design build blog

Our long time friend and professional collaborator Kayo N. Libiano found a great quote very relevant to today's times and passed it along. I will now pass it along to you.

"Never before in the history of America has there been so great an opportunity for practical dreamers as now exists. The six-year economic collapse has reduced all men, substantially to the same level. A new race is about to be run. The stakes represent huge fortunes which will be accumulated within the next ten years. The rules of the race have changed because we now live in a changed world that definitely favors the masses, those who had but little opportunity to win under the conditions existing during the depression, when fear paralyzed growth and development.

We who are in this race for riches should be encouraged to know that this changed world in which we live is demanding new ideas, new ways of doing things, new leaders, new inventions, new methods of teaching, new methods of marketing, new books, new literature, new features on radio, new ideas for moving pictures. Back of all this demand for new and better things, there is one quality which one must possess to win, and that is definiteness of purpose, the knowledge of what one wants, and a burning desire to possess it."

-Napoleon Hill, from "Think and Grow Rich"
First Published in 1937

With all the doom and gloom in the media today, it's refreshing to rethink these times as times of opportunity, innovation and courage. When the economic downturn all shakes out, will the winners be the ones that ran and hid?  Just like back in the 1930's, sticking with the status quo will not lead to easy success. The optimists and innovators will will use this time wisely and hopefully change the world for the better in the process.

The Fay Ave. Art District Dwellings small lot subdivision project has been added to the projects section of our website. This project is currently in the tract map process in the City of Los Angeles. The design for these seven homes is inspired by the growing art district in the project's surrounding area.

We have recently added a few pages of dedicated Small Lot Subdivision Information to our site.

Small Lot Subdivision is an ordinance in the City of Los Angeles that allows you to subdivide lots into small residential parcels (as small as 600 sq. ft.) for the purposes of devloping fee simple housing (meaning you own the land your home sits on verses a condo where it is tied into a home owners association.)

The new Small Lot Subdivision section also shows the small lot projects our office is working on.

If you have any questions about Small Lot Subdivision, please don't hesitate to contact Modative. The code is a bit tricky and we feel that we have learned a lot about its intricacies by going through the process on a few projects.

One important thing as a young architecture firm (Modative turns three early this year) is to give your current and future clients a real sense of your experience in the field. As in any profession, especially one that involves the complexities of designing buildings, displaying competence through experience (in this case photos of actual buildings) is critical.

The difficult part, however, when your firm is still young, is that the architecture and construction process takes time. This means that it can take years (and it does) to accumulate a portfolio of built projects.

This is why when we founded Modative we decided that our website should not only show our projects that we have designed since forming Modative, but to also show projects that we played a major role in while working in prior offices. This allows us to display projects that have gone through the entire process, meaning that they are built; as well as show the wide range of project sizes and types that we have experience with.

So, three years in, this is why we still like to show the Project Experience portion of our Projects page. We hope it gives you a proper feel for the types of architectural projects we have helped realize and level of experience the three founding partners had prior to forming Modative.

The following is a project that Christian and I designed and managed while in a prior office.

Glaze Residence | Manhattan Beach, CA Lead Designers + Project Managers | Christian Navar + Derek Leavitt Office | Studio 9 one 2 Architecture

Happy New Year!!!

To kick-off the new year, Modative is updating our website and blog. In the coming weeks, we will be adding new projects and useful content to our site.

Subscribe to our blog today to receive updates when new content is added.

As a very intense fire season continues to cause damage in Southern California, our thoughts are with those who have been displaced and lives upended by the recent fires. Since designing homes is such a large part of what we do here at Modative, we feel for those who have lost something so integral to their lives.

In an effort to help in the recovery, Modative is offering deep discounts on our architectural services for anyone affected by the Southern California fires. Whether rebuilding on the site of the loss or in a new location we are here to help. Please contact us if you are interested. www.modative.com.

A photo I took while driving down the 101 freeway during last year's fires.

I just returned from a vacation in the Greek islands and discovered some amazing historic examples of designing for the environment. The trip began on some of the Cyclades islands: Paros, Ios, and the better known Santorini. These islands contain the type of architecture one often pictures when they think of the Greek Islands; white painted flat roofed structures with minimal blue trim. These collections of white boxes stand out beautifully against the often barren brown landscape and deep blue color of the Mediterranean sea. This clean and practical style stuck with me as almost modern in appearance. Created only for pure function. No decoration necessary.

The Cyclades Islands: Santorini

This style that became so common among the Cyclades islands changed dramatically when we reached our final destination of Samos located in the lesser known North Aegean island chain. Samos, less than 80 miles away from the Cyclades islands contained structures with pitched tile roofs and much less white paint.

The North Aegean Islands: Samos

Intrigued by this dramatic difference in the architecture of these islands I asked a tour guide/ archeologist for an explanation. She explained that the reasons for the difference was simply climate.

The Cyclades islands were very dry, hot islands, so the buildings had flat roofs that could collect the minimal rainwater they received for reuse. This is especially important when you are on a small island with no other viable sources of water. These buildings were also all painted white to reflect rather than absorb the summer sun. The structures also had small windows to keep the heat out. Time inside these dark interiors is minimized by spending time on outdoor shaded patios.

Designed for Dry: Santorini

Samos on the other-hand has a much higher annual rainfall, which was evident by the abundant vegetation on the island and the fact that it rained most the time we were there. This is why the roofs are pitched; to get the rain away from the structures. This milder climate also explains why the windows were larger and the buildings were not all white.

Designed for Rain: Samos

This beauty of this contrast is that it shows how buildings had to be designed to their environments in the days before electricity and easy transportation. The buildings were not designed to a particular style to maintain a common appearance but to their particular microclimate. I love the sustainability of these simple design moves. Although the process of making our build environment more "green" involves utilizing innovative technologies, these simple lessons from the past have much to offer the design community as to how to move sustainability forward.

One of the interesting things about being an architect is that it is not only our responsibility to design beautiful and functional buildings, but we have to make sure these structures can be built. This involves coordination of many expert consultants: structural engineers, mechanical engineers, etc. It is critical that all these different systems work together in the building. Unfortunately, there are often conflicts between these systems that are not discovered until actual construction where they are costly to fix. An example would be a mechanical duct (for heating) running into a structural beam.

In an effort to reduce the number of construction conflicts, we utilize our architectural software (we use ArchiCAD) to model these various systems in the virtual building. This three dimensional analysis allows us to see these conflicts during the construction document phase, where they are easy, and much cheaper to solve.

Below is an example of this process. This is an in-progress virtual model of the Venice Boulevard Urban Dwellings project showing some of the primary structural members (columns and beams) as designed by our structural engineer, John Labib, S.E.