Leonardo's

What is more fun than tinkering with real tools in a well equipped workshop? Visit Leonardo's Children's Museum to see the newest exhibit designed by architect John Merz of Corbin & Merz Architects. Intern architect Kingkini Arend had a hand in making this exhibit the showpiece of the main floor by showing some real creativity in coming up with the concept for the tinkering sign that was fabricated by Henson Construction Company.  Intern architect John Arend also contributed to the functional creativity that makes this exhibit a popular stop for museum visitors.

John Merz, John Arend and interior designer Erin Haney play with the magnetic galvanized metal pegboard wall, arranging plumbing pipes and other component parts into kinetic abstract art.

Kids play with real tools at the fully functional workbench.  The Craftsman cabinets, laminated butcher block top, vise, and tools that hang on the pegboard wall are all the real deal, and any professional carpenter would love this setup!

Erin Haney, John Merz, Kingkini Arend, and John Arend of Corbin & Merz Architects are all smiles after giving the construction work on the Tinkering Exhibit at Leonardo's Children's Museum a thorough final inspection.  It all works! 

Farewell to the Broadway Tower

Corbin & Merz Architects recently moved to a new office on the mezzanine of the Hiland  Tower in downtown Enid.  We love it, although we are not completely unpacked, no pictures  of our work are hung yet; heck, we haven't even hung our certificates and licenses yet.  Rest assured they are right there in a box by the door if anyone needs to see them.  We are waiting until the two big pieces of green stained glass are hung in the reception area and the 12-foot ladder needed to reach the custom-made oak brackets the glass will hang from is returned to the building maintenance guys at Hiland.  Then we will hang stuff that might get knocked down or broken while folding and carrying out the ladder.

Pictured here is our old office that was on the fourth floor of the Broadway Tower.  The green, pink, purple and aqua glass is just visible behind the pottery vase holding the yucca pods on our reception counter.  They are on long-term loan from a friend who kept them under her bed until she realized the aqua color matches our conference chairs, and we might actually have a place to use them for decoration. In the old office they were hung from old iron hay loft fixtures scavenged from an old barn near Carrier, Oklahoma.  This space was gutted when we first rented it in 1993 and we kept the concrete deck as our ceiling.  Even the ceiling tile sales representative  liked the loft style atmosphere it gave to our office. 

 

        The Former Office of  Corbin & Merz Architects,
           back when we were known as Corbin Associates.

We built the glass block wall that defined a small conference area by ourselves, had a few gyp board partitions put in by Bass Construction Company, installed carpet and decided that was all we needed.  We used the left-over glass blocks as bookends.  Many of the plants you see in the picture are congratulation gifts from our friends and clients.

The very best thing about this office was the wonderful windows and views we had of downtown and of David Allen Ballpark that was designed by Corbin Associates, as we were known then.  We could even read the scoreboard!  We also had an excellent view of the elevators,  great landmarks that speak to the heritage of the City of Enid, and when the sunset lit them up in pink and orange, they were absolutely glorious.  We witnessed many beautiful sunsets and even rainbows from these windows.  In fact, the evening of the day we moved in, doing all the labor ourselves--we didn't have a whole lot of stuff--we were finally sitting down and resting, having an enforced break caused by a light rain shower, and we looked out these windows in the photo and there was a big, beautiful, full-arch rainbow!  We knew it was there for us, and we were so elated and happy and hopeful, and yes, everything did turn out well for us. 

John Merz became a partner in the firm. The Broadway Tower was purchased by a new owner and is now in the process of being transformed into a boutique hotel.  We subsequently moved to the Hiland Tower just a few blocks away, and when the green glass is finally hung up again and the certificates and licenses are back up on the wall, our new office will be complete.

A Proposal for Stage Center

We have been reading about Stage Center in Oklahoma City and how its days are numbered as the site is being looked at as a location for a new office tower.  We have always liked the building and appreciated the fact that it is a piece of sculpture as well as a building.  We attended plays there in years past--"Quilters" was one of our favorites, but recently, we just park, get out and walk around, marveling at the multicolored boxes, tubes and ramps all connected like a great big tinker-toy construction and it suddenly occurred to us that the perfect use for this building would be a museum for tinker-toys and other construction toys--Lincoln Logs, Erector sets and those Frank Lloyd Wright blocks among others.

Photo credit: Lynne Rostochil

There are people who are always building grandiose and imaginative constructions with these toys and then discover they have no room to store them and they can't bear to tear it down, or their Mom or wife insists that they get rid of the huge wobbly thing because they need the den for the garden club meeting or the back bedroom for the daughter moving back in after her divorce.  The Construction Toys Museum is a place they could call and donate the thing to them for display. Win-win for everyone! 

Seriously, classic toys are collectible and the construction toys are some of the most loved, most collected and cherished of all toys, and one of the most creative and versatile, too.  There are already museums featuring these classics, but none of them look like they were built out of a great big set of construction blocks.  Oklahoma City could have the premier construction toy museum in the whole wide world!

Besides the Lincoln Logs and Erector Sets, there are Legos, ABC blocks of all kinds, construction blocks with rectangles, arches and columns, castle blocks and the Construx sets.  Vintage sets are available as well as brand-new versions of the classic toys.  Displays could include some of the fantastic and outlandishly large constructions, there could be playrooms where kids could build stuff, contests could be sponsored to encourage creative competition. The history and stories of the creators and inventors could be featured in films or display backdrops.

How cool would it be to re-purpose this building for something that would enhance Oklahoma City's already growing reputation as a family-friendly, fun-loving destination?

Glass Tree

Glass Tree is one of our favorite Big Houses.  It was built in the early 1980's and the picture here was taken during construction.  Looking at the photo, it is obvious why we called it "Glass Tree."  The mullion pattern in the big living room window reminds us of the trunk and branches of a tree, stylized to be sure, abstract, but a tree of glass with wood branches and trunk.  The wood is cedar and the glass is quarter-inch plate that is very heavy and strong.  The masonry is split-face block.  

The wooded landscape surrounding Glass Tree
 is reflected in the living room window.

The house is situated on a large lot in a country development and surrounded by mature trees.  It was designed for friends of ours, a very good engineer and his wife, a gifted pianist. One room, on the opposite side of the house from this window, was dedicated to house the grand piano.  We remember it as a grand room also, with a grand view as well.

The house has had several owners since it was built and we are pleased that the current owner has done the house justice with landscaping that takes advantage of the beautiful terrain.

Although we have designed many houses--large and small--since this one, we still find this particular window to be one to be one of the most evocative and romantic house elevations to have made the transition from our design on paper to actual glass, wood and masonry. 

The House From Outer Space

Anyone who has ever toured a lot of houses with a real estate agent has probably had at least one of them point out the windows in the home and make a comment something like "Windows are the eyes of a house," intending to communicate something like "Look at the view," or so we would hope.  Sadly, often the comment could be a little too literal because some houses have faces!  Okay, you have to use your imagination, but if you look around, especially in new developments, you will see the symmetry of the human face on the facade of quite a few homes--two eyes, one on either side of a nose or mouth.  An alien has landed in the neighborhood and it is waiting...waiting for some landscaping to soften the disconcerting effect observant passers-by might have of being watched by an inanimate object.

Dormers can be especially scary when they are too large and rise up a little too high--it can be the mutant frog effect if the dormers are rounded on the top.  Pointy, skinny dormers can make the house look haunted, possessed by a tortured soul.  If the dormers are too small or the roof too large the effect might be that of little pimples popping up on a large forehead.  Yeah, you have to use your imagination, but if you see a house that strikes you as ugly, when it is obviously trying very hard to be impressive, just look at it and try to figure out why.  Often it is a matter of proportion that is out of scale with everything else.  Don't get us started on fake dormers--all we can do is ask "Why, why?"  All dormers should be real, functional and add light and space to the room they are in and charm to the home's exterior.

An example of a house trying to be something it is not is what we call "The Tract House Palace."  This is a little house on a little lot trying to be a big house.  Some features of this house are the double-height entryway with a giant light fixture hanging like the pendulum of doom from the entry roof, huge multi-paned windows that extend all the way to the roof line and all the way to the corner of the house with no grace space around them--every feature is large and overpowering in scale.  Think of those cute little dolls that are so popular with little girls right now that have the big heads, big eyes and lips, and big hair on top of an impossibly skinny little body.

Speaking of dolls, we have heard some tract houses referred to as "Doll Houses" and many of them are virtually identical to all the houses around them.  Some are in developments with covenants that obviously require the use of the same roof-lines, shingles and brick color.  With the curvy, confusing street layouts, how would you ever find your own house?  Even the mail boxes are the same.  The obvious solution is to park a Hummer in the driveway or a sexy little red sports car, perhaps--a car that says "This Is Me!"

Seriously, we know that tract houses have their place in providing affordable housing that can be quickly built to serve areas that are experiencing a surge in population and that some are better than others.  But there should be some rules--No fake dormers, no fake shutters, no ripple roofs just for the fun of it, watch your symmetry and proportion so that your house doesn't look like an alien from outer space.  That's all.

Better Safe Than Sorry

The tornado in Moore, Oklahoma that destroyed two elementary schools, causing many injuries and the deaths of 7 children, brought the issue of safe rooms in schools to the forefront of the discussions on school security.  Corbin & Merz Architects strongly believe in planning ahead for this type of natural disaster that is all too common in our state, especially in the springtime afternoons when school is still in session or after-school sports and activities are scheduled.  We have recommended the inclusion of safe areas for every school we have built and most, though not all, school officials have agreed that this is a money well spent and less expensive to include in initial planning than trying to do later. It's better to be safe than sorry.

Our new school under construction  in Mustang, Oklahoma, Canyon Ridge Elementary on Sara Road, has 5 hardened rooms, one in each of the 4 pods, and a fully hardened music room in the center of the school.  We watched the weather reports anxiously as the recent storms whirled down I-40 past El Reno toward the western suburbs of Oklahoma City, worrying about our relatives and friends--and our school.  Fortunately, none were hit, and we were glad we had done due diligence in the planning for safe rooms in Canyon Ridge.  It's better to be safe than sorry.

Another elementary school we have planned for North Enid, Oklahoma has two long hardened corridors that span the length of the school on two sides for quick access if necessary.  While still facing a bond issue, patrons will surely welcome the inclusion of safe areas for the most precious assets any family has--their children.  It's better to be safe than sorry.

The  classroom addition at Enid High School has a hardened corridor.  So does Pleasantvale Elementary School  in the the Pioneer School District located just east of Enid.  We designed the safe areas in these schools because we know this one thing  for a fact--It's better to be safe than sorry.

Oklahoma Bible Academy has two safe areas.  The original building, the Academic Center, has a hardened corridor, and when we added the the Advanced Learning Center we designed the connecting corridor between the two areas with hardened construction as well.  The school people at OBA specifically requested these areas be included in the planning because they know that it's better to be safe than sorry.

This architecture firm, Corbin & Merz Architects, has always recommended areas such as safe rooms or hardened corridors in schools as an important part of  planning simply because believe that when it comes to tornadoes, it's better to be safe than sorry!

The Little House

The Little House is a unique challenge to an architect--if only because a Little House often (but not always) has a little budget and possibly a small lot to build upon, while the prospective owner has big ideas and expectations.  After all, they would not have called us if this were not so!  Fortunately, we appreciate the challenge of designing livable Little Houses--houses that live big but are economical to build and/or efficient in use of space.

One of our favorite Little Houses is actually built in the center of a very large wooded lot.  With two bedrooms and a galley kitchen, it has great views from its large windows and is surrounded by a spacious deck.  It is an artist's house, and the deck leads to a small rustic studio where the artist can create her beautiful pottery just steps away from her main house. Everything in the house is skillfully edited, including the displays of paintings and pottery, so the rooms seem quite spacious.

We believe that bringing the outdoors inside with big windows is one way to make a Little House seem bigger--natural light has a way of illuminating walls with an ever-changing quality of shimmer and shadow that adds interest and beauty to interiors.  Beautiful landscaping, even on a small lot, gives the Little House a setting that provides charm and privacy and something to look at besides the driveway and street. Outdoor living space--patios for  for cooking outdoors, flower beds for gardening, and porches or patios for relaxing on nice days can make a Little House live larger.

A few years ago we had the opportunity to design a prototype "low-income" Little House that could be built economically, but would have everything a family  of four or more might need or want in a home.  Square footage would have to be limited to keep costs down.  The plan was basically a "great room" with kitchen  on one end and bedrooms and bath along one side.  The carport had built-in storage on the end.  The plan was nicer and had more amenities than most apartments we ever lived in!

The most luxurious Little House we have ever designed is elegant country house set on a small bluff in the middle of a rugged Oklahoma pasture.  It is solid stone and when the wind blows, it does not move, not even a tiny creak is heard--it is stone solid!  The front entry to this country cabin is very practical--leading to a mud room/laundry, then a pantry, then a great room for living/dining that includes a state-of-the-art galley-type kitchen/bar with top of the line appliances, including an under-cabinet wine refrigerator.  The house has one bedroom and bathroom and four gas fireplaces.  Two are outdoors, one at the front entry, and a big fire pit on the back patio. Inside are fireplaces in the sitting area of the main room and one in the small library just off the back patio.  All the lighting, furniture, artwork, bedding, and even the kitchen accouterments are carefully chosen, simple, but luxuriously beautiful--a testament to good taste.  There is a bunk-house close by for guests, and a large multi-vehicle garage/storage barn, all in matching stone, and with the Little House they form a courtyard enclosure that gives a sense of security to the remote setting.