Rainey Alley Design Charrette

On May 26th Element 5 Architecture participated in a one day design charrette in the Rainey Street District. Our interest in developing under-used alleys in Austin promted the city to invite us to join a team of landscape architects and engineers to come up with ideas for the alley behind Rainey Street. The city has $300,000 at their disposal to spend toward the development of the alley and they hope to get more money from interest in the ideas that came out of the charrette.

Rainey Alley is an interesting dichotomy of scale. The west side of the alley has small homes that date back to the early 20th centruy that have all been converted into bars and restaurants. The east side is comprised of larger scale hotels - a run of the mill multi-story Homewood Suites and a very interesting and well-designed boutique hotel called Kimber Modern. There are a few vacant lots on the east side that will surely be developed into large scale developments over he next several years.

We were organized into four teams of about 2-4 professionals each team. Our particular team was made up of Nick Mehl, principal from E5A, landscape architect Eleanor McKinney (team leader), intern architect Jeremy Wahlberg of Delineate Studio and civil engineer David Venhuizen of Venhuizen Water Works. The teams all went their separate ways and re-joined late in the day to make presentations to the owners along Rainey Street. It's interesting the similarities that were shared among all of the teams' designs. Everyone seemed to agree that the alley could be a vibrant place for social interaction, with hotel patrons wanting to cut across tot he bars and restaurants and the bars wanting to focus more attention on the alley for expanded seating and entertaining. However, the first thing that we all saw the need for was consolodating the dumpsters and creating some sort of enclosures that would isolate the smell and visibility. Lighting would also be a crucial and unifying factor since most of the alley's activities would take place at night. Most designs featured a creative lighting solution that criss-crossed the alley and helped direct the eye towards points of interest.

The world's cities are full of examples of alleys being used as multi-functioning spaces. Melbourne, Australia; York, England; Marrakesh, Morrocco; San Francisco, CA; these are just a few cities that come to mind that have great examples of alleys that are both pedestrian friendly and serve the back of business needs. Austin has something like 500,000 sf of alleys in the urban core, many of which can be made multi-functional if given some direction and funding.

Report from the AIA National Convention, Part 2

The AIA Convention was held in Atlanta this year. Being the host city is important because it's often up to the local architects to organize tours of what they consider significant architecture in their city. I participated in a tour of a "modern" condo development in a fringe area of Atlanta, just to the west of downtown in an area of train yards and industry. 

While the development was an interesting study in urban design, the architecture was not what we in Austin would call "modern". There were some trendy colors and a modern mix of materials but nothing like what we experiment with in Austin. The development would be a pleasant place to live and promotes social interaction among the residents, however provocative architecture it was not. Sometimes architectural tours in other cities give me a greater appreciation of the high quality of design that comes out of our home town.

Report from the AIA National Convention, Part 1

Avant Garde Sustainable Architecture

One of the great things about being at the architects' national convention is that we can witness what the trends are in architectural design on a national and world stage. Every year it seems there is a discernable shape or concept that is trending among leading architects. This year a common theme is the double exterior wall concept, whereby the outermost exterior wall serves as both aesthetic and functional. Here are some representative examples:

Albi Grand Theatre, Paris, France

Parque Biblioteca, Medellin, Columbia

Parque Biblioteca - this image shows the double exterior wall separation

The strategy of the double exterior wall is an environmental enegy savings technique. The exterior skin not only blocks the wind and sun, it functions to channel hot air through convection currents from the base of the building up and out through vents in the top of the building. 

Another very interesting project is Contra Leopardi housing project in Treviso, Italy. Parking is isolated to the perimeter of the site so the buildings on the interior pathways are completely pedestrian. Furthermore, the buildings are laid out in a medieval fashion that is remeniscent of the Italian heritage and creates more interesting pedestrian streets and gathering spaces.

Contra Leopardi, Treviso, Italy. Parking limited to north and south edges, buildings arranged in a medieval pattern.

Contra Leopardi - pedestrian view

Frank Gehry continues to push the limit of archtiecture and design. His latest building located in Sydney, Australia exhibits elements common to his architecture - dynamic forms, undulating walls, windows that project to varying degrees along the facade. The exterior stone cladding of this building is meant to resemble the sandstone of the southeastern Australian outback.

UTS Business School, Sydney, Australia

What Happened to the Starter Home?

In the 1940's my grandparents had recently married and were renting a small home in Dallas. They were expecting a second child and were ready to own a home that would become a more permanent residence. My grandmother made an offer on a house that was being relocated to make way for the new Dallas Love Field airport. Her $5,000 offer ($100,000 by current standards) was accepted and the house was moved to it's present location and that became their home for the rest of their lives. 

There was a time when developers would recognize a need for affordable housing and respond with modest developments not far from the city ceneter. Those developments had to be close to town, near centers of employment, schools, transit and shopping. Families often could only afford one car so their home had to be located within walking distance of common services. Developers in the mid 20th century responded to the need for affordable, durable housing. Levittown, NY outside New York City is one famous example. Built in 1947, Levittown offered homes priced at $7,000 for new families. That is the equilvalent of $125,000 in today's costs.

A family of 5 outside their newly purchased home in Levittown, NY. Now this house sells for $500,000. 

What happened to the simple, affordable starter home in Austin? I'm not talking about homes in Roundrock or Leander but within the Austin city limits. We hear developers talk about today's "affordable" house in Austin being a 850 sf house at the back of many central Austin properties. This is made possible by zoning laws that the city has in place that allow a second dwelling unit of no more than 850 sf to be at the rear of a property. However, these new units are being "affordably" priced at $325,000.  A more reasonably sized house of, say, $1,700 sf costs $500,000 in the same neighborhood.

Affordable housing in central Austin

This is not the solution to our affordable housing crisis, nor is the crisis limited to Austin. Many growing cities across the country are neglecting middle class housing. Developers find it more profitable to pursue more affluent customers and who can blame them? With average land costs in central Austin ranging from $200,000-500,000 for a single family lot you almost have to market to the affluent buyer.

The solution rests in the hands of our city planners. We need zoning changes that allow for more density and a greater variety of housing types. We're missing the 4-plex and 6-plex housing units that make expensive lots more affordable to develop. We also need more granny flats or alley flats to densify existing properties and enable homeowners to generate income from their own properties. The city is currently developing new zoning standards based on building size rather than use and they are moving towards allowing alley flats of less than 650 sf for most central lots, pending neighborhood approval. These are steps in the right direction.

Does Tesla's Powerwall Have the Power to Change Residential Architecture?

On April 30th, 2015 Tesla Motors announced the production of a new home battery that may usher in a new era in residential home energy and design. Today the vast majority of homes are served by an electrical grid provided by a public or private utility company. A small minority  of houses have solar panels (photo-voltaics) that are either tied into the grid, in which case they can either pump energy back into the grid or pull energy from the grid in times of need, or they have a room dedicated to battery storage, making the house completely energy independent. Up until recently home batteries were expensive, took up a large amount of space and lasted just 5-10 years. 

Now Tesla is deveping a lithium ion battery specifically for the home that is compact, quite affordable and comes with a 10 year warranty. The battery mounts to a wall and takes up just 52" x 34" x 7" of space and looks attractive to boot. It costs about as much as a tricked-out Mac computer, $3,500 for a 7kW battery - enough to power a relatively modest house. While it comes with a 10 year warranty, the battery is expected to last much longer then 10 years. 

Tesla's Powerwall, as it's called, runs on DC current and receives it's energy from photo-voltaic panels mounted to the roof of the house. The panels need to bought separately as does the DC to AC adaptor. Those two components will add about $20-25K to the average house at current rates.

Prices continue to diminish for both solar panels and home batteries. There's a very good article written in Gizmodo that analizes the current state of the solar energy industry. The bottom line is that most US markets, especially in sun-blessed states, are becoming economically feasible moving from paying for energy from the utility grid versus relying on home-created solar energy. Hawaii, with extremely costly energy costs and abundant sunshine, is already primed for home solar energy production. While Texas has a lot of sunshine, we also have relatively inexpensive energy so it's not quite economically feasibly...but it's getting there. 

The shift to prevalent home solar energy production could have subtle and maybe even dramatic effects on the way we live and design homes. First of all, we no longer need to add significant sqaure footage for battery storage. Second, we should consider designing all houses with roofs that face south, southwest in an optimal 4:12 pitch. Third, forget about running an overhead line from the city power pole to your house and having to pay for that connection, not to mention waiting for the utility company to get you in their queue.  Power outages may also be a thing of the past. 

The Tesla Powerwall battery would be replacing a home battery storage system similar to this 10kW system.

Local building supply retailer Treehouse will be offering the Tesla Powerwall later this summer. Treehouse CEO Jason Ballard says, "I think in the near future, having a battery in your home will be as normal as having a water heater or dishwasher".

We haven't heard any talk about how we will dispose of these batteries when their life expires. Lithium ion batteries can last a long time but they are made from chemicals that are very harsh to our environment. Where and how will we dispose of them? What if we don't properly dispose of them? While I'm optomistic about the possibilities I'm also cautious about potential side-effects.

Austin Evolving

A lot has been said in recent years - make that in the last decade - decrying Austin's tremendous growth and what that is doing to destroy the historic culture of Austin. Less has been said about what is emerging. Open your eyes and look around. A fascinating and unique urban design quality is begining to emerge all around Austin.

Take the decommissioned Seaholm Power Plant. In a recent visit I was amazed at how our city is growing into a walkable, dense, civilized and honestly pleasant place to be. Seaholm now has several stores open, including a cafe, grocery store, fitness studio and some retail. The multi-story residences are already in place and in some cases have been existing for several years. Now that the civil projects such as streets, parks, sidewalks and plazas are completed the whole area is taking on a life of it's own. The connection to the lake, downtown and bike lanes make Seaholm a unique part of Austin.

View looking uphill (north) from the Seaholm Power Plant. Trader Joes is on the right.

The urban design for Seaholm is very well done but it's the connection to Austin's history that humanizes it. Of course, there's the repurposed Seaholm Building into offices but look at the image of the plaza created between the retail, high-rise residences and the decommissioned smoke stacks. It makes for a fantastic semi-private urban plaza. Then there are the railroad tracks that bisect the property. The 1930's bridge carrying the inter-city rail casts a shadow over the park and adds a third dimmension to the transit options.

Here's another view of our city from about a mile away from Seaholm. This is one of the urban parks that have changed in the past deacade. The park itself has been around since the early days of Austin however the mid-rise condo towers have been built in the last 5-15 years. Notice how much more dynamic - and useful - the park is. Was it Frederic Law Olmsted who once said "parks are the lungs of the city"?

Duncan Park looking south towards the Nakonah

Recent Projects

We have a handful of varied and interesting projects that we're currently developing. The highlights include several new homes ranging from 2,000 sf to 2,800 sf and a bar & restaurant in Dallas and Austin. Here's a look at the designs in progress...

A 2,500 sf single family home in the Holly Street neighborhood of central East Austin. Jay Bolsega is heading the design and production efforts.

This 2,000 sf house located on the outskirts of town is under the direction of principal Drew Randall.

A 3,000 sf three-story house located in the Overlook Estates near Oak Hill. This is what's known as an "upside down" house - the Kitchen and Living spaces are on the top floor (to capture the Hill Country views) and the bedrooms are on the lower floors. Nick Mehl is principal in charge.

We've had a few high-end spec projects come through the office lately and this is one of them. This 4,100 sf house located in Rollingwood will be on the market in early 2016. Nick Mehl is principal in charge.

Another trend we're seeing is a renewed interest in Mid-Century Modern design. This 2,100 sf house near Hamilton's Pool features a central entry courtyard. The courtyard may very well be the only landscaped portion of the 10 acrea property as the owners intend to keep the rest of the property in it's natural condition.

The Importance of Vernacular Architecture

A recent trip to visit the remote West Texas town of Ft. Davis reminded me of the importance of vernacular architecture - and how far away we've come from designing with the environment in mind. Hidden in the heart of Ft. Davis State Park is a gem of a hotel known as the Indian Lodge. Run by the state parks service, the Indian Lodge was first conceived as Indian Village in 1934 as a 16-room hotel on the north slope of Keesey Canyon in the Davis Mountains. 

The Indian Lodge today, as seen from atop the Davis Mountains

Workers came from Houston in 1933 to build the hotel. Rather than building the hotel out of lumber as was common in Houston, laborers were educated by local experts to use adobe blocks for the walls and rough hewn timber beams for the ceilings. Arthur Fehr of Austin was one of the architects for the original design. The layout featured blocks of rooms based around courtyards of various elevations connected by stairs and planters. It was important to build out of adobe since the adobe blocks - made of mud and straw - came from locally abundant natural resources. In the dry, hot climate of West Texas, the adobe walls absorb heat throughout the day and slowly release the heat through the cool evenings.

Interior Courtyard

Over the next 80 years the hotel remained largely preserved as it was conceived. In 1965 there was an expansion that added 24 rooms and a dining hall. In the mid 1980's the hotel underwent a poorly conceived modernization that was (thankfully) removed when it was tastefully remodelled in 2006. Today the hotel stands as a charming reminder that good architecture is timeless and functions with the environment.

Entry Court

Harwood Residence Featured in Urban Home Magazine

Look for the Harwood Residence on the cover of Austin/San Antonio Urban Home, hitting the newsstands this February. Element 5 Architecture principal Nick Mehl was the lead architect for the design which features three stories, a basement and a roof deck. Perhaps the most noticeable feature is the open-riser metal stair in the center of the house forming a central core and thermal chimney. Read the article here.

6th Graders Learn About A Day in the Life of An Architect

On Friday Element 5 Architecture hosted two 6th graders from Matthews Elementary. The students, Grant and Brittney, shadowed Nick Mehl (that's me) through my morning tasks to see what it's like to be an architect. I can't imagine how exciting it was but they said they thought it was great...maybe they just enjoyed being away from school for a day. In case anyone's interested, here's what my day looked like with them:

An Introduction to 3D modeling. We showed the kids how we make 3D models in our CAD software and SketchUp. They seemed fascinated in how Jay pushed and pulled walls and roofs to manipulate a structure into becoming more like he envisions it.

Lesson in Construction Documents. Perhaps else interesting to them was showing the students the technical drawings that we produce and how much detail goes into  creating a set of drawings to be used for construction. To their credit, they did seem interested and asked some good questions about what was being drawn, what the various symbols and notes were and even identified some elements in the plans.

Meeting with a Developer. Okay, the meeting with one of our clients truly was boring to them, so they took a break to create their own architecture with the drawing tools we have in the office. Here's one of the creations that emerged from that exercise:

Site Visit. After seeing the 3D model and construction drawings for a house we have under construction we took a quick drive to the South Austin site to see the house being built. Now, this was fun. The house is a small, modern urban residence that had just started drywall installation - the best stage of construction to see a house. Grant and Brittney got to see all of the wires, ducts and pipes in the walls. They were particularly fascinated by the bathtub and shower installations (don't ask me why). A sample wall erected in the front yard showed how the stone, stucco and paint colors would look, some of which had already been installed.

That concluded our morning together. Onto the rest of the day without the kids, which included a meeting with the city permit office, another meeting with a developer and some CAD drafting back at the office.

Element 5 Architecture Wins Best of Houzz Award

Houzz Announces “Best Of Houzz 2015” Winners

Annual Survey and Analysis of Community of Over 25 Million Monthly Users Reveals Top-Rated Home Remodeling Professionals and Design Trends

Houzz (www.houzz.com), the leading platform for home remodeling and design, today announced the community’s picks for Best Of Houzz 2015Element 5 Architects won "Best Of" in two categories, Design and Customer Service.  

The Best Of Houzz award is given in two categories: Customer Satisfaction and Design. Customer Satisfaction honors are determined by a variety of factors, including the number and quality of client reviews a professional received in 2014. Design award winners’ work was the most popular among the more than 25 million monthly users on Houzz, known as “Houzzers,” Winners will receive a “Best Of Houzz 2015” badge on their profiles, showing the Houzz community their commitment to excellence. These badges help homeowners identify popular and top-rated home professionals in every metro area on Houzz. 

Houzz recently launched the Photographer Network (http://www.houzz.com/getPhotos) to provide industry professionals with access to top photographers at affordable prices, making it easy to showcase their work to the Houzz community. Consisting of more than 500 professional photographers in the U.S. and Canada on Houzz, the network provides special photography packages to first-time clients who are professionals on Houzz.

“Houzz connects people with the best home professional for their project by providing the only 360-degree view of a professional, from their portfolio, client reviews, awards and accreditations to their work style and expertise based on their participation in the Houzz community,” said Liza Hausman, vice president of Industry Marketing for Houzz. “We’re delighted to join our community in recognizing the talented professionals on Houzz who are delivering incredible designs and delightful customer experiences.”

Best Architecture Blogs

Are you a fan of the built environment? Would you like to see what architects are talking about, what's at the forefront of architectural news around town and around the world? Here's a list of our five favorite architecture blogs.

1. Life of An Architect - Our colleague Bob Borson who works for Michael Malone Architects in Dallas creates blogs are always candid, honest and insightful.

2. Daily Dose of Architecture - Out of NYC, Daily Dose takes a critical look at cutting edge architecture being built around the world.

3. Coffee with an Architect - Nicely organized and diverse in subject matter, architect Jody Brown may not post every day but when he does he has fun with it. Always entertaining.

4. Studio MM - Architect Marcia McKeel, another NYC architect, has a pleasing modern aesthetic and it's interesting to hear what occupies her time. Check out her videos, they're cool.

5. Austin Cubed - A former client of ours (see Mace Residence on E5A's homepage), Robert Mace is a hydrologist by profession but he also really knows a lot about architecture. We joke that he knows more than we do about our profession. His blog was started to document the design and construction process for his own house but now that it's over he continues to talk about architecture, travel...and cats.

Hillside Urban Residence

Let's try a little 3D animation...

This hillside residence in central Austin fits onto a 5,000 sf site. The house has a couple of unique features: a stair tower that doubles as a thermal chimney (and an observation point for viewing the city skyline) and a breezeway that bisects the house thus creating a private gameroom for the teenage daughter and her friends and a great room that (presumably) is more peaceful.

New from Old

Austin’s rapid growth has its upsides and downsides.  New projects popping up, new places to live work and play are part of upside.  Rising housing costs, snarled traffic and long lines are part of the downsides.   New construction, such as large multi-family projects are changing the character of certain parts of town.   These projects meet a market demand and when located along core transit corridors or in transit oriented developments they support sustainable aspects of city growth. 

Beyond new construction other types of projects are contributing to the new Austin.  These types of projects utilize existing facilities or spaces transforming them into new uses that are part of the new Austin.  The reuse of buildings or places certainly supports sustainable ideals in creating densification or in reusing structures that take less energy than building new.

These urban-scaled reuse projects are also fascinating in that they retain aspects of their previous form within their redeveloped form, thus presenting a sort of visual layering or an archeology of the city as it transforms.   The couple of images below are examples.

The aerial view from Google Maps is fascinating in how the new street grid for the Mueller plan is interjected into the neighborhood and upon the existing runways.  The new upon old is evident.

The photo of the renovation Highland Mall into the Austin Community College campus is a great example of a building reuse.  The existing tilt-up concrete box retail center is sliced, diced, and cleverly planned to serve an expanding, centrally-located student base. 

In both cases the new upon the old leaves traces of its past and thus tells a richer story about the transformation of the city. 

Roof Deck Resurgence

Given the increasing cost of land and the decreasing size of urban properties it comes as no surprise that our office receives many requests for roof decks. A roof deck, while tricky to waterproof and detail, can be an important exterior space when a property has reached the maximum 45% impervious cover that the city of Austin enforces. Take into account the urban heat sink in Austin, the summer temperatures and increased access to overhead breezes, a roof deck can be a very valuable ammenity.

Third floor roof deck on a recently constructed residence in Travis Heights, Austin, TX.

For those not familiar with Austin's McMansion Ordinace (officially known as Subchapter F in the city zoning code), roof decks are not counted as gross floor area if left uncovered. 

On rare occasions we put grass on our roof decks.

Quite often our bar and restaurant designs feature roof decks to get away from the heat and capture a view. (The Dogwood, Houston, TX)

A House for Music Aficionados

We recently photographed a house we designed for a family of four in the Travis Heights neighborhood of Austin. The property is tiny (approximately 5,300 sf) and the family needed all the space it could get. When Element 5 was commissioned to do the design we were told the house needed to be 2,800 sf, have a private and remote room for accasional overnight musicians and have a large roof deck to take in the (potential) view of downtown. The property would need to conform to Austin's strict McMansion restrictions and city zoning code. Did I mention that the permit drawings needed to be ready in one month? 

Surprisingly it all came together with the help of some very clear and responsive clients and our experience working with the city codes. 

Micro Units and the City of the Future

The Austin City Council recently debated revisions to the development ordinance to allow micro units.  A key point in the discussion is the parking requirement.  Under current code micro units are allowed though they would fall under the category of an 'efficiency apartment' and be required to have one parking space per unit.  The discussion centered around removing this parking requirement altogether along Core Transit Corridors and within Transit Oriented Developments. 

In that scenario, the concern is that if parking isn't provided folks who rent there are still likely to own cars and park in surrounding neighborhoods, which creates it's own, different set of problems.

Chris Riley stated some important considerations regarding micro unit developments as they relate to affordability, parking, and traffic, none of which, in my opinion, improve when micro units are required to have parking. 

In regards to the affordability issue,  the cost of providing structured parking adds to the cost of the housing.  How do we create more affordable housing and keep traffic at bay when we repeat the models of the past?  Beyond the cost of the parking structure, the land area required for parking has a double impact on the cost.  First, the land area required for parking is significant and likewise it's cost, and secondly, the lost opportunity of land given over to parking which could be given to providing more residential units per given site.

The parking and traffic issues, likewise, are not alleviated if the parking requirement is maintained.  It's just more people running around in their cars as more housing is built and traffic levels increase on our streets like a coronary condition leading to massive heart failure.

With the rejection of the rail bond there might be concern that we would not have the transit options to support unparked micro units.  An effective rail plan won't be realized, in my opinion, until two things happen.  First they put major portions of it underground (learning from the experience of the Waller Creek dig), where it won't conflict with existing, severely constrained, surface traffic, and secondly ask major employers/businesses (who benefit from an array of tax breaks) to provide some support so it's not all on the back of the tax-paying homeowner.  But I digress.

So the micro unit really only benefits this city, and the future of this city if it is decoupled from the parking requirement.  It is located around the TOD's, and guess what?  That supports the density and synergy that the TOD's need to become effective places to live work and play.  Also, the micro unit is for a certain type of person.  That person, a some what rare breed, and someone I'd probably admire, does not own a car.  So how does he/she get around?  We'll it may be a bit of a generational thing as they tend to rely on hand held devices more than the boomers.  Let's consider a future of micro units without parking but with integrated car-sharing services such as Car2Go, Uber, Lyft, and Zipcar.  Let's envision micro units located within walking distance of grocery stores and restaurants and places of employment provided with B-Cycle stations and centered around transit stops.

Let's envision it and consider the range of benefits including affordability, mitigated traffic, and more walkable communities.  Who knows, perhaps one day folks will say, "I'm moving to Austin, you don't need to own a car there."

Jay Bolsega

E.A.S.T. Coming to E5A

The East Austin Studio Tour runs Nov. 15-16 and Nov. 22-23 and the Element 5 Architecture office is going to be on the tour.  Our client Julie Ahmad will be using our office to showcase her work so please stop by, say hello and view her beautiful art. Our office is at 2124 E. 6th Street, Ste. 106, Austin 78702.

Hop on a bike and hit the tour - it's a blast!

Sunday Morning by Julie Ahmad

E5A House Featured in Urban Home Magazine

The fall issue of Urban Home magazine should hit the newstands this week with a feature of one of our latest houses. The Adirondak Residence (titled because of the street that it's on) is located in Austin on a steep hillside overlooking highway 360 and the hills west of town. The house was conceived as a series of overlapping cubes that run parralel with the contours of the lot. We paid close attention to the composition of geometries and materials to create an aesthetically pleasing facade. Spaces inside flow into each other while being separated by changes in roof planes.

A Visit to the De Young Museum

A visit to San Francisco and the De Young Museum in Golden Gate Park inspires reflection on the role of the museum in the contemporary society. Museums certainly continue to serve the function of storing and properly displaying works of art but as a typology the modern museum may be the most accessible expression of evocative architecture we have. The De Young Museum, designed by Swiss architects Hurzog & de Meuron, rises out of the tree canopy like a battle tank out of Star Wars. At first it seems incredibly out of scale and out of place, however, the design has a surprisingly sensitive connection to it's surroundings. The corten steel cladding and semi-transparent articulation causes the mass to recede into the landscape at ground level. (It's interesting to note that the California Institute of Science by Renzo Piano facing the De Young on the opposite side of the park has a completely opposite effect on it's surroundings.)

Observation tower rising above the tree canopy.

A carefully orchestrated garden path leads visitors to the side entrance where an elevator leads to the observation tower. The observation tower is the most impressive part of the building and it's even free to the public. Exiting the elevator nine stories above the ground, the view is simply  jaw-dropping. It would be impressive enough to have a 360 degree view of the city but the architects control the view in a way that one looks out through a 8' tall band of windows, free of vertical mullions, at just above the tree canopy to see a view of the city that's not often seen.

Panoramic view of San Francisco from 9 stories up.

The museum itself is large, however narrow wedge-shaped courtyards are inserted into the mass to bring greenery and natural light into the center of the museum. This effectively maintains a connection to the park surrounding the building. The courtyards are lush, tranquil and reflect the flora native to the west coast.

Wedge-shaped courtyards can be seen from above.

Modern museums house works of art but the architecture of the museum has become a provocative work of art in itself. In fact, the De Young caused quite a stir among San Franciscans who thought it too bold, too odd and out of place for their city. Over time it has become an icon of modern architecture for the city.

Interesting fact: the architect for the De Young Museum was slated to design the Blanton Museum of Art in Austin and was replaced by a more conservative architect from Boston.