Below is an article by Enoch Sears, Assoc. AIA, LEED AP. The article was pulled from the newsletter to give you a feel for the content. The newsletter is meant to keep the chapter members and general public up to date with what is happening in the chapter. The printed copies are available at local architecture firms. You can also download the PDF.

New Initiatives Promise a Facelift for Fresno 1
Message from the President | Extras 2
Feature Article – Public Transit 3
Feature Article – Affordable Housing 4
Upcoming: Canstruction | Education 5
Firm and Member Profiles 6
Project Profile 7
Codes | Emerging Professionals and
Government Affairs 9
in other words… | Your Voice 10
2010 AIASJ Student Competition 11
Calendar of Events 12

Project Profile: Tulare Public Library and Council Chambers

by Enoch Sears, Assoc. AIA, LEED AP

In his book Purple Cow: Transform Your Business by Being Remarkable, marketing guru Seth Godin states that the key to success is to find a way to stand out – to be the purple cow in a field of monochrome Holsteins. If the secret to success is truly being remarkable, or as Godin clarifies, “worth making a remark about,” then the City of Tulare has struck pay dirt. Godin’s metaphor is a great way to introduce a very remarkable building set in the center of the cow capital of the United States; a true “purple cow” among Holsteins.

Designed by Architect and Partner Paul Halajian of Taylor Teter Partnership, the Tulare Library and Council Chambers goes beyond creating a building of purely sculptural quality. The designer has evidently thought deeply about referencing the local context and carrying the design methodology throughout the building. Salient design features include brightly painted steel beams, metal siding, projecting clerestory windows, and two circular towers. By pairing two seemingly contradictory elements, common industrial materials and a building of civic pride, the designer critically challenges commonly accepted paradigms of beauty while also referencing the local agricultural context.

The bold design is playful and intriguing. Some people have kidded Library Director Michael Stowell that the projecting cantilever over the City Council Chambers is a wing or giant skateboard ramp. “Once they enter the building, however, they begin to see the reasons for these elements and how they add to the design”, he comments. He is quick to mention how the aesthetics, day-lighting and design of the space will contribute to a better experience for patrons. “We are especially excited about how the teen area will engage the youth of our community,” he states.

As for the interior, Taylor Teter Architect and project team member Jamie Dronyk counts the unique inverted bowstring trusses among her favorite elements. The trusses create soaring spaces and allow natural day-lighting to bathe the interior while also exposing the beauty of the structure. The trusses themselves are constructed of parallams which have been glue-laminated, curved, and matched to steel pipe webs. Attention to detail is also apparent on the West side of the building where the exterior finishes continue through to the interior space with thoughtful detailing.

The project aims for a LEED Gold certification. The Mayor, City Council, Library Board and Library Director of Tulare are to be commended for their forward-thinking emphasis on sustainability. “Tulare’s goal is be known as a great place live, learn, play, work, worship and prosper,” states Mayor Craig Vejvoda. Halajian is pleased with the effort to gain LEED certification and stated that it was not difficult to sell the client on this goal.

The project was originally submitted under the California Library Bond Act of 2000, but was ultimately not funded under the bond. The City decided to move ahead and raise the funds elsewhere. The building encompasses approximately 31,400 sf at a construction cost of $11.6MM.

Already the building has benefited the community by encouraging dialogue about the built environment, paving the way for future innovative projects. Over the years, the strong post-modern design is sure to spark debate between residents who choose to see a skateboard ramp versus those who see an engaging and inspiring civic space. I see a purple cow.

Enoch Sears works with Christiansen Group in Visalia. He is a recent addition to the AIA San Joaquin Chapter, having relocated from Houston, TX where he was recently licensed as an architect.

We got our first donation for archop park!

.
It is very exciting that the endeavor to revitalize a Central Fresno park that began in March is becoming real. The story of how we got to the first donation is as interesting as the donation itself.

I had made the decision to propose building the park incrementally rather than all at once like Extreme Makeover: Park Edition as originally planned. While this does draw out the process, it also makes it more attainable.

James Collier approached archop about HandsOn Central California doing a Make a Difference Day at the park on October 24th. Now we had man power. So the challenge became, where do we start and what materials will we need?

Trees are a good start. We had developed concepts for plantings at the park with landscape architect Design Lab 252.

Those concepts are to make sustainable plant choices i.e. low maintenance and drought tolerant. We also wanted to change the atmosphere of the park. Currently, all the plant life is at the perimeter. Sounds of the road and freeway inundate the park. We want plant life within the park and to introduce nature sounds.

We propose placing a strip of trees in the break between the freeway ramps. This is one of the few locations that gets full sun. We also consulted with Fresno State professor of Biology and bird specialist Madhusudan Katti for trees that fit our parameters (low water, attractive to birds and wildlife).

We took Madhu’s recommendations to Intermountain Nursery in Prather. They specialize in drought tolerant native plants. After making our pitch to the nursery, we got our first park donation.

Owner, Ray Laclergue, gladly offered us five Desert Willow trees. Which are small with a beautiful flower. And 3 Valley Oak trees. They grow very large and can survive our intense summers.

With flowers and acorns from the trees, the park will be enlivened with bugs, birds and squirrels evoking a park feeling in this urban triangle.

Below is a view of the proposed changes to the park. A basketball court is in the foreground the trees are in the background. Thee trees we will be planting now are small (3-5 feet) but will grow over the years to fill the space nicely.

And a reminder, fall is the season to plant trees. If there is a hole in your landscaping, consider filling it with a native tree. Take a visit to Intermountain Nursery. Support this archop sponsor helping us improve the built environment in the San Joaquin Valley.

I’ve been hearing/reading alot about BLDGBLOG lately. So today I poked my head in the check out their site. Today’s post is titled “London Yields, Harvested” It was in reference to an event called “London Yields: Getting Urban Agriculture off the Ground” a kind of workshop covering how to get urban agriculture in London.

So here I am in Fresno, California. Above the soil capable of growing a great diversity of plants. In a climate with one of the longest growing seasons outside the tropics. About the harvest the corn growing in my front yard. And I think if London can get moving on urban agriculture, then Fresno can.

So where do we start?

The first thing BLDGBLOG mentioned was “become public policy”. This is a big one for Fresno because every one of our community gardens seems to be met with resistance from police or code enforcement in the City of Fresno.

There also needs to be the organization and popular support. Fresno Metro Ministries has some recomendations.

What do you think? Could be an urban farmer? Do you have a sunny spot and a few hours a week to tend?

And an important question would yo take a hands on class that I’m going to teach next spring about urban agriculture?

Several times over the last few weeks I’ve been asked “how’s the park going?” This question has helped me realize two things. First, that there is a community buzz about this park, people want to see it come to fruition. And second, that since we announced the community drawing workshop at the park on April 17th, I’ve been silent about the park.

Here is a run down of what has happened from that workshop until now:

The workshop went well. There were several families, community leaders, and a dozen children of varying ages that participated. We made drawings of “our ideal park”. This exercise both engaged community members giving them a voice and helped us get an idea of what would draw different user groups into the park. It also helped me exercise my underused Spanish skills. To coordinate the workshop I was joined by Hank Delcore and Elfego Franco with the Institute of Public Anthropology at CSUF. And a big thanks to Terri Uyeki for bringing supplies and Shaunt Yemenjian for photographing the process.

We have assembled a very talented Pro-bono design team:

designlab 252 landscape architect

Borrelli & Associates electrical engineer

Parrish Hansen Inc structural engineer

Anti Laboratories graphic designer

The design team has met twice and developed a conceptual design. The concept is to create a park with out the standardized or prefabricated park accessories. We will use repurposed materials that is sculptural in form. The park will provide the amenities the community desires and offers a cohesive visual treat to the passerby.

A few weeks back I received the CAD drawings of how the park of San Pablo & Belmont as built. The project had originally been done by civil engineer, Keith Campbell of AECOM

These drawings, called as-builts, saved us allot of time because we don’t have to start the drawings from scratch and verify the existing conditions. We can use these as-builts as or base drawings for the redeveloped design.

I was able to bring this CAD drawing into SketchUp in order to study the sun angles and shade patterns that the 180 freeway overpasses create on the ground.

As the design develops it will be posted here. Of course budget issues make this more relevant. archop park as planned will be entirely funded by private donation. If you wish to make a financial or material donation of any amount please contact us.

place: future location of archop park

time: april 17th 4:30pm – 6:30pm

who: community members

reason: redesign of existing park

At the corner of San Pablo & Belmont is a clean but stark triangle of concrete and gravel quietly winding under the rush of the 180.

This is a park. However, it’s not a park in the sense of the feelings that word can evoke. There are not children playing, no one socializing, no one getting some sun or sleeping under a tree. There is no one engaged in a playful sport. There is no where to sit but the ground.

This is a left over space. It is the remainder of the 180 slicing through neighborhoods, the Fulton Lowell to the South and Tower District o the North. At the junction of these neighborhoods and amount of traffic, this site has great potential.

Working in partnership with the Hank Delcore PhD and the Institute of Public Anthropology of CSUF we seek to gather community input. Nothing has been designed yet, so this is an opportunity for you to help craft this park to suit your needs.

So come down to the park, do some drawing, talk about the landscape of your dreams and have fun. We will provide refreshments and plenty of paper and markers.

This is also National Architecture Week. Today topic being inclusiveness, it is no accident in the scheduling of this date for the design workshop. We would like to get the community included in the designing of Fresno revitalized. Join us in reinventing and activating this urban park.

A special thanks to the City of Fresno PARCS Department and City Manager’s Office.

This week I received my copy of dwell magazine in the mail. The cover reads “BEYOND GREEN From Niche to Normal” The issue acknowledges what we’ve all witnessed in this last decade; green has gone from extreme to mainstream. And yet there a a few paradoxes I observe.

Most architects have always believed in sustainable design. It has been part of our education for at least the last two generations. Yet many had to shrug off the green horns, so to speak, as they integrated into the practice. They assimilated into the mainstream perception of green as some hippy pseudo science and threw up their hands to market forces.

Today, thanks to predictable and repeatable science, global calamities and the hard work of the few that never gave up on building a better future, green is center stage. And yet many of my friends and associates accept that many products are now being marketed at us with a green label without any real commitment to solving local and global environmental issues. It’s a marketing hook, the green wash. But this is nothing new consumer trends are always being capitalized. The issue that I take with it is that the mainstream architecture industry is tending to jump on this band wagon with out leading the sustainability effort forward. And today we still deal with the same economic issues as before.

The last paradox I’ll bring up is one that Editor-in-Chief of Dwell Sam Grawe writes “In all honesty, I’m pretty sure I’m not sustainable.” We can see very little changes in the fundamentally unsustainable lives that we live day in and out. Thousands of people have become LEED accredited professionals but have yet to work on a LEED building or turn a critical eye on themselves and make the necessary individual sacrifices to insure that Earth can live on as a healthy system.

Looking at myself. I’ve made a commitment to clean transportation by biking and riding the bus. However, many of the buses in the FAX fleet still choke the air with diesel exhaust; I go through roles upon role of paper at my workplace producing construction documents, I specify products I know to be bad for the environment and that the heat and air conditioning can come on in the same day while it is 65-70 degrees outside. At home I use too much water while the canals are dry for many local farmers, and my 1940 home is extremely inefficient with energy. Many of these thing I feel either powerless or too lazy to change.

A frustrating part about this post is that I know much of this has been said before. I don’t have original content to share about this issue, or any light to shine with an insightful question. So I will end with some local project which have caught my eye for their sustainable strategies and design. Most of these projects are LEED certified or greater.

Fresno Cohousing by McCamant & Durrett Architects

Unitarian Universalist Church by McCamant & Durrett Architects

Kern Schools Federal Credit Union by the Taylor Teter Partnership

Art Ecology Architecture office by The Vernal Group

Tell me if I missed any well designed local projects that demonstrate sustainability. I’d be happy to post an image and link. And here is a shout out to the Central California Chapter of USGBC They’re fighting the good fight.