2014 Finals: Margaret Guthman Musical Instrument Competition at the Klaus

This was my third Guthman. I plan to attend them all. On Friday the 8 finalists demonstrated their instruments.

" Twenty-two inventors, composers and designers representing 14 nations were selected to present their new instruments at this year’s competition . They were selected from a pool of over 80 applicants from 20 countries..."


Margaret Guthman awarded the 2014 first prize and $5,000 to the Adjustable Microtonal Guitar by Tolgahan Cogulu the only non-computerized instrument.


Tolgahan Cogulu played, moved the frets around and played some more.


I started smiling early.


Who knew that the Klaus (designed by Perkins +Will) had a glass-fronted 3-level trapezoidal room with grand stair and balconies?

Georgia Tech music technology students wore these T-shirts and worked the show.

I walked around before liftoff.


These little circuit boards had gyros, accelerometers, and light sensors I think. He danced them around and made wireless music.


I asked why the heat lamp. Uday said it was built in a tropical climate and heat lamps were legal. This is Uday Shankar's chitravenu.


Two wild and crazy Swedish guys played OP-1's by Teenage Engineering .


The AlphaSphere went through pre-flight checklists. Was he loading Bach, hip-hop, or Vangelis? All, I think..


The Happy Fun Ball was an "elektrisk oraksje" (electric orange). You could dance with it AND dance to it.


Things got started before I could meet all the inventors.


The balcony birds leaned in from the best seats in the house.


The three judges sat on the front row.


No Mozart from Yuto Hasebe's Tree Guitar but WHO CARES? We wanted to party with the Tree Guitar.


Feng Gao's TRI-O : Three little turntables put a triangle in motion whose area made midi controls modify Bach.

After the performance the judges judged while the fans swarmed the inventors.


Yuto Hasebe and his Tree Guitar.


Inside the Intonaspacio a.k.a. happy fun ball.



Uday Shankar demonstrated the chitravenu for his inteview.


Allie and company with the Happy Fun Ball.


Children welcome.


Insider tip: Free beverages and sweets after the performances.


The judges returned. Tree Guitar won a peoples choice award and a coveted Margaret hug.


The winners.


The winners.


The winners.

Big Brand New Teardown Bedrooms Ought to be a lot Better

It seems "wow" at first but I don't feel so good in there.

If you build 4,500 square feet spec houses, you can afford a day with an architect to design the master suite.

Or you can buy A Pattern Language and skim patterns 127, 136, 144, 187, 188, 189, 190, and 196. (I'll get to A Pattern Language in a minute.)


Or you can build this: A 4-door, 10' double tray ceiling, "shock and awe" master. On a checklist, it's pretty darn good. And it's BIG!

I see these over and over again. I presume builders, investors, bankers, and brokers follow the herd for safety.

A running conversation with Holly at Things That Inspire focused me two ideas:

1. Can you bathe and dress without disturbing the loved one sleeping or ill in bed?
2. What makes a bedchamber, particularly a marriage bed, feel private and cozy?

Then Brad Heppner gave Holly, Claire and I a tour of one of his 4,500 square foot designs. The bed chamber itself was small, plain, peaceful and private. After four years THIS is the bedroom I remember most.

It's not about style, fixtures, or finishes. I've seen it done very well in houses by Brad, Joel Kelly, Rodolfo Castro, Stan Dixon, Brian Ahern, Cara Cummins and Jose Tavel, Spitzmiller and Norris, Bobby McAlpine, Dencity Design, and more. Big and small, modernist and traditional.

A few quotes from A Pattern Language:

136. COUPLE'S REALM "...it needs some kind of a double door, an ante-room, to protect its privacy."

144. BATHING ROOM "...they must be able to have a shower, or use the toilet, unseen, when they want to."

187. MARRIAGE BED "...an intimate anchor point for their lives; slightly enclosed, with a low ceiling or a canopy, with the room shaped to it; perhaps a tiny room built around the bed with many windows."

188. BED ALCOVE "The valuable space around the bed is good for nothing except access to the bed ... dressing, working, and storage of personal belongings which people stuff uncomfortably into the corners of their bedrooms - in fact, need their own space, and are not at all well met by the left over areas around a bed."

189. DRESSING ROOM "Dressing and undressing, storing clothes, having clothes lying around, have no reason to be part of any larger complex of activities. Indeed they disturb other activities."

190. CEILING HEIGHT VARIETY :...in an intimate nook, or over a double bed, where the social distance is no more than five or six feet, the ceiling has to be very low."

196. CORNER DOORS "The success of a room depends to a great extent on the position of the doors. If the doors create a pattern of movement which destroys the places in the room, the room will never allow people to be comfortable."

note: floorplan floorplan master bedroom closets doors

Bonding with a mansion: "The kids were riding cardboard down the stairs"

It wasn't staged for sale or precious like a show house. The mom, dad, children, and dogs were at home, the architect, the builder, the artist, and the craftsmen were visiting, plus guests. Overheard: "They are really living in here."

On Saturday Corrina Sephora Mensoff showed her work in a private home. The owners invited Corrina to feature her sculptures, paintings and her commissions for the house most notably the grand stair and the fireplaces. Lucky me: Architecture, design, art, sculpture, and Corrina all in one place for a little while.

And there was something I didn't expect, an emotional resonance. (Hat tip to Ryan Gravel, he'll know what I mean.)

Brad Heppner and Vern Vanderkleed of Benecki Fine Homes, the architect and the builder, saw how the family lived the house. They'd worked here more the two years.The owners had been in for a year. Was it working?

 
It's a big private home more the 10,000 square feet. I took these two grainy pictures so you can get a sense of the most formal area.

I found Brad and Vern chatting in the bedroom hall. They glanced around remembering challenges, solutions and dozens of craftsmen and artisans who made it happen.

Brad asked Vern if there'd been any changes. Vern said they'd put another door in the library and added a few can lights in the basement. The owner moved his office up to the "attic" where it was a little quieter.

"But you know, they really live here."


See Corrina's stair rail?

A bit about Corrina: She's the blacksmith / metal worker / artist / teacher with studios at the Goat Farm. She has more talent, energy, heart, and good humor than most of us. You should meet her because all that good stuff will rub off on you. You've no doubt seen her whimsical "Sun Moon Nautilus Passage" gate at the Atlanta Botanical Gardens.


Corrina and friends with her 2013 Art Papers Auction work.

Thanks so much.

Losing a Little Landmark - Deconsecrated and Ready for the Mansions

The little place felt like a discovery every time I saw it.

The last service was in August, the pastor and congregation have moved on. Now there's one less church in Brookhaven Heights and soon there will be one less church building. Like the Homer Hood house the difference made it special. This is what delights architecture tourists.

There's room for two or three houses on that lot and I won't care a flip about them.


"Most landmarks and focal points in cities - of which we need more, not fewer - come from the contrast of use radically different from its surroundings, and therefore inherently special-looking, happily located to make some drama and contrast of the inherent difference ... noble buildings ... set within the matrix of the city, instead being sorted out and withdrawn into 'courts of honor'"- Page 228, ”The Death and Life of Great American Cities” - Jane Jacobs, Vintage Books Edition 1991


I "discovered" it last February, a modest little church on the corner with a shelter out back.


It was a going concern, neat as a pin. Trinity Baptist had been there 19 years, before that I don't know.


Though modest it was a breath of fresh air amidst the original houses and the teardowns.


On Wednesday the steeple was gone, the marquee painted over, the developer signs in place.


As you approach on Etowah from the west, you peer around the cyprus hedge and catch the church on a little green.


It's handsomely plain.






They removed the tables and old pews from the shelter.


The shelter is irresistible to me.


As it was last February with tables and orange pews.

It's still there. Go see if you are in the neighborhood.


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It doesn't seem possible that both of these are houses

The recession saved the Hood House for a while but they are building again in Brookhaven Fields (map below).


I took this picture in late 2008. I think folks lived there, a "granny" house with two outbuildings holding back the McMansion tide. Property records say the Hood house was built in 1947 with 680 square feet, 2 bedrooms and 1 bath on half an acre.


Oh no. on Monday I found a big yellow sign: "Request to Waive lot Merger Requirement."

I stopped to take some pictures. The place was empty.


It was Homer Hood's house. Do people still put their names on the mailbox?


The camera exaggerates the difference in scale but not much.


Awnings must make it dark in there.


Clothesline post and outbuilding.


This is inviting. What's in there?


My dad insisted on checking for snakes in outbuildings. Good advice I think. I use a noisy foot shuffling approach.


Maybe they built this around their old BBQ pit.


It's the place to eat watermelon and peel shrimp.



I think they enclosed the back porch.


From back here the Hood compound seems so spacious.There's room for 2 quarter acre maxi-houses.


But we can't do 'em like this anymore, not a couple of blocks from the Brookhaven MARTA station.


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