BEFORE THE ARCHITECT – BACKGROUND – ARTICLES
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DESERT CONTEMPORARY STYLE: FORM FOLLOWS FUNCTION
By Before The Architect
http://www.beforethearchitect.com
© 2003, 2007 Before The Architect
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INTRODUCTION
This essay is about how form of structure and materials follows function in Southern California residential design, specifically in the Desert Contemporary Style.
Before The Architect includes among its clients a couple who bought land in Rancho Mirage, CA (cheek by jowl to Palm Springs). These new landowners commissioned us to help them design their residence. [In that neck of the sand lot, Before The Architect could only design and, then, only to a point. No specifications of materials, methods, structure, and the like. That was left to expensive engineers and other locally registered, state-licensed professionals. Indeed.] Its style is to be in keeping with the neighborhood; namely, it is Desert Contemporary.
DESERT CONTEMPORARY
First, let’s characterize the style. Desert Contemporary, ungraciously (and somewhat inaccurately) has been described as a big box with glass walls. More to the point, it’s a style reminiscent of mid-20th century Contemporary in its sharp, generally unadorned exterior corners with the provisos that –
 | It’s only 1 story |
| Exterior walls are predominantly masonry stucco |
| exterior wall corners, usually sharp, may be radiated here and there |
| Roof overhangs – some of which can be quite extensive in order to withhold the sun’s intrusion to the interior – are more often curvilinear at their perimeters and, if not apparently whimsical in their profiles’ wanderings, then at least tentatively free-form, and |
| Glass – fixed pane or sliding (in either case to 12’ height and maybe more) – all but overwhelms on view-advantaged wall faces and can be sparse on formal entry faces. |
FORM AND FUNCTION
So how does form follow function [notwithstanding the artful and whimsical]?
Land Plots.
Let’s start with the land plots. Topographically, Rancho Mirage is more or less flat desert floor with mountain views to the South. In our project, we’re addressing Mt. San Jacinto and its proximate peaks.
Land plots are reasonably rectilinear, decidedly narrow with long axes East-West. Why? Geometrically, the same number of same-sized lots could fill up the same development area if the lots were compass-oriented otherwise. The chosen form of lot shape and orientation lets the more probable opportunity of mountain viewing to be minimally obstructed by neighbors’ houses to the South. Houses to one’s South are necessarily more likely to be farther away in this community plot configuration. In other words, if these lots were rotated, say, 90° either way, then it’d be easy to stack a real property front door to the backdoor of one’s neighbor to the South repeatedly, and nobody’d get a good view (except the folks in the house at the South end of the line of houses) unless they built up – which they can’t (there’s a 20’ height restriction lest anyone be tempted to rise to the occasion).
In point of fact, views are so central to local design that topos can come with radial indicators of specific view of peaks straight on, “most likely best views”, and so forth printed right on the sheet. This is a remarkable indicator of the superior importance of function in residential design.
House Angles.
As written early-on, that a reference to the Desert Contemporary Style as a big box with glass walls was somewhat inaccurate. The inaccuracy is not related to size – the house we’re designing may run to 10,000 square feet overall. Furthermore, the inaccuracy is not related to glass walls – the South face of our house will be virtually all glass walls with just enough structure designed into it by others to support and stabilize our design necessarily and sufficiently.
The inaccuracy is about the boxiness of the Desert Contemporary Style. Indeed, it is modular albeit angular and consistently asymmetrical; it is not square, not rectangular. Flat rooflines rise and fall. Radial gradients of exterior walls range from a few degrees to a quadrant and more. The multi-angularity of form in the Desert Contemporary Style founds in —
| Its function – to take in the mountain views, |
| Its formative constraint – to design large houses on narrow lots where the long axes of the houses generally conform to the short axes of the land lot which they occupy. |
Accounting for the textured smoothness of the masonry stucco exterior clad finish and the occasional rounded corner at eye level plus the frequently curvilinear roofline perimeter, the Desert Contemporary Style bears no resemblance to any box I’ve ever laid eyes on.
Finished Floors.
Natural stone. Mostly. Why? Many natural stones’ hard surface can more easily take the sand and grit of the desert environs than other finished floor surfaces. If it’s carpet, it’s most often hard-woven and matted, e.g., Berber. These floor forms function to minimize physical deterioration over time, sustaining their pathway function.
Windows.
Windows are big. Big as doors. Bigger. Windows often are doors in 3’± widths and heights that soar to 12’, and, guessedly, more. That form serves to maximize the function of observing those mountain views at the heart of territorial interest.
But the form-follows-function story doesn’t stop here with these windows. These windows – fixed or sliding – are fabricated on site. One gathers there’s too much at risk in mismeasurement or mishandling to do otherwise with the monster panels.
And when the standard glass panels give up in height for common lengths or when their individual weights on sliding are more than the average person can handle, form takes over again to support function – clear glass transoms and clerestories to usher in light otherwise foregone.
Room Layout.
Room layout supports function. Advantaging lines of site quickly becomes practiced and performed nearly naturally. Among the formative devices of designing in the Desert Contemporary Style —
| Design to the views. (Really, this is a universal imperative.) |
| Window to the views to the structural maximum. |
| Easily accept angled corners to views to frame those views. |
| Seek out opportunities to accentuate a view by angling it across a room to enhance both the view and the room. |
| Reflect views with mirrors. |
| Prefer built-ins so as not to distract the eye from looking to the exterior by paying too much visual attention to the floor-loaded appointments on the interior. |
| Backlight, wash light, task light, dramatic light all trump general lighting – that’s to understate the interior relative to the exterior. |
Adaptability.
Call it what you will - accessible, universal, lifespan, lifetime, flex, etc. All share a basic - modifying habitable structure in recognition of occupants’ diminishing physical function, potential or actual. Adaptable residences can be anyone’s residence regardless of the inhabitants’ age or almost any physical challenge.
It is a community-wide expectation that our residential design will include adaptable elements —
| Passageways will be 32” or more clear width, |
| Switches will be lowered to accessible standards, |
| Door controls will be levered or otherwise easily worked as by a closed fist, |
| Shower baths will be roll-in, |
| Thresholds will be not greater than ½” in height, |
| Inhabitable space will be on one uninterrupted level plane, and so forth. |
These adaptations (and others embedded in the design) of form to function have broad appeal , and pervade local design
The essence of adaptable design is that it appears to the casual observer as any other residence by its look and by one’s physical movement within it, it being simply altered here and there specifically to accommodate a wider spectrum of personal uses.
Owners of newly-builts in our project locale need not have a personal stake in any of these structural forms; however, they’d be wise beyond their years to embrace them one and all. For example, our clients are in their early-midlives and are of excellent health and thrive on athletic activities. Nevertheless, their market for sales some distant day away may not be to their look-alikes and, more especially, to their act-alikes; pointedly, the Rancho Mirage territory is not especially diversely populated by age.
One could say pragmatically, that age naturally comes with the wealth to afford the properties in this area as age naturally comes with its share of physical challenges – functional imperatives for which form follows. At its nub, this isn’t about money speaking to form; money keeps score, it is the entry pass, if you will. At its nub, this is about people speaking to form.
Niches.
This is the fun part of the Desert Contemporary. In designing within this architectural style, you end up with different, angled spaces all over. Inside corners. Outside corners. Long walls for insets. Short walls for piercing and transporting natural light.
Niches and even small alcoves abound in this style. And again, I think this is form following function. Wall angularity on the exterior and interior, but more notably in this instance on the interior, easily opens up to niches to highlight art, to display photographs and collections, to raise to a high status singularly important pieces to the residents, to let light.
Niches are in a large sense the permitted, decorating choice points on the interiors in the Desert Contemporary Style. Most notably, these niches are placed, pitched, pushed in farther back from wall lines so as not to distract from view outdoors. These niches take one’s attention much more readily when one faces away from exterior visual orientations. They’re something to look at and please the eye when there’s not the view to look at. Yep. That’s form following function, too.
If this is your first visit to Before The Architect, please consider spending a few moments looking over the Site Map, in order to get a feel for the architecture of the site itself.