URBAN ZEN

E Street Residence

Clients:

Artist, actress, dreamer

Psychiatrist, thinker, dreamer

Project Inspirations:                           Spatial objectives

Mind and body.                                      Place to daydream.

Light and shadow.                                 Place for gathering.

Silence and Laughter.                           Place to study.

Memory and dreams.                            Place to relax.

Friends and family.                                Place to be alone.

Food and aromas.                                 Place to be together.

Art and books.

Materials

Wood, concret, steel, glass, brick, viroc, color, light, texture

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Janet's Kitchen

KUBE in DWELL 

Janet's kitchen appears in the September issue of Dwell. She renovated her 1950 Goodman mid-century modern home using a combination of industrial materials and bright colors. The kitchen was completely opened up to the living room, and an acrylic and steel custom-designed table serves as the dining area. Materials include viroc (gray and black), colored laminate, white oak floors, and exposed steel. Click on link above for the online feature, and get the magazine on the newsstand.

The kitchen also appeared in Jennifer Sergent's blog DC by Design. Jennifer is the author of the DWELL article

Eating In

Kitchens Before and After KUBE

KUBE has developed an expertise in kitchen transformations.  They operate both as functional, efficient spaces, and also as sculptural statements within the home.  The following three projects show a range of ideas and explorations:

The "Architects Kitchen" is a mid-century modern home in Kensington, MD, where the compact kitchen was opened up and updated with a combination of colorful custom cabinets and industrial materials (viroc, concrete countertops, and exposed steel). Millwork by Potomac Woodwork. 

"Lenny's Place"  is a “bachelor pad” off U Street in Washington, DC, where the kitchen acts as a feature element, with LED lighting, a “folded” ceiling, and colorful island. Millwork by Potomac Woodwork.

D St. Kitchen  in Capitol Hill features a curved countertop that transforms into a sculptural bench.  The kitchen is designed to be highly efficient within a tight space, and it looks out through full-height glass doors onto an intimate deck space

KUBE goes to CHURCH

Clarendon Presbyterian Church

A joint venture with REVE design-studio

This progressive and forward-thinking congregation came to Reve design-studio and KUBE architecture for ideas on how to make their worship and fellowship spaces operate more successfully with their nontraditional method of worship.  In addition, the rear entry, which has now become the main façade of the church, is in need of renovation to display a more attractive and welcoming face to the neighborhood.  KUBE and Reve are proposing a full-height glass facade, with a green wall that represents the main mission of the church: feeding the hungry and welcoming all to their table. A row of doors in this façade creates a seamless indoor/outdoor relationship, allowing the fellowship space to spill out onto the new “front porch” of the church.  The renovated main sanctuary will have flexible seating to allow a variety of seating arrangements and uses, and a wall of folding doors will separate the sanctuary from the entry/fellowship space, with the possibility of joining or dividing the spaces as desired.

Proposed new entry at rear- includes Green Wall , elevator access and new deck at entry doors

Existing rear entry and interior of worship space

Interior view of worship space - looking towards new fellowship (gathering) and entry doors beyond

New Fellowship space at entry

KUBE 2 GO

Creativity at any Scale : KUBE 2 GO

KUBE Hits the Links, Designs Golf Hole

This summer, the National Building Museum will bring back its popular indoor Mini Golf exhibition. The expanded attraction will feature two 9-hole course options, with all new holes designed and built by leading Washington-area architects, landscape architects, and contractors.  The courses will explore the architects’ and designers’ visions of “Building the Future,” with twists and turns sure to challenge golfers young and old. Visitors to the Museum will be able to play this one-of-a-kind course, designed for ages 4 and up, in air-conditioned comfort during Museum hours from Memorial Day, May 27, 2013 to Labor Day, September 2, 2013.  KUBE Architecture is participating by designing "Urban Pinball," a joint collaboration with sponsor Evonik Cyro, and builders Madden Corporation and Mersoa Woodwork & Design LLC.  Urban Pinball explores uncertainty—after all, as the science fiction writer Ursula K. LeGuin noted, “the only thing that makes life possible is permanent, intolerable, uncertainty: not knowing what comes next." Take aim and try to control your destiny—but you may end up in a place you never imagined. Travel through the time tunnels, and emerge in the unraveling future, where your path becomes complex and unpredictable. In many ways, life is just a game of chance—relax and enjoy the ride.

Examiner Coverage on 5th Street Project!

DC architecture firm takes on narrow Capitol Hill rowhouse

Charlotte Safavi

Special to The Washington Examiner

The task of seamlessly remodeling a narrow, cramped and poorly lit historic rowhouse is never easy, but Richard Loosle, of Kube Architecture, managed just that in the Capitol Hill neighborhood of the District.

"Our ground floor was dark and choppy, with a formal dining room in front we rarely used and a staircase and wall separating that from the kitchen and backroom, which we used a lot," said Vince Willmore, who shares the two-bedroom home with Orie Snider.

The small kitchen also was parallel to the stairs, a minus, while the backroom opened onto the patio, a plus. Loosle saw that replacing the old French doors with an entire glass wall and sliding doors would immediately increase the light flow and open up the overall space. The bigger challenge remained the bulky staircase.

"It was clear the whole stair-and-kitchen wall had to go," Loosle said. "Problem was because the rowhouse is so narrow, there wasn't enough room to move the staircase."

Knowing the homeowners were keen on one-room living, Loosle came up with a creative solution. He couldn't move the physical location of the stairs, but he could make them visually lighter with the right material and good design.

"I got rid of everything surrounding it and then remade the staircase in steel, which is a strong material that allows you to work with narrower stringers and related elements than usual," Loosle said.

He also added slim pale-wood stair treads and barely-there horizontal steel pickets to make the overall staircase as thin and transparent as possible.

The kitchen then was reoriented against a sidewall, with gray-white laminate cabinets. An eat-in island was added. The island has a lower profile than average, so as not to impede the front-to-back flow.

"Though we wanted the space to be modern, we also wanted our home to have warmth and be uncluttered," Willmore said.

To add that warmth, Loosle worked with natural and stained ash for built-ins and the island, which has a cedar-stone breakfast bar and counter that wraps around its base on the entry side, blending beautifully with the bamboo floors.

The clean-lined walls and ceilings are softened up with variations of gray-blue paint hues. Loosle also developed modular storage throughout; the largest unit includes a frosted, glass-door powder room, as well as a utility/mechanical closet.

"We kept the original tin ceiling in the old dining room," Loosle said, "but we cleaned it up and painted it to tie in better."

The fireplace, which was nonfunctional, also in the front space, was clad and serves as a separator between a built-in desk unit and new dining-area storage. Eventually, a dining table and chairs will be placed there at a 90-degree angle.

"The home really suits our lifestyle now," Willmore said. "It's one big and bright, yet warm, integrated room, with a great connection between the indoor and outdoor spaces."

To see more images of the 5th Street Residence, click here.  

Award of Excellence

We are proud to announce that KUBE architecture design associate Andrew Baldwin has received an Award of Excellence from the  DC chapter of the AIA. "Unbuilt Awards 2013". Andrew's submission, "Lacrosse as Sacred Iroquois Tradition: The Architecture of Cultural Expression."  is the title of his Masters of Architecture thesis design project.

Thesis Committee: Stanley Hallet, FAIA, Vyt Gureckas, AIA, Miriam Gusevich, AIA

Andrew received his Bachelor of Science in Architecture degree from the Catholic University of America in 2010. While attending Catholic, he studied abroad in Paris, France and participated in a design-build project in Nepal, which received the AIA DC Award for Excellence in Architecture. Andrew joined KUBE in the summer of 2008 when he was a sophmore, and after working every summer, became a full time employee in December of 2012.

Thesis Excerpt / Summary 

The thesis covers the Onondaga Nation, one of six Native American nations that are part of the Iroquois Confederacy which resides 5 miles south of Syracuse, New York. The nation is small, numbering about 500 people, but it is rich in culture that is passed on from generation to generation.  This project proposes the importance of renewing the specificity of a culture and place through the examination of the living Iroquoian tradition of lacrosse.  

The Iroquoian ceremony of lacrosse can be used as a vehicle to inspire potential architectural form, function, as well as flourish contemporary cultural identity within the Native American community. The traditional Iroquois architecture, which is still alive, is defined by the Longhouse.  With current architectural as well as social/technological trends pushing toward global uniformity, I believe the Onondaga Nation is at risk from cultural entropy, further minimizing the diversity of place. 

Capitalizing on Native values regarding the natural environment along with the exploration of past Native American Longhouse architecture, landscape and cultural traditions, the creation of a lacrosse camp provides new architectural identity, specific to the people of Onondaga Nation.

-Andrew Baldwin 

 Game Field Seating Bleacher seating extends off the main circulation axis hiding other program elements behind the game field seating. The arched wood and fabric canopy above is representative of the process of making a traditional wooden lacrosse stick; steaming planks of wood, bending them to form a crook (u-shape) and tying the wood back to hold the arched form. .

Hawks Nest: Air Clan Pavilion  Meditative space for air clan members of the Onondaga. Lifted off the ground different levels of platforms allow a visitor to reach several heights within the tree, experiencing a bird’s point of view.

Barbecue Pavilion  Lacrosse games will last all day, the barbecue pavilion consist of open wooden structural elements, light and airy, allowing cross circulation of air as smoke rises from the barbecue pits. 

Classroom   The classroom off the main axis opens to the surrounding landscape, allowing the exterior of the structure to become a part of the classroom experience, with lacrosse goals outside to practice shooting drills.

Hall of Lacrosse   Interior entrance main axis, custom wooden award shelves float on both sides of the path making the overall space less ‘hallway-like’, with program elements hidden behind each side; locker rooms and team store. Lacrosse sticks hung from the ceiling of past legendary players with long sky lights allowing light to penetrate the space below. 

Ceremonial Fire   Locally foraged blue limestone is cut into six benches representing the six nations within the Iroquois Confederacy. A central fire pit sits in front of a stage for pow-wow performances. 

Turtles Alcove: Water Clan Pavilion   A Pavilion representative of the water clans within Onondaga with a deck over the river for fishing/swimming. The pavilion host individual showers to cleanse the body and/or fish caught from the river. 

Bears Lair: Earth Clan Pavilion  Meditative space for earth clan members of the Onondaga. Recessed into earth representative of bears need to hibernate within earth. Surrounded by linear wood slates representative of wolfs vision when honing in on its prey; crouched within earth focused on a single point still with awareness of his surroundings.