Last week, we received a wonderful email from one of our clients! It began: "We have really enjoyed the house architecture. We agree that you captured the essence of what we were seeking. It is probably the most comfortable and functional home we have lived in, and we look forward to many years here."

Not all of Larry Gilland Associates Studios' work is in Colorado Springs. We have also completed projects in many other regions of the Colorado Rockies. Residences in the mountains require resilient structural design and moisture protection in response to the mounds of snow which could cover them during the colder months of the year. LGA is familiar with all the little details which enable houses to withstand inclement weather.

Last week, Dawn Streb and Lisa Morrell of LGA Studios passed the Construction Document Technologist exam! Larry Gilland already carries this certification. The exam covers knowledge of the construction process, construction documents, and contractual relationships during the building process.

These days not all housing news is good, but it is still fun to see an LGA-designed house on the front page of the local paper. Houses in the $2.5 million range aren't doing very well these days. LGA Studios has certainly seen an increase in remodeling and new mid-sized houses. As you can see, the author of this blog has had too much high-priority business to write this past month! I will work to remedy that situation.

LGA Studio's associate Heather Attardo was recently involved in an ecological renovation. In the Las Vegas' suburbs, the 50-yr old house was archetypically energy inefficient. Although ranch-style, the hallways and bathrooms more enclosed than the modern user prefers.

In 2007, Larry Gilland volunteered to design a library remodel with a team of junior high students. The North Middle school library in Colorado Springs had been long overdue for an update and the local nonprofit group Bridges decided to take on the project. Two of LGA's clients, Shelley and Jeff Jensen, led the group and approached Larry about working with them.

LGA Studios and Lines and Designs have been generating ideas for a former Benedictine monastery in Canon City, the Holy Cross Abbey. The following sketch by illustrator J David Thorpe is of the cemetery gate that would replace the current chain link fence. In the future we hope to be further involved with Holy Cross Abbey's restoration.

In this cold cold weather, the heating bills can be high! Insulating well is an energy-saving "green" choice which is also beneficial to the bank account. The graphic below illustrates where the heat created by machines and bodies goes out of the typical house. How do you prevent this? Some ways are more obvious - double-paned insulated windows can keep down heat loss through fenestrations.

The 21st Street Car Wash here in Colorado Springs is soon to convert one of their car wash stalls into a dog wash facility! Quite a creative business move. Inside, there will be two self-serve dog wash units. It's an extremely simple construction project but because of its unusual nature there are a number of code questions, and hoops to jump through at the building department. Our role, along with providing basic construction drawings, is to take care of these details.

This week we've had the opportunity to do some sketches of cottages for the Talking Rock Resort Community in Prescott, Arizona. At present there are many lots in this community available for purchase, but the cottages we're envisioning would be luxury rentals or timeshares.

In 2008 LGA Studios designed a home for Charlie Shea homes in the Pine Creek neighborhood that has now been awarded a Gold in the Green Building Certification program under NAHB! This home received the first Green Building certification in El Paso county and the second Green Building certification in the state—which is the first gold certification in the state.

This unique house is located in southwest Colorado Springs, and as you can see the neighborhood is lush and beautiful! An "earthship" is a house constructed of recycled tires which are covered in stucco most commonly found in New Mexico. They are built to be independent of the electrical grid or in other words "zero energy."

As architects we love to pioneer fresh ideas, but our job is also to give our clients what they want. That's why I was glad to see some of these trends in AIA’s (American Institute of Architect's) Home Design Trends Survey for the first quarter of 2009: Two-thirds of residential architects report increasing interest in low-maintenance landscaping (e.g. xeriscaping).

Our proposal for the Alamosa Town Hall Center will be put to the vote on September 2nd! The city of Alamosa was planning a remodel to their current offices, but Darin Dolce of DFD Development proposes that instead they move into the former Kmart building. The Kmart building has significantly more parking, a more visible location and, unlike the remodel, won't require any of the historic buildings in town to be demolished.

At the end of the year, Wild Ginger Thai will be moving, and it's been our pleasure to help them with the design of their new location. They'll be going from their current 3,000 SF location in Colorado Springs to the 8,330 SF former Eagle Graphics building in Manitou Springs.

Site work has begun on one of our LEED-H projects—a new house in the Broadmoor area with a lovely courtyard. Intentional construction procedures are part of building an eco-friendly house. One of these is erosion control, or in other words, preventing the natural soils around the property from being stripped away.

This past Saturday LGA Studios, in partnership with Facility Lines and Designs and Peak Development Company Inc, participated in the Dream City 2020 competition. Our entry was a poster for a project in the conceptual phase - Mesa Park. Already developed by the Peak Development Company, these 11 lots will be built with LEED-certified homes in different architectural styles.

One of LGA's newly finished projects is a interior remodel for Conservation Hardware. They are also our office's neighbor in the 409 Tejon building, and what a fantastic neighbor! Conservation Hardware is a unique non-profit organization with the goal of helping the people of Colorado Springs decrease their carbon footprints. They do this by educating consumers and by selling home products—anything from CFL lightbulbs to radon sensors to composters—at very reasonable wholesale prices.

Hello and welcome! We plan to share pictures and information about LGA's current projects through this blog. There is so much we've been learning lately about sustainable building, "healthy homes," and unusual building materials—it's been keeping us quite busy! Thanks for visiting, and we hope you enjoy our future posts.