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15 01, 2015

Secret weapons of design

By Steve McKee|2021-11-17T21:42:08+00:00January 15th, 2015|Uncategorized|Comments Off on Secret weapons of design

Over the years I’ve found there are certain tools used in designing a house that are so useful and so powerful that they deserve to be in some sort of Hall of Fame. Barring that, I will at least list them here. I’m talking about the type of design where clients get to be a part of all the important decisions involving their house. Perhaps there is another type of design; if so, I’m unaware of how to make a living doing it. The method that I’ve been using for the last twenty years relies on owner and architect bringing [...]

7 12, 2014

The rise and fall of Penn Station

By Steve McKee|2014-12-07T19:00:17+00:00December 7th, 2014|Travel Tales, Uncategorized|Comments Off on The rise and fall of Penn Station

On my last full day in New York I decided to give my daughter a break from me while I went off on my own for a few hours to see some sights that only I would enjoy. I realized this was a good idea the previous day when she and I were walking around Midtown and I asked if we could detour to see inside the Penn Station train terminal because I wanted "to see if it was really as bad as they say it is." As I said it, even I could sense how weird that request sounded, [...]

30 11, 2014

My New York Story

By Steve McKee|2019-04-25T17:03:52+00:00November 30th, 2014|Travel Tales, Uncategorized|Comments Off on My New York Story

This time the trip to New York City was about helping Gwenna, now twenty-two, move there to start a new life. She and I were flying there, so I suppose my greatest contribution was to let her use my two suitcases for more of her stuff, while I lived from a carry-on bag for my four-day stay. Otherwise, she was clearly fine on her own, taking the lead on airport chores and negotiating subway routes. Clearly, I was the follower on this trip, and happily so. She had found a sublet of a three bedroom apartment she would be sharing [...]

30 11, 2014

What the Napa earthquake taught me

By Steve McKee|2019-04-25T17:05:48+00:00November 30th, 2014|Elements of Design, Thinking like an architect, Uncategorized|Comments Off on What the Napa earthquake taught me

A few weeks after the big Napa earthquake, John Laverty the builder, told me he had seen several of the Napa projects we had done together and that they had held up great in the shaking. That was good to hear. Year after year, we spend our effort designing and building extra strength into these houses by calling for extra plywood nailed tight to strengthen walls and metal straps nailed off to bridge any framing joints that will undergo major tension during a shake. We do all of this, house after house, for that singular moment that we know will [...]

1 10, 2014

Napa: the earthquake aftermath

By Steve McKee|2014-10-01T11:32:57+00:00October 1st, 2014|Random observations, Uncategorized|Comments Off on Napa: the earthquake aftermath

Phil's first act of earthquake recovery - removing a broken chimney from a rental house of his About a week after the Napa earthquake, I started receiving texts from my buddy Phil Joy, the house-lifter, that included photos of damaged houses and buildings. There were images of walls slanting and front porches with their posts all leaning at the same wrong angle. Phil was getting called out by the owners of the worst hit structures and then having to come to terms with the damage in order to plan a fix for it. He was in a [...]

22 07, 2014

My eclectic house

By Steve McKee|2014-07-22T04:37:45+00:00July 22nd, 2014|Thinking like an architect, Uncategorized|Comments Off on My eclectic house

Previously in Architalk: ____________________________________________________________________ "Was I ever going to design a house for myself?" asked the student. "Oh sure," I said. "Someday." "What will it be like?" asked another. I then gave an answer that I didn't even know was waiting within me. Unstated notions residing deep inside came to the surface and a fully formed answer came out of me, as if I talked about this sort of thing all the time. "My house will be eclectic," I said. "Not of any one style. It will be so over the top and filled with ideas [...]