vivendi: 2009 q1

VIVENDIAn Architecture E-Magazine by Modus V Studio1st Quarter 2009 Vol 01

ANNUALREVIEWNews and reviews for

Modus V Studio

IT’S NOT JUST FAST FOOD...

REMODELING DONE RIGHT

GOING GREEN A CASE FOR SCRAPS

Cool new dining terrace at Westfield Southcenter

Save money (and head-aches) by planning ahead

Our take on what greenmeans to the practice of architecture Inspirations from the found

objects

M O D U S S T U D I OV

NEWS ANDREVIEWS


Modus V Studio will be celebrating its 3rd birthday in March 2009. Thanks to the support of our friends, clients, and partners, we have achieved much that we are very proud of.

Our portfolio has grown substantially in two areas that we have focused in – food services and residential. In the fall of 2008, the design of Qube restaurant, was published in “Boutique Restaurants” by John Riordan. Qube was one of our very first projects, and since then we have been involved a number of other restaurant projects such as Sushi Itto and Sbarro at Southcenter. We are now very confident of Modus V Studio’s ability to handle a restaurant project of any type or size. In the past few months, once again partnering with our friend who started Qube restaurant, we are working on the design of an Asian night market in the International District of Seattle that features over 40 food and retail vendors. It is projected to open by late summer this year.

We have also grown tremendously in the residential area over the last years. We have finished a number of remodels and in late 2008, we have completed our most challenging project so far, the Hawthorne Hills house. The Hawthrone Hills house is owned, designed, and constructed by Modus V Studio, and will accom-modate our office. We have written a blog, houseathawthornehills.blogspot.com, in which we share our experience throughout this project. Other than that, we are currently working on three other residences that we designed, all slated to be completed by the end of 2009.

Looking ahead, we are looking into implementing green technologies in our residential designs so that our work can bring a positive change to the way we live. We believe that building technology is ripe to take a great leap forward, to finally contribute in a significant way to protect the environment, and bring real and tangible benefits to everyone. Though the economy is not doing so well these days, perhaps this is an opportunity for us to question the way we do things. In many ways, this is high time for us to come up with ways to consume less, improve efficiencies, and become less dependent on non-renewable sources of energy through architectural design. Though we are a small company, we very much would like to be a part of the effort to bring us out of this crisis toward better days ahead.

Find out more about our company at www.modusvstudio.com.

“BOUTIQUE RESTAURANTS” by JOHN RIORDAN

INTERIOR OF HAWTHORNE HILLS HOUSE

QUBE RESTAURANT

EXTERIOR OF HAWTHORNE HILLS HOUSE

NEWS ANDREVIEWS

M O D U S S T U D I OVSELECTED WORK FROM 2007-2009SELECTED WORK FROM 2007-2009A RECAP OF SOME OF OUR FAVORITE PROJECTS OVER THE LAST 3 YEARS

1ST CHOICE QUBEBellevue , WA

an acupuncture clinic

HUANG RESIDENCE Taipei, Taiwan

a condominium interior

Seattle , WAa fusion restaurant

SUSHI ITTO

MORI SUSHI

SBARROARCADIA HOUSE

Seattle , WAa lake side sushi restaurant

Brier, WAa remodelled 2500 sf home

Arcadia , CAa new 5700sf residence

Tukwila, WAa sushi bar/ restaurant

Tukwila, WAa quick service pizza chain

HAWTHORNE HILLS NIGHT MARKETEXPO PAVILIONShanghai, China

a museum of jade

Bellevue, WAa building material showroom

Seattle, WAa remodelled 3400sf home

Seattle, WAan indoor Asian night market

BLACK PEBBLE

BRIER HOUSE

PROJECTSTUDY

It’s not just fast food... When’s the last time you drive to the mall just to dine at the food court? Food courts in American malls have been a by-product of the shopping experience and have never been regarded as dining destinations. Westfield, one of the world’s largest developers of retail properties, is challenging the notion that food courts are only supporting casts with its newest mall in Seatlle – South-center. With stringent design guide-lines for its tenants, its slick modern dining terrace becomes the focus of the entire shopping center. Modus V Studio was on Westfield’s shortlist of preferred designers and was responsible for the designs of two of the tenant spaces.

SBARROSBARROSbarro, the Italian quick service chain restau-rant, is ubiquitous in American malls and high-way rest stops. Times has changed and so has the demographics of Sbarro’s core customers. The store at Westfield Southcenter has a decidedly younger image than its prede-cessors.The emphasis is on the fact that Sbarro’s food is freshly made with the finest ingredients. Pizza is the main focus, and the pizza dough is spun and made right in front of the customers. We have taken the abstraction of the spinning pizza dough and used the imagery as inspira-tion to design the form of the soffit, which is the predominant and anchoring feature of the entire store. These transparent green strips of glass hover above the store like a cloud, over a pizza oven clad in cool metallic mosaics. All the other front of house features are organized around the oven, creating a transparent yet efficient workflow.


PROJECTSTUDY

Already one of the largest Sushi chain restaurants in the world, Sushi Itto is starting to establish its pres-ence in the US. Its store at Westfield Southcenter is a prototype that is a model for future stores here. The design challenge that this project presents is the fact that it is open on all four sides. It is a so-called “island” tenant space. Con-ceptually we have organized all the necessary features along a red ribbon that dance around the kitchen. There is a strong sculptural quality to the form so that the store becomes the center of attention in the dining terrace. Like a Richard Serra sculp-ture, the customer moves along the red ribbon and experience it in differ-ent ways as it wraps around the ceiling, frames the menu board, drops down to become a counter, sets a stage for the sushi bar.

SUSHI ITTO


HOMETOPICS

A couple of years back when the real estate market was still booming, remodeling a home seems like the sure way to make money. So many people who got into the business of fixer upper did it the wrong way. When the market was going up up and up, their mistakes were covered up by the increase in the property value. While they didn’t make as much profit as they otherwise could, at least they were not losing their shirt. In 2009, that is no longer the case.

Having spent substantial amount of time on remodeling our home/office over the last year, we have naturally took an interest in what others are doing. We visited many open houses and talked to many home owners on remodeling, and we found that many approached their projects without a well thought out plan. We realized that many people, perhaps influenced by all the get-rich-quick fixer upper books out there, thinks that you can just buy an old house, replace the kitchen with something you find from the home depot, and the property value will magi-cally go up by 50%. That is simply not true.

A successful remodel for investment is usually one that is done with the eventual occupant/buyer of the home in mind. When a potential buyer walks into a house, they usually look at the house and try to picture themselves living in it. They look at the whole house, not just the recently remodeled kitchen or bathroom. So if the floor plan as a whole doesn’t work, or if the floor is not level, or if the foundation is sagging unevenly, or if you have a craftsman style kitchen in a mostly Spanish style home, you will still have a problem selling the house at the price you aim for.

If you’re remodeling your own home to live in

instead of trying to make a profit, remodeling in a piece meal manner maybe OK in the short run, but still not going to work long term. The lack of a coherent long term plan for remodeling the entire house can translate into very expensive alterations later on. If you’re thinking of remodeling your house, the first thing you might want to do is to get an archi-tect to look at your home and map out a strat-egy. If you cannot finance the entire thing in one go, you may phase the remodel. But the “master plan” for your home should still be in place before you start tearing into your walls.

For example, if a couple expecting to have kids in five years decides to remodel their kitchen today. They may also be thinking of building an extension and add two bedrooms down the road. They may want to look at their hot water tank and plumbing capacity and make sure it will be enough to accommodate those future plans. They may also want to think about how to plan their kitchen so that when they do add those bedrooms, only minimal disruption to the existing structure will occur.

Instead, too many people just go ahead and rip out the cabinets, replace them with new ones, and call it a day. Only to later find out that half of those cabinets will need to be thrown away when an entire wall needs to be opened up for additional structure and utility. That is money that can be saved easily by some smart planning early on. Not to men-tion that when everything is done years from now, you’ll have a very pleasant home that is carefully laid out, increasing the value if you decide to sell. If you decide to continue living in it, you’re not going to have a home that looks like a time capsule with a whole bunch of incoherent elements thrown together.

Looking at the big picture: Remodeling a home the right way

BAD REMODELS

A remodel is not about adding arbitary features to a house. Always take a comprehensive approach.


WHAT WE THINK M O D U S S T U D I OV

Going green is no longer just a noble idealistic belief that the “tree huggers” have unrelentingly pursued. We now realize that not only is going green good for our conscience, it is also good for our wallets. Many vendors of green technologies empha-size the long-term savings for the end-users that going green brings. Meanwhile, energy costs have sky-rocketed in recent years. Mother Earth only has a limited supply of resources to provide us. It is no secret that we need to cut down on our energy consumption. Going green is simply a pragmatic approach to our economic problems.

While hybrid technologies for cars are becoming mainstream, we have yet to improve significantly on the way we build build-ings. Buildings account for 39% of the energy consumption in the US, and a lot of that is wasted due to inefficiencies. Making a building environmentally friendly and inexpensive to maintain is actually not difficult, and in many ways considered to be the low-hanging fruit in the green endeavor. Why has green buildings not been pursued with the same rigor as the car industry?

First of all, the building industry is way less consolidated as the car industry. Thus, it is difficult to implement a unified vision throughout. The solution to this is to commoditize green, making it the industry standard. But to do that we first have to entice enough people to build green homes in order to achieve the scale needed. Currently, most projects are developed by people who are not the end-users. The developers do not get to enjoy the long term savings generated by the use of green technolo-gies, and so they are not willing to bear the initial cost. To entice the developers to focus more on green buildings, we must try our best to deliver the benefits that they care about – namely savings in construction cost and time, marketing benefits, political bargaining advantages, public relations advantages, etc. In other words, we must marry profit and purpose as we pursue green design in buildings.

At Modus V Studio, we have decided to set some benchmarks for our upcoming research and development. We hope to deliver the processes and the design of an entry level green home that –

1. Costs less than the equivalent of $120/sf in today’s Seattle to construct2. Takes less than 6 months to complete from the start of design to moving in3. Allows the owner to pay nothing for electricity4. Uses 50% less water from the city as a standard home5. Requires 50% less time and money on maintenance of the home6. Is healthy, comfortable, and efficient for the owner7. Is attractive and inspiring aesthetically

These are lofty goals that are not easy to achieve. However, we believe that with an innovative approach that is focused on the right places, we can make it work. Hopefully, we can gather a motivated group of developers to create homes that are green, and eventually acheive a critical mass for green homes to become the standard.

COMMODITIZATION OF GREENCOMMODITIZATION OF GREENMODUS V STUDIO’S TAKE ON GREEN DESIGN

DESIGNSTUFF


It just feels good when you can recycle something. It is simply beautiful to be able to make good use of something that you would otherwise discard or destroy. The practice of recycling is appealing on so many different levels. It is a process that eliminates wastage, improving efficiency in a very tangible way. It is a process that preserves the memory, but at the same time creates a forward looking sense of hope. It is a process that has a purpose but at the same time profitable. It is a process that is about the rebirth and continuation of life. When we remodel a home, is it not great if we can recycle some materials salvaged from the demolition and make something beautiful out of it?

A CASE FOR SCRAPS

When I was remodeling my home, some of the wood planks on a ceiling in the orginal house was damaged by water. I had no choice but to take all of them down. I was able to reuse over half of them.

First I cut them into strips of random widths.

Then I stacked the strips up against a wall to create an effect that was both unique and attractive.

vivendi: 2009 q1

Design