Z House + Winery Construction Update /
Black Moon Vineyard
Z House Construction Update /
Architectural/structural gluelam beams carefully being implemented. Trusses up in the outbuilding and roof sheathing on. Think we can store a little wine in there…. and the Z House team.
My Stair Design Featured on Fine Home Building Website /
Highly talented architect & writer Duo Dickinson presents a very informative talk on stairs. This is a clip of where he uses my stair design as a featured piece for discussion. The entire talk is at this link.
Exploring in my Explorer; Chiloquin to Ocotillo - Day 5 - Final /
New Jack City, aka Sawtooth Canyon. South of Barstow, in the class of a small Alabama Hills with different geology.
A Monastery in the desert. I saw it on google and the monks were very nice to me when I just showed up with my camera. An amazing juxtaposition of images in the desert environment.
Turns out, they are in the process of building a giant church/conference center. Once they learned I was an architect, the monks were fine with me wandering around the construction site on my own. Using a type of ICF building material for the walls, and some HUGE steel beams for the main space. As the final leg, this was a fitting segue back into my “architecture with meaning”. Funny how things work out sometimes.
Exploring in my Explorer; Chiloquin to Ocotillo - Day 4 /
Oldest living individuals on the planet - Bristlecone Pine Trees. They live at 10,000 ft elevation. Don’t miss the beautiful and bizarre ancient forest just east of Big Pine, CA. The road to the forest is equally amazing, climbing 6,000 ft.
Exploring in my Explorer; Chiloquin to Ocotillo - Day 3 /
Day of Lakes and waterfalls; Grant Lake, Silver Lake, June Lake, Virginia Lakes, & Lundy Lake. Always take that road less traveled.
Exploring in my Explorer; Chiloquin to Ocotillo - Day 2 /
Truckee River, Lake Tahoe, Emerald Bay & Misc. Countryside
Exploring in my Explorer; Chiloquin to Ocotillo - Day 1 /
Meeting up with old friends in Lake Almanor, and random countryside.
Integrating Landscape With Architecture /
Crater Lake, Oregon /
Exploring in my Explorer; Ocotillo to Chiloquin - Day 7 /
Arrived in Chiloquin. A fire station in Susanville, various travel adventure shots and Mt. Shasta.
Exploring in my Explorer; Ocotillo to Chiloquin - Day 6 /
Lakes today, Eagle and Almanor. And random shots to and from.
Eagle Lake - A shrinking lake. Had the similar sad feeling as Salton Sea but without the toxicity. Boat ramp ends about 300 yards before the water and the small marina looks like its been closed for a long time. Oh, and there’s a Ronald McDonald House there, yeah.
Lake Almanor - A beautiful area. You can see the damage across the lake from the Dixie Fire in Lassen last year, just devastating.
Exploring in my Explorer; Ocotillo to Chiloquin - Day 5 /
Travel Day. But first, my morning walk. Today along a creek trail in Lee Vining, CA. And a cool truck along the drive…
Exploring in my Explorer; Ocotillo to Chiloquin - Day 4 /
Mono Lake - The major draw is the Tufas, apparently. So I’ve included the obligatory photos. Personally I think they are quite unattractive and not worthy of the attention they receive. I get that the are formed from build up of calcium from calcium-rich springs. Yeah ok that’s cool, fine. I would rather focus on the startlingly beautiful bright emerald green of the water bordered in white calcium and salt (its thrice as salty as the ocean) as seen from the north in the afternoon (photos don’t do it justice). The green-water photos of Mono Lake were taken on my return trip from Bodie…
Bodie - Historic gold & silver mining ghost town. Extremely interesting and certainly historic. I’d been there once before, many years ago. This time however I seemed to be much more interested in the equipment, the “gear” of the late 1800s, rather than the old weathered buildings. The quality of craftsmanship and ingenuity back then, with much cruder tools than we have today, was quite impressive to see. Most seemed to come from San Fransisco or Pennsylvania. Another thing that seemed interesting is; there are absolutely no trees in Bodie or the surrounding area. Not a single tree. Which means all the lumber (some massive timbers) had to be brought to Bodie by horse and wagon. All the wood for the thousand or so buildings (only a fraction remain), the framing and siding, not to mention all the furniture etc. All brought in over the mountains. These people were badass.
Exploring in my Explorer; Ocotillo to Chiloquin - Day 3 /
Travel Day with side trips;
Horseshoe Meadow Road to Horseshoe Meadow, up to 9,300 ft elevation. Crazy long switchback road and heliport at the top, and breathtaking views; to the east over the valley, and to the west looking at Horseshoe Meadow which exists at 9,000 ft elevation.
Manzanar - National Historic Site - Japanese Internment Camp that housed 10,000 Japanese Americans, and Japanese immigrants from 1942 to 1945. Man’s inhumanity to man. I left in tears.
Keith’s Point in a strange high altitude forest.
Exploring in my Explorer; Ocotillo to Chiloquin - Day 2 /
Exploring in my Explorer; Ocotillo to Chiloquin - Day 1 /
Travel day. Joshua Tree National Park, et al
This following series will be a small curated selection of images, processed on my iPad.
Sometimes There’s A Stair /
In Memorial - Alexander Vardy /
On March 11 the world lost a brilliant mind that was helping to move the human race forward. His many academic and professional achievements you can lookup online and find in your pocket. A family lost a loving husband and an amazing trailblazing father. I lost a friend and client the likes of which I will never meet again. Alex was a fearless dreamer, but not the kind of dreamer that only dreams, the kind that figures out a way to make it happen. Thinking outside the box is an old term, but with Alex, there was nothing left of the box, only those thoughts and ideas that were outside. His fearlessness with respect to design so impressed me, I grew as an architect as a result of working with Alex and his loving family. I will truly miss Alexander Vardy.
You can see the very unconventional plan and design we came up with for their dream home. Sadly, we did secure a development permit but it had not yet been built. It would have been a stunningly beautiful and unique home befitting a brilliant dreamer of reality, and his wonderful family.
