Garland's Residential Idea Book

Today I put on my architect hat and...

Okay.  No hat.  More like making sure I'm wearing only black, white, or gray. (No, fluffy yellow bath robe as some bloggers might wear to type this post.)  Corb glasses are optional.

Corb.  A 1953 color portrait of architect Le Corbusier by Willy Rizzo at Design You Trust

There!  Ready.

The City of Garland - my home town - has published a wonderful guide book: the Garland Residential Idea Book.

The City of Garland's Residential Idea Book - I believe this is public domain, 

since this was paid for by tax dollars and the book is a free download.  Get it HERE.

This book is filled with useful information.  It helps a homeowner identify what style their existing home is, then suggests ways to work with that.  Ideas for renovations or additions that improve that house... not ruin it.  The premise is that you can update, make your home more livable by today's standards and more inviting (or, to be blunt, more salable and a better investment), by helping along its original architectural style.  Finding compatible choices in paint color, details, and landscaping are demystified.  There's a great section on Curb Appeal.  And this little book is so thorough that it includes great floor plans showing, for example, how to convert your garage into a master suite or how to enlarge your kitchen, each tailored to fit existing residential styles.  

It's terrific!

The book - like the inner ring suburbs it champions - has a certain charm.  There's affection in describing the characteristics and foibles of Garland's historic building styles.

The book starts with a brief illustrated history of Garland's residential development.  Around the city center are its earliest houses - charming late Victorians from the 1880s to the turn of that century- then a wider circle of bungalows from the "Craftsman" period of 1910-1930 plus the "Tudors" of the 1920s-1940s.  Then came the lull in building due to the Depression, followed by the boom after WWII.  I like the style designations: "Minimal Traditional," "Traditional Ranch," and "Late Ranch."  ("Minimal Traditional"!)  Later came 1970s "Contemporary."  (Architects of that vintage called these "Contempos.")  After that are just dates: "1980-2000" and "2000-present" because it takes a while to evolve a good nickname.  (I guess the moniker for the '80s will have the word "Gilded" in it... or maybe just "Brassy.")  A brisk, useful style guide.

Suggestions for home improvements are pithy too.  Photoshop-ed TM color options on real houses illustrate advice on finding compatible paint colors.  ("Shooped" is, I hear, the new vocab for image manipulation.)  Good advice on landscaping.  Top Ten ideas for quick fixes.  Photos and advice about the importance of building details is particularly well done.

Garland Residential Idea Book would help homeowners in many other places.

Get the free book HERE.

Or look on Garland's webpage (with more good info) under "Development and Permitting" and then "Idea Book Series."  I certainly hope this becomes a series, because this guide book is terrific.  What a smart way to spend my tax dollars!  The firm of Quimby McCoy Preservation Architecture created the book for the City of Garland - many thanks to everyone involved.

Best line in the book?

"...improvements are not just about making individual homes better, but they are also about improving neighborhoods as a whole."

I tip my architect-hat to that sentiment.  Let's improve the world home by home.

Man-Made Environment and Nature

When Dallas' North Central Expressway was rebuilt it was much widened and - in order to find that extra room - sunk into the ground with its side access roads sometimes cantilevering over it.  As much like a cave-highway as possible, basically.  To cheer this bleakness, landscaping was added in the endless concrete dividing way between the north-bound and south-bound traffic.

Of course, plantings required water and maintenance... so were allowed to die.  No, were allowed to die in patches and then even the hardy still-living plants were rooted out to be concreted over.

There was a public outcry.  So, reluctantly, the highway folks agreed to try to grow something.  As long as it could be completely ignored, of course.

Today, there is a thin band of native grasses running down the center of the expressway.

Yesterday, stuck in traffic, with nothing but metal and concrete as far as my eye could see, I noticed that these fragile looking yet tough native grasses were swaying and dancing in an elusive breeze only they could feel, their delicate seed heads nodding.  The light falling into this man-made canyon lit them in the way sun sometimes catches a spiderweb... suddenly they were much more real than the legion of cars and trucks surrounding them.

Public domain photo

I noticed that on a concrete sidewall or embankment nearby, there was a seepage through the concrete.  A little ancient spring was still weeping - regardless of highway designers - and at the foot of this trickle, a tiny willow sapling grew from a crack in the road's shoulder.

Nature finds ways.

Taking Best Advantage of a Building Site

On a recent visit to Fort Worth I got a chance to walk around the new Tarrant County College east campus, which has its grand opening October 1.

Gorgeous.

I was very excited - months ago - when I drove past the campus on my way out of downtown Fort Worth and I caught a glimpse of the terrific view that the designers opened up.  The north end of downtown, by the County Courthouse, sits on a high bluff that drops down to a loop of the Trinity River - but all this has been hidden for decades by buildings.  When laying out this new college campus, Bing Thom Architects designed a pair of long parallel buildings with a long thin courtyard between them that cuts a descending view through to the river and the historic Stockyards part of town beyond.  Breathtaking.

Tarrant County College, East Campus - view to north

The buildings are interesting, with some nice features like metal fins for shading, though the budget seems extravagant for these austere times.  (No doubt the money was appropriated years ago.)

I do wonder why the buildings had to be gray?  A nice color, sure, and very Architectural, but at this end of Fort Worth the other buildings are mostly Texas pink granite or rosy brick.  I suspect that the architects coming from Vancouver might be a factor in this - northern architects almost always choose darker and grayer materials than local ones, evidence the dark ironstone brick of Dallas' Arts Magnet High School.  Sorry, but North Texas is a tan kinda place.  Prairie?  Context?  (Sorry, this is a thing of mine.)

But the "big" design here - the parti - is very strong.  There are a few awkward details (view above cafe ceiling?), but overall these buildings are nicely realized.  I hope people discover just how cool this place is and adopt it...

Tarrant County College, East Campus - east wing, facing north

The Glory of the place is that canyon of a courtyard, with its amphitheater-like steps, trees,  and wonderful water feature - part fountain, part water-wall or -fall part... rocky mountain stream, burbling between boulders.  Wonderful!

Tarrant County College, East Campus - fountain

I can't tell from what I've found whether the landscaping was done in-house at Bing Thom Architects or if another landscape firm was involved: whoever deserves the credit... deserves credit!