INSIGHT…

by rick.

Architecture at its best intensifies our appreciation of nature.

When I set my clock forward, I also set my mind forward, in the spirit of anticipation. For me, Spring is a season full of promise. The branches are still naked and only the most precocious plants dare to emerge from the earth. But the sun shines and the temperature climbs. We return home from work with daylight still stretched out ahead of us. In the race for more facetime in the sky, the sun pulls ahead of the moon as we cross the equinox.

My friends are fortunate to live in a house that seizes this moment, and delivers it to them.  Their indoor spaces unfold onto a protected, south-oriented outdoor terrace that gathers up and stores the strengthening rays of sun.  They can sit comfortably in the sunshine on a 50-degree day, protected from the wind.  Warm rays massage their scalp and kiss the nape of their neck.   They bask in sunlight, stretching out before it with an indulgence akin to cold-blooded reptilian solar ecstasy.

That opportunity to indulge is no accident; it’s the result of design. After all, just look at their neighbor’s home – plucked from the plan books and placed with the front door facing the road. It has a cold outdoor patio on the north, where frost lingers late into the day.  Without that equinox-friendly outdoor room, their opportunities for March and April (also October/November) outdoor communion are diminished. For them, spring hasn’t even started.

**

Signs of change start subtly. Then seemingly overnight around the first of May (earlier this year, it seems), buds become leaflets. Leaflets unfurl into pale green banners and start to deepen in hue. Long vistas become short, blocked by seasonal screens. For buildings in the vegetated landscape, exposure becomes enclosure.

This free annual performance – its timing, its magnificence, and the degree to which the soul longs to experience it – is predictable. How indoor spaces relate to this panoply of life is a matter of design, not a matter of luck.

The windows of my friends’ house are carefully considered apertures, placed, sized, angled and arrayed to selectively admit  – or omit – scenes from the world around them. Those emergent leaves bring shade to south-facing windows just in time for the season’s first heat wave.

Their home is built around a south-facing green space, effectively creating an inexpensive outdoor room that is usable nine months of the year. Throughout these months its thoughtful plantings provide a rich tapestry enjoyed from inside the house as well as outside it. At year’s end when the show is over, a blanket of whiteness covers the courtyard garden’s surface. It bounces precious January light up into the living room. The vivid hues of Spring that saturate the adjacent rooms –  like the clean, snow-reflected light of a low-angled, winter-solstice sun that brightens the ceilings –  are no accident. Design for nature is an intentional act.

**

In Spring, after the leaves are unfurled the gardens emerge. May and June explode in bombastic displays of color, urgent invitations to birds, bees and people. My friends spend increasing time in their gardens – flowers are cultivated, vegetable seeds are planted.

Their gardens are part of their routine. They see them out the windows. They pass them on their way to and from their car. They sit amidst their bounty during late spring dinners, on a patio that is protected from the strong, low-angled, late-day western sun by the orientation of the house on the property.

Because of this constant interface with their garden, they enjoy it – and maintain it – without conscious effort. Outdoor living is incorporated into their daily routine. That integration of indoors and outdoors is no lucky break.

Their neighbors planted a vegetable garden, too. It is far from the house, because that’s where the sun is. By midsummer the garden has been forgotten and become overgrown – out of sight, out of mind.

**

My proverbial friends’ house is sited on the edge of a field, with its back against a delightful small forest, filled with wonder and animal activity. In spring, their children can explore the forest’s “secret” places and “magical” creatures just out the backdoor, and all within sight of the kitchen window.

By now, I’ll bet you can guess where their neighbor’s house is located! That’s right, it’s in the middle of the field, perched on the highest spot. It overlooks everything. It relates to nothing. That their children play Wii on sunny Spring Saturdays is pre-ordained. They don’t make it to the woods because it’s too far away for supervision or spontaneity.

In all these ways and more, my friends’ – my clients’ -  lives are enriched, while their neighbors’ is impoverished.

Spring offers us hope in change. It begs us to become more aware – and more appreciative – of our environment. Architecture can help or hinder. Winston Churchill observed that “we shape our buildings; thereafter, they shape us.” Design for life – for all the seasons – starts with a mandate to put Nature at the Center. After all, our buildings can bring us closer to the natural world by amplifying our experience of place and raising our awareness of the environment. Or they can push us away.

by rick.

David Owen beat me to the punch – and the subtitle -  when he published his recent book “Green Metropolis: Why Living Smaller, Living Closer, and Driving Less are the Keys to Sustainability.” He succinctly summarizes the book’s contents in those 15 words. Then he consumes 368 pages on those who need convincing that urban dwellers use fewer resources per capita than suburbanites.

His muse is New York City where residents rely on public transit (due to traffic congestion), live in small apartments with less stuff (due to the cost of real estate) and use less energy to heat and cool (due to all those common walls).

My muses are the 616 other cities and villages that make up the constellation of urban environments across our Empire State. Specifically, I’m talking about the 583 municipal areas that have fewer than 25,000 residents each. A hefty 2.1 million New Yorkers live in these villages and small cities.

We are the 2.1 million. And yes, we are also urban dwellers. Village people live smaller, closer and drive less than the nation as a whole. To an increasing extent, we have convenient access to necessities, retail, cultural, arts and recreation opportunities, and ample open space. The villains in Owen’s book are suburbanites, and so-called environmentalists who mock cities for their air pollution, sewer and solid waste disposal challenges, yet would build on virgin land and drive ten miles for every errand. We, the 2.1 million, are part of the solution.

Plug any address into the website walkscore.com, and it provides a walkability rating based on its pedestrian proximity to amenities. I typed in the address of my friend’s apartment in Brooklyn Heights. He lives in a neighborhood saturated with restaurants and service businesses, groceries and drugstores, a short walk from the waterfront and Brooklyn Bridge Park. On walkscore.com his address rates a 97 out of 100. This level is nicknamed “Walker’s Paradise.”

Then I entered the address of my office in a mixed-use building on Seneca Street in Geneva. There are six restaurants within 30 paces of my door. I, too, am a short stroll to shopping, cultural destinations, and a waterfront. Sure enough, on walkscore.com downtown Geneva also scores a “Walker’s Paradise” 97.

And, if you’re looking for a place to live, it is in our villages and small cities that you’ll find room. New York City’s vacancy rate is the lowest in the nation at 2.4%.  Manhattan’s is below 1%. Entire stand-up comedy acts are built around jokes on the legendary difficulty of finding a place to live there.  Not so much in our state’s 583 small cities and villages. Many Finger Lakes municipalities have housing availability closer to the 8-10% range.

In an age of mobility, ours are the communities – with a vibrant downtown and affordable housing and access to nature and a track record of reinvestment  – that can position themselves to attract the young singles, couples and families that have grown disillusioned with the false promise of the suburbs and whose work gives them the autonomy to choose to live elsewhere.

Even with a head-to-toe rehab, a downtown building or turn-of-the-century home will cost a fraction of the per-square-foot equivalent for a comparable new-build in the suburbs. Recent studies have shown that even built to strict energy-efficiency standards, the amount of embodied energy required to build new will require an average of 80 years before it has paid back its carbon debt, compared to renovating.

All of this means something else that you already know:  Buying or renting is usually more affordable in our villages and small cities, than outside them.

People are recognizing this appeal in increasing numbers. According to the last census, New York’s urban population increased in villages and cities with populations under 25,000. And, it grew in New York City. Where it lost population were in the next four largest cities, especially Buffalo and Rochester. As a matter of fact, Erie and Monroe Counties collectively saw their population drop by 1% in the past ten years. Ontario, Wayne, Seneca and Yates Counties collectively saw an increase of 4% over the same period. Not a flood, but definitely a trickle. Could this be an indication of greater autonomy from the commuting umbilicus historically tying workers to those urban centers?

We are well on our way towards a flexible economy, where workers, professionals, and entrepreneurs have more freedom to choose where they want to live.  So where are the next million New Yorkers going to live and work? If they choose the “Green Metropolis” of NYC, then good for them (and good luck finding an apartment). But the serious weakness of Owen’s argument is that New York City is not a readily replicable model. At the end of the day, there’s only one Big Apple.

Fortunately, there are 583 Little Apples. For these – our villages and small cities – the promise of a more walkable, sustainable, neighborly, integrated life may be our most marketable asset.

by rick.

Take it from me.  Symptoms of an architectural inclination appear early. They include hallway-length cities of toy blocks, Erector Set bridges that can support your dog’s weight, or modernist Lego castles.  For a teen, it might graduate into cantilevered, reinforced snow forts, and scale models of your bedroom (so you can plan prior to re-arranging the furniture, of course).

These leanings occasionally result in a career in architecture, but often it just manifests itself through a lifelong fascination with design. Maybe you recognize it in yourself or someone you love. I call this tendency your “Inner Architect”.

Your Inner Architect responds to more than just the urge to design. It chooses your favorite restaurant not solely based on the food, but also the artful presentation of each course, the choreography of the service, and the character of the dining space.  Your Inner Architect prefers a perfectly balanced fountain pen to a Bic because of the way it glides across the page.  It’s your Inner Architect that subconsciously runs your finger down the embossed spine of a beautifully-bound hardcover book. And despite that tactile fascination, it’s also the part of you that secretly desires an iPad.

In short, your Inner Architect is fulfilled when design takes something ordinary and makes it extraordinary, elevates routine to ritual, or encompasses all your senses. As a result you feel more alive, engaged, aware and empowered.

But what to get your Inner Architect for Christmas? These sometimes inscrutable preferences can make them hard to buy for. To help make sense of it all I’ve developed these five simple rules for making your Inner Architect’s Holiday Shopping List.

1. Make It Real.

Your Inner Architects’ fingers can tell the difference between wood and a plastic veneer; their eyes can distinguish between stainless steel and chromed plastic. Their nostrils can differentiate genuine leather from premium pleather.  So, to satisfy their urge for tactile authenticity, consider a geometric wooden puzzle or a set of Buckyballs; an ad-free, brushed stainless steel license plate holder or a pocket-slimming leather magnetic money clip (all $35).

2. Do More With Less.

While your Inner Sloth may want a $120 Keurig coffeemaker so it can have its morning joe within 30 seconds, your Inner Architect does not. It wants a Bodum coffee press ($35). This simple plunger-based tool is smaller, cheaper, contains fewer parts, produces better brews and is beautiful.

Bodum also makes a double-walled glass called Pavina (2/$14). The antithesis of drinking coffee out of Styrofoam, these lightweight glasses contain an inner wall that suspends your beverage in a perfect parabola above the table. Your drink is separated by a vacuum-sealed air space from the outer wall of glass so you can comfortably pick up the 190-degree drink of your choice or place it on your cherry wood table without the need for a coaster.

Finally, winning the prize for “simple,” the Glass Block Photo Frame ($10) consists of two pieces of thick glass with a slot in the middle where you can slide a 4×6 photo for frameless full-bleed display. The resulting presentation adds depth, can be stood on any edge, can showcase photos on both sides, and catches light along the thick edges of the glass in unexpected ways.

3. Elevate the Ritual.

The above products turn routine to ritual. Your Inner Architect gets that. It wants you to slow down and pay attention. It desires products that sensitize you to things you’ve taken for granted since the first Bush administration. A great example is the Lamy Studio Stainless Steel Fountain Pen ($75).  These writing tools are flawless, precise and leak-free. They are refillable for pennies and last indefinitely. Give one, and your recipient’s Inner Architect will enjoy the effortless touch, perfect heft and ample inkflow while writing you a heartfelt thank you note.

4. Think Local First.

For your Inner Architect, a gift’s place of origin, and especially its place of purchase, matters as much as the gift. Think local first.  Shop independent stores, and businesses in nearby downtowns when possible, to score big with your Inner Architect’s dream of supporting a vibrant, bustling Main Street.

A subscription to your local newspaper is one of the most considerate, locally-sourced, community-minded, 100% recyclable gifts you can get. The recipient’s Inner Architect will especially appreciate certain feature columns about architecture. Best of all, your thoughtfulness is remembered with each paper’s arrival, and even if the economic news on the front page is not good, you can rest assured your gift is supporting local jobs.

5. Cleverly Solve A Problem.

Architect Le Corbusier famously declared in 1923 that “The problem of the house has not yet been stated” before, inevitably, going on to state it and offer solutions. Your Inner Architect similarly cringes when products attempt to serve a need that has yet to be clearly articulated.

Case in point, the travel mug. We demand a vessel that maintains our drink’s temperature indefinitely; is slender enough to grip or slip in a cupholder; can suspend a tea bag while sealed shut; can be thoroughly cleaned with removable gaskets;  and can, with the flick of a button, become spillproof.  Can it be done? Your Inner Architect will find the solution in the Thermos Sipp 16-Ounce Travel Mug ($25), which meets all these criteria and is beautifully constructed to boot.

Another example: To paraphrase Thoreau, the masses lead lives of quiet desperation, making do with the ubiquitous 6” long ice scrapers, and using their sleeves to brush off snow. The extendable OXO Good Grips Snowbrush ($20) retracts to fit on the floor of your passenger seat. Its ample brush can be used parallel to the handle or pivoted to operate like a broom, pushing heaps of snow off the car. If it jumped out of the car when you called its name, it would be perfect.

These gifts will titillate your Inner Architect. Not coincidentally, the principles outlined – Real, Clever, Local, Simple and Ennobling – also describe a broader approach to design that you might consider the next time you review – or embark on – a new building.

From my Inner Architect to yours, Happy Holidays!

by rick.

The rule for neighborhoods and their venerable houses is the same as that which guides the evolution of species – Survival of the Fittest. Houses which do not evolve to meet the changing needs of their occupants perish. Into that slow spiral of disinvestment, deterioration, and devaluation they draw adjacent houses and over time, neighborhoods.

Houses which adapt to serve their owners’ changing needs over a lifetime, or adapt to attract new homeowners and their new lifestyles, survive. By positioning themselves as adaptable they drive reinvestment, renovation and renewal of their value and their neighborhoods.

In my firm’s work for the Geneva Neighborhood Resource Center (GNRC), we have been studying a phenomenon dubbed “The Geneva House.” You know the house. There are hundreds of these homes, and not just in Geneva but in all the villages in our readership. They are nearly identical in character, age, details, dimensions and floor plans. They have two-stories, two stairs, a front porch, and a formal, compartmentalized floor plan measuring about 810 square feet on each level.

These houses are at risk if they do not evolve. Because of a perceived inflexibility to accommodate multi-generational needs, accessibility, or to adapt to the more open, informal mode of living often sought today, they are undervalued. Many owners of these old houses seem resigned to the burden of a $4000 annual utility bill that will only rise over time.

Luckily, it doesn’t have to be that way.

To combat these misperceptions and help owners and prospective buyers recognize the opportunities these houses afford, the GNRC asked us to prepare “case studies” showing many ways in which the resilient “Geneva House” could be adapted to fit the bill.

This first installment is called “REconfigure”. It shares some simple ideas that can help the “Geneva House” adapt. Take a look. Depending on your needs and goals, you can create a more open, communal living area, grow or shrink the number and configuration of bedrooms, find sunny, quiet places for study or relaxation, provide single-level living or develop dedicated playrooms. All this within the house’s footprint. Future columns will share ideas for the MULTIgenerational house, the NEXTgeneration house, and the gREen-HAB.

by Rick.

When it comes to discussing the future of libraries, words get in the way. More accurately, books full of words (and rooms full of books) get in the way.

The evolution of libraries and books share a common, intertwined history. But it’s this association with books as the raison d’etre of the library that feeds the illusion of the library’s pending doom. Technology is ever introducing more convenient, instant, affordable, precisely calibrated paths to retrieving the written word. In the face of this, the 560-year-old “technology” of the printing press is a necessary but no longer a sufficient foundation on which to design an enduring institution.

On this, the public library’s champions throughout history would agree. They consistently emphasized the library as a force for progress. A prerequisite for effective democracy was an informed citizenry with a thirst for knowledge, and a forum to share ideas. They also recognized it as a democratizing force in a different sense -  an instrument to promote social and cultural (as well as functional) literacy where, in the words of the Andrew Carnegie whose philanthropy built 2,500 libraries, “neither rank, office, nor wealth receives the slightest consideration.”

Now that is a concept as radical today as it was a century ago.

RE-INVENTING THE LIBRARY

Let’s define a vision for our library-of-the-future that embraces this broader mission, and leaves the word “book” out of it: The future library is a forum for knowledge and ideas that promotes community, democracy and equal access. It is an ever-adapting instrument to promote cultural, social, and technological literacy going forward, while serving as a time capsule allowing us deep insight into the past.

To accommodate this vision, our library needs the agility to adapt, and entice you and your descendents to return time and again.  And what lucky citizens you will all be! Like never before, massive information availability will be a given in an age when the contents of a million books can fit on a device you carry in your pocket.

So perhaps it is the curating of this information landslide, plus sophisticated search-and-find tools, and public availability of subscription-based knowledge hordes that will be the baseline of even the smallest library. Meanwhile regional and international connections – especially those that engage in multi-cultural, multi-media and multi-dimensional ways – will be the minimum requirements on your path to enlightened citizenship.

Counterbalancing this dizzying array of resources, your future library must also nourish knowledge at the most local levels. Futurist Thomas Frey imagines libraries serving as vital “time capsules”, the sole remaining repository of long-shuttered local newspapers, film-based photography, and local broadcasts. But how these stories are conveyed would be more akin to today’s most interactive museum exhibits, allowing tomorrow’s youth to experience the flavor, rituals, sounds and formative cultural moments of past eras in each town.

DESIGNING THE LIBRARY

But how do we design an edifice that accommodates an ever-shifting mandate? For starters, we should not be defining our library so much by what it houses, and more by how it houses.

That is the adjective-filled language of architecture.

It might mean a mix of spaces: one playful, another inspiring; one studious, another conspiratorial; a serene, meditative room, and a stimulating, sensory-rich, invigorating one; an airy and sociable space; a cozy, intimate nook.

Gardens, courtyards, or amphitheaters might create more flexible “rooms” that provide untethered learning opportunities in an outdoor forum.

This architectural agility is perhaps most indispensable in the smallest communities. An example is in the works in Lodi, population 1,500.  The community has been working for two years with architects to envision a new library that meets these challenges. Conceptual renderings on the library’s website reveal a building in which a series of rooms cascades irregularly down the sloped site. They are connected by ramps that encourage full exploration of resources, and link spaces of varied character whose functions might change over time.

The children’s room at the Cordelia Greene Library in Castile attempts to envision an “agile” library, a room for the imagination defined by – rather than filled with – books. (photo: Mark Sampson)

For me, a starting point can be found in one of my first completed projects for a library in Castile, a town of 2800. Its naturally-lit, balcony-wrapped children’s room was conceived as “a pavilion-in-the-woods” with a generous window to the forest. Envisioned as a place for storytime and imagination, its walls of books define – rather than fill – what is essentially a flexibly designed space. In my visits over the past ten years, I have witnessed that space adapt for town hall meetings, quilt exhibits, films, lectures, chocolate tastings, auctions, fundraisers and American Doll tea parties to name a few. Might it be a venue for a holographic re-enactment of the Gettysburg address on its 200^th anniversary in 2063? It could.

If these examples indicate anything, it is that the future library must not simply address the changes technology has wrought on how we consume information. It must transcend them.

Rick Hauser, AIA, LEED AP, is a founding partner of In. Site: Architecture in Geneva and Perry, and former architecture professor at Hobart & William Smith Colleges. Architecture Matters appears monthly. Previous columns can be found on I.S:A’s blog at www.insitearch.com.

by Rick.

On a recent winter’s day, stretched parallelograms of sunshine track slowly across the bamboo floor of my renovated kitchen, marking time’s slow passage. When we put in the windows, I calculated how high they should go in order to assure that the light they admit would stretch deep into the heart of the formerly dark room. The shorter the days, the lower the sun in the southern sky. And the lower the sun, the longer and deeper its rays penetrate.

Large windows at the architect’s home are pressed up against the 9’ ceiling to draw low-angled winter light deep into the room. A 2’ overhang is calculated to block the high-angled summer sun (Photographer: Bill Schmitt)

Now, whenever the sun shines in winter I’m there, moving my chair to keep the outstretched fingers of warmth firmly positioned on my neck. Sitting in the sun makes me happy about winter.

***

We put in a small half bath some years back, interior to the kitchen with no direct wall to the outside.  So instead, we installed a vertical band of glass block over the toilet on a wall facing a hallway, opposite a south-facing exterior window. I calculated how low the glass block should go in order that the first ray of sun hit it exactly on the autumnal equinox.

On the winter solstice, the patterned block fractures the low-angled sun and projects thousands of tiny rainbows across the walls of the little room. Washing my hands in rainbows makes me happy about winter.

Even this interior half-bath captures natural light through glass block that borrows sunlight from the hallway window outside, fractures it into tiny rainbows, and projects it across the clean surfaces of the tiny room. (Photographer: Mark Sampson)

***

These short days mean long, dark evenings.  I crave a wood fire. I have more reason than most as my father was a woodcutter – I’ve split and moved thousands of face cords,  and growing up, our house was heated with wood.  As a child I took great pride in building and maintaining the perfect fire, controlling the air intake, endlessly re-adjusting logs and coals, transitioning from easy-starting to long-burning species of wood. For me, the smell and sound – never mind the radiant heat and economy – of a wood fire provide a deep satisfaction saturated with primal, nostalgic and actual warmth.

When I moved into my 100-year old village home, it had a small internal fireplace with an old, clay-lined flue.  The flue ran inside the house, up 30’ through the attic where, inside its brick chimney, it staggered upwards at a gravity-defying angle so that it could penetrate the roof right at the ridge. I dared not light a fire given the likely gaps in the flue and all that 100-year old “kindling” from which my house is built. So for years that fireplace was a cold, dark hole in my spirits each winter.

Once I could afford it, I installed an efficient wood-burning fireplace insert with a flexible, stainless steel flue liner. Now, on dark days and darker nights I gather the kindling I saved from projects all year – and the wood I’ve let season –   and light a fire.

I place an armchair by the hearth so I can tend the coals, and absorb the warmth.  And when I’m at home from November to March – when the sun doesn’t shine and I’m not asleep – that is where you’ll find me, more or less. I may be playing a game with my son, reading the paper, writing a column about winter, or maybe listening to Garrison Keillor on Prairie Home Companion describe how cold the winters are in Minnesota.

Sitting by the fire I welcome the snow I see swirling outside and the wind that whips against the windowpanes. It is that very juxtaposition which makes me happy.

***

I choose to embrace winter in upstate New York. That choice made, I delight in the opportunities architecture affords me to help savor my experience of the season. Design is an intentional act. Sometimes one hundred artful, small, focused, delectable design decisions – more than any one “big idea” – make the difference.

Happy winter.

by Rick.

Downtowns are back. In cities large and small, in villages small and smaller, communities are rediscovering their Main Streets. Why? Because that’s where the vitality is. Developers are buying buildings to rehab for the same reason Willie Sutton robbed banks: Because that’s where the money is. Government is putting the money there – in the form of grants, low-interest loans, income tax credits and property tax abatements. Why? Because that’s where the infrastructure is.

An interior of a totally rehab'd apartment in downtown Perry. This 7500 sf building leveraged all of the programs described - grants, historic tax credits, sale-leaseback. The apartments rent for 75% more than before and were leased before construction was complete.

Our region is no exception to this trend. In Mount Morris a visionary developer has purchased 20 buildings; in 2010 he and other galvanized owners were busy delaminating vinyl and T1-11 siding from facades, replacing windows and rehabilitating interiors, while they continue to recruit tenants in a coordinated strategy to create a viable mix of businesses. Down the road in Perry, a community-wide investment group is completing renovation of its second anchor building, having raised $600,000 in private capital as one part of a broader reinvestment that has transformed 40,000 sf of vacant Main Street real estate in 5 years.

Meanwhile, Corning’s Market Street has long been an exemplary model of a community-minded corporate sponsor taking an interest in the 1972 flood-devastated downtown as a long-term recruitment and retention strategy. Finally, Geneva has aggressively pursued grant opportunities on behalf of its building owners which, in coordination with the Geneva BID and enterprising building owners, is resulting in some highly visible successes throughout downtown.

Now, here’s the lesson in it all. In each case, private for-profit owners leverage public resources as a component of viable business plans.  They put their money where their house is, and they take the long view. Through that lens, there are three public resource-leveraging strategies that each community’s leaders should be pursuing as ingredients toward successful downtown rehab. I’ll call them Compete, Comply and Postpone.

COMPETE

Get a grant. Those communities that have been advocating for their downtowns, completing projects with local money, and forming downtown citizen advocacy groups are positioned best for the current gold standard of downtown grants: the annual New York Main Street Program. Now matching up to $500,000 per community, it leverages far more than that in private dollars. Mount Morris, Dansville, Lima, Arcade, and Perry are some of the area’s the more recent recipients.

COMPLY

Get your downtown on the National Register. Many downtowns have within them potential districts with architectural and historical merit. Renovate a contributing building to a designated district in a sympathetic manner and you can get 40 cents of every dollar spent on rehab back, when federal and state credits are combined. Any individual or entity can nominate a district, but sit-downs with owners in advance of any such undertaking is crucial, in part to dispel the erroneous notion that such a designation will impinge on their freedom. The truth is, owners in a district who want to paint their buildings pink, tar and feather them or knock them down – even all three, sequentially – could still do so if they were allowed before.  But, those owners who wanted to take advantage of very significant tax credits on passive income would have that option. For renovations over $200,000, these credits can easily exceed the extra costs of complying with rehabilitation standards. I know this because I’ve prepared historic district applications and tax credit applications. It works.

POSTPONE

Lock your assessment at the pre-renovation value. Working with an IDA, some communities can offer a “sale-leaseback agreement” that extends the lower assessed value for five years and phases it in over five more (it also cancels out sales tax on your construction materials). Talk about a win-win! Tax jurisdictions benefit – in the long term – because this incentive will ultimately increase their tax revenues. Meanwhile, delaying that increase can save you $100,000 in taxes if the pre-renovation and post-renovation values were just $200,000 apart. There are simpler abatement programs too; some are as easy as filling out a one-page application available at your assessor’s office. Want more information? Search the web for NYS Real Property Law 485(a) and 485(b).

***

Committed owners will no doubt work towards all three of these strategies, while aggressively seeking tenants and low-interest loans, cash-back energy incentives and green design programs. They will advocate collectively to the proper municipal entities or downtown associations to pursue the grant, establish the district, and opt-in to existing programs.

It makes solid, long-term sense to invest downtown. Why? Because that’s where the future is.

by Rick.

Welcome back! Last month you came to my firm to talk about building your own home. At the end we had a terrific discussion about many of the reasons that off-the-cuff estimates can be misleading. These misconceptions include:

• Geography –  comparing costs from locales with different climate, systems and labor markets
• Size –  ignoring economies of scale when comparing large and small homes
• Confusion –  not knowing how the source of cost-per-square-foot data calculated the denominator
• Inflation –  using 2008 numbers for 2012 construction
• Optimism – blindly clinging to the low end of the estimate range
• Scope Creep – making many small changes during the design stage which add up

“How can I even start the process if I don’t have a sense of what it might cost?” you say. “I won’t hold you to it, I just need a rule-of-thumb,” you say.  All good points. You want an approximation; an order-of-magnitude; a ballpark figure; a guesstimate; a budget number; anything, something to move the conversation forward. You need to talk to your banker, your broker, your financial advisor and your spouse, and do some soul-searching.

So I set to work on a new way to answer the fraught-but-legitimate question, “How Much Will It Cost?”

Here is an answer for you. I call it the “$30,000 Rule”. It was conceived to work for the regions in which I build and the clients for which I design, for the year 2011, and inevitably it is derived from the quality and character of the homes designed by my firm. But don’t worry, there are only ten steps.

THE $30,000 RULE

• STEP ONE. For house of small to average size, start with $30,000 for each 200 sf of living space you want. So, the “base” 1600 sf house comes out at $240,000 and a 2000 sf house starts at $300,000. This is for a relatively simple geometric form, with neither basement nor an attic big enough to use for anything.
• STEP TWO. If you’re building a home in a field or forest (as opposed to a village or city neighborhood) and need to provide infrastructure, utilities, water, septic, driveway, landscaping, add at least $30,000. OR, if your future home is at least an hour’s drive from a skilled, competitively-priced labor force, add $30,000.
• STEP THREE. If you want a tight, well-insulated envelope, with superior windows and the heat recovery ventilation you’ll need in winter, all of which will save energy and money in perpetuity, add $30,000.
• STEP FOUR. If you want hydronic (hot-water), in-floor heating fed by an electric-powered ground-source heat pump powered in part by a photovoltaic array, add $30,000 (after rebates and incentives).
• STEP FIVE. If you want lots of height and volume in your living spaces, perhaps skylights or clerestories to bring in natural light, add up to $30,000.
• STEP SIX. For less common or more durable materials/finishes throughout, including steep roofs, planted roofs, true standing seam metal roofs, western red cedar shingle roofs, more expensive interior finishes (especially for the kitchen, bathroom and flooring), or stone (real ones) or brick in any quantity inside or out, add $30,000.
• STEP SEVEN. If you want a garage, add up to $30,000.
• STEP EIGHT. If you like ample outdoor constructed spaces then for things like a big front porch, a back deck or patio, a screened/three-season room, a small balcony, etc, add up to $30,000.
• STEP NINE. For good measure and for all the things left out or added in later, add a $30,000 contingency as you plan.
• STEP TEN. Pay the soft costs up front: surveyor, architect, permit fees, soil borings, etc. Budget up to $30,000.

Meanwhile, keep in mind that each $30,000 you borrow will add $160 to your monthly mortgage (assuming a 30-year term at 5%).

That may be a less abstract way of gauging the value of each incremental adjustment: Can you afford $160/month to stow your car and your lawn mower? Will you save $160/month over the next 30 years from your solar-powered heat pump? Are the 15’ x 13’ dining room, or those 2 large walk-in closets, or the extra bathroom and formal entry each worth $160/month for the next 30 years?

So, thanks for coming. When it comes to talking with clients about budget, I’ve really come to believe in Early and Often. I believe that this open approach starts with a workable, flexible, reality-based, locally-sourced tool like “The $30,000 Rule.” It lays the groundwork for a smoother, illusion-free, collaborative design conversation, one that will result in a home where you can find great pleasure, inspiration and peace of mind.