Focus 580; Preservation of the Farnsworth House and Other Housing Issues

Good morning and welcome to focus 580 it's our morning top program My name's David Inge. Glad to have you with us this morning as we begin another week. We're also pleased to welcome back to the program Bill Gross he's a research architect at the building Research Council at the University of Illinois and on this program he's the man we call our radio architect because over the years he has been with us many times here to talk about the design and construction of buildings and this is it's a little bit different than the kind of thing that we do every month when Hank Speace stops by that's kind of a troubleshooting thing although we have actually done some of those some of those kinds of shows with Bill. But more over I think what we're interested in when Bill stops by in these programs is we talk a little bit about how it is we get the buildings we have and why it is that some buildings we love and we love being in them and other buildings we say don't love that one so much. We have talked a little bit about buildings and why it is that some of them function better than others we've also talked about architects and what they do and about the relationship between people who design buildings and then the guys who actually have to

build the design and sometimes that is a difficult relationship it's fraught with all kinds of difficulty because you know it's one thing to design something on a piece of paper it's another thing to actually have to build the building and make it do what you want. And so every once in a while Bill is here and I always like to think that we don't we never actually finish the show it's just we sort of say we'll see. We'll pause there and he'll come back and we'll talk again another time and that's what we always do. One of the things we've talked about quite a bit one way or another is historic preservation of buildings and that's at least part of what we'll talk about here this morning as we talk about some of the projects that Bill has been involved in. And if you have questions or comments you can certainly call us and that number is 3 3 3 9 4 5 5 4 Champaign-Urbana folks and toll free 800 2 2 2 9 4 5 5. It's good to see you again. Good to be here. One of things that we thought we would talk a little bit about is the Farnsworth house right. And this is something now. It was in the news for

a while and I'm not sure that it's gotten much mention lately although I did come across a piece that was published in The Sun Sun Times last fall about the fact that. A lot of people since it has now been opened as a museum. A lot of people have gone there to see the building. This is a house that was designed by a very famous architect the spender O. And the reason that it had been in the news is that some years ago the the person who owned it wanted it to sell it and eventually find someone to buy it but they said well what I really like to do is take it apart and move it and take it someplace else. And a lot of people felt that they wanted to see the house preserved in the in its original site. Right. And managed to find the money to do that and so ultimately that's that's what happened and it's still there in Plano where me put it for Dr. Farnsworth. That's right. And there's a letter a lot of interesting stories connected with the house. The big one I guess that I came across when I've been just done a little reading about it is that Dr. Farnsworth didn't

like it. She was steamed. She was steam when she got the bill. She was not happy with the house itself although the architect said look I showed you the plans. You said you signed off on the plans right. But then when she saw how she thought Now wait a minute this is exactly what I got in mind. Maybe for anybody who has not seen it you should describe it. OK. From champagne. For example you just go straight up 47 from Mahomet. So if you're looking for a day trip you and your family don't miss this. Don't miss it if you're coming from Chicago or from anywhere in downstate Illinois. It's considered to be one of the handful half dozen or a dozen masterpieces of U.S. international style 20th century modern architecture and believe me it lives up to its billing. I investigate a lot of historic properties for water problems and that sort of thing. And so I get to see these

buildings from the inside out sort of like seeing a celebrity in the dressing room without makeup in costume and in a bad mood like that. But this this building is knocked my socks off I have to say. How did it do it. My work is more in building technology than design and everyone who's listened to this program knows that architecture is the marriage sometimes the divorce of art and technology and sometimes the people who who talk about improvements and mastery of building performance steer clear of talking about beauty or aesthetics and often that it's hard to find a vocabulary that these two sides of architecture share but one area that is shared is the idea of

elegance. Anyone who has done a mathematical proof or come up with an engineering design knows what elegance is that is the achievement of a complex ends with the simplest of means. We know what that is in building technology and elegance is everywhere in aesthetics. So we can share that. That's what jumped out at me in this building that with the fewest possible moves with the greatest reliance on Ockham's Razor. This this piece is able to provide visual and. Human comfort needs that with with the fewest pieces that that I've ever seen. I often try to value engineer a product and say well what can we what can we subtract from this. I'm compelled by elegance to and there is really nothing to be

subtracted. But you can of course subtract way too much and not allow. A safety net. But this this has the minimum number of pieces to deliver a project. He's one of the architects who's done this Frank Lloyd Wright has done it as well to try to take away the safety net. And whenever we see a building like this we say ha ha ha now we're going to find out where this building is starting to go bad. And this one is a keeper. This one is it is managing water is managing thermal requirements with the with a real minimal palette set of tools. The building looks good in its surroundings from inside the building. The outside looks good it's framed by these giant win by the

giant panes of glass. The. I'm very happy that it was able to get to stay where it is because it from inside the house you have to say that the that the lot the the trees the Fox River are are essentially a part of a house just so that people can get an idea of what we're talking about. Recently another famous architect passed away Philip Johnson one of the buildings that he was really known for was the glass box house which was essentially a house a small house that where the walls were windows. Right. Well this is kind of that that same sort of deal where you where there is. It feels as if there is no boundary between the inside and the outside because most of the what would we would think of as the walls are in fact giant windows. And it's kind of looks like it would kind of be like living in a glass box.

And I suppose that the thing that I wonder about is that's great. But on the other hand there are times when you want privacy you don't want to be living in a glass box now maybe depending on the setting. If it was out and if it was sort of in a remote area and it wasn't like your house was on Green Street. Right. That would be different. Does it do you feel at all exposed when you're inside the house. Yeah yeah you do. Yes that is I'd hate to raise a family that has one bedroom so you don't raise a family in the house. It it really is a weekend getaway. You couldn't really can do everything you need in life. Here it's a second place. It's a party. And that really was what it was designed for. Yes that was the threat. That's right. You mentioned about Dr. Farnsworth and how

unhappy she was with that she did stay there for 20 years afterwards. So we have to temper that that perception of criticism but but this raises the question of. What architects are there for. They're there according to the state to ensure the health safety and welfare of the living in occupied environments for people they use client's money to do things so you would think that they have to meet the needs and wants of the clients. Is this enough. Do we and architects will say no. There is a little something beyond this that architects have to achieve beyond their obligations to the state and to the client and skeptics like me are probably the last people to be persuaded of that. Something else that something more and I don't get persuaded of that very often. But yesterday I did.

What I think the other thing that I remember having looked at some of the pieces about the relationship between Meese and Dr. Farnsworth is that when she got the house she she said something to him but you can't live in this house. And he heroic architect that said Look Madam I wasn't designing your house to live in. I was designing or you know some it's something like that. And initially she says she sued him. She tried to take him to court and the suit was tossed out and as you say she lived in the house for a long time so she must have eventually made her peace with the house but I guess that that that illustrates the popular image we have of a lot of architects that in fact they're not really designing buildings for us to live in they're designing works of art and whatever sort of inconvenience might come with living there. We're just supposed to suck it up. I just I hate to say that because it opens the door to architects cheating their clients

in millions of different ways. Still I hate to close the door entirely to the achievement of these other aims. We have a caller to talk with let's do that. And I believe that they are on our line number one and I think in Champaign. Hello hello. Yes hello. I'm delighted that this home is now open to viewing I've been trying to see it for about six years. I have daughters who live in that area and what they did that made it possible for the public to see this. And another question and all the years that the house lifestyle so to speak was the garden destroyed. I read once that there were beautiful gardens surrounding this. The the effort to insure the preservation

was undertaken by the entire preservation community not only in Illinois and in the US but also worldwide there was a group called DoCoMo the Society for the documentation of monuments of the modern movement. But then it has moved to the hands of the National Trust for Historic Preservation. It's that they are the owners and it's managed by the landmark's group of Illinois. It's not open this winter. It will be I think it will be closed during several of the winter months but it will be open for to the public. I think in for most of the months of the year well there would be a fine off Route 47 door. Acting people too. I don't know. You should contact the National Trust or the landmarks group to find out what signage there will be.

I know that they are planning to to make sure that it's better seen from the river road at least that goes from forty seven over toward Plano. We should also mention that that politicians have played a role in this and I understand that Representative Hastert had a hand in ensuring some funding for the for the building. Yes that's near where you live probably and about the garden. Are there other that the gardens are very difficult to keep up because of flooding. Occasional flooding of the Fox River. The building is is a box that's elevated about 4 feet 4 5 feet above the above the soil. In 1996 there was a flood of the Fox River that where the water level was about halfway up the height of the living space inside the

building. And there are spring rains that bring the the level of the Fox River up to about to the level of the lower terrace once a year. Given that it's really difficult to maintain the gardens and the focus of architects like that I think Frank Lloyd Wright. The architect client relationship has greatly improved. I learned it. No architectural history class. He served his clients thoroughly before designing a home. Thank you thank you for the call. The Commons questions are certainly welcome we're talking here this morning with Bill Gross he's research architect at the building Research Council at the time and occasionally is here and we talk about buildings and architects and what architects do and why it is we feel about certain buildings the way we do and one of the issues that we've talked about quite a lot is historic preservation. We're talking a little bit here this morning to start out about the Farnsworth house. It's in Plano which is not very far from Aurora. It's all right. It's

on the banks of the Fox River and it's a house that was designed by me surrender all and completed I think about one hundred fifty fifty one thousand and was in the news for a while because the building had been. The house had been sold and the guy who bought it said well I would like to take it apart and move it. And a lot of folks here in Illinois and people who are interested in architecture all over said no we really would like to see the building stay in its original site. And so money was raised to make that possible and it is also now open to the public and you can go and see it if you like. And Bill also by the way has a book coming out that we want to plug. I'm not sure this is a book exactly for the general reader but it's a book about it's a book basically for architects about water problems. That's right in homes which is actually something that we've talked about you know before on the program as well. So we can maybe we can talk about that maybe someday we'll just you can go back we can talk about water problems. Of course the risk is we'll get those. I have water in my basement. That's what I do about it.

So you could elevate your house above the ground the way Mr. Vander Rowe did then you don't have a basement in the merry go or as in I do solve that one. Let me return to a question because here is I've talked a couple times about the fact that that somebody came along and said well I will I will buy the house but I want to move it. And that as you said and as we said a lot of people said no we really want to see the house stay in its original place. Why is that. Why is that so critical I mean if we were going to say well I'll preserve the house. I just want it in New Jersey. OK. Because I live out there I don't want to here in Illinois and I'll move it I'll find a really nice. Trust me I'll find a really nice spot for it and I'll put it there and you'll be very happy. I mean why is that. Why is that so important. That's if I think there are a lot of ways to answer that question. There are some people who say they're There's a genius of the space there's a genius of the land that there is. When

when a building is placed on land that there is an attachment that can't really be described technically perhaps that's true. We don't. I'd hate to argue one way or another on metaphysical matters like that. I think that for one thing buildings are heavy. They're really not made to be moved except those that that in fact are. And in this it's interesting that this building is. It is attached to the ground only by eight let's say columns that touch the ground if there's any house that's movable this one would probably what would probably be considered and it was probably a push toward for the mobile home industry to recognize that some homes actually do go from

from place to place. Actually mobile homes don't they have wheels they have a chassis but it's really rare for them to be to be moved from one place to another. I don't know. I think that that house is just an enclosure in a place that that that the inside is the outside that we're always connected by doors and windows and if buildings have character if they have personality that kind of change is rarely improved by by moving from a technical point of view. The house the building actually includes the sort of donut of soil that surrounds it and the House will settle into that the building will settle into that and for it to settle into a new place is you know it's like changing your feet.

Good question but I'm not sure that I have. Maybe this point the best answers are sort of touchy feely. I've thought of how to help the Farnsworth house protect itself against. Against a rising flood waters by by having pylons that might elevate it. Go ahead and float it and attach it with cape or Pacific. I don't think they're going to do that. OK I don't think there's any risk of doing that but imagining a building that that floats and could be moved from one place to another I think can be met both in optimistically and pessimistically. I'm interested in your thoughts as an architect and engineer kind of guy about the the practical or impractical features of the design. For example it has a flat roof and Flat roofs are notoriously

troublesome. I know one of the things that Dr. Farnsworth complained about was that it was extremely expensive to heat because of the glass windows walls. How does this if you if you take it if you take the artistic consideration right out of it and you simply look at this as as a machine right. How well does it function. It doesn't cut it. Sorry about that but it's a flat roof and. It's a Euclidian it was intended to be a Euclidean flat roof one thing we know is that Euclid never makes it into actual buildings. We like to see a pitch on roofs and this one doesn't have one so instead it has little bellies that allow an inch or more of water to stand on part of the work of making it linger for centuries to come is going to involve better management of rainwater.

And it was a subject of about half of our discussion. Meanwhile there's a technology fix at work. It happens to be a very watertight membrane that's being challenged by the amount of ponding that's on it. But it's not as though Vander Vander O didn't understand about water he has a very interesting design in the terrace that's exposed. This terrace has marble on the surface and beneath that there's a gravel base and beneath that is concrete and beneath that is are pre-cast concrete panels and all of these are sitting in a in steel channels that make little rectangles. This is a it's about a thousand square foot terrace area that's dead flat so you can imagine the challenge of not having frost heave and water management but the concrete is actually sloped to drains.

And the we it was raining yesterday so we were able to see rain water trickling out of these drains the rainwater that would land. There was one thing that he didn't foresee. He he has buried a good water management layer within that but the 10 inch thickness at the terrace. One thing he didn't foresee was acid rain. And what has happened is that the marble on the surface has been dissolved a little bit by the rain that dissolved marble then precipitates at the drain and forms little pieces of marble that actually block the drain forms little stalactites coming down and if you have the lack tights then you have still lag mites. So you have these little mounds of dissolved travertine marble sitting at the sitting underneath the underneath the terrace. It's easy enough to ream those out to get it draining more

easily again. But I think it's I think that the overall design at least of the terraces permits good rainwater management. And he hid it so well that nobody got to get away under the terraces to be able to find out how he actually did manage the rainwater. OK. Let's talk with someone else here we have a band of color here line number one. Hello. Yeah. To fit the situation or environment here I understand it was the article and I'm trying to find it in the News Gazette about a woman the local area who has a house that is highly insulated and has anyone that knows you nice you know. But for a man Mandarin was not known for high energy efficiency right. Uh no in terms of the buildings I mean a lot of complaints. I moved out of the Chicago area

and certainly the buildings. Could you elaborate elaborate on that. To a certain degree. Sure I'd be happy to. The house that you're referring to I believe is house was designed by catcher in Klingon Berg who is a and Urbana resident. And she has studied energy efficient construction design and construction in Germany and in the United States. It's a very interesting house. I believe that she was unaware when she started promoting super insulation in Champagne Urbana that super insulation was invented in Champaign-Urbana by the Small Arms Council in the 1700s So we have a multifaceted tradition of energy conserving energy conscious design of buildings and of

houses here. Ms Klingberg can be contacted I think through the school of architecture at the university. Well good. And yeah you hear me praising me Vandar Oh and this building which is energy inefficient. I hate to do that too much. Of course. In fact the building was originally heated with oil and it's been converted to a two all electric heat. This helps keep things clean keep things safe but it doubles the overall energy cost for the building. And in fact some of the solutions to the wet spots of the building may involve keeping the Morman surfaces are kept warm. Water resides on them not quite so well.

I guess. Will depend on what side of the building you get on back up to Chicago in terms of there. Depends on what side of the building you live on. That's true. And what year. That's right. I mean in terms of whether it's winter or summer. I mean I just don't know how these people contend with it you know. But anyway thank you very much. OK thank you. Thanks for the CO that I guess that sort of gets to the question is it is it possible to have a building that is both beautiful just knock your socks off beautiful and energy efficient. Good question. I'd like to hear what the what the the public has to say about this. There's this. If things if the building materials are cold they get wet cold things tend to be wet and warm things tend to be dry. You learn that doing laundry for example and by insulating our buildings we're making the interior surfaces nice

and toasty warm and therefore dry. But by the same token if we add insulation to a building that has never been insulated the exterior materials during cold weather become colder than they used to be. Thus they become slightly wetter. I think we're waiting to see if there's some sort of tipping point here or we're waiting to see how strong is the argument the argument how strong the argument might be that perhaps for juror reasons of juror ability we want to we want to be cautious in the use of wall insulation. I think we can just go right ahead on ceiling insulation. I think there are a million things we can do to save energy in buildings. But there might be a juror ability energy conservation tradeoff on wall insulation. We need to study this more. OK. Our guest is Bill Rose he's a research architect in the building Research Council.

And every once in a while here on the program we talk about design construction of buildings in various sorts of ways. And here this morning we've been talking specifically about one house one house it's in Plano in the northern part of the state was designed on the spandrel It's called the Farnsworth House Call that because it was built for someone named Farnsworth and was the subject of a preservation effort because a few years back it was someone came along and the owner said well I want to sell this building someone came along and said OK I'll build that but I want to move it and that started a great effort to not only to preserve the structure but to preserve it where it is. And today it's it is available to to the public and some to the public for not year round but it's open to the public and it is possible to go and see it and Bill says if you have the chance you really should because it's it's really something. We have some of the callers here to let's talk next with someone living in downs not too far from here. Wind for hello hello hello.

I am well I'm still in the house. The houses that get a little more pedestrian here wondering what you think if you're aware of the glide. Designed by Michelle Kaufman. No I'm not familiar with it. Did you just write. It's a manufactured home she studied with Frank Geary. And it's just it's a beautiful little house. Very contemporary. And you build a foundation they come in and set it down like a mobile home. But it is nothing like a mobile home and very environmentally friendly as far as I can see although I've seen the installations I think pictures of are in warm weather climates. So I don't know and haven't really investigated enough to know whether it's well insulated etc lot of a lot of good. At least on one side. Have you seen the big one or so everyone interested.

No but you can find pictures of glide house OK dot com. And the architect of Michelle Kaufman. Well it sounds very interesting very interesting and design. So to to take advantage of breezes. Did you know that kind of thing with solar panels built in. And they claim you don't even have to to connect to electricity. Well that might be tricky. But there is a real challenge in trying to develop a manufactured home that can be used in several climates. Sure that's. That I believe that there is a certain climate specificity to buildings and OK in a building like the Farnsworth house it's that requirement is snubbed in the interest of aesthetics. Still that you

raise a really good good point about the mobility of homes and design applied to them. I look forward to taking a look at that. You know look it look it up on the web. It's very interesting that everything comes with it. They claim that building costs are about half of the typical you know the structure. Very good thank you. Well thanks to all of their comments questions are certainly welcome 3 3 3 9 4 5 5. Toll free 800 to 2 2 9 4 5 5. That's what sort of gets at yet another subject of that we we have talked about and one one might talk about and that is you know what. What can you do to provide affordable housing if you're going to start from the beginning if you're going to build a house and find one that sort. An average middle income family can't afford that. It's very difficult. Yes it is. We know that we're using up

farmland at an alarming rate in order to build owns one. One thing that's often ignored in providing homes low income affordable homes is the fact that we have a whole lot of houses out there the building stock where it is enormous in this country and a lot of the discussion of affordable housing centers around the ideas of that of making new housing cost less. I think we need to put a whole lot more effort into making the existing houses that we have perform better and suit better too to a growing population. Let's talk with someone in let's see what a big O line number four. Hello. Good morning. Yes hello. Do you have your compared to my

house in Plano with me spender Rose buildings you know and I used to tutor technology which was a complete campus included living and school and research facilities. I haven't but it's nice of you to mention that this isn't the only by any means the only example of me Fandor rose worked in in the US the II T campus the Seagram's building and the lake shore apartments and the buildings in the in the Chicago Loop there are a lot of examples of his work. This just happens to be the one that I that I was at yesterday.

I love thank you for my word. For 40 years I watched him build all thing. There are leakers. They were high they were terrible. You couldn't. Put it do anything. And of course with all the glass. You couldn't arrange you but and the chorus to the elevated ran right through the campus right. Nowadays they did put a kind of a tunnel around the elevated that reduce noise sometimes but it was terrible. The leak and of course you're mentioning the acid rain. There is say a court yard and the basement under the

20 story sky scraper office research tower. It had been treated similarly to how you described it and the whole bloody thing rusted out had to be replaced. So you may have been a great architect but on a lot of time after that you know it's a bit like Frank like right where your points are well taken I remember in the 1980s there was a survey of the 10 best buildings in the United States and also of the 10 worst buildings in the United States and there were three buildings that appeared on both lists. That is the criteria that that makes for for good buildings in the eyes of some architects can be absolutely infuriating exactly as you describe to people who have to use the building and have more. More practical and less

esoteric attachments to the buildings. Yes but the. Now let's say that house was built. But designed by a student of his who just died. Yes you're talking about Philip Johnson's glass house you know. Wonderful just wonderful. But of course totally lovable planet. So thank you very much. Thank you that I guess I suppose that is the challenge if you live in a if you have chosen to live in a house like that you have to have another house. It will yeah you have to live the buildings you have to love that building so much that you're willing to put up with whatever downside that there is. I guess I guess to me it teaches a lesson. I get the opportunity to dig into the buildings by famous architects and

and these architects weren't trying to take it easy they weren't playing soft. They were they were they were sticking their necks out and daring the building to fail which they did. And I profit from that high. I learned so much more from building failure than from a soft success of buildings. Clients can fairly say to me sorry I hate paying for your education Mr. Rose. The less I appreciate I appreciate a plane without a net. Let's go to Terre Haute for the next caller that would be line number one. Hello. Hi. There was some discussion earlier on about whether a house can be beautiful or good looking and be efficient and not that 20 years ago we built a house in North Carolina. Julie a pedalo local architect helped us

and we love our house and. It really is very very efficient and we he is completely with some passive solar and we really like it. And both this functional house and has a pretty house that I think you're pointing out something that that very good and very important and that is that meeting the requirements of energy conservation functionality and beauty. It is actually more common than many of us give architecture credit for but often these buildings are not showing up showing up in magazines they're often not the signature buildings. They just happen to be the highest quality buildings that we have and there they don't draw so much attention they're not misbehaving the way a lot of other buildings are. I I

didn't come up with the building myself although I can think of dozens of them. I think for precisely the same reason that that you just mentioned they're there they're economical they're pretty. We love living in them. And if you discover them fine if not they're doing their job of keeping us happy. Yeah that's And we have tons of glass in the place. We look out over a nice northern view over a lake. We do get the northern winds coming sweeping across the lake at us. But Julie It really did a very good job of compensating for us. We keep hearing the names of women architects. Something must be happening in the field. Oh what Julie is that she was a Frank Lloyd Wright protege. And she built many design many public buildings in the terror of that area. Very good to know. Thank you. OK thanks a lot things have got. Well I feel fairly confident that today if we looked at the number of women that were in the architecture program

and compared that with 40 50 years ago I am sure that we would see a lot more. That's right. That's right I think a good half more or less of the students in architecture school are women. And are there more architects that would identify themselves I don't know if they would use if they would they would say they were practicing green architecture. But that's one of the terms I think that people have come to apply to an architecture that's concerned about impact on the environment. It's concerned with energy efficiency in design construction and that those are just things that routinely these designers incorporate into their design. Yes green architecture is becoming very common and it springs out of the recognition in the 1980's that striving for energy conservation isn't enough. The impacts of what we build and how we build it.

They haven't. These are buildings have a greater impact on the environment than just how much energy is extracted in oil. Instead all of the resources have to be have to be looked at. It's hard to find an architect now who is not in one way or another a green architect or claim to be a green architect there's a certain competition there is marketing there is to know were were becoming quite commercial in this green business trying to come up with standards the standards are well they're not as scientific as I might like to see a little more political than than that. Nevertheless they represent a very important effort on the part of the building community we have a couple of other people here we have maybe about 70 minutes left with Bill Rose. We'll talk next with someone on the line number two. Well I know you just read into the question that I was going to talk to you about

and I know that is your speaker's preservation and as far as preserving the building. But what I'd like to speak to that I'm sure architects probably don't even consider this very much is that these older buildings once they do definitely get beyond their their use. Full Life has some resources in him that are just really fabulous and unavailable to us nowadays. And I like to call lugging urban America and that in and these buildings come down and a lot of the lumber that's in it is lumber that is just not available anyplace to anyplace in the world not because it was original growth number the very very high quality. Right. Barns have an old factory Senate out on the East Coast. They get hard pine a lot from the old mills and stuff that they're tearing down. We see it here. I mean it's near a small community called Danville that they've tore down a lot of the older buildings here and some I've been able to get somewhat out of it but people don't think along those lines of salvaging this lumber that is a normal lumber. You raise a good point that that first growth lumber

is as irreplaceable a resource says as that petroleum it's underground. There is an effort in Champaign-Urbana to salvage old buildings managed by Paca the Preservation Association of champagne County the. And many other cities have salvage efforts as well. Still all of these salvage efforts recognize that we're dumpster ring string irreplaceable material and doing it at an atrocious pace. I like keeping the the buildings in place intact as much as possible salvaging of course is a back up plan in case the economic forces actually take it. Take the buildings down but the preservation people are getting pretty upset with the green people. The green people are saying

that we're saving resources and the preservation people are saying you can't even come close to the resource savings that we are able to achieve. And I'm kind of with preservation people on that. Well there are sometimes buildings to go beyond their useful life. The roof goes completely bad. The underpinnings are truly rotten. There's not very much lumber even available in some of these buildings sometimes and they do have to tear them down they do go beyond their useful life. And sometimes people take pictures of them. Lot of times they totally overlook the phenomenal number. So thank you very much. Thanks for the call. As you say that there are organizations like POC and what they do is if the building is being torn down they try to salvage whatever they you know doors windows staircases door knob you know just any old radiators I mean pretty much whatever's worth having it's a volunteer organization get involved in the thing that I wonder though is think about what the caller said.

I guess I thought that that most building codes actually say you can't use a lot of recycled building material is is that do I have that right. Yes. To some extent there are standards for products that are referenced in the building codes and that makes it that you're right that is an impediment to using some old materials. And I suppose if you were if you were building your own house out in the woods you could do whatever you wanted but I suppose if you're building in the middle of downtown Urbana that's you've you do at least have to abide by the Urbana building codes. That's right. War trying get one more caller here I think Line 3. Hi. I was wondering if we could go back for a moment to the Farnsworth house and talk about its live ability. With all that open plan and class well how are the bathrooms treated. And since Dr. Frederick left there for 20 years she must have made some sort of modifications to

make yourself happy for that amount of time. The bathrooms are totally enclosed. They're actually very nice. They're not particularly spacious because all of the service elements are contained within a core. Nevertheless they are far and away the most conventional part of the house. The there are there's of a little bit of storage. I think most people would want more work can we put this stuff would be a big question in that building but. It's still it's as a weekend retreat. I think it's. Doable it does look to me that and I'm looking here at up a website that has some pictures of the House that it's that some places there are some curtains. Yes there are curtains that can be drawn to cover all of the glass so you can't. You can if you want to yes cover and the curtains are integral to

the design of the building. And in fact they are so opaque that they tend their good insulators and they tend to chill the hot side surfaces and lead to a bit of corrosion. So there's a trade off that like this thread ought to matter what you. Well we're almost at the point we have to finish. Is there some some big lesson to be drawn from this particular place when we're talking about preservation. I would say yes in that we all have certain expectations of what our living spaces are supposed to be and let's shake that up a little bit. Let's let's visit places like this and ask these kinds of questions of what can we and can't we do in a in a building. It's I think it's inspiring that way. I mean well and the book now that you have coming out it's titled water in buildings an architects guide to moisture and mold Wiley is the publisher

of their website Wiley dot com has has a lead about it. It will be available next month or so. OK well maybe next time we come back we'll talk about that. But you interview authors by phone. I won't. Maybe you're going to have to call me on the phone rather than write me to the studio I'll have my people call your people. OK. Thank you very much. Sure. Bill Rose he's research architect building Research Council at the ovine every once in a while he is here on the program and we talk about the design and construction of the build environment.