Introducing our new YouTube Channel

Sometimes you just feel the need to share!

I will be posting short slideshows of our various projects, both the finished results and the “before and after” shots when they’re available.

follow this link to our YouTube channel…

smithdesignsvictoria

 

Design Blog Blues…Concept design and the downfall of expectations.

I found myself browsing some of the design blogs the other night. Cell after cell of image clips, brief descriptions of  new faucets, bathtubs, light fixtures, materials for walls, floors and ceilings…presented in an appealing grid.  These pre-gleaned repositories of fine design are a great resource for cutting-edge products and can be useful in finding  just the thing for a challenging space.

However, as I opened another link (a tub I thought was a great fit for a current project) I came to the realization that I can no longer, with any semblance of accuracy, differentiate the physical products (warehoused in Milan, Toronto or Fargo)  from the pretty renderings that only exist on the screen.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The convergence of two technologies has blurred the line between the real and the imagined. The rise of hi-resolution digital imaging has allowed manufacturers to provide some incredibly crisp and clean photos of their products to customers. At the same time advances in modeling and rendering software have allowed the a pixel by pixel rendition of exactly what we would see had we personally been standing in the scene. The virtual world is now almost indistinguishable from the real one…and it’s freaking me out!

I am having a bit of an on-line existential meltdown to be honest.  As a fan of modern design and a “how did they DO that anyway!” kind of guy, I like seeing products with a clean aesthetic…real, working products with a simple design, clean lines and working innards. I used to be able to tell the 3rd year Industrial Design Student mock-up (real or virtual) from the on-the-shelf product. All I see now is pixels. Call me old and bitter, but perhaps a warning label is in order here:

I guess all I’m saying is that I’m tired of being lured into the trap of the “concept bathtub”. Perhaps I’m being childish here, but until my virtual self (on-line avatar, matrix-me, etc.) can feel the virtual steam and soak in the virtual bubbly water, warn me before showing me things I cannot have!

 

 

Environite: put your countertops on the 100 mile diet.

 

Keep your eyes open in the coming year for a new locally-made surface for counter-tops. Environite is a glass-resin composite material made with post-consumer and post-industrial waste. Being billed as ” Sustainable Architectural Surfaces”, it is just that:  non-porous, scratch-resistant and  available in a variety of stock and custom colours. It isn’t limited to counter-tops either, with an ability to cast the material in a variety of forms, wall panels, fireplace surrounds and flooring uses are all possible.  As a small company, the design, production and installation is all handled in-house, keeping overhead low and allowing for very competitive pricing.

Environite is currently being manufactured on Camano Island by John Carpenter and has been available locally through Des Carpenter. With an increase in local sales and ever-increasing transportation costs, they have started the process of opening up a local manufacturing facility, and are currently looking for a suitable location in the Victoria area.   Future local sales will be handled by  Kees Schaddelee with Des running the production shop.

If you’re looking for a  beautiful solid-surface material for your next project, and want to rest easy knowing you are using a locally sourced, recycled material, this is a great choice.

 

We should be seeing samples at our offices soon so check in with us!

 

Environite

Sustainable Architectural Surfaces

Des Carpenter

desc (at) environite.com

Kees Schaddelee

kees.schad (at) environite.com

CARE Award update…

Do you hear that sound? That is the distant clamor of us blowing our own horns.

We now have two new trophies to light up the office this winter:

Best Interior – Residential under 1,500 sq. ft.

for the 3 new bathrooms in our Urban Retreat project.

and

Best Bathroom 125 – 175 sq. ft.

for our Island Acreage project.

 

Our entries were but a small part of an amazing group of projects presented during the evening. There were some great contemporary buildings and interiors, and one custom craftsman-style home built by M.Knight Construction which swept most of the categories it was entered in. Congratulations to Michael and his crew and to all the other award recipients.

Our small island has more than its share of amazing talent, both in the design and construction fields. We look forward to another year of working with our familiar trades and suppliers and forging new relationships with other members of our great design and construction community.

 

 

And the Award goes to…

We’re proud to announce our nomination for multiple categories in the 2011 CARE Awards! We have 7 silver awards (gold nominations) in 5 categories.

The British Columbia Home Builders Association of Vancouver Island “Construction Achievements and Renovations of Excellence” awards celebrate outstanding West Coast home design and interiors. This Friday, September 16th we will be sitting with a gathering of the best local designers, architects, contractors and marketing folks in our corner of the province.

This year we have nominations in the following categories:
Best Residential Renovation or Restoration $125,000 – $300,000

Best Bathroom Under 125 sq. ft.(2 entries)

Best Bathroom 125 – 175 sq. ft.

Best Interior – Residential Under 1,500 sq. ft.

Best Custom Millwork Under 4,000 sq. ft. (2 entries)

We look forward to a fine evening of wine and food at the Empress.

Bathroom updates, plus some insight into the design process.

 

Bathrooms can be a “big deal”. They’re usually  the last room you see before going to sleep, and the first one visited once you wake, bleary-eyed and wishing for the comfort of a warm bed. Their influence on your day should not be overlooked!

So what do you do when you have a client who wants something new and is willing to add some new life to a couple of functional but tired bathrooms? We took a bit of sparkle and some subtle undersea tones, suspended gravity for a while and gave the client a couple of bathrooms worth spending some time in.

 

We started with a Guest Bathroom. The room itself was quite spacious with lots of light from a large window  (over the tub/shower and overlooking an interior shared courtyard…don’t get me started on that situation). The layout worked well for the space, so the plumbing fixtures needed only some small adjustments. Overall a nice canvas to work with.

After some initial hand sketches we had a layout that worked well. While the fixtures and finishes were being chosen the 3D model was developed. We find these models to be an indispensable tool for most clients. I think that we, as designers/architects/tradesmen sometimes forget that many people don’t have the same visual skill-set acquired from years of developing plans into physical spaces.  These digital models allow us to display in a very visual (and easily changeable) form what we see in our head. We also use these simple models to review the overall feel for the room and to get an idea of where problems might occur during construction or finishing, check for conflicts in finishes etc.

In many cases the final result undergoes many changes from the initial sketches and model. This project was almost spot-on!

 

To control the privacy issues of the tub area we used a frosted glass panel, mounted on sliding hardware with a matching fixed panel of clear glass separating the tub & vanity. The vanity cabinets is made from a reconstituted wood product with a depth and swirled appearance that is similar to burl or figured maple. The glass sink is up-lit from the back with a single LED light, giving a beautiful glow with enough illumination for those late nights uses.

 

 

The Master Bathroom was fairly typical for the time, with quality fixtures (mid ’80s) and having undergone some updates over the years.

This room posed a bit of a problem. As an interior room it had no windows, no possibility for a skylight and just felt gloomy. We chose a bright white tile running floor to ceiling which brightened up the room. The shower was expanded a bit, and the plumbing moved to a central location.

The new vanity is suspended off the wall, with light flooding from concealed wells behind. The entire assembly seems to float in the space. The countertop is 1″ thick, mirror-backed resin and gives a great illusion of depth.

 

Powder Room Before & After

Here’s a small 2-piece bathroom that was being used primarily for storage. The owner wanted a convenient Powder Room for here guests and came to us for some help in making the space something special.

We’ll let the pictures speak for themselves…

 

 

Oven Lovin’

For a lot of people an oven is simply a place to cook the occasional turkey or little Billy’s yearly birthday cake. For most students it’s a place to store the pots and pans. For the more culinary-minded the sight of a 60″ gas range with multitudes of gleaming dials and grills is enough induce a Pavlovian response before the cooking has even begun. These commercial grade appliances have their place, and can give a functional kitchen a truly professional look.

However, sometimes we want an appliance that performs well but is sleek enough to assimilate into the cleaner look of modern or euro-styled kitchens. In the best-case scenarios they will almost disappear entirely.

A new type of oven has emerges in the past few years. The “Lift Oven” provides a sleek oven housed between upper cabinets or attached to a wall, with a bottom that lowers to bring the food to counter-level while maintaining oven temperature.

Three manufacturers offer slight variations on this theme: the Gaggenau 235, Siemens Liftmatic, and Bosch Liftmatic all share a similar footprint and layout with minor differences.

Amazing glass products

Interstyle Ceramic + Glass manufactures some of the most interesting glass tile and finishing products available today.  This local company supplies to some of the largest  tile retailers in North America and around the world.

Their ribbon glass surfaces come in a variety of stock colours and can be customized to fit into your scheme.

They also have a line of crush-glass surface material, as well as a huge line of glass tiles.

Can’t wait to include these in a project!

Here are some images of these great products…

Working Harbours – Vibrant Cities

Our office in Victoria, BC is only a few hundred meters from the city’s “Upper Harbour”, a relatively low traffic section of waterway between the bustling Inner Harbour and the tranquil canal of the Gorge Waterway.

Here, most of Victoria’s marine industrial activity goes about its daily business: loading gravel barges, dis-assembling scrap cars and hauling up boats on the rail tracks of the boat yard. These activities share space with recreational kayakers, rowing crews and private boats bound for berths further up the Gorge. They also occur alongside many new condominium projects and townhomes on land that was, until not very long ago, zoned for industrial use. These pairings of urban and industrial landscapes are now occurring in most waterways around the world, as the urban centers spread out and encroach on land once valued more for its access to resources and supply routes than proximity to fresh bread and lattes. Victoria’s waterways narrow to 100 meters wide in some areas, making it a tight fit for these disparate land uses.

The influx of housing has its own host of problems, to be sure, but with the people comes a vibrancy and sense of new life to areas of town that were becoming run down and forgotten. Pedestrian and cycling trails link the downtown core with the outlying suburbs and allow residents and visitors a view of the city not available from vehicle routes. Developers using these harbourside lands are often required to add to this new linear park, clean up the shoreline and add environmental enhancement features. It’s this balance between the new and relatively clean residential areas and the inherently dirty working harbour that is slowly tipping in favour of cleaner waterways.

Building and living next to tugboats, front-end loaders etc. adds certain design challenges. Machinery is loud. Seaplanes are louder. Residential buildings adjacent to the water need sound-attenuating glass and wall construction, especially those in the Outer Harbour where the seaplane’s engines hit full throttle at take-off. This can be a problem for night owls or home businesses, though most of the noise is generally limited to working hours: evenings along the harbour are usually peaceful, allowing the residents full use of their patios and balconies (as with any urban home, controlling and masking the background noise is key to enjoying it to its fullest extent.)

Hopefully, as the properties along our waterways evolve and develop,  the elements that give the harbour districts their distinct character aren’t pushed to the periphery. A city needs to know where it comes from; needs to remain in touch with the working docks, fishing boats and barges. The roles of architects, developers, city engineers and designers should be to integrate these elements into the community as a whole.  This might mean a new bridge here and there, or something as simple as a new coat of paint on a recycling barge.

 

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