Artist's Building in West Oakland, By William Edward Summers

This very simple two story house was designed for an artist in gritty West Oakland, California. the exterior had the appearance of a Victorian house, and the interior consisted of this loft like first floor, and a second floor bedroom

Links

http://www.designenvelope.com/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B-jg_w-9RaI&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4gYkyDruYRE&feature=related

http://aboutwilliamedwardsummers.wordpress.com/tag/william-edward-summers/

http://aboutwilliamedwardsummers.wordpress.com/2011/09/

http://aboutwilliamedwardsummers.wordpress.com/2011/10/

http://aboutwilliamedwardsummers.wordpress.com/2011/11/

Television;

http://www.designenvelope.com/television.htm

San Francisco Chronicle;

http://articles.sfgate.com/2006-08-18/entertainment/17305479_1_remodeling-whole-house-renovation

Ephemera;

http://ephemera.typepad.com/ephemera/2007/04/interview_with__1.html

Partial list of articles:

http://www.designenvelope.com/articles.htm

http://williamedwardsummersbiography.blogspot.com/

http://williamedwardsummersbiography.blogspot.com/2011_09_01_archive.html

http://williamedwardsummersbiography.blogspot.com/2011_10_01_archive.html

http://williamedwardsummersbiography.blogspot.com/2011_11_01_archive.html

Television Interview of William Edward Summers

The Weather Channel interviewed designer William Edward Summers about how to create a disaster resistant building



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B-jg_w-9RaI

The traditional American single-family house is not designed to withstand disasters. Ideally a house should offer good protection from floods, fires, earthquakes, storms, civil unrest and financial difficulties. Most houses today are designed with substantial input from building contractors who have the primary goal of selling for the highest price.

The disaster resistant building project by William Edward Summers, a San Francisco, and British Columbia based design theorist, explores ideas about how residential and small to mid-sized commercial buildings can be designed to be disaster resistant.

The ongoing project is presented at Summers’ website www.designenvelope.com. 

Three quick suggestions from Summers’ project;

1) Use attics or half stories, rather than roof trusses, to add substantial, usable square footage to your building for very little additional cost.

2) Build at least one full story above the one hundred year flood plain and consider building the first floor walls in concrete.

3) Allow room for a potential future rental unit even if you never intend to have tenants. If not used to create cash flow, it still might come in handy for use by friends or family members, or as quarters for a live in nurse or domestic assistant.

The purpose of this blog

The purpose of this blog is to provide information for the author creating a biography of William Edward Summers. I will be posting transcribed articles, graphics, and whatever I can find that may be useful. To avoid spam, and sociopaths, I will be receiving comments via email, rather than on the blog. Please forward comments, photos, etc,  to me, at this website; www.designenvelope.com, or  him at www.aboutwilliamedwardsummers.wordpress.com