A-Framed Houses

    This past week I investigated the architecture of the A-frame house design. As the house that we are capturing in 3D on Piney Croft lane in Maitland later this summer is an A-frame house, it is worth studying the historical significance of this architectural design.

    A frame houses have been around for quite some time cropping up across the world in places like Japan, Polynesia, and Switzerland, yet the first instance applying this architectural style here in the U.S was done by Rudolph Schindler, a former employee of Frank Lloyd Wright, in 1934 when he built an A-framed house in California. However, it was not until after WWII that the popularity of the A-framed house soared in tandem with a movement to have a second, vacation styled, home. In 1957, however, is when Andrew Geller built an A-frame house along the beach for approximately $7,000 for a client and achieved some acclaim in a New York Times story on May 5th 1957. A-framed houses have since climbed in popularity before falling off in the 1970s with a rise in popularity once again in recent years.     

    It was around the A-frame’s original rise in popularity that Clifford Wright built the A-framed Maitland home in 1959 just two years after the New York Times article featured Geller’s beach project.

    The general structure of an A-frame house features two angled walls that meet together at the top of the house forming a triangle where the ceiling and walls are continuous and lead into the ground where they are generally supported into an anchor. A cross beam cutting the triangle in half horizontally is generally present inside the structure and is used to not only support the household but create additional useable space. A benefit of using A-frames is the unique view points they have as well as the lower construction cost associated with them, and many A-frames use glass facades to not only let in natural light, but maximize the view outdoors.

    Wright’s Piney Croft structure follows a few of these norms by using the cross beams as support for what was described as a master bedroom and using glass to maximize the natural light and views. However, Wright does not limit the space of the house to a traditional A-frame as he expanded on the structure with standard house extensions centered around the tall central A-framed structure. However, Wright’s use of lateral space is different then some of its predecessors or contemporaries. While other A-framed houses are either short in stature or make use of lateral space to support two lofts or an entire second floor, Wright uses the 32-foot height to support a sleeping loft in the front of the house while keeping a high, uninterrupted ceiling in the central and rear portions of the A-frame.

A-frame designed in 1934 by Schindler. https://www.archilovers.com/projects/202445/gisela-bennati-house-in-lake-arrowhead-ca-rudolf-schindler.html

A-framed designed by Geller in 1957. https://www.fieldmag.com/articles/history-of-aframe-house-modern-design

The 1957 Geller house. Notice the cross beams and loft. https://www.fieldmag.com/articles/history-of-aframe-house-modern-design

The 1959 Wright house built in Maitland, FL. Notice the more traditional styled housing extensions. The photo itself is undated.

The design of the 1959 Wright house. “New Home Will Offer Refreshing Taste in Design; Modern Thought Used in Dramatic A-Frame,” Orlando Sentinel, Oct. 4, 1959, p. 3

References:

"Andrew Geller, Modernist Architect, Is Dead at 87." New York Times, December 26, 2011.
https://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/27/arts/design/andrew-geller-modernist-architect-is-dead-at-87.html

"In the Summertime, Living Becomes Even Easier at New Long Island Beach Cottage." New York Times, May 5, 1957, p. 324. https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1957/05/05/90802087.html?pageNumber=324

“New Home Will Offer Refreshing Taste in Design; Modern Thought Used in Dramatic A-Frame,” Orlando Sentinel, Oct. 4, 1959, p. 3

https://archive.curbed.com/2017/9/22/16346810/a-frame-homes-architecture-rudolf-schindler

https://www.archilovers.com/projects/202445/gisela-bennati-house-in-lake-arrowhead-ca-rudolf-schindler.html

https://www.fieldmag.com/articles/history-of-aframe-house-modern-design

https://alastairgordonwalltowall.com/2011/12/26/andrew-geller-architect-of-happiness-1924-2011/

Introductory Readings on Terrestrial Laser Scanning

I read two articles which gave me a more introductory look into terrestrial laser scanning (TLS) which detailed two different projects with goals behind them. The first, completed by Karagianni, detailed the use of TLS and used the project of capturing the façade of a historic house as the justification for advocating for TLS. The second project was a larger multi-disciplinary project spanning multiple organizations with the goal to capture the entire Cologne cathedral.

One thing that stood out to me was the wide use of software to achieve the desired results. This is reminiscent of my progress on my previous internship with photogrammetry under the direction of FPAN’s east central office, where I constantly switched to different slicing software for the best tool on a case by case bases. The cathedral project used Z+F LaserControl (v. 6.5), Adobe Photoshop, Leica Cyclone (v. 9.1), Autodesk ReCAP 360 (v.3.1), and ThinkBox Sequoia. All of these were used in the data-processing and visualization segment of the project. Likewise, Karagianni used Erdas Imagine, SCENE, and Pointools Edit. Both projects sought to capture buildings using the same methodology of TLS, but they used different software choices to achieve their results which is interesting that a wide range of software exists and is used for the same process. This make me question if there are certain software choices that bare a high cost, but are considered an industry standard amongst the field?

What is interesting is the limitations present in both works, distance is needed to get a good scan and tight close corridors or alleyways present a problem. Height is also a constant problem as these scanners are traditionally mounted on a tripod and take a few minutes to scan properly. The Karagianni project expressed this limitation and the Cologne cathedral project used scaffolding, extension arms, and the rooftops of nearby buildings to successfully capture most of the complex surfaces of the cathedral and overcome this limitation. This limitation will be present for my internship later on this summer and depending on the location, and scope of the scans, and we may need to explore ways to overcome this problem.

The results of these projects are impressive and scream for visualizations. These two projects helped me understand on how to use different forms of visualizations to make writing about these projects more effective which was something I struggled with in the past regarding my use of photogrammetry. Using a simple visualization like this flow chart helps the reader understand the process of the project in an easy to understand form. Below is screen capture of the flow chart presenting the process of Karagianni’s project.

 

 

The Cologne cathedral project used pictures to help visualize the how regarding the way the limitation of height was overcome to help the reader better understand that project. Below is a screen capture of a few pictures on how they were to visualize their success in overcoming the limitation they encountered.

While the end product of these laser scans, much like photogrammetry, produce eye catching data, visualizations regarding other aspects of these projects are important for contextualizing the process.

 

Karagianni, Aikaterini. “Terrestrial Laser Scanning in Building Documentation.” Civil Engineering and Architecture 5, no. 6 (2017): 215-221.

Pritchard, D., J. Sperner, S. Hoepner, R. Tenschert. “Terrestrial Laser Scanning for Heritage Conservation: The Cologne Cathedral Documentation Project.” ISPRS Annals of the Photogrammetry 4, no. 2 (2017) 213-220