Monday, April 25, 2011

Clients, Context and Community

Aleks Istanbullu Architects is based in Santa Monica, California. Known for our elegant spatial planning, attention to detail, and commitment to sustainable contemporary design, we are internationally recognized for award winning projects, which we shape in response to clients, context, and community.

We recognize the complexities of public/private partnerships in urban settings, prioritizing the tactile, functional and aesthetic needs of residents and pedestrians alike. Our current work applies this sensibility to thoughtfully designed and detailed projects from single-family dwellings to urban planning.

Featured Projects (left to right): 
Westchester Library, Los Angeles, CA 
St Elmo Village Community Studios, Los Angeles, CA 
Church of Our Saviour, San Gabriel, CA

Monday, April 18, 2011

Design, intensified: innovation infused with information








Aleks combines his training in classic modernism and respect for history with a Southern California environmental and aesthetic sensibility. As principal of Aleks Istanbullu Architects he takes a hands-on approach to every project, determined to find and combine elemental and natural concepts. In close collaboration with our team, he then evolves each design into an individual aesthetic and functional whole. This results in buildings that are inherently sustainable and emotionally evocative. A playful and sensuous minimalism together with an intellectual rigor and conceptual clarity is a hallmark of Aleks’s work. His detailing and choice of materials is elegant and warm, with an emphasis on tactility and color, generating an ongoing dialogue between the building and its inhabitants, within the building itself, and in relation to each building’s context.

Featured Project: Lago Vista Guest House, Coldwater Canyon, CA 












Thursday, April 7, 2011

SOUPERgreen @ the A+D Museum



Last night I went to see a panel discussion at “SouperGreen”, a show currently on display at the A+D Museum in L.A. The show’s announcement to

“[...] present new architectural work that offers a critical and compelling alternative to the prevailing approaches to environmentally conscious architecture” 

had caught my attention, and so did the illustre roster of panelists for the evening.


WHY we need such an alternative was very eloquently summarized by Doug Jackson in one of his first comments on the panel: 
A lot of our society’s recent attempts to make buildings more sustainable have been heavily technology - oriented. And since technology is usually more concerned with the functional than with the aesthetic, the results are often of the kind that one would rather not look at or at least can’t get very excited about on a daily basis.

Consequently, the technology is often hidden - with which, to a degree, the issues that it addresses also “disappear”… out of sight, and therefore easily out of mind - making it easy to assume those issues are solved, taken care of  - and to go on with our lives without changing anything much. Not maliciously, but conveniently, out of habit. Habits are human nature – and as we all know they take a conscious and repeated effort to change.

To fuel this effort, the Designers of the show are looking for ways to use technology as a connector – something that re-engages us with what we, and our buildings are doing (or not doing) to the environment, rather than rely on an invisible technology to “take care” of the “problem” of our environmental impact.

David Hertz and Erin McConahey of Arup concurred: “We are trying to let the building tell the story of how it is addressing sustainability. People read buildings, whether they are aware of it or not” - and if the building can show them “”this is a piece of technology, and this is what it does”, they will walk away having learned something from the architecture” – which is one of the most important steps on the path to sustainability.

As Lance Williams from USGBC’s L.A. Chapter put it: “what we are really going for is a behavioral change”. 

I could not agree more with the idea of a need for re-engagement - the clearest message I have taken away from my quest for a more sustainable lifestyle and architecture has been: None of this is going to work without the PARTICIPATION of the people. But in order to participate, they need to GET IT, understand what is going on and BE REMINDED of that over and over again, until it becomes second nature, an engrained behavior. 

I grew up in Germany, a country that has been striving and struggling with this topic for a few more decades than the US - and thus I have seen and experienced myself both how long this takes (I am 35 now and feel like I only came in at the tail end!) and how it IS possible for this change to happen.

One can see it in everything from omnipresent recycling to net metering for the power companies (which was demanded by the people and led to a law that forces power companies to buy solar power from individual users - at a rate higher than what they sell the power for. Talk about incentives!).

I see it in my own reactions every day. I instinctively cringe when I see someone playing obliviously with their smart phone in their IDLING car - while they are waiting for their hubby to come back from a “quick” 15 minute dash into the grocery store. In fact, I always have a strong urge to tap on their window and politely point out that their car engine is currently burning fuel for nothing, and ask them to please consider the environment - which I try to suppress to avoid looking like a tree-hugging freak… sometimes. Sometimes I don’t.

Baba Dioum is quoted on one of Ayran Omar’s posters in the show: 
“In the end we will conserve only what we love. We will love only what we understand. We will understand only what we are taught.”

And teaching is what this witty, critical, and engaging show excels at.

But it also raises some critical issues:

One of the most fundamental principles of sustainable design is to get the highest effect or output with the most minimal investment of energy and resources.
Which, by default, makes TECHNOLOGY OF ANY KIND a second, if not last choice. 
Larry Santoyo of the Permaculture design consortium Earthflow Design Works famously talks about the “500 $ head of lettuce” - an anecdotal example in which a guy got so obsessed with growing his own food that he devised a high-tech sun-tracking mirror system to reflect enough sunlight 6 stories down into his dark Manhattan courtyard to his struggling crop - instead of buying it from the local farmers at the weekly market. Sustainable? Hardly. 

Similarly, there is an enormous amount of embodied energy in the designs of the show to achieve what they are setting out to achieve. Both Steven Purvis’ Aquaponic house and Randolph Ruiz’s Urban Rooftop Farm Harvesting-House suffer from this, while they admittedly excel in what the panelists stressed as the primary goal of the project: putting the issue “in your face”. In your face it is, indeed.
Doug Jacksons precariously cantilevered House with its wind - collecting solar panel skin creates a beautiful, exciting, almost Avatarian show of a “living” building - but the amount of steel and structural engineering should far offset the energy generated and would probably move amortization into the next century.

To its credit, the show is not only aware of these issues, but they are its point exactly - and the presentation is such that this should be self-evident to anyone spending even just a little time on them. Greg Goldin very aptly pinpoints this deliberate irony and self-criticism in his review of the show for Architect’s Newspaper “Mean and Green” : “The show, […] is by turns angry, philosophical, and didactic […] along with a liberal dollop of irony.”

Yet, we live in an age where even a little time is a rare thing, and especially flashy, cool-looking ideas run the risk of being either accepted or dismissed without second thought.

Thus, the designs need to be treated more like runway fashion: 
Boldly exaggerated ideas, whose essence can then be taken to the streets and applied in a more direct, pragmatic, stripped down and, most importantly, contextual fashion.
One of David Hertz’s projects shown during the panel is an example for a far more real and pragmatic use of technological elements: Insulated panels normally used for refrigeration buildings in large warehouses serve as a high-performance skin for a house on Venice Boardwalk. Here advanced technology is used in a straightforward way for what it was designed for and is still beautiful and exciting to look at.

As such, I hope that this exhibit is given the time it deserves to let it be understood for what it is: Not a presentation of solutions to strive for, but a sophisticated attempt to spur the imagination of architects and users alike, to be and stay creative. To approach sustainability not only as a performance-, but also a design- and a conceptual challenge. And to use the elements that address it to engage people with their environment, to invite them to participate in this effort of living in a more sustainable relationship with nature. 








Tuesday, April 5, 2011

Green Attitude: Inherently sustainable design





Aleks Istanbullu Architects’ commitment to sustainability is inherent in every project we design. Our high performance buildings respect and enhance their site, are carefully oriented to make maximum use of sun and shade, natural ventilation, and views, integrating passive design with state-of- the-art technology. Our systems - oriented design approach allows us to look at the bigger picture and find the optimal balance between minimal expenditure of resources and their highest and best use. Preservation and reuse of existing structures and materials are essential aspects of our approach to sustainability and satisfy both our aspirations to reduce waste and our delight in the poetry of bringing to light what is already there.

Featured project: Cerritos Bathhouse, Cerritos, CA