Clifford Wright - Maitland and Winter Park's local architect

 

    Clifford William Wright was born at in the hamlet of Oceanside in Nassau county, Long Island, New York on April 15, 1933, yet spent most of his childhood in the Winter Park/Maitland area. He received his Bachelor of Architecture in 1955 got his license and moved across the street from the Meyer family where he would then build a house for them completed in the end of 1959. Clifford Wright’s career focused around the Winter Park, Maitland, and larger Florida area with other buildings being the expansion to the Ortronix Plant completed in 1960 in Goldenrod, the Schroeder Warehouses in Winter park in 1959-1960, a shop in Pine castle in 1959, a food store building in Orlando in 1961, an Apartment building in Sarasota in 1961 and the residence of Allan Hickok in Winter Park 1961 as well as condos in the Maitland and Winter park area around the 1960s.

    Wright spent two months coming up with the design for the Meyer residence and was pushed by Mrs. Meyer’s artistic demands to create the unique A-framed structure. Wright designed the house to be easily cooled despite the 32-foot overhead by allows cooler air to collect towards the bottom of the house, however this property would also make it difficult to heat the house in the winter, so Wright designed a brick fire place to help for Florida’s short winters. In designing the Meyer family’s residence, he was challenged to anchor the tall 32-foot A-framed structured against hurricanes and other strong winds. The answer was using steel plates to clamp the support beams in the center structure and anchor them into large pieces of concrete buried underneath the ground.

                The house was of a modern design in 1959 by following the recent trend of A-framed houses started in 1957 by Andrew Geller and designed with a sunken living room, wall to wall carpet, aluminum construction and newly prefabricated wooden beams and thirty two double glass windows along the two major A-framed walls. Wright balanced the unique structure with two traditional expansions on both sides of the A-framed featuring additional bedrooms and bathrooms on one side and a three-car garage on the other.

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

Interview and House Tour with Piney Croft Architect Clifford Wright, Sunday, April 29, 2018.

"WRIGHT, CLIFFORD W(ILLIAM). AIA 57. Mid-Florida Chapter." AIA Historical Directory of American Architects.
https://aiahistoricaldirectory.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/AHDAA/pages/20677106/1962+American+Architects+Directory

"Ortronix Inc. Building Storage Space for Overflow." Orlando Evening Star, Feb. 9, 1961, p. 7

"Campus Would Rather be 'Wright'." Miami Herald, Mar. 18, 1973, p. 231

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

Continuing Down the Path of 3D Preservation: An Expansion into 3D Laser Scanning

    My name is Trevor Colaneri and I am an MA student pursuing a Public History degree at UCF and my research interest are in preserving artifacts in 3D. This past fall I completed my internship with FPAN’s East Central office where I learned the photogrammetric process and applied this to a set of six unprovenienced artifacts from the Sanford Museum with the goal of not only creating 3D models, but printing these artifacts on FDM and SLA printers to have a comparison between printing processes. I used only low-cost methods in order to achieve these to, in part, enter the field on my own dime, and advocate for the increasing low-cost movement within the field. This internship culminated in my presentation at the virtual SHA conference which was also my first entry into the field of conferences.

    This internship for the spring semester is under the direction of Dr. Lori Walters who focuses on the use of terrestrial laser scanners to preserve buildings in 3D. The skills I hope the gain from this internship include the technical skills required to work with terrestrial laser scanners and process the data that comes from them. There is also the potential to work with a handheld structured light scanner as well. This internship will expand my knowledge on the use of 3D scanning technologies to allow me to expand my toolbox in the field of 3D preservation.

    My initial understanding of scanning technologies is this: photogrammetry is a great all around tool that can capture objects drastically different in size but lacks the accuracy of the other methods, the terrestrial laser scanner excels at the accuracy of its data but can only capture objects around the size of most buildings and is not intended for small objects, and the handled structured light scanner which fits nestled between the two with its ability to capture furniture sized objects. With the wide breadth of this internship’s available tools, a comparative approach is a possible avenue to explore as it will not only help me in having an understanding of each methods output but help others as well.

    The internship has tentatively set out a few different goals to accomplish, the scanning a statue on UCF’s campus as an initial test of photogrammetry and laser scanning, followed up by a scan of a structure here in the greater Orlando area such as church in Altamont, and finally scanning the Sugar Mill in New Smyrna. These goals can change in the coming weeks but their concepts behind the approach remains the same. Something local and easy, followed by a structure in the local area, and smaller location that will flex the capabilities of the different scanning methods.

    This internship will function differently to most traditional internships I have done in the past due to COVID-19 restrictions and is planned to start later in the spring semester and continue into the summer to ensure the safety of all participants and as such the blog posts regarding this project will be on an irregular schedule until later into the semester.

Racing against the Sunset: Shifting the Process to Reaching Deadlines

 

This past week I spent creating these merged and complete models, then realizing there are slight imperfections, or areas that I know I can improve, I went back to take more photos and improve on those areas. I have two of the models completed out of the set of six, while six was the arbitrary goal set at the beginning and is flexible, I am determined to finish the other four this coming weekend in order to meet the December 1^st deadline for the conference.

                A recording of my 15-minute PowerPoint presentation on the project is due on the first of December for the Society for Historical Archaeology (SHA) conference . I am willing to condense the number of models I will create down from six if need be but I intend to try and meet this initial goal. This implies I finish the rest of the models and accept the small imperfects in each model instead of the slight tweaking I have been doing this past week. I can always go back and tweak them more after the December 1^st deadline or mention them in the limitations of the project.  The goal besides creating these models is to then print them and compare them in relation to the low-cost methods I am using.

                I adapted some of my methods over the past week and learned more about the capabilities of Metashape, which continues to surprise me the more I use it. A limitation last week was the processing time for each model, and I decided that due to approaching deadlines, I turned the detail down from “High” to “Medium” which processes in about 5 minutes as opposed to an hour which helped me save a lot of time working on this project. This does mean, however, that the quality of the overall model is lower albeit more than acceptable.  I additionally found that the arrow heads have a unique problem with alignment as the automatic alignment of the different chunks does not really work for these sharp and flat pieces. I learned how to manually align these chunks which is a little more time intensive but was the last step to creating the finish model and overall, was not too difficult.

                I am surprised by the quality of these 3D models since the photos themselves were taken on my phone, which is apart of the low-cost of the project, and I have realized over the course of this project that it is the quality of the input that most drastically affects the output. The greatest impact on these models is the number of photos collected in each profile; the lower the amount of photos the worse and blurrier the final result, while the higher the amount of photos collected results in a crisp high definition model. Incomplete, or missing, sections of certain models already send me back to restart the process again which is only made worse if I rush the picture process as the low resolution sends me back to do it again and correctly. This project has taught me to do my due diligence when taking the first step in the modelling process as building off of a poor photo collection is like building on a shaky foundation, it does not matter how much effort I put in after that point because it will only cause my efforts to be less than ideal.

This is one of the completed models. What was the lower half before the merging process had less photos in its profile and resulted in a blurry product. Once merged together with the higher resolution upper half, this creates a slightly jarring result. I am unsure if this will translate through the resin 3D printing process.

Update: Considering this is the last blog for this internship for the Fall 2020 semester I wanted to update my progress on this project since I wrote the blog a few days ago to showcase the goal I achieved. 

I finished three other models and were able to print them over the weekend and wanted to showcase them here. The scale on some of the models is a bit off but can easily be fixed down the road.

Good Things Come to Those Who Wait: a more detailed look into merging 3-D models

The title of this blog sums up this past week pretty well. I work for OCPS as a middle school teacher and only have time at night or on the weekends to work on this project and no longer have the luxury to work whole days on classes as I have done in the past. This is prevalent because the merging processes took around 30-45 minutes each time I ran the process. I created many models this way before I realized an error in what I was doing. I could not separate the points based off of confidence as I learned last week because I rendered all the models with he advanced setting “calculate point confidence” turned off by default. Having this enabled is necessary to making the model clean as I will demonstrate in this weeks blog. This caused me to rerun these merging processes again, however enabling the “calculate point confidence,” caused processing time to increase even more from 30-45 minutes to between an hour to an hour and 15 minutes. Once more, if I realize there is an area of the model that is shaky and could use more photos then this waiting process has to start over again. This is why I describe this week as a lot of waiting as a single mistake can cost me a whole evening of just waiting.

                After hours of researching on the internet why I was having such difficulty merging models I discovered that Metashape has an automatic alignment method without the need of finding key points of similarity around the model. It took some time to get the hang of it but this made the process much easier by having the program itself detect the similarities.

                Once the models were merged I realized I forgot to cut away the table portions where the artifact was sitting before I merged the models but I was still able to cut it away after I merged them and it was not too much a problem considering the alternative was another hour of waiting time. I was now able to see the model in a heat map style of view that is organizing all of the points based of off how confident the program is on their placement. Red and orange dots are all those points that the program is unsure of and are therefore clouding the model giving it a dirty or fuzzy appearance. All those models that shift from green to blue are high confidence points where the program is confident in its placement. I was able to filter out the view to separate high and low confidence points and once there I could delete all low confidence points leaving behind a clean model.

This is the confidence map. The key in the lower left helps understand that the colder the color the higher the confidence value is.

The red and orange points are filtered out from the high confidence points and then deleted. These points are what clouds the model and gives it a fuzzy appearance due to their inaccurate location.

Only the high confidence points left behind

The dense point cloud after the confidence cleaning process. Notice how this is cleaner than any other dense point cloud I showcased thus far.

                From here I realized I would need to go back and take even more pictures on the bottom side of the model due to the lip of the conch being undefined and curved as opposed to a strong harsh edge. This artifact was included in the collection to be one of the more difficult model to create and so far it has and will continue to cost me more processing time as I try to get the inner fold of the shell to render but now with this streamlined process of cleaning the model I’m confident that this once will be completed as well.

The above photo shows the end product that is fully textured. This is the cleanest model I have made yet and looks perfect.

This is the problem mentioned in the above paragraph. The inner lip of the conch did not render any points due to a shortage of light and photos.

The Merging process

 

This past week I worked on figuring out how to merge two models together. This process is little longer than I anticipated but does not change my view on it being worth it. I did not encounter this problem earlier because the test models I was capturing were sitting on a base where I did not need to capture and in retrospect it would have probably been best to learn the merging process earlier.

I managed to successfully merge one of the artifacts together while the rest are in different stages of this process. The process involves placing a set of points on each model with the key being to place point 1 in the same location on both models. So point one will be in the same location on the artifact just placed on both models. This process is continued to at least three times, however the more points placed the higher the accuracy is during the merging processes. The purpose for placing these points is to tell the program which points match up across both models so they can align correctly.  The difficulty is in the form of finding a place on the model that is identifiable which is not always easy depending on the model, finding the right ridge on an arrowhead takes time as well as finding multiple points that are identifiable.

                Thankfully I learned that, once merged, Metashape can categorize all of the millions of points in the point cloud and separate these based off of a certainty rating that looks like a heat map. I can then easily remove all points that Metashape created yet was uncertain of its exact location while preserving the majority of points that are slotted into their correct position. This can save me a lot of time cleaning the models and removing the uncertain points by hand. This is an advanced feature I haven’t seen in free modelling programs and the longer I use this program the more I grow to understand more of its complexity.

                I still need to take this process slowly as I double check and review the steps that I am taking to get more used to it but I will go ahead and print a copy of a broken arrowhead that was created with the merged models and one with the blank side filled in by default to best see and compare the differences between them. Perhaps the detail will transfer well into the physical form or perhaps it will be too hard to tell.