Posts Tagged ‘Haynes’

mystery solved

Saturday, May 5th, 2012

Back to the deck. The other day, it was taken apart. And the findings? Tell us all about it, David…

——————————————————————————————

So. Exploratory surgery has exposed the truth about the deck…

the deck wall has been removed

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Some is ugly… well, all of it is ugly. But we kind of knew that going in.

Insects had their way with the original deck and it’s apparent that in the early ’80s the deck was rebuilt. Unfortunately not by craftspeople, or in fact by carpenters. In any event, we will now repair what’s there as well as build it to the original ’70s design, as intended by architect Irving Haynes (click to biggify)…

architectural rendering of our house, circa ’70 | Haynes and Associates

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Cantilevered. Which means we’ll be taking out the three spindly support posts currently there.

Our engineer provided us with drawings of an ideal situation (click to biggify)…

engineering drawing | deck, 04/02/12

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The plan:

  • A pair of LVL beams (same as we used to support the living room floor/downstairs ceiling) will carry the deck load across the front of the house.
  • Two steel corners will tie all the wood together at the outside corners.
  • Two long steel straps bolted to each framing member they cross will support the outside corners by spreading the load across the sides of the house.
  • And with slight modification of the steel corner, we will proceed. After the building department gives us a permit, that is.

 

Once the framing is all sorted we’ll add some nice new decking, an affordable teak alternative called Garapa Gold. But that’s a story for another day.

In the meantime, everyone can see us from the street…

please don’t go out on the deck

the deck: where we left off

Thursday, March 29th, 2012

Let’s see, what’s been going on at the homestead since I last had time to share?

Removing the siding on the inside of the deck surround…

removing the siding

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

removing the siding 2

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Turns out the wall on the west side of the deck was completely soggy to the point of rotting…

soggy siding

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It absolutely reeks of mildew and was covered in slimy goo. Gross. The wood on that side is not salvageable, unfortunately. Especially once you add in the carpenter ant damage…

signs of old carpenter ants

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

They love wood that’s been softened up by poor drainage. Luckily we got rid of the ants right after we moved in.

So where does that leave us? The walls are temporarily covered in housewrap to keep out the spring rains…

deck walls with housewrap

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And now there’s a slight pause in the rebuild of the deck while we wait for the engineer to chime in. On what, you ask? Biggify this and check out the deck as the architect imagined it in 1970…

architectural rendering of our house, circa ’70 | Haynes and Associates

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Cantilevered. No supports.

Compare that to how it actually got built a year later…

view from the corner, post-construction | Haynes and Associates

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A single post stuck in the middle. Well, not exactly the middle — slightly off-center so that it wouldn’t interfere with coming and going through the lower slider. Weird.

Compare that to how it looks now…

finished wall, February 2010

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

At some point, posts were added to either end in addition to the one in the center. David and I think this looks a little clunky and have always imagined we’d try to go back to Irving Hayne’s original vision if possible. Next week, Eric over at Structures Workshop should come back to us with drawings and we’ll find out if we can make it happen. Good man. We’ve tapped him more than once for this remodel.

 

 

the best surprise

Thursday, February 10th, 2011

More proof that you just never know what a new day will bring you… So this morning the doorbell rings. And who’s on our doorstep? Two happy, shiny offsproing of Irving B. Haynes, the original architect of the house we love so much. What the?

Seth and Libby stopped by to say that until they happened across mymodremod, they’d had no idea that this house was their father’s creation — even after passing by it for so many years. We had a lovely chat and stumbled them through our embarrassingly fakakta interior.

And then they asked if we’d like this (click to biggify)…

irving b haynes collage

It’s a collage of ski passes made by their father in 1971 — the year construction began on our house. Hailing from Maine, Irving liked to take the family skiing around New England. Nice bit ’o regional history there…

irving b haynes collage, detail 1

irving b haynes collage, detail 2

irving b haynes collage, detail 3

How sweet is it of Seth and Libby to share a little bit of Irving with us? That’s so nice! We’ll most definitely be in touch. I’d love to prove to them that we’re really not slobs. Well, mostly not slobs anyway.

Thanks, you two! And I promise we’ll figure out the glitch in posting comments so that you can chime in every now and then.

ooh, we’re “significant”!

Tuesday, September 28th, 2010

A little something to make you chuckle… Just after we moved in at the beginning of 2008, we got a letter from the Providence College Department of Art and History asking if we’d consider adding our house to their “online exhibition” as a “significant example of modern architecture.” Really? Our place?

letter from PC architecture

Sure, why not. I guess we do own the only modern in the ’hood after all. So we were visited by a shiny young thing from the architecture class who then did her research, we gave her photos and told her what we knew, and she put together this entry for the PC architecture website. Keep in mind that this was a student project and makes our house sound a little, how you say, highfalutin?

Page 1 (click to biggify)…

PC site | page 1

Page 2 …

PC site | page 2

Page 3 …

PC site | page 3

I’ve told you what we know about Irving Haynes in previous posts. I wonder what he’d think about being compared to Le Corbusier and Schindler? Flattered? Embarrassed? Which brings me to an unexpected syncronicity…

David’s grandmother, Maria Fenyo McVitty, was an architect who worked in Paris with Le Corbusier right after World War II. No, really! I’m pretty sure she’d laugh off the comparison to Le Corbusier. However, she did give this house her stamp of approval on an all-too-rare visit to Providence the year we moved in — unfortunately also the same year she passed on. Hers is a fascinating story I intend to share with you someday.

Miss you, Ria!

a glint in the architect’s eye

Thursday, August 26th, 2010

architectural rendering of our house, circa ’70 | Haynes and Associates

Our house, before it was born. This is what the architect, Irving Haynes, envisioned before the house was built. Pretty cool to have the original rendering from 1970. Click to biggify for full vintagey glory.

It turned out pretty much as drawn. Except no sidewalk down to the street. Here’s a finished shot from ’72 — if you saw the construction photos from my second post ever, you’ve seen this one before…

view from the corner, post-construction | Haynes and Associates

Sweet ride in the driveway.

They obviously had to cheap out on the retaining wall along the driveway as the one in the drawing is much, much cooler. They went with railroad ties… which eventually rotted, go figure. The new wall designed by architect Markus Berger is more along the lines of what Haynes was picturing…

finished wall, February 2010

Want to see the lot before there was a house on it? Yeah, we got that. Here’s the same corner view…

view of the corner, before the house was built

Looking up from across the street from the house, here’s the backyard we’ve been reworking when it was completely untouched and there were plenty of trees to keep the slope from washing away…

view of the back from the street

My my, aren’t we looking natty, Mr. Architect.

Here’s the view looking back down to the street from the future yard…

view from the lot down to the street

And here’s the view of what will become our veggie garden at the end of our neighbor’s brick retaining wall…

view of the future veggie garden

Yeesh. A whole lotta trees died to build this house…

Okay, trip down memory lane is over. Get back to work!

and yet another tile idea

Friday, April 9th, 2010

Just got the April Anthropologie catalog in the mail and of the many wonders it contains, the one that makes my heart flutter the most is something they don’t sell…

anthropologie, page 5, april 2010 catalog

The tile! It just reminded us that to trim costs, we could always create our own unique mosaic tile pattern in the two entryways rather than buy something readymade. Would be fun to take one of Irving Haynes’ paintings, for instance, and turn it into 8’x5′ and 4’x2′ tile “rugs.”

tile closeup

I know, I’m clearly obsessed. I made that obvious here and here. Just wait ’til we get to the bathrooms. Consider yourself warned.

total yard-on for hardscape

Friday, February 19th, 2010

Name a category for our remodel, inside or out, and I’ll show you a stash of dreamy ideas dug up online or shot in my daily travels. Trying to show you all my inspiration for outside is ha! fuhgeddaboudit. Let’s just talk hardscape. I’ve culled some of the bazillion images I have so you can see how a few themes for the look of our future yard rise to the top. Ready to take a dive?

DRIVEWAY

Major theme here: Strips of concrete set into gravel or grass. These could be squares, rectangles, angles — all shapes Irving Haynes, the architect of our house, used again and again in his work and his art. Linear strips would complement the modern architecture of the house (more so than the stupid blacktop there now) and  reduce runoff into the street (and that slippery sheet of ice across our sloped driveway in winter).

The Black House, Andres Remy Arquitectos | archdaily.com

The Black House, Andres Remy Arquitectos | archdaily.com

Waterfall House, Andres Remy Arquitectos | archdaily.com

Waterfall House, Andres Remy Arquitectos | archdaily.com

Maas Architects | contemporist.com

Maas Architects | contemporist.com

Maas Architects | contemporist.com

Maas Architects | contemporist.com

Frick Residence, KRBD | contemporist.com

Frick Residence, KRBD | contemporist.com

Below, not exactly a driveway but definitely a style we could duplicate for a driveway…

Canyonhouse, X Ten Architecture | xtenarchitecture.com

Canyonhouse, X Ten Architecture | xtenarchitecture.com

PATIO

The look we settle on for the driveway we definitely want to carry into our two patio areas — to simplify, surfaces will be done at the same time. That likely means repeating strips or squares of concrete. Additional themes I see in the images I’m most drawn to: irregularity as a part of the pattern, grids and intersecting planes, plantings set into the patio surface, strong delineation of grass or moss/gravel/river rock areas, the interplay of different kinds of surface materials, softening of hard edges by plantings.

D-Crain | d-crain.com

D-Crain | d-crain.com

D-Crain | d-crain.com

D-Crain | d-crain.com

D-Crain | d-crain.com

D-Crain | d-crain.com

shot at The Farmer's Daughter, S.Kingstown, RI

shot at The Farmer's Daughter, S.Kingstown, RI

D-Crain | d-crain.com

D-Crain | d-crain.com

Marin Residence, Andrea Cochran Landscape Architecture | acochran.com

Marin Residence, Andrea Cochran Landscape Architecture | acochran.com

D-Crain | d-crain.com

D-Crain | d-crain.com

John Maniscalo Cole Street Residence | remodelista.com

John Maniscalo Cole Street Residence | remodelista.com

Summer House Vestfold 2, JVA | archdaily.com

Summer House Vestfold 2, JVA | archdaily.com

Bellevue City Hall, Phillips Farveaag Smallenberg | pfs.bc.ca

Bellevue City Hall, Phillips Farveaag Smallenberg | pfs.bc.ca

searching for attribution — will add asap! :(

searching for attribution — will add asap! :(

Rosen House | eichlernetwork.com

Rosen House | eichlernetwork.com

From the Ground Up | blogs2.startribune.com/blogs/newhouse

From the Ground Up | blogs2.startribune.com/blogs/newhouse

livingetc.com

livingetc.com

San Damian House, Daw | archdaily.com

San Damian House, Daw | archdaily.com

Seattle Dream Gardens | sunset.com

Seattle Dream Gardens | sunset.com

Brookvale Residence, Andrea Cochran Landscape Architects | acochran.com

Brookvale Residence, Andrea Cochran Landscape Architects | acochran.com

Adams Fleming House, Levitt Goodman Architects | levittgoodmanarchitects.com

Adams Fleming House, Levitt Goodman Architects | levittgoodmanarchitects.com

Johnson House, Pierre Koenig | eichlernetwork.com

Johnson House, Pierre Koenig | eichlernetwork.com

shot at Denver Botanic Gardens

shot at Denver Botanic Gardens

Tepper Residence, Jeffrey Gordon Smith Landscape Architecture | houzz.com

Tepper Residence, Jeffrey Gordon Smith Landscape Architecture | houzz.com

Adding the image below because we might consider a more textured surface…

latimes.com home tours

latimes.com home tours

PATIO COVER

We’re being very conscious about not adding structures that will detract from the original architecture of the house. The patio cover should be functional, not a focal point. Minimal but large enough to keep driving rain and snow from the north off the windows (plus we like to leave the windows open to let the air circulate in season). Preferably not light blocking as it’s on the shady side of the house. The overriding theme: simplicity.

Ridgeview (after) | designspongeonline.com

Ridgeview (after) | designspongeonline.com

Kidosaki Achitects | contemporist.com

Kidosaki Achitects | contemporist.com

POOL

Still debating whether we have fish or not, but we absolutely must have water — no room for a swimming pool, unfortunately. Major theme in these images: a long, rectangular water feature either raised or set into the ground, frequently set off by rectangles or squares of concrete, sometimes grass or gravel. Especially loving floating steps across a pool.

archdaily.com

archdaily.com

D-Crain | d-crain.com

D-Crain | d-crain.com

shot at Denver Botanic Gardens

shot at Denver Botanic Gardens

stylehive.com

stylehive.com

D-Crain | d-crain.com

D-Crain | d-crain.com

Fox Residence, Lutsko Associates | lutskoassociates.com

Fox Residence, Lutsko Associates | lutskoassociates.com

Alexander's Crown, Andrea Cochran Landscape Architecture | acochran.com

Alexander's Crown, Andrea Cochran Landscape Architecture | acochran.com

Blue Mountain, Phillips Farveaag Smallenberg | pfs.bc.ca

Blue Mountain, Phillips Farveaag Smallenberg | pfs.bc.ca

Singleton Residence, Richard Neutra | lacurbed.com

Singleton Residence, Richard Neutra | lacurbed.com

Ohara Residence, Richard Neutra | mcarch.wordpress.com

Ohara Residence, Richard Neutra | mcarch.wordpress.com

Stone Edge Farm, Andrea Cochran Landscape Architecture | acochran.com

Stone Edge Farm, Andrea Cochran Landscape Architecture | acochran.com

D-Crain | d-crain.com

D-Crain | d-crain.com

contemporist.com

contemporist.com

GARDEN

I’m talking hardscape, not plants… Repetitive themes: corten steel steps backfilled with gravel, concrete (or granite) block steps, rogue plants interrupting the steps — there to make you linger, raised beds of corten, variety in the levels of plantings, plants no longer banished to a border but set apart in the landscape for drama, zones of grass amidst the plantings, the satisfying crunch of pea gravel.

D-Crain | d-crain.com

D-Crain | d-crain.com

D-Crain | d-crain.com

D-Crain | d-crain.com

D-Crain | d-crain.com

D-Crain | d-crain.com

D-Crain | d-crain.com

D-Crain | d-crain.com

Cow Hollow Garden, Veverka Architects | houzz.com

Cow Hollow Garden, Veverka Architects | houzz.com

Lake House, Hutchison & Maul Architecture | archdaily.com

Lake House, Hutchison & Maul Architecture | archdaily.com

D-Crain | d-crain.com

D-Crain | d-crain.com

I’ll get to lighting someday, but isn’t this shot of light canisters hanging from the oaks absolutely dreamy?

D-Crain | d-crain.com

D-Crain | d-crain.com

I want to go to there.

That brings an end to How Green Is My Brain Week. Except that I’m currently in the garden planning stage so my brain will likely be green for months to come. You’ve been warned.

*    *    *    *    *

Bookmarks for this post:

acochran.com The land and sustainability are key to her incredible modern gardens. Genius landscapes. Also worth noting that Andrea Cochran published an amazing book last October.

archdaily.com So many projects from around the world. Great, great stuff here.

contemporist.com I’m absolutely in awe of the architecture this site covers.

d-crain.com Austin, you’re so lucky to have such a progressive landscaping firm. *sigh*

designspongeonline.com My daily virtual commute must. Great inspiration for everything.

eichlernetwork.com A constant source of inspiration for an MCM remodel, even if you don’t live in an Eichler.

houzz.com Home design images from architects, designers and landscapers searchable by style and keyword. Consider it a gateway drug.

levittgoodmanarchitects.com Just really beautiful work, inside and out.

la.curbed.com For the inside scoop on LA’s drooliest real estate.

latimes.com Luuuuuurve their Homes of the Times section. Great style, lots of innovative use of materials and sustainability in action in L.A.

livingetc.com A modern mag with great ideas in their photo gallery.

lutskoassociates.com Landscapes that combine ecology and modernism. Gorgeous.

mcarch.wordpress.com An enviable collection of midcentury architecture photos.

pfs.bc.ca So happy to have stumbled across Vancouver’s Phillips Farevaag Smallenberg landscape architecture. Modern, thoughtful landscapes.

remodelista.com Who doesn’t use this as a style resource? Big fan from the beginning.

sunset.com I don’t live out West but I get the magazine like I do. Love all the home and garden ideas with a green focus.

xtenarchitecture.com Rad L.A. architecture firm. They know modern and sustainable.

garden bones: the big reveal

Thursday, February 18th, 2010

Retaining wall construction wrapped about two weeks ago. Let’s get right to the final results… As always, click to biggify.

final front view

final back view

Very happy with how the walls look like they belong to the house — the mark of an architect. Irving would be thrilled. Thanks Markus Berger and Naomi Clare at Inside Out Design! Once the paint comes off the foundation, it should look even more seamless.  Doors still need to be built on the storage bays of the back wall. And when spring rolls around, plantings will soften the edges and add privacy.

The construction, chronicled

Want the nitty gritty? Read on…

The retaining wall plans got done in November. The next step was getting bids from cement contractors. And tick tick tick tick tick, suddenly it’s December. Impending winter. This is Rhode Island, after all. Is building now really a good idea?

The contractor we settled on seemed to think it was. “Adjust the concrete mix to deal with the cold,” they said confidently in their thick Rhody accents. We were dubious. But our engineer, Erik Anders Nelson, was down with that. The city inspector was, too. So fine, then.

To start, we had to take out two trees in back that happened to fall directly in line with the placement of the retaining wall…

backwall 1

Sorry trees. I know it’s not much consolation but digging would have killed you. You’ll be replaced by something exquisite, I assure you.

Digging started on December 15th. My Facebook friends weathered six weeks worth of almost daily posts on the progress. Highlights below. If you really want to get your geek on, you’re welcome to check out the full project from beginning to end, complete with angst and commentary.

Back wall:

back wall 2

back wall 3

back wall 4

back wall 6

back wall 7

back wall 8

back wall 9

back wall 10

back wall 11

back wall 12

back wall 13

back wall 14

Front wall:

front wall 1

front wall 2

front wall 4

front wall 6

front wall 7

front wall 8

front wall 9

front wall 10

front wall 11

front wall 12

front wall 13

front wall 14

front wall 15

front wall 16

front wall 18

front wall 19

Goodbye, rocky menace:

rocky menace

rocky menace gone

Four dumptruck’s worth of crappy stone, gone! Some of it…

rocky menace jr. in the neighbor's yard

ended up right across the street, in our neighbor’s yard! Glad someone can use it. We tried to give it away to any contractor who’d take it. No takers.

The ugly and unresolved:

front wall stairs

Drama with the stairs. The concrete crew couldn’t seem to make the detail consistent from step to step (5th photo down, after the jump). David had them rip it out… three times. Oy. Says he’ll be pouring the detail himself. Hallelujah.

There’s also some debate about the stucco-ish finish. David thought he’d prefer it over the patchwork look of the concrete that resulted from multiple pours. Now he hates it. I could have lived with the bare concrete. Oh well.

Consider yourself caught up. Next step: adding skin to the garden bones. Epic look at ideas tomorrow!

the hunt for irving

Tuesday, February 16th, 2010

Quick note… David and I have been emailing back and forth with Jane Ingall, wife of Irving Haynes, the architect of our house as you may recall. We love his artwork and the idea of bringing a painting into the home he built, if such a thing is available. And if we can afford it.

So far, the word is good. Jane says there’s work to look at. Yay! And a few days ago she let us know that she added a few of his pieces to Adam Tamsky Fine Art in Providence. We zipped over there right away…

Adam Tamsky pulls out a Haynes painting

That’s Adam. He’s easy to talk to and chock full of information. We’ll probably take a look at a few more Haynes paintings before we decide.

Side note: interesting modern bench by BILT at Adam Tamsky’s gallery…

BILT bench

Funny. I’ve already posted about those guys two other times in the past week. Sometimes I forget how small Providence is.

Expect a return to How Green Is My Brain Week shortly…

a note about irving

Wednesday, February 3rd, 2010

The house was buried in the Providence Craigslist real estate postings under the standard fare of colonials, capes and Victorians. I remember pulling up to the house for the first time. After more than 30 disappointing property viewings, we’d finally found it: our bold, sunny modern.

The real estate agent told us the house was built by a Rhode Island School of Design architecture school grad student — a woman no less. We liked the sound of that. But a trip to the city records revealed that  the architect of our house was actually a well-seasoned New England native by the name of Irving B. Haynes. A little online sleuthing told us more… and then we really got psyched.

Born in Waterville, Maine, in 1927, Irving became an architect, a long-time RISD professor, historic preservationist, jazz musician and an accomplished painter. He was a busy, busy man that Irving. His art would look completely at home in this house.

Just a few of my favorites from his website, which you should really visit if you’re into this kind of thing:

haynes_work1

1969 | Untitled, watercolor on paper 15"x20"

haynes_work2

1974 | Untitled, watercolor on paper 18"x24"

haynes_work3

1988 | Untitled, acrylic on paper 14"x17"

haynes_work4

1988 | Untitled, acrylic on paper 44"x30"

haynes_work5

1988 | Untitled, acrylic on paper 44"x30"

haynes_work6

1998 | Johnny's Boogie, acrylic on paper 44"x30"

haynes_work7

2003 | Blue Roof, acrylic on paper 30"x22"

haynes_work8

2004 | Well-Braced, acrylic on paper 14"x17"

Writer Joe Leduc in the art journal Big, Red and Shiny shares this bit of history about Irving:

Born in Maine, Haynes came to Rhode Island in 1948 as a transfer student to RISD from Colby College.  After earning degrees in painting and architecture, he spent the 1950s working for a variety of architectural firms by day and playing jazz by nights in area nightclubs. By 1968… Haynes had his own architectural practice, Haynes and Associates, in Providence. Another career began in 1973, when he started teaching Foundation Studies at his alma mater, assuming an Assistant Professorship in 1980.  Haynes’ association with RISD would continue, as he retired from architectural practice in 1990 to concentrate on painting and teaching, becoming a Full Professor in 1997 before retiring in 2005.

There’s not a ton of information online about Irving. Someday I may make a trip to the RISD Library to see what else I can find out. In the meantime, here are a few more links for anyone who stumbles across this post and is so inclined:

  • A writeup of the man and his art for a posthumous show of his work in 2005 at RISD’s Industrial Design Department Gallery in the Brown Daily Herald.

Thank you, Irving, for designing a house we absolutely love. We promise to keep any updates true to the spirit of the house. And put some Brubeck on the turntable every now and then.