Tom Hurt Architecture

At Grandview House, things have gone up on walls, separated into 2 groups, things that go on walls and things that don’t.

Plaster shape in bathroom ( a correction of a wall plane issue ) , the bathroom sink , picture on lathe where original plaster removed , floating but tethered astronaut , electrical switches on lathe , car phone , boat .

Grandview House-
Where I live, I had assumed I would install landscaping, plants… that kind of thing… in my backyard. But designing one’s own place is different than designing for others. The plants never appeared because the 2 large trees, rolling workshop, and the flat gravel space with a white picket fence enclosing it was enough.

Especially after I found a cactus-shaped cat scratching post in the alley on its way to another life.

It found its new life just a few minutes later, installed near the cold pool, which I envision as a refreshing spring in a flat rock landscape, or on some days, as my own small, cool, sea-water beach. The place has now taken on some Looney Toons flavor which is about right for a place for me.

Photos by the multitalented, visionary : the venerable Jett Butler

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Grandview House-
Workshop with Adjustable Positioning

Photos by the venerable Jett Butler

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Our surgery into the residence originally created by Donlyn Lyndon FAIA-ACSA. This part of the work: expansion of covered patio with cantilevering deck, light steel structure and Kalwall panels.

A chance to work with the subtle, tense geometry that Prof. Lyndon established in the large white wall that screens the interior and exterior living from the harsh afternoon sun. From above , it is clear that Mr Lyndon’s wall was mostly the one angular line , but split into a variation of that same line, a move that created a brilliant change in thicknesses of the large screen wall.

A tense line, like a vibrational upset and resettling.

In our slight reworking of this area, we reshaped the openings in the wall from curve-topped to square-topped — hereby asking forgiveness from Professor Lyndon.

Image 3 __ from last sequence from the movie, 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) where protagonist journeys through space (?) towards the movie’s resolution.

Last Image __ the original house and screen wall shape by Donlyn Lyndon, FAIA, ca. 2002

More on the panel-ization of shapes of vehicles around us. It’s a big part of our visual landscape (and becoming more so as car designers use the joints to demarcate and compose multi-colored cars).

Not having those lines, these precisely and mechanistically engineered assemblies , would make for a very different , if inconvenient , world.

Firetrucks and Dodge Chargers use the smooth hinging forms to good effect , the firetrucks taking it to another level of hinging.

Mark Mothersbaugh ( of Devo fame ) does conceptual art that puts a focus on these smooth forms divided, divided into puzzle pieces for handy access and ease of assembly.

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Images: Nissan NV 200 CV mini-cargo van; 2019 Dodge Charger; Spartan Pierce Pumper firetruck; modified Scion [Toyota]: from markmothersbough.com/pages/sculptures

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Our office has consulted several times through the years to provide color schemes for new or refinished automobiles. Here: our most recent scheme for renowned cartoonist, Austin legend, and brother Sam Hurt for his new electric Hyundai IONIC.

Discrete panels like doors — now robotically and precisely detailed, spaced, waterproofed and gasketed for all makes of cars and trucks — break the overall form into these beautiful puzzle pieces, and their differentiation (here also with color) within that smooth exterior adds a second, richer way to see the bigger shape. Differentiation with color is becoming a recurring trope in car design.

I’m fascinated by the elegance and art driving around us on the streets — due to this practical feature of automobile design.

For Sam’s car, the front boot houses his Enya ukulele, an instrument he recently picked up a full half-a-century after his childhood music teacher severely chastised him for sharing with her a “ghost on the keys” trick a friend had show him on the piano (holding down the keys of the accompanying chord while pinking out the melody). Sam is brilliant and resilient like the colors on his car.

Here an opportunity to design steel gates and fences that provide graphic lines and shapes within a visually complex and intensely layered project.

A round shape meets a square shape — bound by their whiteness and the stitching of the rectangular grid of welded wire fence filler.

W 9th St. and Shelley Ave., Old West Austin … Side entrance to yards on E side of house from Shelly St.


Landscape:
Exterior furtiture:
GC: EEF Custom Homes

9th and Shelley.

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Outdoor furniture :
Landscape :

9th and Shelley

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House at 9th and Shelley Ave, Old West Austin, recently Re-completed

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More Notes from China Trip

1.5 hour silent bullet train ride across the surreal landscape between Lanzhou and WuWei in Gansu Province, near the Inner Mongolian and Tibetan plateaus.

The landscape was so stunning, my daughter QiuLi even looked up from the book she was reading to notice it!

( Landscape was giving off an arid Teletubbies vibe)

New infrastructure housing the bullet train stations and airports — much of it consolidated and in different shades of white — is just remarkable. 15 years ago we made this same journey in a 6 hr bus ride on a desolate 2-lane highway.

Notes from China:

Flying into Langzhou, Gansu Province, 2 elements stood out.

1. Infrastructure being built for the new elevated high speed rail system: a widely repeated , narrow, elegant bridge system that snakes through the landscapes , allowing the landscape and drainage surface to remain minimally affected compared to a surface-built system. New construction of this system is everywhere we visited despite apparent already completed bullet train connections between so many cities that just 15 years ago were remote and hard to reach with slow bus transportation along small rural highways.

2. Secondly , the approximately 25 story apartment buildings — built in groups of 10, 20, or 50 — lining the outskirts of major cities , smaller cities, suburban communities, and even villages. My previous prejudice that these structures seem dystopian, out of scale, and impersonal gave way to an admiration for their lighter touch on the landscape, compared to , for example , the US’s development model of low density sprawling communities connected by massive wide strands of highways.

An aecdotal assessment: a sensible way to handle housing for large populations, with connections to street life and amenities within a relatively modest footprint. The strategy of using a widely repeated design : approximately 25-story narrow towers with apparently ample space and light between them with relatively fewer highways and feeder roads, must make for a far smaller environmental footprint than our US development model.