hallways.
Not only did such straightforward, though not always obvious, approaches simplify the construction of the home and thereby save tremendous amounts of money, but the ideas delivered powerful, dramatic spaces of architecture. The design was not about crown moldings, vaulted ceilings, and arches; rather, the homes represented elemental aspects of architecture: light, proportion, scale, and space.
To save even more on costs, we found materials and finishes that were affordable but delivered the same sense of quality as is found in a luxury estate, such as porcelain floor tile in lieu of marble, textured precast concrete veneer in place of exterior limestone, or prefabricated cabinets of Italian high-finish laminates instead of custom wood or lacquered cabinets. We even created a new front-entry door concept, filling a fiberglass-shell door with concrete so as to affordably provide quality, security, and acoustic insulation. These ideas, alongside dozens more, delivered a high-end modern home at a budget previously considered impossible. We even planned to use prefabricated elements such as roof trusses that would be high in quality but save a tremendous amount of time and money.
In the first year of our design work, research, and development, we were designing without a physical site in mind since the developer had not yet purchased any properties. We planned in the abstract without a particular climate, orientation toward a particular view, specific topography, or solar direction. We were creating designs so potent in their simplicity that they were adaptable to any terrain, city, and general locale.
At the end of this first year, and after many presentations to potential investors, Alta Verde successfully landed a large capital commitment from an international investor and also obtained construction financing from two California lenders who embraced the Adler/Poon vision.
Things were about to move very quickly. Alta Verde’s first deal was in Palm Springs at a development called Escena. In 2010 and 2011, Poon Design developed four home prototypes for 130 lots on 21 acres. All four of our prototypes were three-bedroom homes, between 2,200 and 2,600 square feet, fitting on an average lot size of just 7,200 square feet.
We utilized many of the ideas from our first year of research, which we then adapted and enhanced for this desert climate. These ideas included extended roof overhangs for passive cooling and protection from the heat, drought-tolerant native landscaping, and the use of regional building materials. The green home scheme provided the base design with a reflective, energy-efficient cool roof, electric-car charger setups, LED lighting, and a 2- to 6-kW rooftop solar array.
The media following the project coined it “Modern for the Masses,” certainly a clever and appropriate moniker at the time. Danny Yee, our creative partner and graphic artist, dubbed the new kind of projects “This Century Modern,” a nod to the ever-popular Midcentury Modern that signaled the first phase of a different building style in California and around the world. Danny’s phrase acknowledged moving forward today and on toward the future.
At the time of this writing, nearly two hundred homes have been built and sold in just three years, and several new phases of presold home construction have begun. As intended, we delivered exclusive modern design to the general home-buying market at incredible value.
We transformed the production industry, raising it to a caliber previously witnessed only in custom, multimillion-dollar homes. With our design success, we discovered a whole new demographic that sought our modern architecture. The buyers loved the Alta Verde homes, the media loved them, and a dozen national design award committees did as well, honoring all of us with “best in class” industry accolades for design excellence from organizations such as the National Association of Home Builders. Our design partnership with Andrew Adler and his belief in us had paid off.
A closing note on any innovative yet affordable residential architecture.
A colleague of mine revisited the Levittown homes of the 1940s for a piece published in the New York Times on the fiftieth anniversary of the once-groundbreaking mass-production tract homes. Regardless of some architectural embellishments added on by homeowners over the decades, he reported that he could still see the basic shape of every home, repeated house after house. This bothered him at first, but only briefly. It occurred to him that he was looking for the original design, and therefore he saw it and was pleased. But does this bother me?
Five-foot saplings were now fifty feet tall. That’s fine. But my colleague saw changes to the original designs: new coats of paint with a garage added here, a sun porch there, even some roofs raised to allow second floors.
In some cases, I feel that homes are as alive as the inhabitants. The architecture molds and gets broken in like a pair of jeans, to reflect the evolution of one’s lifestyle. But on the other hand, I have witnessed, unfortunately too many times, the devastation of beautiful Midcentury homes by thoughtless remodels and additions in the seventies and eighties—just as one example.
Are my homes at Escena intended to be works of art, or do I now let them go into the untrained hands of the purchasers of my homes? What happens at a restaurant when a diner customer asks the Michelin-rated chef to substitute A-1 for his classic béarnaise sauce?
My ego, matched by the developer’s, would like to see our Escena home designs remain pure. The homeowners, supporting the concept that they have purchased a work of art, have expressed little interest in adding their own brushstrokes of color to what are essentially pieces of modern art and sculpture.
To ensure our philosophy, we even added clauses to the sales contracts and community guidelines that prohibit architectural alterations. Sure, the landscape will change and grow, but certainly no second stories, added trellises and entry features, or guest-bedroom additions are allowed at our community.
Unlike many other residential developers who allow homeowners to choose from many options of paint colors, kitchen countertops, bathroom tiles, and so on, with Alta Verde Group, we decided that we produced the best compositions of residential design. If the home buyers do not like the model they see, they should consider looking at another one. If that doesn’t work out, perhaps they should visit a competing developer’s community. Our confidence has proven acceptable, as Alta Verde outsells all other developers in the region combined. Month after month.
No, I have not created Fallingwater or the Palace of Versailles, where such iconic designs are worth preserving forever. We have merely offered the newest ideas to an industry of production homes starving for fresh designs. But I do believe that in many cases, and perhaps in mine, that the original vision of an architect should be respected. The rest is up to history.
GREENWASHING
All the human and animal manure which the world wastes, if returned to the land, instead of being thrown into the sea, would suffice to nourish the world.
VICTOR HUGO
Saving the planet has become an intense topic of popular and political debate. What you may not know is that for decades, the means to this end has been deceptively marketed to consumers, often to the detriment of the cause. The architecture and building industry has been as complicit as anyone.
Since the environmental movement of the ’60s, and the founding in 1970 of both the first Earth Day and the EPA, most people have been aware of myriad things they could do to make the world an ecologically sounder place, from recycling to using unleaded gasoline. Madison Avenue has exploited our desire to do good—or to be seen as doing good.
In the 1980s, a researcher discovered that those ubiquitous tent cards in hotel bathrooms
