The Charleston piazza could easily hold the title for most regionally recognizable architectural flourish. Before talking about its impact, though, many might ask, “What is the Charleston piazza?” In its simplest sense, it is a porch. But for generations of Southerners it was and is so much more than that. Like many other porches it became another room beyond the confines of traditional walls for families to bond, entertain, and live.

According to Carl Lounsbury, the senior architectural historian for the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, the archetype for the Charleston piazza came from the Chesapeake region where an early example can be found at the College of William and Mary. The term was borrowed by the English from the Italian word meaning “open space” and eventually made its way to the new world with the rest of the colonial architecture. The final step to create the truly unique Charleston piazza was a result of city planning. The residential lots between the 1730s and the American Revolution were very narrow in the city, resulting in deep houses that were not very wide.

“Gradually, the construction of piazzas along one of the long sides of the houses made it possible to reorient the main entrance into the house… through a gate onto the piazza and then down the porch to the doorway in the middle of the house where the stair passage was located. This made for a more private house with little direct access from the street—more restrictive—more private,” said Lounsbury.

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Photo by Chris Wehling.

I first noticed Eichlers in Sunnyvale while driving around looking at homes. When I came upon them and felt like I had landed on the moon. They were the most interesting houses that I had ever seen!  And I didn’t know anything about them. I immediately drove back to my real estate office and asked people what these houses were, getting mixed responses: “Oh those homes are crap!” or “What is an Eichler?” It bothered me that realtors didn’t know what I was talking about. So I started to research Eichler.

Turns out that there were 11,000 Eichlers in the bay area waiting for me to look at and meet the people who live in them. I started researching and hunting but could not find much about Joseph Eichler, his family, or his history. Then I came upon a book by a friend recommended, Eichler: Modernism Rebuilds the American Dream. It became my constant resource. I learned that there is a small, tight knit group of Eichler enthusiasts, a sort of a “cult” group of people that all know one other. I also learned that I had to do something special to get “in” with people living in their Eichler community for the last 30 some years. I also realized that these Eichler communities were self-sufficient. The neighbors know everything about each other. They meet at block parties almost every week. One owner told me, “We all have spare keys to each other’s homes and take care of each other.” This sounded strange yet wonderful to me. I can’t think of any neighborhood that I have ever lived in that is this way. Fascinating!

Photo by Chris Wehling.

I started calling the names listed in any Eichler publication, book, magazine, and blog. I learned that these homes are a form of modern art and convey a sense of mid-century modernist architectural expression. They are the epitome of California living with its culture of inside-outside. I learned many amazing things about Joseph Eichler himself. He was a tough little guy who never backed down and did what he wanted to do to optimize the housing industry in the post World War II years. He was also the first developer to allow African Americans, Asians, and Hispanics purchase his homes.

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Groups of 1950-ish Modernist buildings usually mean Corbusian-style autotopias of heroic proportions (New York’s Empire State Plaza in Albany comes to mind). Plymouth Circle on Madison, Wisconsin’s leafy west side proves the opposite. Here, perched above a sea of generic bi-levels is a collection of, can we say “nifty”, yet modest, Mid-Century Modern homes with a distinctively local pedigree. More than just a collection of rare houses, the neighborhood represents something almost existential: a decades-ago marriage of enlightened consumerism and environmental ethics. So is this suburbanism as it was always meant to be—light on the land, lighter still on the ranch dressing? Read more…

Why the funny title?  Well, I went to a conference a few weeks ago in Burlington, Vermont and came away wondering if the Passiv Haus movement is really accessible to the mainstream. The phrase is a play on words from the presentation, “From Bauhaus to Passivhaus”, given by Ken Levenson during the Better Building by Design Conference, hosted by Efficiency Vermont.

A handful of presentations showcased Passivhaus projects and their innovative design process, as well as other super-low energy, net-zero projects. They brought together a variety of professionals and their case studies, working on opposite ends of the spectrum— houses for the wealthy ‘spare no expense group’ and those working with Habitat for Humanity, ‘let’s figure out how to do this for everyone group’.  Somewhere in the middle we will meet. Read more…