architect accomplishes this is revealed to those new clients who visit him and have one created just for them!

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Home Designs for Me

Saturday, July 10th, 2010

This is about you looking for home designs and what you find and what you don’t find and what you can do to obtain the home designs that satisfy your needs.

You and Home Designs

You look and look and look but you never find that floor plan that seems to suit your exact needs.  You might have found a style or “look” that appeals to you, but the exact plan just doesn’t seem to exist.  Why?  Because you are unique.

A floor plan is the graphic layout of one particular client’s desired lifestyle and response to their specific property’s characteristics.   Let’s say that again: any and ALL of the floor plans you are reviewing on the Internet were conceived for other people, not you.

This means that the layouts you see in the existing floor plans suit the people who paid the architect to create that house design for them.  You are looking for free, aren’t you?  Floor plans and architectural design is a very complex activity, created by skilled professionals carefully listening to the dreams and functional requirements of clients who pay them to create a design that satisfies their programmatic needs and responds appropriately to their property as well.

So, you spend weeks, then months online in your leisure time, hoping against hope that you will find a floor plan that works for you and your site.  Well … here you are, still at it after months and months or possibly years later and you still haven’t found that perfect plan, have you?  You won’t.  Why?  Once again: because you are special.  So are the people who paid that architect who created those plans for them.  But you just want to take plans you find online and use them, right?  Just because they are posted on the Internet does not mean that they are free.

There is the U.S. Copyright Act, which is very real.  It protects the work of musicians, composers, singers, architects, artists, photographers, and others who create a work of intellectual property.  Common law copyright protects any work of intellectual property automatically.  However, many architects also indicate a “(C) Copyright 2010 Rand Soellner, All Rights Reserved Worldwide” notation by their designs so that you and others know that it is copyright protected.  Penalties for unauthorized use can amount to $200,000 or more.  It is not worth it to attempt to use an architect’s work without their permission and payment for their work.

It is far easier, cheaper, better, and more ethical to contact the architect whose work you like and pay them to create a floor plan and a house design just for you that suits your every need.

And let’s think about how valuable your time is.  How many hours, weeks, months,or years have you spent trying to find something “for free” that suits your needs?  Think about how much you earn at your job per hour.  Multiply that rate times the amount of time you may have spent looking for “the perfect plan” online.  You will probably be shocked to see that you have spent tens of thousands of dollars of your leisure time looking for something that does not exist.  That’s not free.  Your time is valuable.  Wouldn’t you rather do something more enjoyable with your time?

So instead, why don’t you try this:
1.  Do look on line for designs whose appearance you like.
2.  Contact that architect.
3.  If they seem like interested, responsive professionals, arrange to meet with them.
4.  When you meet with them, review the floor plans for the house whose style you liked, and talk with the architect how those plans might be modified to suit your needs.
OR: consider starting a design for your lifestyle and your site from scratch.
5.  After you have contracted the architect whom you wish to work with, have them meet you at your property and walk it together, taking special note of desired views and other situations that can affect placement of your residential design.
6.  Proceed, with the considered opinions of your architect.

A house architect has likely spent decades designing custom residential designs for people similar to you.  He/she has the skills necessary to turn your words and dreams into functional three-dimensional reality at your site.  Even if you think you have found a plan that works for you before finding your architect, you may discover that there are things about it that will cost you much more for the construction or that may not be very pleasant, than if you had allowed your architect to adjust arrangements to best suit your specific needs and your site’s characteristics.  In other words: listen to your architect.  Their advice is valuable and helpful.

If you are going to be spending hundreds of thousands of dollars (or possibly more) for the construction of your dream house, don’t you deserve to have it designed to suit your personal wishes, needs, and land?  Do yourself a big favor and hire your own architect who you are paying to listen to you to make a custom residence design to make you happy.

Home designs for me contact:

Rand Soellner HOME ARCHITECTS TM
1-828-269-9046
rand@HomeArchitects.com

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Now is the Time to Design and Build Your Home

Thursday, July 1st, 2010

When people are moving through history, they seldom understand the significance of any specific period of days, weeks, or months.  Just more days, right?   However, it is a huge advantage to you if you have studied the trends and read what knowledgeable entities have to say.  This can allow you to take advantage of the present situation and not have to say to yourself later:  “If  I’d only known, I would have ___________.”

Entities to know and listen to today are Harvard University, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, and Warren Buffett. In particular, what these entities have to say with respect to the United States housing economy is important to us all here in the USA.

So, when is the best time would be to have your dream house designed and built.  The answer: right now.  Why?  Because the new residential construction market has been at a virtual standstill for the last couple of years.  This is what needed to happen, because America had been building 2 million new houses a year when it really only needed 1.2 million per year.  That means that about 800,000 of the new residences a year built during the last 2 to 3 years was an ‘over-supply’, beyond what the normal demand could absorb.  Kind of unbalanced, wasn’t it?

Much of this oversupply of new housing was from ambitious investors, trying to ride the residential price bubble and make a substantial profit.  Unfortunately, when the oversupply of new houses began to just sit there on the market, unsold, it took other ambitious investors too long to understand the big picture of what was wrong and why they really should not have built at that time for strictly investment purposes.

So what has been happening during these skimpy construction years, beginning around 2008 and continuing through 2010?  According to Warren Buffett, people are gradually buying the oversupply of houses, at bargain discount prices.  This is an obvious consequence of the oversupply.  So, while America’s housing market waits, this oversupply is being consumed by bargain hunting buyers.  The big question is: When will the oversupply be sufficiently absorbed to allow people to return to normal housing design and construction?

All of the sources indicated above have reported, in one form or another, that the 3rd quarter of 2010 will show the first increase in housing spending since the end of 2008, and that the 4th quarter will show even greater housing spending.  Mr. Buffett said in his February 2010 letter to his shareholders that the current housing situation “should largely be behind us by this time next year.”  Which means that his information and research tells him that by February 2011, the housing market should be back to normal.

We all know that things of this magnitude do not happen over night, so Harvard’s statistical forecast about the 3rd and 4th quarter upturns in housing in 2010 make perfect sense.  Understanding this, what can any of us do with this information to benefit our circumstances?  Especially if we have been waiting on the fence, ready to have our new dream house designed and built?

Well, it appears that right now would be a prudent time to engage your residential architect to prepare the design for your proposed new house, then have your contractor price it and then begin construction as soon as possible.  Why?  Because when the housing market has fully recovered, what do you suppose will happen to prices?  Right: they will increase.  They are at record lows right now.  If you want to take advantage of the current low prices, it would seem to make sense to put your design and construction on a fast track, before correcting market conditions erase the current economic advantage that you presently enjoy.

The time has come to design and to build.



Contact information for design and building of your proposed new dream house:
Rand Soellner HOME ARCHITECTS TM
rand@HomeArchitects.com
1-828-269-9046
For custom residential designs Anywhere throughout the USA, Canada, and the World.

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