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National Architecture Week has come again. This is a celebration supported by the American Institute of Architects. 2009, we went on a blogging marathon. 2010, AIA San Joaquin hosted a full slate of engaging events related to architecture. This year we will be doing the same. Please check out the schedule below. Get ready for an architecture overdose.
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4/11 Monday
Kick off National Architecture Week by mingling with your colleagues and meet others passionate about architecture. Appetizers and drinks will be provided by AIA San Joaquin. The location will be the offices of DLP Associates and Brooks Ransom Associates.

Bring non perishable food items to donate to Good Neighbor Center Inc. They feed the hungry cloth the cold all based in Pinedale, CA

6pm-8pm
DLP Associates
7415 N. Palm Avenue #102 Fresno, Ca

Bring non perishable food items to donate to Good Neighbor Center Inc.

4/13 Wednesday
2 documentary films on mid-century modern architecture

-Desert Utopia – Directed by Jake Gorst

-Infinite Space, The Architecture of John Lautner

7pm-9pm
Revue Cafe
620 E Olive Ave,
Fresno, Ca

Sponsor: Fresno Modern

4/13-4/15 Wednesday-Saturday

3 day exhibition of local award winning architecture. Architects will be on site providing 5 cent architectural consultations. Also on display is an installation titled plying space.

Wednesday-Friday 10am-9pm
Sierra Vista Mall
1050 Shaw Ave.
Clovis, Ca

Sponsors: Sierra Vista Mall
& Anzula luxury fibers

4/16 Saturday
Walking tour of the cultural arts district led by the architects designing the transformation of the district.

10am-1pm
Iron Bird Cafe
1915 Fulton St. Fresno, Ca

Sponsor: GV Urban

Below is a map of project locations in the Cultural Arts District.

View National Architecture Week – Fresno 2011 in a larger map

UPLOAD UPDATE 4/18/2010

Here are a series of videos and stills captured by my ANDROID. Follow our YouTube archop channel.

The tour began at the clock tower of Fulton Mall and Mariposa Mall in Downtown Fresno designed by landscape architects Victor Gruen & Garret Eckbo. Tour led by architecture historian Lauren MacDonald, historian Joe Moore, Fresno Modern realtor Eldon Daetweiler, & archop curator Kiel Famellos-Schmidt during Architecture Week 2010 Mid-Century Modern walking tour. 50 individuals joined the engaging experience. Looking at buildings we’ve “never seen that way.”
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Tour Begins

830 Van Ness in Downtown Fresno designed by architect Robert Stevens. Described by historian Joe Moore during Architecture Week 2010 Mid-Century Modern walking tour

4/17 Saturday

Walking Tour – Mid-century Downtown
Location – Starts on Fulton Mall at the Clock Tower
Time – 2pm
Details – Highlight prominent and/or well design mid-century modern architecture in Fresno’s downtown.
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Downtown Midcentury:

On tour:
1) Fulton Mall
2) Park Towers
3) Fink and Skopp
4) 830 Van Ness
5) Spiral Parking Garage
6) Fresno Convention Center / Saroyan Theatre
7) Del Webb Townehouse (Fresno County Plaza)
8 ) Sawl & Netzler – (Midland Savings)
8 ) Fresno County Hall of Records
9) Fresno Post Office & Federal Building (FUSD Administration Building) & WPA Sidewalks
10) Hugh M Burn State Building
11) BF Sisk Building
12) Eaton Plaza
13) Fresno County Public Library Central Branch
14) Fresno Memorial Auditorium
15) Fresno City Hall (Annex)
16) Fresno Police Department
17) Fresno Unified School District Office (1936)
18) Fresno County Office of Education (County Unemployment Office)
19) Fresno County Courthouse
20) Crocker Building (Holland Building)
21) Wells Fargo
22) City of Fresno Parking Garage
23) Bank of the West (First Western Bank and Trust Company)
24) Proctors Jewelers
25) Guarantee Savings (Mattei Building)

Off tour sites:
26) Bank of American Agricenter Branch
27) Walter Wagner Offices
28) United California Bank
29) Luau
30) Gottschalks
31) Crest
32) Masten Towers
33) Circle Building
34) Fresno Community Hospital
35) S Street Medical Building
36) S Street Apartments

This website, since it’s inception, has been aimed at informing the public about architecture and spurring informative and critical discussion about the San Joaquin Valley’s built environment. That was the driver behind writing Decade in Review: Top 10 in Fresno Architecture. To date the article is our top read piece with nearly 1,500 page-views and 41 public comments.

Since that article was so popular, we are following up. Now is your chance to hear directly from the architects that designed the buildings. This will be a moderated panel discussion with public Q&A.

Location

Unitarian Universalist Church
2672 E. Alluvial Ave. @ Willow Ave. Clovis, CA

Time

Friday 4/16/10 6:30 wine social, 7-8 panel

Panelists:

Chris Johnson AIA – Sante Fe Depot

Matt Kennedy – Coyle Federal Courthouse

Marty Dietz AIA – Clovis North High School Performing Arts Center

Introduction

Shaunt Yemenjian & Joe Moore

Moderator

Kiel Famellos-Schmidt

It has been quite a while since our last archop gallery exhibit which was in Visalia, and even longer since our last gallery exhibit in Fresno. We were tied up for nearly a year in an effort to do a permanent park installation and landscape architecture demonstration. That endeavor was a failure in terms of our mission to improve the built environment through exhibitions and discussion of quality design (more on that later).

Though, now with National Architecture Week in full swing, we are jumping back into the exhibit game. Traditionally, all of our exhibits have been a single venue on an Art Hop night. This will be our 1st solo hop and 1st time with 2 separate exhibits. So, come on out and let us know how we do.

Thursday 4/15 5:30-9pm, we have 2 exhibits planned:

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AIASJ 2009 Design Awards

Location: 1724 Broadway Street, across from the Rainbow Ballroom.

Time: 5:30-9pm

Description: The AIA San Joaquin chapter host bi-annual independently juried design awards. These awards set the bar for quality design happening in the region. Come see these top designs and mingle with the architects.
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Emergency Housing

Location: The Loft Gallery, 852 Divisadero, #102

Time: 5:30-9pm

Description: Exhibit of some of the world’s best designed solutions for emergency housing. This is an important topic due to devastating earthquake in Haiti and is also applicable to Fresno’s homeless. Exhibit is curated by Marvin Armstrong AIA, and FCC student, Noam Saragosti.

Other details: We will have hors d’ oeuvres from Charlotte’s Bakery in the Tower District. Rainbow Ballroom has packed shows on Thursdays. So as the night wears on, parking may be easier near the Loft Gallery or the diagonal parking by Tokyo Garden.
See the map below for the suggested walking path.
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View archop exhibits 4/15/2010 in a larger map

7pm Wednesday at Revue Cafe in the Tower District, AIA San Joaquin will be hosting a free showing of Visual Acoustic: The Modernism of Julius Shulman. There is no fee for the film, however, it is required to buy something from the cafe. So arrive around 6:30, get a latte, mingle, and find a good seat to enjoy the film.

This is the 4th day of National Architecture Week, and we’re just getting warmed up.
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Narrated by Dustin Hoffman, VISUAL ACOUSTICS celebrates the life and career of Julius Shulman, the world’s greatest architectural photographer, whose images brought modern architecture to the American mainstream. Shulman, who passed away this year, captured the work of nearly every modern and progressive architect since the 1930s including Frank Lloyd Wright, Richard Neutra, John Lautner and Frank Gehry. His images epitomized the singular beauty of Southern California’s modernist movement and brought its iconic structures to the attention of the general public. This unique film is both a testament to the evolution of modern architecture and a joyful portrait of the magnetic, whip-smart gentleman who chronicled it with his unforgettable images.

VISUAL ACOUSTICS won the Mercedes-Benz Audience Award for Best Documentary at the Palm Springs International Film Festival, the Audience Award for Best Documentary at the Austin Film Festival, the Grand Jury Prize for Best Documentary at the Lone Star International Film Festival and Outstanding Achievement in Documentary Filmmaking at the Newport Beach Film Festival.
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ABOUT JULIUS SHULMAN (1910 – 2009)

Photographer of architecture, naturalist, educator, and commentator on urban form. One of the leading architectural photographers of the 20th century, Shulman developed close association with the modernist architects, principally those active in Southern California such as Gregory Ain, John Lautner, Richard Neutra, and R.M. Schindler. Shulman’s images played a major role in crafting the image of the Los Angeles and “Southern California lifestyle” to the rest of the nation and world during the 1950s and 1960s. A prolific author, consultant, lecturer, exhibitor, and editor of his own vast archive, Shulman remained active up until his passing away in July of 2009.
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View Larger Map

Below is an article by Jamie Dronyk, AIA, LEED AP. She is the new Director of Info and PR of the AIA San Joaquin. Her first major undertaking in that office was revamping the chapters quarterly newsletter. 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 have been mailed out and will available at local architecture firms. You can also download the PDF. The article below by Jamie was pulled from the newsletter to give you a feel for the content.
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The Belmont Merchant’s Association Steps up to the Plate to Make Their Mark

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There are some new kids in town; they call themselves the Belmont Merchant’s Association (BMA).

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In March of 2009, a group of property owners along the Belmont corridor between Freeway 41 and Chestnut Avenue came together to form the association in an effort to implement a revitalization of the area and take back their community.

“I’ve been on this street for 40 years; I’ve seen the good times and the bad and I plan to stay around until the job is finished and things are set right” commented Roger Hanke, President of the Association.

Last December, the BMA, with the support of Triangle Associates, City Councilman Henry T. Perea, and the Fresno Redevelopment Agency, invited an assortment of community members and leaders to a roundtable discussion in which ideas to transform and improve the corridor were exchanged.

Landscape Architect Terry Broussard presented a conceptual plan envisioning how the corridor might be developed into three themed districts, all of which incorporate mixed use, open space, and pedestrian friendly development.

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I had the fortunate opportunity to be invited by the BMA to speak at one of their monthly meetings. I focused on ways in which they can utilize design and planning principles to eliminate misperceptions that are in and of themselves causing a violent cycle of increased real and perceived crime.

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In a city as large as Fresno has become, it is incumbent upon smaller communities to do their part to maintain their own relevance in our growing metropolis. The key to success is knowing that you don’t have to do it alone. I invite you to call upon local design professionals and together we can make Fresno relevant one community at a time.

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PechaKucha Night was devised in Tokyo in February 2003 as an event for young designers to meet, network, and show their work in public.

It has turned into a massive celebration, with events happening in hundreds of cities around the world, inspiring creatives worldwide. Drawing its name from the Japanese term for the sound of “chit chat”, it rests on a presentation format that is based on a simple idea: 20 images x 20 seconds. It’s a format that makes presentations concise, and keeps things moving at a rapid pace. Read more from PechaKucha Global.

PechaKucha Night was brought to you by Creative Fresno in December of 2008. We’ve now on our 7th volume of the event. After this event we will have showcased 74 creative presentations in this concise format to full capacity crowds. This presentations have led to an increased awareness about design in Fresno, has led to collaborations, and even business for local creatives.

For the 2nd day of National Architecture Week, please join us Monday evening at The Starline. Come at 7pm to get a drink and a good seat. Presentations will begin a 7:30. It will be a great creative evening that bridges architecture, photography, education, graphic design and mural art.

List of presenters

Video of AIA National President, George H. Miller FAIA, highlighting Architecture Week 2010 Celebrations that will take place across the country.

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Check out the schedule of local events. We will also be posting videos of Fresnans talking about the significance of architecture and why design should mater to you. If you’d like to record a video, find us at one of the events or email it to curator@archop.org

Designers and Architects have much in common. We deal with complex and even highly technical design problem, requiring our creative process to solve. We often time find ourselves justifying quality design to our clients. And we geek out on things that the rest of the general public couldn’t care less about, such as typeface or construction details. This list could go on.

Today is a good day to explore those similarities. To kick off National Architecture Week, we scheduled a brunch discussion Sunday 4/11, 10:30 am at Iron Bird Cafe to discuss geeky stuff Like High Speed Rail and the Fresno Station design. Independently the Fresno Design Alliance scheduled their monthly Designer Breakfast at the same time and location.

This seemed like a great opportunity, get architects and designers together in one place. I wonder what conversations will erupt. It is very important to reach across professions to collaborate and share ideas. The Fresno Design Alliance and AIA San Joaquin also have similarities. It would be benificial to all to explore those and see how we can benefit each other.

Here is some info about the Fresno Design Alliance:

Fresno Design Alliance (FDA) is a collaboration of professional and student designers devoted to developing Fresno’s design awareness. Through community involvement and education the FDA aims to inspire and motivate local businesses and non-profits in their pursuit of quality graphic design.

The FDA was created in January 2005 by a handful of local design professionals. “I wanted to participate in a non-competitive, open, and non-threatening design community right here in Fresno. I felt so blessed by the opportunities I’d had which led me to the dream of using my talents to give back to my community,” said Katrina Neufeld, a founding member of Fresno Design Alliance.

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“Design is a tool, a resource, a power for the creation of beautiful, more sustainable, safe, healthy, and livable communities. Not for a privileged few but for everyone.”
George H. Miller, FAIA, AIA President

National Architecture Week has come again. This is a celebration supported by the American Institute of Architects. Last year, we went on a blogging marathon. This year, AIA San Joaquin is hosting a full slate of engaging events related to architecture. Please check out the schedule and map below. And get ready for an architecture overdose. Also AIA National has a facebook page and will host a twitter chat on 4/14

4/11 Sunday
Archi-Brunch meets Designer Breakfast
Location – Iron Bird Cafe
Time – 10:30-noon
Details – Informal discussion between Fresno’s leading graphic designers of the Fresno Design Alliance and architects of AIA San Joaquin.

4/12 Monday
Pecha Kucha Night Fresno Vol 7
Location – Starline
Time – 7:00 door, 7:30 presentations
Details – In conjunction with Creative Fresno
Theme is Fringe.

4/13 Tuesday
Grassroots day
Location – All neighborhoods
Time – All Day
Details – Make a point to talk to your neighbor, friend, or coworker not in the architecture field about the importance of architecture. Maybe just tell everyone to read www.archop.org

4/14 Wednesday
Film – Visual Acoustics
Location – Revue Cafe
Time – 7pm screening
Details: Narrated by Dustin Hoffman, VISUAL ACOUSTICS celebrates the life and career of Julius Shulman, the world’s greatest architectural photographer, whose images brought modern architecture to the American mainstream.

4/15 Thursday
City Council Proclamation of Architecture Week
Location – Fresno City Hall
Time – 8-9am
Details – A proclamation of Architecture Week will be presented from City Council to AIA San Joaquin

archop exhibits
Locations – 1724 Broadway, Tho Loft Gallery (852 Divisadero St. #102)
Time – 5:30-9pm
Details – curated exhibit to raise awareness about emergency housing, the 2nd exhibit will showcase the recent winners of the AIASJ design awards.

4/16 Friday
Panel Discussion – Decade in Review: Top Ten of Fresno Architecture
Location – Unitarian Church
Time – 6:30 social 7-8 panel
Details – A collection of architects of the Top Ten buildings from last decade, will discuss the design of the buildings, their process and design philosophies.

4/17 Saturday
Walking Tour – Mid-century Downtown
Location – Starts at Fulton Mall & Mariposa Mall, meet at the Clock Tower
Time – 2pm
Details – Highlight prominent and/or well design mid-century modern architecture in Fresno’s downtown.

View National Architecture Week – Fresno in a larger map

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.

two homeless individuals walk Belmont

2 people sit in the sun

Park & Belmont

neighborhood view of park

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

Santa Fe Depot by Johnson Architecture

“The greenest building is the one that already exists”

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.

I’m going to assume that we all agree that affordable housing is necessary. We can also agree that there is a sever lack of affordable housing in Fresno and the San Joaquin Valley. I could continue studies that demonstrate that we have the highest concentrated poverty in the nation or the lowest on the development index. But I’ll assume that you are already familiar with our region’s issues.

With that clear, I’d like to focus on what architecture’s role is in affordable housing. I’ve long believed that quality designed housing has a huge impact on the health and success of it’s inhabitants. We can see from the poorly designed “projects” of the past the concentrating people in substandard housing solves the shelter issue but creates even more issues of segregation, crime, and poor health.

I believe that the architectural profession should be taking a stronger stance locally and saying “We need to solve these problems and we need to solve them right”

Check back shortly for some examples.

My question to you is: other than pure affordability, what are about the design of housing do you feel would help you have a more healthy, efficient, and sustainable lifestyle?

We would like to know about your school experiences. What are good or bad experiences that you can link to the environment you where in?

For instance. At Edison High School, I always hated going to my classes that were in portable classrooms. The air was damp, the floor flexible squeaky, air conditioner loud, and windows small.

A good experience was in the shop. It was a big volume, and it was a place for creating and experimenting.

Please share your experiences.

National Architecture Week began today. I didn’t want this to go silently unnoticed in Fresno. NAW was created to encourage a public dialogue about architecture. That is the a major goal of archop. We’ve been doing that quarterly since October of 2007. In the spirit of NAW going digital we’re try something new for us, blogging. We want to push many of the discussions we’ve had at our exhibits on to the web. To do that we’ll be posting a new discussion topic everyday this week. going along the line of the Architecture Week topics:

· Monday, the 13th -community revitalization
· Tuesday, the 14th – school construction
· Wednesday, the 15th – affordable housing
· Thursday, the 16th – sustainability
· Friday, the 17th – inclusiveness
· Saturday, the 18th – historic preservation
· Sunday, the 19th – future of the profession

Since I’m a big fan of inclusiveness, I have something cool planned for Friday. Stay tuned. RSS us and check back often.

Kiel Famellos-Schmidt

archop curator