Hey Eric here with 30 by 40 Design Workshop I’m out here at the Brown Mountain Gatehouse
and Lodge and I came out here in part because I'm suffering from cabin fever and the studio
is feeling a little small but also because I wanted to share an incredible free architectural
resource.
The Brown Mountain Gatehouse was commissioned by John D Rockefeller designed by Grosvenor
Atterbury to keep motorists out of the carriage trail system so the carriage trails were designed
just for a horse and buggy and that was done to preserve the natural environment.
It was designed in the French Romanesque style so you can see some of the hallmark features
of that very steep roofs half-timbered construction masonry.
Now I'm not really a fan of French Romanesque architecture necessarily but there's a couple
of things that I really love about this plan.
First of all is this 300-foot long octagonal shaped wall and it's designed for one purpose
and that is to funnel guests and visitors into the gate and you'll notice that the gate
towers are octagonal as well so there's some reference there.
So big architectural gesture here the other thing that I really appreciate about this
is the level of detail so you'll notice as you look closer just all the banded courses
between the handmade bricks and the local granite this was one of the few structures
on the island where they actually used local granite most of the granite taken from the
quarries on the island I think there was six of them here were shipped to New York and
Washington DC and Boston elsewhere for curbing and monuments and and other buildings they
use a pecky Cypress which they actually burned to sort of prematurely age and you’ll notice
it just blends in with the natural stone colors and the barks and grays in the area.
I love the detailing here and there's just a lot to dig into.
Now all this detailing is shown off in the architectural drawings which are available
for free for this building and thousands of others across the United States and it's all
thanks to the Historic American Building Survey.
The Historic American Building Survey was established in the 30s and it was done to
document the American architectural building culture and tradition and this building along
with buildings like the Farnsworth house the Washington Monument famous architectural landmarks
as well as not so famous ones: American vernacular buildings barns farms school houses bridges
landscapes all this is preserved and archived in this record and available free to you to
download the photos the landscape drawings the engineering drawings the architectural
details the floor plans the elevations it's an amazing rich resource that you can use
absolutely free.
So I think there's lots of ways to use this in practice chief among them is for creative
inspiration you know I'm someone who is really interested in barns and this is a deep collection
of documented agricultural buildings wood sheds corn cribs tobacco barns potato barns
you can study their proportions roof slopes construction timber details and the very peculiar
details and there's some eccentric structures documented in here as well so I think it's
a great place to start when you're looking at a building typology dig in here search
for the building typology and see what comes up.
If you append your search with drawings you'll often get the surveys that have drawings included
but don't overlook the photos the photos showing you know cultural uses of these historic structures
are really interesting and you can also adapt those and reuse those for presentations and
for your social media posts because they're all public domain images of course you know
with attribution you can use them but this is an excellent free resource.
Now one of the sort of hidden gifts of this is being able to distinguish between a mediocre
building and a good building oftentimes even for experts yes it can be difficult I mean
I'm not an expert on French Romanesque architecture but when I see a building catalogued here
in the Historic American Building Survey I know it's kind of been pre vetted so I know
that it is an excellent example of that style of architecture so you can be assured that
there are a range of structures in here but the things that are documented were deemed
worthy of documentation by a series of architects and historians so there is relevance to the
work that you're looking at it’s not just like Taco Bell down the street like there's
a reason that it's in here.
Another practical use of this is for drawing practice.
Some of the National Park surveys have wonderfully composed technically proficient drawing sets
and you can learn about composing elevations and plans and site plans and details on one
sheet they do it really efficiently and they have a really narrative quality to it so I
think they're worth studying that way.
Also printing the drawings out rolling some trace over the top of them and starting to
understand proportion and window openings and fenestration and door openings and circulation.
And I would say even if you're a minimalist a modernist like I consider myself to be you
know these are great resources to learn from and then think about how you can pivot and
turn them into more modern compositions.
So if you're searching for a thesis idea this is an encyclopedia of ideas literally thousands
of ideas.
The way I'd encourage you to start is by browsing by subject and it's sorted alphabetically
choose a random letter start digging into building typologies you have never heard of
before.
Now I know for me when I was searching for thesis ideas I pored over magazines and books
everything I could get my hands on just looking for that spark of an idea.
So there's a term called bisociation and bisociation is basically blending together two seemingly
unrelated ideas and that's kind of how I see you using this resource to generate thesis
ideas.
It's possible to take something some theme you've been thinking about and intersect it
with another building typology and something that you'll see in this collection of buildings
that can create that spark.
A thesis is just an in-depth exploration of a certain topic or idea this collection is
a great template for the level of research you'll need to invest in your own thesis idea.
So I hope you dig into this, I hope it encourages you to make things that are worthy of inclusion
in this collection one day.
We'll see you again next time, cheers my friends!
So my first architecture class I slept through: architectural history I'm probably not the
best person to ask about history.