During our Glenwood Park tour this week, Domenick Treschitta showed us a designed alley: backdoors, garage doors, trash cans of beauty. I fell in love. I'm not alone.

Houses on the corners make two chunky "columns" that frame the alley. The one-story garage is painted correlated metal, quite modern-utilitarian, and pretty. Cyprus columns flank and soften garage doors. This wins the gold medal for alley landscaping.

The entry to the alley has curved curbs. A right angle wouldn't be as good, would it? Here is the "little yellow brick house" at the south end of the alley. I like it a lot. You can see that consistent footprints, heights, masses and detailing allow a variety of styles to harmonize.


Grids, alleys, and pathways give these compact developments breathing room, alternative routes, places to explore, privacy, and a bit of unexpected mystery. Here is Domenick leading us on a footpath. It's a shortcut to the park/playground/lake. What landscaping!


If you walk around, you'll find little surprises around every corner.


More to come on Glenwood Park. Thanks, Terry

Another shot of the yellow house.

Lightroom Studio an architecture / design shop in Decatur, Georgia modeled their building and used a heliodon to understand how to manage the sunlight, pretty important in a modern design.



Trees play a huge part managing Atlanta's summer sun. It get wawm down here. Probably does where you live too.

Thanks,
Terry

You might enjoy following Lightroom Studio on Twitter.

Hooked on Houses is hosting her "Hooked on Friday's" blog party: today I'm hooked my foyer. I'll show you some pictures and make some points from A Pattern Language. Got your copy out? OK. Turn to Pattern 130, ENTRANCE ROOM and follow along. For you floor plan nuts - like me - I've got some for you. If you know Flicker, click the pictures and make them bigger.

Today I'll show you my foyer. It's a good one but why? Come on in.



Well, you can't come in quite yet. What does Pattern 130 say?

"Arriving in a building, or leaving it, you need a room to pass through, both inside the building and outside it. This is the entrance room. "

In fact before our renovation, the entrance room was somewhere else. We bulldozed our enclosed porch to make a new foyer:



Here is the plan for our new foyer. When I first saw it, my brain said, "look at all that wasted space" and "why the heck do we need with a powder room?" The pros, Bill Harrison, Gordon, and Susan, told me to just go with it. They were so right.



Here is another peek at the real thing:



It's pretty but what about the physical space? From A Pattern Language:

"(a) Politeness demands that when someone comes to the door, the door is opened wide.

"(b) People seek privacy for the inside of their houses.

"(c) The family, sitting, talking, or at table, do not want to feel disturbed or intruded upon when someone comes to the door."

Once inside you can gather yourself to make your grand entrance to the main living area. Here you are looking to the left, towards the power room and kitchen. The purple hall leads to the laundry and kids' rooms.



Turning right there is a zen view into our jungle-office (library on the floor plan). We just call it the green room for our painted grass-cloth walls. It is a wonderful room that deserves it's own post some day, and maybe a picture without office supplies.



Another quote from A Pattern Language:

"Make the inside of the entrance room zigzag, or obstructed, so that a person standing on the doorstep of the open door can see no rooms inside, except the entrance room itself, nor through the doors of any rooms."

We certainly have the zigs, zags, and diagonals. They are unexpected and give you a strong sense of passage. You aren't traveling far but the scenery is changes with every step.

Head left and wave to the cook.



Southern hospitality requires that we offer you a moment freshen up. Who left that seat up!!!



Hearing the guests arrive, the cook can peek out and say hello.



Ready? Come on in and join us in the family room.



I know it's late and you have other blogs to visit.

What does A Pattern Language say about leaving?

"When hosts and guests are saying goodbye, the lack of a clearly marked 'goodbye' point can easily lead to endless 'Well, we really must be going now?' and then further conversations lingering on, over and over again.

"(a) Once they have finally decided to go, people try to leave without hesitation.

"(b) People try to make their goodbye as nonabrupt as possible and seek a comfortable break"

Michelle at A Schematic Life has a great post today about A Pattern Language.

I'm so happy you dropped in.

Best wishes,
Terry

Is taller always better? No, and it's even more complicated than that.

190. CEILING HEIGHT VARIETY from
A Pattern Language: Towns, Buildings, Construction by Christopher Alexander, Sara Ishikawa, Murray Silverstein.

"A building in which the ceiling heights are all the same is virtually incapable of making people comfortable.

"Therefore:

"Vary the ceiling heights continuously throughout the building, especially between rooms which open into each other, so that the relative intimacy of different spaces can be felt."

The Central Congregational United Church of Christ on Clairmont Road in Atlanta is a modern building, invisible from the street. Few have ever seen it, even fewer have seen the inside.

This is a special place. For stubborn traditionalists: When architecture is done this well - in any style - it can change your mind.

It's uncanny. There are places in this church that go straight to my brain chemistry, my hormones, my DNA! I know it's good. Why? Ceiling height is one reason. (Material, light, texture, finish, flow, proportion, siting, landscaping, and unity are as well but more on those another time.)

Here's the sanctuary as you drive up a winding, hilly road.


This is the entrance to the offices, the main activity room, and the lobby. 8 foot ceilings, huge windows, interior and exterior - this place feels good. The volumes make this space feel wide open, the offices to the left are cozy without losing the light or view.


The lobby / reception room really got me thinking. It connects every part of the church - the crossroads. It's a large room, fit for a small to medium wedding reception. It feels perfect, comfortable and human. It has an 8 foot ceiling! Impossible. Aren't big public rooms supposed to have high ceilings?


2250 Square Feet with an 8' ceiling.

Wallflowers might find the courage to talk to strangers in this room.

The 8 foot ceiling continues from the lobby into the sanctuary. A sanctuary with a fireplace lounge? The lounge is a cozy, antechamber. It is a convex space that looks out to the sanctuary, to the garden, and to the lobby.

Thanks to Pam Kersting at GardenDesigns+more for explaining "convex" spaces to me.

The low ceilinged lounge is like a safe observation deck. You are in the sanctuary but protected.


Here is the view from the lounge. What a feeling. The low ceilinged lounge, is a very comfortable place to gather the confidence to go further.


The ceiling rises higher, the floor falls away.


Let me repeat Mr. Alexander:

"Vary the ceiling heights continuously throughout the building, especially between rooms which open into each other, so that the relative intimacy of different spaces can be felt."

"...then the mere fact that the ceiling heights vary, allows people to move from high rooms to low rooms, and vice versa, according to the degree of intimacy they seek - because they know that everyone correlates intimacy with ceiling height..."

I don't think it's very cozy down here if you are the preacher or the choir.


The idea of a lower ceiling within a breathtaking sanctuary is hardly modern. Chatres Cathedral's aisles, are separated from the nave by a rows of columns and are made more intimate with a lower ceiling. You can feel cozy alongside the nave. Our modern church gets the very same effect using a different method.

Central Congregational United Church of Christ is a must see for Architecture Tourists.



Footnote:
First Congregational Church of Atlanta has a shared heritage with Central. It's a quite different but wonderful place. It is undergoing renovation right now. I've had the great pleasure of attending a jazz performance there presented by senior minister and musician, Dwight Andrews. It was a great night in a wonderful, historic building.