Hey, Eric here with 30 by 40 Design Workshop, happy New Year to you!
First video of 2019 I took a few weeks off thanks for sticking with me, I'm back at it
with a book review of Studio Joy Works the new book from Rick Joy's studio one of my
favorite residential architects.
I have a number of other books that I picked up so we'll be doing some more book reviews
in the near future.
I'll also be talking about goal-setting I've just completed my yearly goal setting exercise
we'll talk about what I did last year, what happened, the result of that goal setting
exercise, and I think there's a lot for you to learn in that so stay tuned for that coming
up real soon.
Let's get into the book review.
As Rick Joy enters his sixth decade and the studio he founded turns 25 his new monograph
presents work in the years following the release of the essential, seminal book, Desert Works.
Born and raised where I practice here in Maine much of his early built work can be found
in the Sonoran desert of Arizona not far from where he chose to build his first home and
practice.
As the firm has grown, his commissions have spread across the globe.
If you're acquainted with his formative works you'll find the Canyon house and Desert Nomad
shown here familiar, but this book reveals other scales we haven't yet seen, in the Amangiri
Hotel and Spa in Utah, a loft in New York City, and an apartment building in Mexico
City.
Here too we witness a studio building a portfolio farther afield and the challenges that presents.
It’s familiar to anyone who relies on a specific site, a specific place, for the idea
to germinate: how do we apply a design process rooted in a place without falling back on
a catalog of tested and familiar forms?
How do we keep from rehashing old themes?
How do we design a novel approach to a building typology we know so well?
It's instructive to see the studio's vision translated to larger scales and to new sites.
Included amongst the 13 projects is a personal favorite moment of mine, the farm compound
in Woodstock Vermont the maze-like entry sequence is Vitruvian in every aspect: functionally
it keeps the wind and snow from entering the home, it uses the familiar thick gable ends
we know so well here in New England, and yet it subverts your understanding of it, it's
a trick, it forces you to turn right and then left before reaching the door.
The passage allows time to kick off the snow from your boots, ruffle your jacket clean,
and importantly it reorients you to a windowless stone corridor.
The experience of entering the “stone ender” builds anticipation using a really simple
plan device.
These moments are present everywhere in his architecture and we're only now just beginning
to have access to them as the studio takes on more public commissions.
The book feels complete; photos, spare drawings and just enough text.
I would have liked to have seen more process, to see the early concepts, the mess of design
and to learn of the magic behind such seemingly simple details.
In some cases I think it's enough to know how meticulous his approach is as he designs
imperfections into the work.
It's difficult to fault anything about his work, his humble nature present in his brief
writings, or the book, other than the fact that I want more: more detail, more sketches,
more process.
But it's emblematic too of his ethos, a deference to site, to material, an understanding of
light and those are the things that are left to do the heavy lifting in the silence of
his spaces.
And as I struggle with similar themes of how to translate my own process and architectural
ethos to unfamiliar places I've wondered if the things I've loved so much about Rick Joy's
work were because I loved his innate understanding of the desert, the light, the weather, the
heat, the specific way he chose to build there.
And now, I know.
Adding this book to your library is sure to make your studio a more fertile place for
ideas to land.
I love the way new books smell.
Does anyone else do that?
Is that weird?