Our focus is the custom single family home and here are some topics that intrigue us.
What makes the custom single family home owner different than owners of other types of buildings? How does the custom single family home contribute to the making of a community? Can we design houses that need less energy to operate and require less energy, carbon, green house gases and water to build? How can we better organize ourselves to produce these designs and better serve our clients? What are the best ways to engage and manage contractors who build custom single family homes? Who in the past and present can we learn from that does what we do now? These are among the questions that rattle around in our heads.
When our curiosity reaches a critical mass, we form a research project to define the question and organize our task around a discrete deliverable. We typically review, select and initiate these research projects at the beginning of each summer and enlist several interns to help us with the task. Some of our current and past research projects include the following:
2009 (proposed) Operational Energy of FGG's House Portfolio.
How much energy does it take to operate the houses we have designed? How does this compare to other meaningful benchmarks? The first part of this project collects the past water, electricity and gas consumption from our past clients. The second part analyzes this data. Deliverables include both a portfolio and individual house report to be shared with our clients of their energy use relative to the FGG portfolio and other benchmarks.
2009 (proposed) Post Occupancy- Fixtures and Equipment Survey.
How successful were the fixtures and equipment that were specified in FGG's houses? This project will establish a review methodology of these fixtures and equipment and then do site visits and client interviews of each house to collect this data. Deliverables include both a portfolio and individual house report to be shared with our clients.
2009 (proposed) Post Occupancy- Settle In Survey.
We have noticed that after our clients settle into their new house (approximately 6 to 9 months) there is a moment where many reflect on the experience they just went through. This project will formalize a set of questions to survey our each of our clients to capture these reflections. Deliverables will include the survey to be used and the data collection of recently moved-in clients.
2008 Embodied Energy - Portfolio Findings.
How much energy, carbon, global warming gases, and water is required to build the houses we have designed? Utilizing the methodology developed the previous year, this project analyzes a portfolio of our houses to estimate the energy embodied in them. Our intent is to benchmark the embodied energy of these houses and leverage these learnings into meaningful design strategies for future projects. Deliverables include both a portfolio and individual house report to be shared with our clients. This work is scheduled to be published late 2008 and has been offered to the AIA as a possible presentation at the 2009 AIA National Convention in San Francisco.
2008 Birge Clark - The Making of Palo Alto; A tour of Birge Clark's Buildings and Residences in Palo Alto.
Building on the previous summers work and in collaboration with the Birge Clark Society, we developed a tour of the Birge Clark buildings and residences in and around Palo Alto and Stanford University. This tour was selected by the National American Institute of Architects to be offered to attendees of the 2009 AIA National Convention in San Francisco.
2007 The Transitional Small Office - Alternative Management Strategies for the Small Architectural Firm.
How does the small firm find and support their employees, sustain its identity and transition to a new technology platform? Developed for the AIA's Practice Conference in Washington DC this presentation is a case study of FGG's management practices focusing on the primacy of the employee. This presentation was subsequently presented at the Ontario Association of Architects, Future of the Profession Conference in April 2008 and at the AIA New York State Annual Convention in September 2008.
2007 Embodied Energy - Tool Set and Methodology Analysis.
What are the available methodologies and tools that calculate the embodied energy including carbon foot print, green house gases, water and air pollution contribution, and weighted resource values in a house? This project first investigates what tools and resources are readily available to produce these findings and then develops a methodology to use it to analyze houses. Deliverables include the choice of tools and a method for using those tools to produce these findings. This work was cited in the November 2007, EcoStructure Magazine article entitled: "Measuring a Construction Project's Carbon Footprint", page 64.
2007 Birge Clark - Map of Palo Alto and Stanford University Projects.
What buildings and residences did Birge Clark design and where are they located? Birge Clark was Palo Alto's preeminent architect in the earlier part of the past century and was responsible for hundreds of buildings and residences in and around Palo Alto and Stanford University. The deliverable for this project is a brochure and map of Birge Clark's buildings and residences produced in collaboration with the Birge Clark Society.
2006 Houses & Surroundings: Paintings.
Inspired primarily by the talent of one of our summer interns, Joseph Bergen, this project explored the relationship of FGG's houses to their surroundings. Deliverables included 6 oil paintings.
