Talking Residential Home Design Trends in Dallas with Seattle Architect Extraordinaire Tom Kundig

Architect Tom Kundig may be the hottest number in Seattle. But he wowed Dallas this week, entertaining more than 400 people at City Performance Hall Tuesday night as a speaker for the Dallas Architecture Forum.

Kundig, an award-winning architect and principal at Seattle-based Olson Kundig Architects, has a huge international following thanks to his ability to turn concrete, steels, cranks and pulleys into very livable spaces, sometimes carved right into natural surroundings. He certainly has designed some of the most talked about homes in recent memory, and is tip-top on every billionaire’s list of most coveted architect for primary, secondary or subsequent homes.

He has a  Louis Kahn-like affinity for bare concrete, but he throws in a passion for raw steel, or sometimes rusty metal, almost full-scale use of “the seven simple machines.” It’s a balance between refinement and rawness, which he told us comes from an influence of the aircraft industry and steel, all in the neck of the woods where he grew up. Automobiles also had a tremendous influence on the 60 year old baby boomer. His parents are Swiss, and his father was an architect.

“Architecture is supposed to be provocative,” he said, “it’s supposed to poke society.”

His natural interest has always been with moving things, from logging to machines for daily living —

“A machine is not an inhuman thing,” he said. “why can’t a building change depending on the mood or circumstances?”

Kundig’s creations are amazing, a stark contrast to the austere white box usually associated with modern architecture. He designs for tech and Wall Street titans all over the world, but sadly cannot mention names because of strict NDAs. His toughest clients, he said, are media titans who want uber privacy. Never did work for Steve Jobs, but knows people who did. I would almost put money on a bet he’s done something for Bill and Melinda Gates.

(He is working on a project in Dallas. Shhh.)

Over the past five years, Kundig has continued to pick up commissioned projects as well as awards, including the 2008 Cooper-Hewitt National Design Award for Architecture Design. In 2007, he was recognized by the American Academy of Arts and Letters with an Academy Award in Architecture.

Tom Kundig: Houses 2 features seventeen residential projects, ranging from a five hundred-square-foot cabin in the woods to a house carved into and built out of solid rock. In his new work, Kundig continues to strike a balance between raw and refined and modern and warm, creating inviting spaces with a strong sense of place. The houses seamlessly incorporate his signature inventive details, rich materials, and stunning sites’from the majestic Northwestern forest to the severe high desert.

Let’s look at a few of his most famous projects: The Chicken Point Cabin, located on Lake Hayden in Coeur D’Alene, Idaho, built in 2002, features an operable wall of windows, stunning site, rustic materials, and unique details, like a steel fireplace cut from a recycled section of an Alaskan oil pipeline. “Hammer House,” in Madrona, was built in 2009. FYI, Dallas home builder extraordinaire Joe kain recently showed me a Dallas home with a fireplace made from hot oiled metal.

A load-bearing exterior wall comprised of windows set into a steel structural frame “frees the interior from the need for load-bearing walls, which maintains continuous access to the view within the space,” according to a writeup by Kundig’s firm. “The house opens up in multiple ways and directions, with a walled garden to the East and two decks to the West. Hanging steel stairs, suspended between the North wall and a steel plate, enhance this sense of transparency.”

 

  The Studio House in Seattle, Wash. circa 1998, has a tessellated glass facade, rusted steel support beams, and concrete interior walls. A combination home and photo studio, the house has a great room equipped with studio-grade ceiling lighting (above).

This is the circa 2006 Skykomish, Wash., Tye River Cabin : “essentially a wooden tent on a platform that opens to the forest and river.” It is only 600 square feet, (Kunwig is bullish on smaller homes) and like all his work, the cabin encourages an orientation toward nature with rotating glass panels, allowing walls of the structure to open. “The stuff I’ve been doing is not about the center.”

Talk about integrating a house into the surrounding landscape, here is a 2010 design in San Juan Islands, Wash. where Kundig drew up a low-profile design with a green roof and concrete exterior walls that blend with the nearby stone: The Pierre features his trademark steel windows to capture the water views.

 

 

Built on the San Juan Islands, the Shadowboxx combines a conventional profile with oversized portals. The front windows can be completely concealed by a series of floor to ceiling corrugated doors, offering protection from nature, while a whimsical “bath house” wing has a roof that pivots up to allow for open air bathing. Is that not cool?

Note the size? Not gargantuan. When Tom and I spoke,  I asked him about the biggest change he is seeing in residential architectural design today: a desire for smaller spaces.

He told me he had recently been retained by a client to make a 30,000 square foot home “feel” smaller — more like 7,000. He is designing a second home residence for a couple client in Rio de Janeiro that is 1500 square feet. He and his wife, Jeannie, a Seattle Realtor, live in 2200 square feet. People would rather have multiple smaller homes in special places, he said. 2500 square feet is the sweet spot for second homes, while he thinks trwo people can live comfortably in 2500 to 300 square feet.

“They want homes smaller but quality higher, much like a boat,” said Tom, “neat and tidy.”

When I pressed him on “quality”, he said highest materials in flooring, walls, and details such as the way door handles open, the handles themselves, fixtures, and steel windows.

“People don’t want low maintenance,” he said,  they want ZERO maintenance.”

Oh and his clients want energy-smart homes, part of the whole downsizing thing. They understand energy costs and footprint issues.  What about rooms?

Wine or Bourbon cellars — unless the client collects as an investment, these are smaller:

“We are asking people for the number of bottles they have and their consumption,” said Tom. “You can always buy wine.”

Media rooms — no value, he says, unless it’s a home for a movie director or actor, both of which he has done. The TV is now in the family room, he says, where everyone watches movies. Master bedrooms, smaller, too, no need for conversation or sitting areas. We lamented the death of the classic Palm Springs bar (with stools, bartender space) that is so retro 1960’s, but he did recently put one by request in a Sun valley home.

Kitchens are still huge and loaded with the highest end appliances that are seldom used.

“That is where the food is delivered,” said Tom. “The big kitchen is more for gathering.”

The family rooms are attached to the kitchens. It might be a west coast thing, but he is seeing a big trend for the living/dining/kitchen all as one big room. In LA, clients occasionally want a formal living and dining room. Because of the openness of the kitchen, a functioning Butler’s pantry behind the kitchen is very popular — where food can be prepared and stored all at once.

We talked about closets, which in high end homes have become dressing rooms, or salons — like in the Hicks estate.

“Dressing rooms are being set up like boutique shops,” he said.

And for all the trend to smallness, people still want good-sized closets. While the master bedroom is smaller, the master bath continues to be a strong spa-like retreat.

The most interesting take away for me was the garage: Tom says on the West Coast now it is becoming standard to outfit all garages for 220 circuits for electric cars. And people are wanting a space about the size of one garage stall for stuff — he called them big toy boxes — almost an extended mudroom where you can store toys and bikes but also fishing rods, ski equipment, skis.

“If the master closets have become mini boutique stores, the garage has become a mini sport store.”

So if he is designing a home with a four-car garage, one of those stalls will be the sport store. And they are fully insulated, too. Of course, west coasters tend to be active when they can drive to the mountains to hike or ski. Still, this could be incorporated into Texas vacation homes.

Speaking of Texas, Tom Kundig is pretty bullish about us, too. As he told the forum, Texas is refreshing with it’s attitude  that hard work and risk-taking can still be done here.

“In California all these people and forces are influencing projects,” he said. “Texas embraces the weirdos and risk takers with a political freedom philosophy much like I felt in Alaska.”

He loves the culture in Dallas, the Kimbell in Fort Worth, and finds Texas to be one of the most optimistic, supportive and curious places to work.

“The support for architecture and the architectural community here is not typical in most states,” he told me. “I love a culture that allows exploration and risk-taking. California used to be like that.”

He also loves the fact that Dallas, like many cities (especially San Antonio), is finally embracing it’s river.

“I spent time downtown with Joe Hines,” he told me, “and there is a river in Dallas!”