Frank Lloyd Wright*

For this week I was suggested to look up an amazing historical architect Frank Lloyd Wright by my colleague Jeremy Orman, for this research I didn’t research much about his early life but more about his architect career. While learning about him I was some what forced to later on read more about Wright after this quarter. Frank Lloyd Wright was born in Richland, Wisconsin on June 8, 1867. His original name was Frank Lincoln Wright but after his parents William Cary Wright and Anna Lloyd-Jones divorced he changed his name to Frank Lloyd Wright. As a child he spent life on his uncle’s farm in the summer in Spring Green, Wisconsin, as time passed his dream to become an architect started on the farm. While not finishing high school he went to make a proposal for the Dean of the University of Wisconsin’s Engineering department studying civil engineering. After his job shadow with the Dean he then moved to Chicago where he worked for another architect Joseph Lyman Silsbee, while working with them he drafted what is known for the Unity Chapel his first building. After a year passed he then moved and worked with Alder and Sullivan firm where he revised Sullivan’s theory of “Form Follows Function” to his own theory of “Form and Function Are One”. From Sullivan’s theory what I understand from it is the primary goal of any creative work is function and the secondary goal is the appearance of a building, and for Wright’s theory I believe he thinks that form and function correlates to each other because they rely on each other to create an idea. His business relationship with Sullivan ended when after he left to Illinois with his partner Catherine Tobin and his five children, while with her he opened up his own firm in Chicago that was up for five years. After eighteen years passed he moved to Germany with his new partner Mamah Borthwick Cheney, at the same time his uncle has passed away resulting in him receiving a portion of the land. While on the land and with Cheney he constructed a home for them named the “Taliesin” for three years because of the murder of Cheney, but this did not end his passion for architecture, he then rebuilt the Taliesin. 1932 he opened his Taliesin to the public as a fellowship and for students to come and get educated through Frank Lloyd Wright. Over the next 20 years he met his third wife Olivanna Milanoff, the two raised a child in the newly constructed Taliesin but the Wisconsin weather became too cold as they got older and moved to Phoenix Arizona along where he built Taliesin West and spent the rest of his life there, staying here for a couple of years he then reopened Taliesin to the public for education. Ending his architect career close to 70 years of experience he is looked at as a global impact on architecture, influencing design styles over seas in Europe and Asia.

ABOUT:

Wrights style of design can be seen as revolutionary start for sustainable design because of his integrated designs involving natural materials such as rock, rammed earth or adobe and were never painted. He utilized many many designs of low-pitched roof lines with deep overhangs to to ensure merging f the home and the environment. He would  include large stone fireplaces for the homes heart and made rooms open to each other possibly because he was aware of how home communications was going to turn into. His simplistic style of shapes and designs was a major influence to the Prairie school of Architects because his style was indigenous of architecture in the Midwestern.

Unity Chapel

Taliesin

Area: 490 acres

Opened: 1911

Address: Highways 23 and C, Spring Green, Wisconsin, 53588

Taliesin West

Area: 620 acres

Finished: 1932

School years: 1937-1959

Address: 12621 N Frank Lloyd Wright Blvd, Scottsdale, AZ 85259

Conclusion:

After reading about Frank Lloyd Wright I realized why Jeremy suggested him for me, its because the materials he uses are organic, he utilizes the effect of sky lighting often and I can relate some of my building design shapes to his structures because they seem neutral and original. My resources are not very strong because I was running out of time for my project.

Resources:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Lloyd_Wright

Methods of Design:

To finish of the second half of the quarter I decided to look up styles/ categories of designs that people use. The design of a build can have many influences that shape its form, some pertaining to social significance such as past life memories or nostalgic feelings about certain domestic space areas , some related to the climate, personal preferences, functionality, economic reasons, the list could go on forever. Sometimes during the design process there are times where you think analytically and find the correct solution or you think of all possible and non-possible solutions and narrowing that design down to what’s possible from it. Throughout the quarter as my experience in design progressed I noticed a pattern in what I did for each design. Step one I would identify: where I identify what needs to be solved, the location the site is at. Then I would design: start off with thinking how to bypass the climatic conditions so that the building can be comfortable throughout the year, sketch out what I know a building can be (foundation systems, walls, doors, windows, and the utilities). I would also incorporate some of the feedback from the previous critique. Finish: after I have a model that was presented I then would go back and tweak it a little bit to fit the feedback of that week. The pattern in my designing phase is that I stayed balanced in thinking if it’s possible and not possible, so the final design could have my audience question the actuality of the project. So this week I was on a search for inspiration to see if some of the designs that I have are or can be built, as I was looking I came across many types of buildings that inspired me more than I expected. I didn’t want my time spent search to be too long because I didn’t want to be too much inspiration where I was stealing the design so I limited my search to one site. Trying to limit myself I felt like I got too much inspiration, what I mean by this is that this one site gave me enough where the ideas in my head that were just a thought are almost a concrete design. Below is the link that I used and types of and architectural designs that I might enjoy trying.

Design Types:

Backyard Cottage

http://www.houseplans.com/collection/themed-backyard-cottages

Cottage fire place plans

Environmental cautious plans

Cabins

Lodge

Guest suite

http://www.houseplans.com/collection/themed-guest-suite-plans

University

Fields

Sloping homes

Climate orientated

Wrap around porches

Vacation homes

U/L Shapes

Duplex

Tiny house

Suite/ master suite

Modern home

Multi family home

http://www.houseplans.com/collection/themed-multi-family-plans

Luxury home

Energy efficient

Bedroom number

Garage living

Basement living

Backyard living

Dream decks

Resource:

http://www.houseplans.com/collection

Tour Assignment:

For my museum visit I asked my professor if I could do a LEED certified building as my visit because it still provided me the same amount of information that she wanted us to get from our tours. Going to the building Center for Urban Waters and knowing that it was a LEED building my mission was to go with a focus on the sustainable elements that it provides, the amazing innovation that came with it for inspiration, and for a better understanding of how a LEED building runs. After the visit I made a proposal for attributes of the building such as the square footage, how many points it earned and in what, and I also asked for blueprints but those are out of my budget right now.

ABOUT:

The Center for Urban Waters is maintained with the collaboration of “The City of Tacoma”, “Puget Sound Partnership”, and UW Tacoma. Each contributor provides their services for water quality, storm water studies and analysis, micro-plastics, and cleanup/restoration in a complimentary manner to influence environmental restoration by using its sustainable features. The City of Tacoma provided the structure while UW Tacoma provides the research for the environment, and Puget Sound initiates urban development efforts. The center was awarded in the following categories for its certification: Sustainable Site, Water Efficiency, Energy and Atmosphere, Materials and Research, and Indoor Environmental Quality.

Location:

“Center for Urban Waters‎”

326 East D Street

Tacoma, WA 98421

http://www.urbanwaters.org/

VISIT:

As I went there I was greeted to Kelvin my tour guide, he is strongly educated about the build but it seemed it was too much for him at his age. Anyways I told him my intentions for this tour: to learn the sustainable features of the building to help inspire my motivation for Sustainable Design. We shot up to the roof where Kelvin talked about the geothermal wells are wells that runs through the building to heat and warm it up when it is needed. Geothermal Wells: is the process of using a heat/energy source directly from the earth by drilling to a limit where heat levels are stable for energy production. After we went inside to get a visualization of the Green Roof’s that are located on the sides of the building and the roof for maximum East-West sun protection. After the green roof the automatic Solar Shades where next: since Washington has a Bi-Polar weather forecast the solar shades react to the building temperature to activate shades activate, it’s still manual but not recommended because the buildings temperature is highly sensitive because of the elements that are related to the temperature. Natural Ventilation, one of the most important elements of the building. Water Storage Tank, water from the green roof and water rejected from the laboratory’s pure water system is collected in two 36,000 gallon tanks and is used to flush toilets and irrigate the plants. Having a rain water harvesting tank in Washington is very resourceful with the amount of rain fall it receives, with the sustainable values attached to the building its 37% more efficient than a standard building on energy. After the visit my most important thing learned was there is a lot of influence and advertising of sustainable design that is needed in order to maintain our materials.

RESOURCE:

http://www.urbanwaters.org/our-facility/saving-energy/saving-energy-efficient-design

And tour guide Kelvin.

HISTORY:

The Tacoma Municipal was the first publicly owned dock in the state that gave it links to maritime activities on the downtown waterway in the early 1900’s. It was used as a terminal for cargo ships and the “mosquito fleet”. When the 1930’s came by the transportation method of using ships became inferior to cars and left the dock no longer needed. As time passed efforts to restore the dock were attempted but stopped after the Nisqually earthquake in 2001 because it left the building to damaged for repairs. This history correlates with the Center for Urban Waters because the historic timber s were salvaged and reused for the conference room walls and the walls and ceilings in the main lobby.

And now enjoy this 2 minute in the eyes of a zombie (video of me walking from The Center for Urban Waters)