CH+D Awards Extra: Channeling May
Author:Lindsey ShookThis month, we announced the winners of our highly prized CH+D Awards. Now, get the inside scoop from all the winners!
When architect Jonathan Feldman won a CH+D Award for Residential Architecture (less than 3,000 sq. ft.), he had two entities to thank: fellow architect Cliff May and the humble caterpillar. In this web extra, we asked him for some more insights on design.
1. What’s your favorite local shop for unique design items for your projects?
Coup d’Etat has lots of unique and beautiful items that can infuse real personality to our spaces.
2. Which design trend you are ready to see go away?
Dark ipe boards as exterior siding on houses, especially when mixed with stucco!
3. What’s one detail about your project that you love but most people overlook?
The rails for the sliding doors are sunken seamlessly into the floors so that when the doors slide open the paving is continuous from inside to outside without any threshold. This works with the extra large overhangs to blur the boundaries of indoors and outside.
4. If you could spend a week working alongside any architect or interior designer (dead or alive) who would it be?
I’d love shadow Renzo Piano. I love his designs and, from what I’ve read about his hands-on approach to building models and full-scale mock-ups, I think it would be very exciting to hang around his workshop!
5. When you found out you won, who was the first person you called to share the news with?
When I found out that we had won, I called the builder, Brian Groza. This was a very challenging house to build—curving rammed-earth walls, lots of glass and steel, clean lines with no trim to hide mistakes and a modest budget! I’m very proud of our design, but it took a special builder to pull it off!
