by Riley Shiraishi

Monday, October 17, 2011

RS: 1. How long have you been working in your trade?

JVP: I studied architecture for 6 years before graduating. I have been working in architecture for about 20 years.

RS: 2. What do you enjoy about your job?

JVP: I enjoy taking many requirements and integrating them into a beautiful solution.

RS: 3. What is difficult about your job?

JVP: Funding for architecture is often difficult. Unlike being an artist that just has to please herself, I have to please the owner, the occupant, the building department, the code, the planning department, and hopefully the neighborhood.

RS: 4. How have rules regarding eco-friendly standards changed over the years?

JVP: Building codes are written to a lowest common dominator. To build well any structure the architect must design beyond the base code. These days many people use an additional method of checking for environmental design, such as LEED developed by the US Green Building Council.

RS: 5. Do you think it has become easier or harder to incorporate environmentally friendly elements into the home? Why or why not?

JVP: I think it is much easier now that the industry has finally jumped on the green ethos and many people are improving the knowledge base and selling green products.

RS: 6. Do you think that homeowners should incorporate eco-friendly elements into their home?

JVP: I think it would be foolish to not use all available knowledge to make better functioning higher quality home.

RS: 7. If so, what is one realistic change people can make?

JVP: Many features can be added to a new home during design at no extra cost. For existing buildings Solar Thermal panels or Photovoltaic panels are an easy addition to use free energy from the sun.

RS: 8. How do you feel you are making a difference in your community?

JVP: I am here to make the community better through healthy, beautiful buildings with the maximum positive environmental impact, and minimum negative impact.

RS: 9. In what specific ways would the world be a better place if more people would choose to “go green”?

JVP: Buildings us about 55% of all energy, and use large amounts of resources to be built. The trend for the future is for buildings to have enough power generation through the use of green tech like photo voltaic to be “power positive”, or feeding more energy back into the grid than they need. The more solar power generation capacity we have the less CO2 we will have emitted through fossil fuels. By using long lasting materials we reduce overall cost. By using quickly renewed materials like bamboo we reduce deforestation and allow more CO2 to be pulled out of the atmosphere. Fast growing plant buildings materials provide long term carbon sequestration.

RS: 10. What final words of advice would you leave with homeowners everywhere?

JVP: Today we have made many advances in building technology. Our environment is changing, but so is our knowledge. It makes both fiscal and environmental sense to design and build using what we now know, and not building the way our parents did.

Materials that would well weather the blast of the Trade Winds were chosen, with a roof of red cedar shingles and copper flashing, shiplap red cedar on the second floor, and cement stucco on the first floor. Travertine was the principal flooring inside and outside on the ground level to bring the two together. Upstairs, crisp white walls with large windows sit on a rich wood flooring.

Project designed while employed at Peter Vincent Architects

Our Heritage
The islands of Hawaii are one of the newest pieces of land borne out of our beautiful Pacific Ocean geologically speaking. Each new species or tribe has come to this island has colonized his own way, and brought with it its own unique flavor of construction architecture.
The Polynesians brought methods using natural materials that grew here, or used the native stone. This is often considered the foundation of Hawaiian architecture. Each ethnic group that followed brought their own culture to the island, sometimes incorporating Hawaiian elements into their own work. Whether from New England to Japan, Indonesia or Germany each brought building techniques were that were incorporated into the plantation style.
With the end of World War II and the arrival of true statehood in United States, development proceeded at a pace that had hitherto been unknown in the islands. As commercial jets became commonplace Island open to tourism and a whole new wave of people discovered the beauty of the islands.
In the 60s, the architects of Hawaii were of highly idealistic character. It was the height of modernism, and the “International style” was the theory that ruled the day. They created a type of modernism that incorporated needs directly related to the local lifestyle and culture. Today, global warming, escalated pollution, and reduced sources of fresh pure water have reenergized movements for clean developments of all kinds.

Today’s Mandate: Protect our Children’s Future Using Today’s Technology
Hawaii’s mild climate and limited resources has produced in most instances a minimalist attitude towards construction, building to the lowest standard because that was all that could be afforded and was necessary 95% of the time. Whether building a traditional Halau of lauhala, or a single wall plantation cabin of clear redwood peace homes were built to fill an immediate need and not to withstand the test of time. Our knowledge of what makes a healthy and safe building has greatly increased. We now have the ability to build structures that can withstand earthquakes and hurricanes, and diminish the possibilities of airborne pathogens such as mold, mildew and dust. All that is required to do this is just the determination to do so. Foresight takes time to work through all possible scenarios, but given the well and the time it is possible to think through and make a design that will solve the problems of shelter and environment. We should not seek a quick fix for difficult problems, or we risk failure.

Symbiotic Shelters
At the heart of all of this is the goal to provide a safe environment for our children and our grandchildren. By thinking outside the box of traditional architecture we can move forward to create architecture that actually improves the environment, saves water, generates electricity, and improves air quality both inside and outside. The key is to treat construction has a symbiotic organism in the local environment that has significant impacts. Determine all the environmental impacts the green field site would have and all the benefits. Then you would also determine all of the required functions of the building to be produced on that site. From this list of performance features one can work backward to create a design that when constructed would fulfill both the needs of the building occupants while creating a better environment than what would have been there in a green field site. The past 30 years has produced a great deal of research as to functional techniques to perform these goals. It is up to each one of us to have the sense to seek these techniques out and use them.

Copyright ©2011 by Jessë Valentine Portz

Spacecraft LLC’s most notable built work can be seen in Hāʻula on the island of Oʻahu, Hawaiʻi. Jessë Valentine was the sole architect of record and designer of a comfortable contemporary tropical home with fabulous views, indoor-outdoor living and natural ventilation. Construction was completed in 2009.

With more than 15 years experience in the field of architecture, Jessë Valentine has worked as a design project architect, project manager, and construction manager. In 2002, she gained her architecture license in the state of California and has been a licensed architect in the state of Hawaiʻi since 2005. She holds a bachelor’s of architecture from the California College of the Arts in San Francisco.

In San Francisco, Jessë Valentine worked as junior designer with the Mark Horton Architecture and Studios Architecture firms, staff architect with Fee Munsen Ebert and project manager with Architecture and Planning. Projects included a data center in Santa Clara, retail including Sephora shops, The Sharper Image, and many large and small-scale commercial offices and residential homes. In Honolulu, Hawaiʻi, Jessë Valentine has gained experience as a project architect and architectural designer working with Franklin Wong Associates and Peter Vincent Architects private consulting firms. Work at Franklin Wong Associates focused on school renovations for clients Kamehameha Schools, and the State of Hawaiʻi. At Peter Vincent Architects, Jessë Valentine specialized in the design of custom luxury homes in Kāhala, Kailua, and Hawaiʻi Kai on the island of Oʻahu.

Martin Luther King Jr. and Civil Rights Movement Monument Competition Entry
Washington D.C.

produced in collaboration

Anthony Allen: master planner
Jesse Valentine Portz: architect

The planning of this memorial is designed around the visitor’s procession through the monument, which represents the history of people of African ancestry in America.
Entering from the parking lot, visitors cross a reflecting pool via a series of bridges, representing a multiplicity of paths crossing the Atlantic. Each bridge arrives at a circle, which represents arrival in the new world. At this point visitors are faced with a path crossed with a series of blockades. Planted around the blockades are cotton plants, a symbol in the community which cuts past the prosaic to stir memory. Each blockade represents the struggle for equality of civil rights, telling stories of each trial and difficult achievement of success etched in the glass of the blockade.
Visitors, after zig-zaging around the barriers, arrive at a series of curved glass walls etched with photographs documenting the civil rights struggle of the 20th century. Rising out pools of water and illuminated from beneath, these images glow at night, a recognizable landmark for passersby. Veiled by these glowing panels is a black granite columnar pavilion. The building’s plan is based on ten radial axies, with five doors (voids) and five walls (solids). Each void axis after passing through the center becomes a solid wall, functioning as a space of collecting and coming together. Cut through the center of each opposite wall seen when entering the pavilion is a sliver of frosted glass glowing with light from outside. Running down the glass is a stream of water, which falls to a glass covered channel in the floor, and finally connects to run together in a circular pool in the center, a metaphor for the people of this nation. Above the pool is an oculus in the cable suspended glass roof, to allow fresh waters from above to join. Etched into the granite walls inside is a tribute to the philosophy and achievements of Martin Luther King, Jr., and our desire to continue in the pursuit of his dream. After leaving the pavilion, visitors finally arrive at his statue, looking out over the water.

Site Plan

View from street

View from street

Procession through the Monument

Monument Plan

Lateral Section

South Elevation

West Elevation

copyright 2000 Anthony Allen and Jesse Valentine Portz

In Spacecrafting, we seek to design habitations that go beyond the typical requirements people associate with buildings. To properly design spacecraft, we design a dwelling or space habitation that is a complete system. Rather than create a building that occupies land, we create a building that is symbiotic with the landscape around it.

If one first brings to mind a spacecraft, most would think of a vessel to travel through outer space. In order to allow the inhabitants to survive the round trip through outer space, an entire system of biological functions must be included in the workings of the spacecraft. The traditional method designing and building is to provide shelter and commodity for its occupants. While this is a necessary function, it does not analyze the complete biological systems required for survival.

Some benefits:

• providing habitat for flora and fauna.
• Purification of water through natural systems.
• Purification of air by increasing biological plant carrying capacity per acre to reduce CO2.
• Providing carbon neutral power with built-in power generation systems.
• Eliminating building related illnesses.
• Providing high-quality lighting with no cost overhead.
• Including built-in food production small-scale farming.
• Providing many views and much light to improve psychological well-being.

Artist loft South 3/4 View of Model

Artist Loft Model Section View

Copyright ©1992 by Jessë Valentine Portz