For at least 25 years we photographed all aspects of our projects every day, over & over again. We had many hundreds of photos that vanished some years ago through a couple of global computer viruses.
HISTORIC BLOCK OF MENASHA
The WeatherVane restaurant is located in the Historic Block of Menasha. It is photographed above, several years ago as 186 before and after. We were able to save all of the masonry through some great advice from seasoned restoration architects from the Boston area.
Much of the brick on the first floor was removed, and then relayed with its opposite face to the front. Other gifts of knowledge made the cleaning and restoration of the 2nd floor possible.
All of the glazing and windows were replaced, non restorable.
The tower caps above the roofline (1 missing) looked like 150 years of age, the masonry work was similar to that below, but perhaps due to less salt & street debris, was more intact and much more laborious to repair.
The iron & sheet metal of the caps was simply aged into ruins & rebuilt (with most parts replaced) entirely by local skill and great talent.
The cleaning of these 1000's of brick was tedious and delicate, Milwaukee Cream City brick cannot be "pressure" washed in any way, but was greatly brightened by proven quality cleaning compounds, carefully applied.
Custom Architecture
On the small scale, like a house, custom designs either function well or just don't.
Good design is pleasing to most eyes, but maybe too personalized to the private parties.
Generally speaking, good architecture just feels good to see, or be in.
The good stuff goes beyond words or pictures when you walk in and likely continues to appeal through time.
This custom home was an early work combining youthful fearlessness with the necessity to appeal and sell fast.
Open concept design omits some walls where it can. Where they are needed, it can be nice for them to flow in angular and radiale interconnections among regular 90's.
This front entry is a blending surprise to most. It flows past the stairway into the greatroom. Later, the many plant shelves & decks flowed with colorful life. It is a pleasing & appealing space in which to work or play.
Headwaters Condominiums
Headwaters was designed and built with a luxury focus on privacy. Substantial additional investment provided dual-door elevators equipped and programmed to access only 1 home per travel.
Being directly on the waterfront, the property had extremely demanding soil & subsoil issues.
Through the skill of a superb team of local engineers & specialist, several feet of the site was replaced with specified materials. The foundations are large, deep, and tediously detailed in their design.
Some of homes interiors were lavishly customized per the buyer/owners' requests.
STC ratings and energy efficiency were equal priority to style. The homes are quiet, and very stable in living comfort.
Bao Ju Gourmet
These folks opened a very fine restaurant many years ago.
Over 40 years of design & construction for us, this redevelopment project stands out as a strikingly unusual and successful endeavor.
Equal credit must be given to the Planning and Development staff of the City. They knew that the restaurant owner had long been very successful in another location, but still, they pulled a rabbit out of the hat to enable this one to succeed.
The details would be boring, but the Key cause of the final design of the structure, the actual shape & size of the building, was Parking.
The property only had a few stalls and our design for a normal parking lot set off a rollercoaster of effects.
The building had to get smaller on one side and bigger on another, in order to comply with codes!
There were so many effects of the Code demands and constraints that no one was actually happy with the final result, but it did open with nearly ample parking and proceeded extremely well.
A THOROUGH RESCONSTRUCTION
The story of course has thousands of details, but the house had sunk roughly 10 inches in two corners and was abandoned and left on path for condemnation and seizure by the city.
A family member contacted us asking for options and quite an undertaking unfolded.
The folks that jacked this old house up & out of the muck, knew they're stuff.
The older gentlemen that did the excavation under this elevated mess, was a master at his work.
With new foundations down a way, we reconstructed a very nice home with some pretty nice stuff inside.
The reconstruction increased real property values for several neighboring properties.
