2227 Cobble Hill

While the San Mateo Highlands are indeed on a hill, most of the properties do not have a view. Their yards tend to be enclosed and feel very private. It's remarkable how much a yard can feel like an outdoor room when the eave of the house isn't much higher that the top of the neighbour's fence.

The house at 2227 Cobble Hill, however, has an amazing view of the California countryside. As well, the yard is a little larger than most, given the rear living space an expansiveness uncommon in the community. It's southern exposure brings light deep into the plan. Skylights in eaves further bring light in. The large planes of glass, both the front and rear of the house, blur the difference between interior and exterior.

The living room addition on the rear of the house has a high ceiling that clears and preserves the original roofline. The clearing out the crown mouldings and shag carpet, the rest of the renovations have restored the essential intent of this midcentury home.

This Eichler has four bedrooms, two baths, and is 2158 square feet.

2227 Cobble Hill is one of twelve homes that Inertia was able to visit in May on the Eichler Home Tour 2017. Earlier, we wrote about other houses on the tour, as well as posted a gallery of Eichlers that weren't included in the tour.

Inertia and Gravity Welcome Sadaf Rabbani

Inertia is happy to announce that Sadaf Rabbani has joined our team.

Sadaf received a Bachelor of Science degree in Architectural Engineering from the University of Tehran, Iran, in 2008. During and after graduation, Sadaf worked for three years as an architectural designer in an architectural firm, where she gained design experience in several residential projects ranging from single family to multi-residential buildings. 

After moving to Canada, Sadaf started her Master of Architecture study at the University of Calgary, and received her degree in 2014. Following that, she started working as an intern architect at IBI Group, where she was involved in several projects ranging from commercial to residential buildings. Sadaf has gained experience in different stages of the design process including programming, schematic design, design development, building code review, construction documentation, and construction administration. To extend her knowledge into more detailed aspects of residential buildings, Sadaf joined Inertia Corporation in March 2017. 

2090 New Brunswick

While many of the houses we saw on this tour were immaculately showable, this house was only partway through it's renovation. While the unrenovated parts of the house were closed off (the bedrooms and bathrooms), the rest of the house looked fantastic.

This Eichler is considered a 'true atrium' model. Rather than having a skylit forecourt, this house surrounds it's interior courtyard that is almost entirely open to the sky. It also serves as the entry to the home as the front door opens directly into the atrium. Windows face the atrium from three sides (there are no windows in the garage wall) meaning that someone sitting in the front office can see clear through the courtyard and the kitchen into the back yard.

Recent renovations include taking down the wall between the kitchen and the entry to open up the space, and updating the kitchen with a large island and new cabinets.

We had a great conversation with the owner who seemed very happy to be showing off the work he's put into his home. He did tell us a secret: his own furniture was hidden in the bedrooms and the rooms he was showing were staged by the San Mateo location of Scandinavian Designs, an American retailer of contemporary furniture.

If you look closely at the pictures in the gallery above, you'll see a pair of frameless windows that makes the brick fireplace appear to be sitting within an unglazed opening in the side of the house. As well, you might catch Trent enjoying the disposable footwear we all had to wear. (They didn't want us tracking any Eichler awesomeness out onto the street.)

This Eichler was built in 1958, has four bedrooms, two baths, and is 1710 square feet.

2090 New Brunswick is one of twelve homes that Inertia was able to visit in May on the Eichler Home Tour 2017. Earlier, we wrote about another house on the tour, as well as posted a gallery of Eichlers that weren't included in the tour.

Nooshin Esmaeili Joins Inertia and Gravity

We've very happy to have Nooshin Esmaeili with us at Inertia and Gravity.

Nooshin received her Masters of Architecture from the University of Calgary in 2012. Soon after graduation she became registered as an Intern Architect with the Alberta Association of Architects (AAA).

Prior to joining Inertia Corporation in 2017, Nooshin was involved in various industrial, commercial and healthcare projects at Amec Foster Wheeler and at Stantec. She gained extensive knowledge in different phases of the architectural process including design, contract administration and project management.

Welcome to the team, Nooshin!

1755 Lexington

Owners of Eichler houses have to decide if they are going to renovate or restore the building, or some combination of the two. In the case of 1755 Lexington Avenue, the owners were able to find a mostly original home that required some work to return it to the original aesthetic. Happily, the cinderblock fireplace and much of the mahogany panelling and was intact. The flooring, roofing and landscaping, however, needed replacement. The end result is very much in the spirit of Eichler.

This Eichler was built in 1956, has four bedrooms, two baths, and is 1730 square feet.

1755 Lexington is one of twelve homes that Inertia was able to visit earlier this month on the Eichler Home Tour 2017. We posted a gallery of Eichlers that were not on the tour in an earlier blog post.

Seeking Architectural Technologist

Inertia is currently undergoing a period of growth. With this expansion and increasing number of projects, we are in need of a team player to who will extend our great reputation for high quality work while maintaining our positive working environment. We are currently searching for an Architectural Technologist that has experience using Autodesk Revit.

As an Architectural Technologist, the successful candidate will be responsible for generating new architectural designs, including plans, elevations, details, perspectives and other views as required. The Technologist will principally be working in Revit, though he or she will also be helping with project management, drafting, administration, interacting with clients and vendors, occasionally going on site, working on a variety of projects, and will be set into an excellent position of growing within this expanding firm.

The successful candidate will be in possession of an Architectural Technologist Diploma and will need to have an understanding of both the Alberta Building Code and the Calgary Land Use Bylaw. The Technologist will also need to have meaningful experience with Revit. Inertia is a firm that is always interested in individuals that have experience working on a variety of projects, but having residential experience is an asset as this is our firm’s specialty. These are the minimal requirements for this position, with all other experience being advantages for the successful candidate.

An excellent opportunity awaits the successful candidate, including a competitive base salary, and a opportunities for growth within the company. If you believe that this could be a perfect fit for you, please send your resume immediately, or if you know the perfect person for this position then feel free to forward this correspondence. All applications will be kept in the strictest of confidence.

To inquire about or apply for the position, please visit the job posting on LinkedIn.

Jason Glasser Joins the Inertia Team

With Inertia's growth, and the creation of Gravity Architecture, we saw the need to bring on a professional project manager to ensure that every job we work on proceeds as smoothly as possible and that very little falls through the cracks. We met Jason in December of 2016 and were able to bring him on board at the beginning of January this year.

Jason brings more than 20 years of industry experience. He started ‘on the tools’ as a framer and HVAC installer while attending Fanshawe College in London, Ontario. After graduation, Jason worked at small architectural firms working on institutional and commercial projects in Ontario, and then transitioned to Calgary as a Senior Architectural Technologist and job captain on large scale institutional projects. More recently, Jason had the role of Project manager and Contract Administrator working for architectural firms such as Kasian Architecture, Sahuri + Partners, and the Calgary Airport Authority. 

We've very happy to have Jason on the Inertia and Gravity teams.

Welcome Kerri Hallman

We're pleased to announce that Kerri Hallman has joined our team at Inertia and Gravity.

Kerri comes to Inertia Corporation with 20+ years’ experience in the architecture industry. Kerri graduated on the Dean’s List from 3 year Architectural Technologies program at St. Clair College of Applied Arts & Technologies in Windsor, Ontario. Her first job was with a small firm in Victoria, B.C. and upon moving back to Calgary she has worked with Cohos Evamy Partners (Dialog), Riddell Kuczaba Architecture, Poon McKenzie Architects (NORR) and Sahuri + Partners.

We're very happy to have Kerri on our team!

San Mateo Highlands

Joseph Eichler built iconic Mid-century Modern houses in California in the 1950s and 1960s. While he built over 11,000 houses over his career, the The Highlands of San Mateo, California is the largest contiguous development of Eichler homes. This past weekend, we had a chance to visit eleven of the approximately 700 Eichlers in the Highlands, as well as one in nearby Burlingame. We'll revisit most of them individually in this blog, but we wanted to begin with a gallery of houses that were not on the tour just so you can become familiar with the context of this unique late 1950s communities.

SAM Award Winner

Congratulations to RNDSQR and Gravity Architecture for the BILD Calgary Region SAM Awards win this past weekend. The eight unit project the Gravity team designed for RNDSQR in Mount Pleasant won in the category of Best New Design Villa/Duplex/Townhome 1,200 sq. ft. and over.

This project is one of Calgary's first R-CG rowhouse projects. It features seven two-storey-plus-basement rowhouse units, plus an additional two storey unit located above the garages on the lane. The residents each have their own rear amenity space, and also share a common courtyard amenity space in the centre of the property.

Pre Paint

The Brideland House was getting ready for interior painting last week. The windows were masked, the flooring was covered, and the heaters were running. Those oriented strand board sheets aren't part of the look; those are temporary guards standing in for the glass ones that will be installed later. The glass guards will be set into the aluminum shoe that you see in these pictures, and that shoe will be clad in black metal to match the stringers. A black handrail will be affixed to directly to the glass. (Those spruce steps are temporary as well!)

The exterior is also being worked on this week: black Longboard is being installed. We'll get some pictures posted here as soon as we can get them.

Farewell Schuler

Larissa Schuler, Intern Architect

Sadly, we said farewell to Larissa Schuler, our Intern Architect, last week. 

During her six months with Inertia and Gravity, Larissa was involved in almost all aspects of our projects and our firm. She did some great schematic design work and helped us immensely with our marketing effort.

We'll miss having her energy in the office, as well as her sense of humour. All the best, Larissa!

Front Entry Photos

We're wanted to pass on thanks to Gary Campbell for the awesomely vivid photographs he took of our projects and had printed for our front entry. These images were printed on metallic gloss paper by Resolve Photo. We then mounted them on wooden panels from Mona Lisa Artist Materials. There's one more photo in the foyer and a rendering in the boardroom, but you'll have to visit us to see those!

Gary doesn't just take pictures of buildings. He has a very diverse portfolio including some phenomenal fine art photographs. You should check out Gary's website.

PS. Thanks Evan for the card!

MA+DS Modern Home Tour 2016 - Part 2

In our last post, we discussed the first three projects we visited on the recent The Modern Architecture + Design Society Home Tour. The latter portion of our tour took us to the north west of the city. We went to St. Andrew's Heights, a neighbourhood blessed with amazing views and large lot sizes.

Photo Credit: NewGrowth & Stephen Barnecut

The NewGrowth House was an interesting contemporary design with an industrial feel, exemplified by the massive concrete walls of the house and the weathered corten steel fins used to tier the landscaping. We loved that the main architectural feature, the board-cast concrete wall, runs through the whole house and acts as a compass within the plan. The concrete on the interior was contrasted by the warmth of the dark walnut window frames. With it's front facing kitchen and dining space, the project captured light and views in the spaces most commonly inhabited by the residents. 

Photo Credit: Stephen Barnecut & Larissa Schuler

We intentionally visited MBAC's house last and we wanted to end with a bang! Marc Boutin has always been one to push boundaries and create unique spaces, and we were not disappointed. The exterior features a factory-like corrugated metal siding paired with cedar tongue and groove. From the front, the house appears to be the size of a low-lying bungalow. However, once we stepped inside, we discovered that the grade quickly dropped down to the backyard and allowed for a full walk-out basement. The L-shaped house created a courtyard between it's two wings. The two-level elevations facing the courtyard were clad with full curtain walls spanning from the basement floor to the roof. Aluminum grating at the roof overhang shielded the space from direct sun without significantly limiting the views or light available to the spaces within. We appreciated the industrial and commercial materials used in a residential project; they were tempered with wood cladding and many delicate millwork details that kept the interior feeling intimate. 

Overall, we were pleasantly surprised by many new design types and ideas that are starting to emerge in Calgary. We get the sense that local housing design is becoming a lot more sophisticated and bold. Here's to the future of residential!

MA+DS Modern Home Tour 2016 - Part 1

We're happy that as the residential design industry grows in Calgary, local practitioners have started to share their knowledge and experience with each other. The Modern Architecture + Design Society Home Tour was a great leap forward, where we got to experience first-hand some of the innovations our fellow designers have put to use. 

Our first stop on the home tour was in Bridgeland (a community we are working in frequently) to visit a project on a narrow lot along 4th Avenue designed by KaBeN. Slim parcels have their own challenges, but KaBeN took on another by designing a sustainable house. 

We were pleasantly surprised by the materiality of the house: the cork floors, plywood on the walls upstairs, oak on the ceilings, etc. The main floor was polished concrete, while the upper floor was cork—a great example of using materials to differentiate between public and private spaces. The narrow 22' lot meant that the interior would be quite tight, so partitions on the main were kept to a minimum and spaces, such as the kitchen, was delineated using bulkheads.

Photo Credit: HouseBrand

Our next stop was the reFAB design by HouseBrand, which was a project designed for aging-in-place. John Brown is addressing a growing market for individuals who do not want to move every time their life changes.

One of the features we loved most about the design was the built-in millwork that separates rooms instead of stud-walls. The house has core walls for mechanical systems, but otherwise has a modular room design that allows for alternative layouts as needs change without major renovation. We also liked the clever use of cost-effective Hardie-board cladding, which was tiered in gradients of grey to add more variety and tone to the exterior. 

Photo Credit: Stephen Barnecut & RNDSQR

Next we visited RNDSQR in their show home in Marda Loop. They're experimenting with interior and exterior textures to add complexity to clean, streamlined designs. Exteriors feature natural-tinted cedar shakes on west-fasting facades while the interior showcases an patterned steel screen to act as a guard for the stairs and geometric tiles on walls and bathroom counters tops. 

Stay tuned for our next post too see the other houses!

Stair Install

Some magic happened at the Bridgeland House today: the steel stringers were installed. A feature stair is always something to celebrate, and we're certainly partial to power-coated steel.

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Powder-coated steel is a material that never goes out of style. It's the material that we are used to seeing in an industrial context such as warehouses and factories because these uses required durable finishes. When these spaces gentrified into art-galleries and lofts, the rough-and-ready aesthetic persisted.

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We have gotten so used to seeing powder-coated steel in these converted industrial buildings that it is no longer a foreign material in a residential context. That said, it is not a common material and still makes the strong statement that a stair is not just a means of getting from floor to floor, but an object of beauty in and of itself.

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The C-channel stringers have two flanges are on the outboard side of the web, giving the stair a "book-ended" look. Angle iron flanges are welded to the inside of each stringer to support the treads. The treads will be routed out so that the angle iron will be flush with the underside of each stringer.

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This stair looks great with the matching exposed I-beam (protected by plastic in the image above). This I-beam doesn't just look pretty. It is supporting half of the second floor. Steel beams are very useful when spanning long distances without intermediate posts to support it. The result can be an open, continuous space, uninterrupted with vertical structural elements.

I don't know what else to say other than that these stringers are awesome! (Thanks to Gary Campbell for the photos.)

Steel Stringer

Maybe is seems strange to get excited about a chunk of C-channel extrusion, but it makes more sense when you know that it forms one of the steel stringers of the open-riser stair in our Bridgeland House. These stringers will be powder coated to match the exposed steel beam in the house and together will look awesome! Thanks to Gary Campbell for this photo.

Parkhill Rendering

We've recently rendered a trio of single units being built in Parkhill. The left most house in the image is built, and the rendering is intended to illustrate what the streetscape will look like when all three houses are completed.

When orchestrating a rendering, we understand that our clients are asking for an image that will advertise their buildings convincingly. A rendering must capture the lifestyle of the community and project the mood of future residents for it to tell a story that purchasers can imagine themselves a part of.

We rendered the image with an intentional colour palette in mind; honey to bring out the woods, deep grey to emphasize the modern lines of the infills and soft blues to contrast the honeyed wood and white stucco. Using the palette, we started to create patterns that contrasted and complimented the three new homes. For example, the honey-tones are reiterated in the lighting, landscaping and even in the people in the image. The overall image feels engaging, real, simple and clean, allowing the focus to be on the buildings and what it would be like to live in them. 

Eureka Micro Homes

Micro homes are really starting to be a trend. It's a whole movement of having a minimal lifestyle and living small. Some are used just for travelling, others for living. 

From Left to Right: Tumbleweed House "Elmy", Tiny Heirloom "Victorian in Indianapolis", and Escape Traveler "Traveler" House. 

We designed a version in partnership with Niklas Group. Our designs are just as warm and welcoming as some of the tiny-houses' predecessors, but we've added a modern twist! 

Main floor plan of the small Micro Home. 

Our intent was to use vernacular house shapes for these little 170 square foot homes, by having pitched roofs and cladding the exterior with blonde cedar. Lots of glazing was used to bring in the outdoors and make the interior feel spacious. One feature we really love is the ribbon of glazing that extends from floor-to-ceiling on one side and then becomes a skylight on both sides of the roof pitch and finally comes down to the kitchen counter!  

Perspective elevation of the large, 2-storey Micro-Home. 

These houses are designed to be assembled off-site, then pulled like a trailer to a location out in the wild! How lovely and wonderful would it be to have a little, portable, mini-cabin! We designed two versions, one that can accommodate two people and another for as many as six (which is 317 square feet!) 

Main and second floor plans of the large Micro Home. 

So, now it's your turn! Would you get one?

Great Light

We're thrilled with the quality of light in the living room of the Bridgeland House! You can see in this image the steel beam that supports the upper floor which will be exposed in the stairwell and living room. The wooden stair in this image is temporary. We're looking forward to the matching steel staircase being installed.

Thanks to Gary Campbell for this photo.