Designed with looks and a performance that quite literally set it a class apart from other knives, the Kyowa Super Stone Barrier Knife comes with a blade that’s hand-finished to perfection by craftsmen who have preserved the traditional techniques of Japanese sword-making, which have existed since the 13th century… and oh, the unusually un-metallic texture around the knife’s blade stems from the fact that the Super Stone Barrier Knife comes with a stone coating around the metal blade.
Coated meticulously with 6 different layers of stone, the Super Stone Barrier Knife’s blade is just literally a 0.01mm sheet of metal in a stone armor. The metal is exposed just at the edge of the blade, giving it substantial sharpness that allows the knife to slice cleanly through food with little to no resistance or friction. The stone coating adds precision and durability, but also offers a strikingly unique look, and a textured surface that acts as a natural non-stick. It also makes sure the blade will never rust, tarnish, warp, or dent, allowing the unique-looking and uniquely built Super Stone Barrier Knife to last MUCH longer than traditional steel blades.
Designed with looks and a performance that quite literally set it a class apart from other knives, the Kyowa Super Stone Barrier Knife comes with a blade that’s hand-finished to perfection by craftsmen who have preserved the traditional techniques of Japanese sword-making, which have existed since the 13th century… and oh, the unusually un-metallic texture around the knife’s blade stems from the fact that the Super Stone Barrier Knife comes with a stone coating around the metal blade.
Coated meticulously with 6 different layers of stone, the Super Stone Barrier Knife’s blade is just literally a 0.01mm sheet of metal in a stone armor. The metal is exposed just at the edge of the blade, giving it substantial sharpness that allows the knife to slice cleanly through food with little to no resistance or friction. The stone coating adds precision and durability, but also offers a strikingly unique look, and a textured surface that acts as a natural non-stick. It also makes sure the blade will never rust, tarnish, warp, or dent, allowing the unique-looking and uniquely built Super Stone Barrier Knife to last MUCH longer than traditional steel blades.
Ironically often pronounced ‘Who Are We’, Chinese smartphone brand Huawei is, in fact, the second biggest smartphone company in the world, second only to Samsung (followed by Apple at third place). The company, although banned in the USA because of the US-China trade war, knows how to create phones that look stunning and captivating. They pioneered the metallic gradient that literally breathed a new life into smartphones, and also were arguably the first big brand to push out a triple-lens camera setup on the smartphone. Moving on, the company has embraced the metallic gradient and the 3-lens setup with their latest phone too, the Mate 20 Pro. However, to keep away from the herds (who’ve begun copying the gradient too), Huawei’s introduced a patterned back too, although they still have a very rich blue-purple-black gradient variant too.
What’s also interesting is the way the cameras are laid out. Rather than opting for the iPhone X-ish camera setup on the side, the Mate 20 Pro concentrates all three lenses in the middle, into a square, pushing three lenses in 3 quadrants and a flash in the fourth. Personally, I like the way it’s executed. It adds a big black square to the top of the phone’s back and that gives the phone some character, and the camera some gravitas. However, there’s a visible lack of a fingerprint sensor on both the front and back, but Huawei says the screen will feature its own in-display fingerprint sensor, which could be a game-changer, given how successful the brand is in the east.
The phone also packs a few features that could make it an ‘iPhone-killer’ (although I personally detest using that phrase). It comes with its own HiSilicon Kirin 980 system on a chip, which is a big deal, because after Apple’s A12 Bionic chip, the HiSilicon Kirin 980 is the second 7nanometer chip, and the first in an Android phone. The phone will feature a 6.3 inch OLED screen that still retains the notch that will feature the receiver and a front-facing camera. No headphone jack on this one, though, but that isn’t a surprise, considering how most flagships quite literally don’t give a jack… but I’ll forgive that transgression, because the Mate 20 Pro looks oh-so-pretty! More on this when the phone officially launches!
The Sea Ranch, a haven for modernist architecture on the Californian coast, will be the focus of a major exhibition at SFMOMA. Curator Jennifer Dunlop Fletcher gives an overview of its history and explains why it remains an important example of “environmental stewardship” in this interview.
The Sea Ranch: Architecture, Environment, and Idealism will include concepts, plans, and new models that detail the early design stages of the residential community, located along a 10-mile strip of wooded land overlooking the Pacific Ocean in Sonoma County.
SFMOMA’s exhibition will explore the development of a 10-mile strip of woodland overlooking the Pacific Ocean in Sonoma County
“We see this as a Northern Californian icon, and we really look forward to unpacking it in different ways… to think about its role in history and this magical lure that it still has,” Fletcher told Dezeen in an exclusive interview.
She intends for the show to demonstrate how “marrying modern architecture with environmental stewardship” occurred at the site, through the 100 works she selected with co-curator Joseph Becker.
Sea Ranch architects championed sustainable development
Established in the early 1960s, the community is populated with simple timber retreats that combine the era’s popular modernist architectural style, integration with natural landscape, and environmental and sustainable strategies.
Eearly concept drawings, vintage photos and new models will show how The Sea Ranch blended modernist design with the natural terrain
The Sea Ranch was the brainchild of American architect and developer Al Boeke, who enlisted landscape architect Lawrence Halprin and a group of Bay Area architects to build new type of neighbourhood on the rugged plot.
A former employee of modernist architect Richard Neutra, Boeke’s ambition was to create an affordable neighbourhood, rich in architectural flourish and community spirt. The idea contrasted other “manicured” developments that were cropping up elsewhere in America around the same time.
Aim was for more than “just a group of pretty houses”
“[Boeke] was very interested in new towns: the European interest in not suburbs, but pre-suburbs,” Fletcher told Dezeen. “The idea that you could have everything in a city but on a smaller scale, as well as access to agriculture that would be sustainable for that little community.”
Previously occupied by indigenous Pomo Indians, loggers and a sheep ranch, the site’s natural features range from rugged coast to meadows and then forest. The major Highway 1 cuts through the site, but efforts were made to lessen its impact on the area as much as possible.
“It has a really interesting environmental condition in itself,” said Fletcher of the property as a whole.
Halprin advocated for an environmental and sustainable approach – for which the project would later become renown – rather than building “just a group of pretty houses”.
The framework called for affordable homes with simple forms, covered in unfinished redwood and cedar siding to reference agricultural barns typical to the area. The materials were also suitable to withstand the harsh coastal winds.
“What they have achieved very successfully is maintaining it as a meditative community that values the environment, the surroundings that they’re in, and making that a priority,” Fletcher said.
Over 100 works will present the buildings created for the community – established in 1964 – including the Condominium One housing
The Sea Ranch: Architecture, Environment, and Idealism will be on show at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art from 22 December 2018 to 28 April 2019.
Read on for an edited transcript from our interview with Jennifer Dunlop Fletcher:
Eleanor Gibson: What can we expect from the exhibition?
Jennifer Dunlop Fletcher: We’re going to be focusing the exhibition on the earliest drawings and concepts for The Sea Ranch, so the drawings and vintage photography from Joseph Esherick and Associates, Barbara “Bobbie” Staufacher Solomon, Lawrence Halprin, and really looking at their interest in marrying modern architecture with environmental stewardship.
Eleanor Gibson: Can you summarise what The Sea Ranch is? Why is it important?
Jennifer Dunlop Fletcher: The Sea Ranch was a development in Northern California about three and a half hours north of San Francisco, right on the coast. It was a 10-mile-long development, but only one mile wide, but in that mile width the land is both rugged coast, meadows and then forest. It has a really interesting environmental condition in itself and it also has Highway 1 running through it.
Designed by MLTW, Condominium One captured The Sea Ranch’s core aesthetic of simple forms and wooden cladding
The developer of The Sea Ranch in the 1960s, Al Boeke, was a trained architect who worked in LA for Richard Neutra, and then got a position in Hawaii to develop the real estate for the arm of Oceanic properties, which was funded by Dole Food Company.
He was very interested in new towns, the European interest in not suburbs, but pre-suburbs – the idea that you could have everything in a city but on a smaller scale, as well as access to agriculture that would be sustainable for that little community.
The Sea Ranch started as a second-home opportunity for the creative class
While The Sea Ranch, he noted, was such an interesting property, the initial idea was to not do a new town, but first start with a second-home opportunity for the creative class – as they called it – from professors to plumbers.
[These were] small-footprint, modern architectural homes tucked into the landscape, with equal access to the ocean and the forest, and to make that a priority of experiencing of the land. So being a little bit in contrast to some of the developed communities that might have a very manicured golf-course aspect to it. After the first phase, they thought that they would then go into developing a new town.Private residences like Rush House were also compact and low-cost, with many laid out over interconnected levels, and oriented to make the most of ocean views
So that’s a little bit of The Sea Ranch, it has really interesting architecture. The collective of architects all from the Bay Area were interested in architecture that both was responsive to the history of the land, its history as a ranch, its history as a site where local Indians, Pomo Indians, would also set up some time there and experience land, walking the land is a big part of it, a meditative community they call it. That was their earliest intention.
Eleanor Gibson: Was there an architectural aesthetic that they worked towards?
Jennifer Dunlop Fletcher: They had noted in that area that the history of the barns was important, but also coming out of a moment in mid-century modernist architecture’s efficiency of space, and so externally really looking as though it not hides into the land, but doesn’t spite against the land.
While inside, just incredible efficiency. Within 600 square feet; 800 square feet you could have a two- or three-bedroom house.
Eleanor Gibson: What would you say are some of the standout projects?
Jennifer Dunlop Fletcher: They envisioned a series of condominiums, which at that time period if you can imagine doing something like that outside of the city was really novel.
In the end, they only did one called Condominium One, which has nine units in it, and the fuller vision was to have 10 of these condominium units. I think that is pretty spectacular, the idea of condominium, at that time was pretty ground breaking.
The idea of a condominium at that time was pretty ground breaking
The combination of the different designers and each one bringing a slightly different agenda, and each one having a different goal. So Moonraker Club, where you have the flying buttresses off a nice spine of locker rooms, with the pool tucked into a berm to protect it from the wind. As well as the tennis court, you have to go up and over the berm to get to the tennis court.
Inside you find the Bobbie Stauffacher super graphics that are just a visual wonder, and it’s just as fun going into the locker room as it is to take a swim or play tennis.
Eleanor Gibson: What is your opinion of new developments on the ranch?
Jennifer Dunlop Fletcher: It’s almost impossible to achieve something one might set out as a goal, but I think what they have achieved very successfully is this maintaining it as a meditative community that values the environment, the surroundings that they’re in, and making that a priority.
Eleanor Gibson: What prompted you to run this exhibition now? Is there something about the project that you think contemporary architects can learn from?
Jennifer Dunlop Fletcher: There were a few reasons. I’m co-curating this with my colleague Joseph Becker and I think both of us just couldn’t believe that there hadn’t been an exhibition yet to date.
We see this as a Northern Californian icon and we really look forward to unpacking it in different ways: thinking about the role of development in wanting to be associated with the contemporary architecture of its time, and as a suggestion that people who are living within this development are forward-thinking, more socially progressive.
Logos, marketing materials, and murals designed by Barbara “Bobbie” Staufacher Solomon for The Sea Ranch will also feature in the exhibition
Also, wanting to think about its role in history and this magical lure that it still has.
What is it about the place that is so appealing today? Is it very different from other places and what is that? How do we capture that in an exhibition? Who were the designers? What did they go on to do? There were so many questions that came out of this.
Eleanor Gibson: How did you go about sourcing the material?
Jennifer Dunlop Fletcher: We were quite lucky that MLTW (Charles Moore, Donlyn Lyndon, Richard Whitaker, and William Turnbull) and Joseph Esherick, their archives are housed at Berkeley’s environmental design archives, and then Halprin’s archives are pretty well intact in University of Pennsylvania’s design archives. We had a smattering of drawings that had been gifted from William Turnbull to the museum. So the three really made an easy source for the material.
It will be the first time that the drawings are being seen together
There are just hundreds and hundreds of drawings, and in the end we will have over 100 works in the exhibition, as well as models – not vintage models, because those have been destroyed or not found – as well as a walk-in model.
Eleanor Gibson: Is this the first time that these are all being seen?
Jennifer Dunlop Fletcher: We’ve noted that there have been photography exhibitions on The Sea Ranch before, and we are including some of that photography, more laid bare.
It will be the first time that the drawings are being seen together. We also have large image from Iwan Baan from 2015, some enamel signed by Bobbie Staufacher that have never been seen, together with this material.
100% Design is one of the biggest jewels in the crown of London Design Festival, and this year’s show floor was generously encrusted with some proper gems from emerging talent. Fresh twists on traditional furniture forms and use of materials resulted in must-see highlights that surfed a rainbow of traits from playful and emotive to inspired and elegant. Take a brief tour of the exhibition below:
Foam Sweet Foam
Defying bar stool conventions drip by drip. Eris Bar Stool. Designer: Joe Wonham
Winner of the Design Fresh: Product of the Year, the Eris Bar Stool is a bonafide melon-twister when it comes to expectations of looks versus feel. Conjured up by newcomer Joe Wonham, the seat is made using polyurethane expanding foam. The foam is squidgy to the touch, yet looks like a rock-solid piece of chiseled stone that appears to be melting onto a solid ash frame. Brilliantly disarming and oddly handsome, it can’t help but ooze character.
Expanding foam never looked so good.
The nature of the foam means no two seats are ever the same
Marbling madness. It’s upholstery, but not as we know it
That’s Caffeine
An illuminating concept for dealing with global coffee waste. Designer: Atticus Durnell
Brainchild of designer Atticus Durnell, That’s Caffeine is a project that takes the waste from your flat white and transforms it into long-lasting furniture and products. “In the UK alone we generate more than 500,000 tonnes of coffee waste annually, the majority of which is sent to the landfill. This, in turn, creates 1.8 million tonnes of CO2 emissions.” Made with used coffee grounds blended with biodegradable resin, Durnell hopes to help put a dent in the amount of coffee waste that goes to landfill each year by putting the waste to handsome use, brought to life in this standing lamp and coffee cups created to kickstart the concept.
Durnell says the approach could be extended across a range of furniture, fittings and equipment
Winner of the Design Fresh: Business Prospect Award
Coffee shops are an abundant source of the raw material
Pluck & Hug
A great product name… and all the instructions you need.
The notion of plucking a balloon light from the ceiling like a giant grape and hugging it to make it glow sounds more akin to something you’d find on the set of a Tim Burton movie than on the show floor of a design festival. And that’s the wonderful thing about Pluck & Hug—it’s a bit magical. It genuinely feels great to simply squeeze the super soft cotton yarn covered balloon and witness warm light shine brighter the tighter you hug, thanks to a smart internal pressure sensor. When you’re done hugging, you just snap it back onto its magnetic pendant stem. Developed over four years, and starting life as a temporary art installation, it’s finally going to make it into the wild through a Kickstarter campaign that’s set to launch soon. Keep an eye out.
Designed by an inventive little design studio called Guineapig
The outer cover is made of super soft 100% cotton yarn
A bunch of hugs just waiting to happen
Twofold
Twofold in action. Designer: Michael Hilgers
Designer Michael Hilgers is on a mission to create furniture for small spaces that maximize every possible millimeter. Twofold is one of his latest products, designed for Müller, and it uses an ingenious twist mechanism to turn a narrow bookshelf into a great little work desk. There’s also a small slot in the shelf for your laptop cable to pop through for added tidiness. It’s the little things.
A smart circular hinge is super smooth
The shelf transforms into a desk that’s a healthy 495mm deep
In fact, plenty of room for a messy workspace if you’re not careful
Stoff Studios
You can’t beat a well designed curve. Particularly when its nesting a stellar cushion
Joyfully colliding textiles and furniture, Stoff Studios were selected to showcase some of their latest pieces at 100% Design as part of 100% Forward, which celebrates emerging talent. And rightly so, because design duo Carys Briggs, a textile designer, and furniture maker Andrew Mason have cooked up a beautiful collection of work. Their maple and birch plywood Bench with its soft curves and inset cushion is a particular favorite.
All the textiles are hand-printed by Carys
The geometry of the joinery on their daybed is a real treat
They’ve also developed a super versatile modular side table system
Fold
Fold is as easy on the ear as it is on the eye, with the ability to dampen ambient sound and absorb noise
Kyla McCallum’s Fold Pendant makes it impossible not to be drawn into the light, because it’s so ridiculously alluring. One of the most elegant and bewitching objects to make an appearance at the London Design Festival, its visual voodoo appears to the be channelling the spirits of ancient origami masters and otherworldly sheep. Made from hand-folded wool treated with a clever lamination process to give it rigidity, its fair to say Fold would light up any room… even when it’s switched off.
WW Armchair
A tasty contemporary twist on the the traditional Windsor chair
A candy-fuelled neon spin on the classic Windsor chair, the WW Armchair is a delightful place to rest your derrière and can’t help but bring a little smile. A design collaboration between Hayche and Brighton-based branding agency Studio Makgill, the wild wire-wrapped sides and back that swoop up in close formation from beneath the seat turn what could be just another Windsor chair into something a lot more special. The only problem is we now want to eat a bag of Twizzlers.
The oak backrest and armrests give a nod to the Windsors of old
You’re surrounded by 6mm powder-coated metal wire. Luckily not on all sides.
The Sea Ranch, a haven for modernist architecture on the Californian coast, will be the focus of a major exhibition at SFMOMA. Curator Jennifer Dunlop Fletcher gives an overview of its history and explains why it remains an important example of “environmental stewardship” in this interview.
The Sea Ranch: Architecture, Environment, and Idealism will include concepts, plans, and new models that detail the early design stages of the residential community, located along a 10-mile strip of wooded land overlooking the Pacific Ocean in Sonoma County.
SFMOMA’s exhibition will explore the development of a 10-mile strip of woodland overlooking the Pacific Ocean in Sonoma County
“We see this as a Northern Californian icon, and we really look forward to unpacking it in different ways… to think about its role in history and this magical lure that it still has,” Fletcher told Dezeen in an exclusive interview.
She intends for the show to demonstrate how “marrying modern architecture with environmental stewardship” occurred at the site, through the 100 works she selected with co-curator Joseph Becker.
Sea Ranch architects championed sustainable development
Established in the early 1960s, the community is populated with simple timber retreats that combine the era’s popular modernist architectural style, integration with natural landscape, and environmental and sustainable strategies.
Eearly concept drawings, vintage photos and new models will show how The Sea Ranch blended modernist design with the natural terrain
The Sea Ranch was the brainchild of American architect and developer Al Boeke, who enlisted landscape architect Lawrence Halprin and a group of Bay Area architects to build new type of neighbourhood on the rugged plot.
A former employee of modernist architect Richard Neutra, Boeke’s ambition was to create an affordable neighbourhood, rich in architectural flourish and community spirt. The idea contrasted other “manicured” developments that were cropping up elsewhere in America around the same time.
Aim was for more than “just a group of pretty houses”
“[Boeke] was very interested in new towns: the European interest in not suburbs, but pre-suburbs,” Fletcher told Dezeen. “The idea that you could have everything in a city but on a smaller scale, as well as access to agriculture that would be sustainable for that little community.”
Previously occupied by indigenous Pomo Indians, loggers and a sheep ranch, the site’s natural features range from rugged coast to meadows and then forest. The major Highway 1 cuts through the site, but efforts were made to lessen its impact on the area as much as possible.
“It has a really interesting environmental condition in itself,” said Fletcher of the property as a whole.
Halprin advocated for an environmental and sustainable approach – for which the project would later become renown – rather than building “just a group of pretty houses”.
The framework called for affordable homes with simple forms, covered in unfinished redwood and cedar siding to reference agricultural barns typical to the area. The materials were also suitable to withstand the harsh coastal winds.
“What they have achieved very successfully is maintaining it as a meditative community that values the environment, the surroundings that they’re in, and making that a priority,” Fletcher said.
Over 100 works will present the buildings created for the community – established in 1964 – including the Condominium One housing
The Sea Ranch: Architecture, Environment, and Idealism will be on show at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art from 22 December 2018 to 28 April 2019.
Read on for an edited transcript from our interview with Jennifer Dunlop Fletcher:
Eleanor Gibson: What can we expect from the exhibition?
Jennifer Dunlop Fletcher: We’re going to be focusing the exhibition on the earliest drawings and concepts for The Sea Ranch, so the drawings and vintage photography from Joseph Esherick and Associates, Barbara “Bobbie” Staufacher Solomon, Lawrence Halprin, and really looking at their interest in marrying modern architecture with environmental stewardship.
Eleanor Gibson: Can you summarise what The Sea Ranch is? Why is it important?
Jennifer Dunlop Fletcher: The Sea Ranch was a development in Northern California about three and a half hours north of San Francisco, right on the coast. It was a 10-mile-long development, but only one mile wide, but in that mile width the land is both rugged coast, meadows and then forest. It has a really interesting environmental condition in itself and it also has Highway 1 running through it.
Designed by MLTW, Condominium One captured The Sea Ranch’s core aesthetic of simple forms and wooden cladding
The developer of The Sea Ranch in the 1960s, Al Boeke, was a trained architect who worked in LA for Richard Neutra, and then got a position in Hawaii to develop the real estate for the arm of Oceanic properties, which was funded by Dole Food Company.
He was very interested in new towns, the European interest in not suburbs, but pre-suburbs – the idea that you could have everything in a city but on a smaller scale, as well as access to agriculture that would be sustainable for that little community.
The Sea Ranch started as a second-home opportunity for the creative class
While The Sea Ranch, he noted, was such an interesting property, the initial idea was to not do a new town, but first start with a second-home opportunity for the creative class – as they called it – from professors to plumbers.
[These were] small-footprint, modern architectural homes tucked into the landscape, with equal access to the ocean and the forest, and to make that a priority of experiencing of the land. So being a little bit in contrast to some of the developed communities that might have a very manicured golf-course aspect to it. After the first phase, they thought that they would then go into developing a new town.Private residences like Rush House were also compact and low-cost, with many laid out over interconnected levels, and oriented to make the most of ocean views
So that’s a little bit of The Sea Ranch, it has really interesting architecture. The collective of architects all from the Bay Area were interested in architecture that both was responsive to the history of the land, its history as a ranch, its history as a site where local Indians, Pomo Indians, would also set up some time there and experience land, walking the land is a big part of it, a meditative community they call it. That was their earliest intention.
Eleanor Gibson: Was there an architectural aesthetic that they worked towards?
Jennifer Dunlop Fletcher: They had noted in that area that the history of the barns was important, but also coming out of a moment in mid-century modernist architecture’s efficiency of space, and so externally really looking as though it not hides into the land, but doesn’t spite against the land.
While inside, just incredible efficiency. Within 600 square feet; 800 square feet you could have a two- or three-bedroom house.
Eleanor Gibson: What would you say are some of the standout projects?
Jennifer Dunlop Fletcher: They envisioned a series of condominiums, which at that time period if you can imagine doing something like that outside of the city was really novel.
In the end, they only did one called Condominium One, which has nine units in it, and the fuller vision was to have 10 of these condominium units. I think that is pretty spectacular, the idea of condominium, at that time was pretty ground breaking.
The idea of a condominium at that time was pretty ground breaking
The combination of the different designers and each one bringing a slightly different agenda, and each one having a different goal. So Moonraker Club, where you have the flying buttresses off a nice spine of locker rooms, with the pool tucked into a berm to protect it from the wind. As well as the tennis court, you have to go up and over the berm to get to the tennis court.
Inside you find the Bobbie Stauffacher super graphics that are just a visual wonder, and it’s just as fun going into the locker room as it is to take a swim or play tennis.
Eleanor Gibson: What is your opinion of new developments on the ranch?
Jennifer Dunlop Fletcher: It’s almost impossible to achieve something one might set out as a goal, but I think what they have achieved very successfully is this maintaining it as a meditative community that values the environment, the surroundings that they’re in, and making that a priority.
Eleanor Gibson: What prompted you to run this exhibition now? Is there something about the project that you think contemporary architects can learn from?
Jennifer Dunlop Fletcher: There were a few reasons. I’m co-curating this with my colleague Joseph Becker and I think both of us just couldn’t believe that there hadn’t been an exhibition yet to date.
We see this as a Northern Californian icon and we really look forward to unpacking it in different ways: thinking about the role of development in wanting to be associated with the contemporary architecture of its time, and as a suggestion that people who are living within this development are forward-thinking, more socially progressive.
Logos, marketing materials, and murals designed by Barbara “Bobbie” Staufacher Solomon for The Sea Ranch will also feature in the exhibition
Also, wanting to think about its role in history and this magical lure that it still has.
What is it about the place that is so appealing today? Is it very different from other places and what is that? How do we capture that in an exhibition? Who were the designers? What did they go on to do? There were so many questions that came out of this.
Eleanor Gibson: How did you go about sourcing the material?
Jennifer Dunlop Fletcher: We were quite lucky that MLTW (Charles Moore, Donlyn Lyndon, Richard Whitaker, and William Turnbull) and Joseph Esherick, their archives are housed at Berkeley’s environmental design archives, and then Halprin’s archives are pretty well intact in University of Pennsylvania’s design archives. We had a smattering of drawings that had been gifted from William Turnbull to the museum. So the three really made an easy source for the material.
It will be the first time that the drawings are being seen together
There are just hundreds and hundreds of drawings, and in the end we will have over 100 works in the exhibition, as well as models – not vintage models, because those have been destroyed or not found – as well as a walk-in model.
Eleanor Gibson: Is this the first time that these are all being seen?
Jennifer Dunlop Fletcher: We’ve noted that there have been photography exhibitions on The Sea Ranch before, and we are including some of that photography, more laid bare.
It will be the first time that the drawings are being seen together. We also have large image from Iwan Baan from 2015, some enamel signed by Bobbie Staufacher that have never been seen, together with this material.
A wood-panelled window seat offer views of the Pacific Ocean from Bluff Reach – a house completed in 1974 by Ralph Matheson, which has been updated by local studio Butler Armsden Architects.
The interior woodwork provides continuity to the vertical boards of cedar that Butler Armsden used to replace the existing redwood siding in the renovation.
Architect Joseph Esherick created a series of his affordable, compact retreats known as the Demonstration Homes on The Sea Ranch property. Key features included the untreated wooden cladding that matches the tones of surrounding redwood trees
One of these buildings, first completed in 1968, was recently renovated by local collective Framestudio. The team preserved and restored the woodwork, while extending the cabin’s small footprint to add more storage and sleeping areas.
Two shed-like volumes covered in redwood cladding make up Malcolm Davis Architecture’s Meadow House – a recent addition to Sea Ranch, which provides a retreat for a well-travelled couple with a large collection of books and artefacts.
The firm also chose earthy materials like locally harvested Douglas fir, stone and concrete to create a “warm and calm” interior.
As with Meadow House, Malcolm Davis’ Coastal Retreat comprises two wings, but is covered with a pale cedar cladding to suits sandy hues of the stoney surroundings. An angular corrugated steel porch slots between the two, which are angled to face out in different directions.
The large ocean-facing windows that bring in plenty of natural light are accompanied by skylights. These are positioned to heat the concrete floor, and aid a natural heating and cooling strategy.
A lounge corner window and a slender double-height kitchen are among the rooms interconnected over the four levels inside the compact Rush House.
Completed in 1970, with the design credited to MLTW architects Charles Moore and William Turnbull, the residence also features other space-saving design details, including a tall ladder that provides access to high-up spaces and a built-in book shelf.
The Sea Ranch, a haven for modernist architecture on the Californian coast, will be the focus of a major exhibition at SFMOMA. Curator Jennifer Dunlop Fletcher gives an overview of its history and explains why it remains an important example of “environmental stewardship” in this interview.
The Sea Ranch: Architecture, Environment, and Idealism will include concepts, plans, and new models that detail the early design stages of the residential community, located along a 10-mile strip of wooded land overlooking the Pacific Ocean in Sonoma County.
SFMOMA’s exhibition will explore the development of a 10-mile strip of woodland overlooking the Pacific Ocean in Sonoma County
“We see this as a Northern Californian icon, and we really look forward to unpacking it in different ways… to think about its role in history and this magical lure that it still has,” Fletcher told Dezeen in an exclusive interview.
She intends for the show to demonstrate how “marrying modern architecture with environmental stewardship” occurred at the site, through the 100 works she selected with co-curator Joseph Becker.
Sea Ranch architects championed sustainable development
Established in the early 1960s, the community is populated with simple timber retreats that combine the era’s popular modernist architectural style, integration with natural landscape, and environmental and sustainable strategies.
Eearly concept drawings, vintage photos and new models will show how The Sea Ranch blended modernist design with the natural terrain
The Sea Ranch was the brainchild of American architect and developer Al Boeke, who enlisted landscape architect Lawrence Halprin and a group of Bay Area architects to build new type of neighbourhood on the rugged plot.
A former employee of modernist architect Richard Neutra, Boeke’s ambition was to create an affordable neighbourhood, rich in architectural flourish and community spirt. The idea contrasted other “manicured” developments that were cropping up elsewhere in America around the same time.
Aim was for more than “just a group of pretty houses”
“[Boeke] was very interested in new towns: the European interest in not suburbs, but pre-suburbs,” Fletcher told Dezeen. “The idea that you could have everything in a city but on a smaller scale, as well as access to agriculture that would be sustainable for that little community.”
Previously occupied by indigenous Pomo Indians, loggers and a sheep ranch, the site’s natural features range from rugged coast to meadows and then forest. The major Highway 1 cuts through the site, but efforts were made to lessen its impact on the area as much as possible.
“It has a really interesting environmental condition in itself,” said Fletcher of the property as a whole.
Halprin advocated for an environmental and sustainable approach – for which the project would later become renown – rather than building “just a group of pretty houses”.
The framework called for affordable homes with simple forms, covered in unfinished redwood and cedar siding to reference agricultural barns typical to the area. The materials were also suitable to withstand the harsh coastal winds.
“What they have achieved very successfully is maintaining it as a meditative community that values the environment, the surroundings that they’re in, and making that a priority,” Fletcher said.
Over 100 works will present the buildings created for the community – established in 1964 – including the Condominium One housing
The Sea Ranch: Architecture, Environment, and Idealism will be on show at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art from 22 December 2018 to 28 April 2019.
Read on for an edited transcript from our interview with Jennifer Dunlop Fletcher:
Eleanor Gibson: What can we expect from the exhibition?
Jennifer Dunlop Fletcher: We’re going to be focusing the exhibition on the earliest drawings and concepts for The Sea Ranch, so the drawings and vintage photography from Joseph Esherick and Associates, Barbara “Bobbie” Staufacher Solomon, Lawrence Halprin, and really looking at their interest in marrying modern architecture with environmental stewardship.
Eleanor Gibson: Can you summarise what The Sea Ranch is? Why is it important?
Jennifer Dunlop Fletcher: The Sea Ranch was a development in Northern California about three and a half hours north of San Francisco, right on the coast. It was a 10-mile-long development, but only one mile wide, but in that mile width the land is both rugged coast, meadows and then forest. It has a really interesting environmental condition in itself and it also has Highway 1 running through it.
Designed by MLTW, Condominium One captured The Sea Ranch’s core aesthetic of simple forms and wooden cladding
The developer of The Sea Ranch in the 1960s, Al Boeke, was a trained architect who worked in LA for Richard Neutra, and then got a position in Hawaii to develop the real estate for the arm of Oceanic properties, which was funded by Dole Food Company.
He was very interested in new towns, the European interest in not suburbs, but pre-suburbs – the idea that you could have everything in a city but on a smaller scale, as well as access to agriculture that would be sustainable for that little community.
The Sea Ranch started as a second-home opportunity for the creative class
While The Sea Ranch, he noted, was such an interesting property, the initial idea was to not do a new town, but first start with a second-home opportunity for the creative class – as they called it – from professors to plumbers.
[These were] small-footprint, modern architectural homes tucked into the landscape, with equal access to the ocean and the forest, and to make that a priority of experiencing of the land. So being a little bit in contrast to some of the developed communities that might have a very manicured golf-course aspect to it. After the first phase, they thought that they would then go into developing a new town.Private residences like Rush House were also compact and low-cost, with many laid out over interconnected levels, and oriented to make the most of ocean views
So that’s a little bit of The Sea Ranch, it has really interesting architecture. The collective of architects all from the Bay Area were interested in architecture that both was responsive to the history of the land, its history as a ranch, its history as a site where local Indians, Pomo Indians, would also set up some time there and experience land, walking the land is a big part of it, a meditative community they call it. That was their earliest intention.
Eleanor Gibson: Was there an architectural aesthetic that they worked towards?
Jennifer Dunlop Fletcher: They had noted in that area that the history of the barns was important, but also coming out of a moment in mid-century modernist architecture’s efficiency of space, and so externally really looking as though it not hides into the land, but doesn’t spite against the land.
While inside, just incredible efficiency. Within 600 square feet; 800 square feet you could have a two- or three-bedroom house.
Eleanor Gibson: What would you say are some of the standout projects?
Jennifer Dunlop Fletcher: They envisioned a series of condominiums, which at that time period if you can imagine doing something like that outside of the city was really novel.
In the end, they only did one called Condominium One, which has nine units in it, and the fuller vision was to have 10 of these condominium units. I think that is pretty spectacular, the idea of condominium, at that time was pretty ground breaking.
The idea of a condominium at that time was pretty ground breaking
The combination of the different designers and each one bringing a slightly different agenda, and each one having a different goal. So Moonraker Club, where you have the flying buttresses off a nice spine of locker rooms, with the pool tucked into a berm to protect it from the wind. As well as the tennis court, you have to go up and over the berm to get to the tennis court.
Inside you find the Bobbie Stauffacher super graphics that are just a visual wonder, and it’s just as fun going into the locker room as it is to take a swim or play tennis.
Eleanor Gibson: What is your opinion of new developments on the ranch?
Jennifer Dunlop Fletcher: It’s almost impossible to achieve something one might set out as a goal, but I think what they have achieved very successfully is this maintaining it as a meditative community that values the environment, the surroundings that they’re in, and making that a priority.
Eleanor Gibson: What prompted you to run this exhibition now? Is there something about the project that you think contemporary architects can learn from?
Jennifer Dunlop Fletcher: There were a few reasons. I’m co-curating this with my colleague Joseph Becker and I think both of us just couldn’t believe that there hadn’t been an exhibition yet to date.
We see this as a Northern Californian icon and we really look forward to unpacking it in different ways: thinking about the role of development in wanting to be associated with the contemporary architecture of its time, and as a suggestion that people who are living within this development are forward-thinking, more socially progressive.
Logos, marketing materials, and murals designed by Barbara “Bobbie” Staufacher Solomon for The Sea Ranch will also feature in the exhibition
Also, wanting to think about its role in history and this magical lure that it still has.
What is it about the place that is so appealing today? Is it very different from other places and what is that? How do we capture that in an exhibition? Who were the designers? What did they go on to do? There were so many questions that came out of this.
Eleanor Gibson: How did you go about sourcing the material?
Jennifer Dunlop Fletcher: We were quite lucky that MLTW (Charles Moore, Donlyn Lyndon, Richard Whitaker, and William Turnbull) and Joseph Esherick, their archives are housed at Berkeley’s environmental design archives, and then Halprin’s archives are pretty well intact in University of Pennsylvania’s design archives. We had a smattering of drawings that had been gifted from William Turnbull to the museum. So the three really made an easy source for the material.
It will be the first time that the drawings are being seen together
There are just hundreds and hundreds of drawings, and in the end we will have over 100 works in the exhibition, as well as models – not vintage models, because those have been destroyed or not found – as well as a walk-in model.
Eleanor Gibson: Is this the first time that these are all being seen?
Jennifer Dunlop Fletcher: We’ve noted that there have been photography exhibitions on The Sea Ranch before, and we are including some of that photography, more laid bare.
It will be the first time that the drawings are being seen together. We also have large image from Iwan Baan from 2015, some enamel signed by Bobbie Staufacher that have never been seen, together with this material.
Modular, colorful, and with a UI that’s seriously to die for, the UP Memory Tower by Anton Repponen is like the Towers Of Hanoi game meets storage. With a connecting base at the bottom and a cooling fan at the very top, Repponen’s stackable storage allows you to, intuitively build your own hard drive using vertically stacked, color-coded individual disks of storage.
The disks range from 1 to 8 terabytes of storage (there’s even a speckled 2Tb hard disk for LeManoosh lovers!) and the color coding helps to let you segregate the drives based on content. The drives stack on top of each other, and connect via the base to a laptop or desktop, where an incredibly intuitive and beautiful UI makes it easy to configure and control your data. Designed clearly for creatives, the UP Memory Tower is absolutely perfect for photographers, video editors, designers and others who frequently work with large file sizes. In fact I’m writing a letter to Anton right now to start building prototypes for mass manufacture!
This is site is run by Sascha Endlicher, M.A., during ungodly late night hours. Wanna know more about him? Connect via Social Media by jumping to about.me/sascha.endlicher.
