Q & A
LEED AP BD+C, CASp
Kevin Young, Associate, AIA
DGA Planning | architecture | interiors
Division of the State Architect,
Codes and Standards
82
Genevieve Vargas, AIA,
LEED AP ID+C
Placer County Department of Public
Works and Facilities
What do you love about
sharing architecture with
children? Which Sacramento
building do you think is a
hidden piece of history? Why should I attend the
event Design | Access:
Open Projects Tour?
It is such a joy to teach architecture
to children of any age. Every lesson
aims to merge art and science, and
teach concepts such as scale and
perspective, to give the students an
appreciation of how to absorb their
surroundings. They listen attentively
when I show them how a window
has so many purposes: framing a
view, filling a space with natural light,
providing ventilation and bringing
the outdoors in. They experience how
different materials, colors and textures
are decisively selected to create an
experience, and how an architectural
element is used by the architect to
connect the user to the space and
evoke emotion. By using the building
where I’m teaching to illustrate these
concepts, they start to experience
familiar places in a new and different
way. They are so surprised that
architects do more than create pretty
buildings and drawings! By making
learning about architecture fun and
relevant, I see eyes opening to the
possibility of architecture as a career. The biggest surprise to me about
Sacramento, after relocating here
from Oregon, is how much of
Sacramento’s history is still here
and is now being woven into our
modern fabric. One of my favorite
hidden pieces of history is the Pacific
Telephone and Telegraph Company
Area Headquarters Building on Watt
Avenue, designed by Hertzka and
Knowles, Architects.
Ahead of its time, the building
is wrapped with a beautiful pattern
of precast modular concrete panels,
creating a skin that is reminiscent
of a Persian rug. Despite being built
in the ‘60s, the skin cleverly serves
as a sustainable feature, acting as
both a thermal mass and a shading
strategy. The photos I have seen of
the interior are stunning — the pattern
of shadows cast by the screen are
unique, and the layout of the lattice
work was spaced in a manner that
gives individuals an unobstructed
view of outside the building. This tour gives our community
a chance to go inside eight very
different buildings: from residential
projects, to architectural offices, to a
surgical training center — and meet
the architects who designed them.
The tour is at your own pace and the
facilities are open for you to walk
through and visit a space you would
not normally have access to. For
example, one of the projects on the
tour is Arch|Nexus, an architectural
office that takes building green or
sustainability to a whole new level.
The firm took an old warehouse
building and converted it into their
office space. The lobby has a “’living
wall’ with plants and they even
compost onsite. It’s not something
you see every day in a typical office
building, and it’s really creative and
inspiring to see.
comstocksmag.com | 2018
Ida A. Clair, AIA,