24 Replies to “Embrace Hollywood!”

  1. I practiced commercial Interior Design for plus 25 years, the last 3 were spent doing Timber Frame/stick frame houses. My brother was an architect. I am very surprised that wood was used as primary construction material in a very wet climate. The picture attached showed wood pilings. I would have used 12″ diameter concrete forms, down 48″ into the ground OR the new spiral metal footings. Besides rotting, wood just attracts carpenter ants and termites – living in Toronto taught me NO wood to soil contact at all.

    1. I laughed when one person said these homes would be fine in CA (Malibu) NOT

      You need treated wood when exposed to the outside weather. I lived in CA for 50 years and remodeled my home a few times.

    2. The very same thought crossed my mind as well. When you take into consideration New Orleans exceptionally high water table, humidity and yearly rainfall you’re just begging to have rotted out posts – treated wood or not. I might make an exception for White oak, , but that presents a cost issue.

      There’s a reason the dead are interred in vaults above ground in New Orleans.

  2. Sad to see such a good deed fall to bad execution. Mr. Pitt needed to be more involved by hiring a good manager and staying in contact.
    Say whatever anyone wants about President Trump, he visited his construction sites and had coffee and meals with his crews. That is a fantastic way to track progress and discover problems. Trump treated his crews like equals and kept morale high.
    Mr. Pitt could have done the same with quiet visits to the crews.

    Or hired Mike Holmes

    Kanye West experimented with building low cost housing—experimented being the operative word—and had to tear them down. I am not sure if he tried again. My guess is he has. He is an innovator.

    1. I remember the (Projects)

      What a killing ground that was. Stack than many people in such close quarters and what did they expect would happen.

    1. YIKES…

      Maybe quick and easy builds, but nothing more.
      I find it hard to believe they would not use treat wood? (come on, that’s a given)

    2. Mike Holmes is a part of this fiasco? This strains my reality. The man knows about treated wood, etc. as well as concrete.

      I am wondering how many houses that he built in New Orleans are having problems. Are these condemned houses his own products or built by others?

      I would urge him to clarify the matter.

      1. Mike Holmes and crew were only involved in constructing one large demonstration residence close by over on Tennessee street. It still looks ok on Google Maps.

    3. Holmes also buys into the globull wormening scam. He claimed the High River AB floods were caused by it. Lost all regard for him because of that and would never hire him to build a dung heap.

  6. Bought a book years ago at a federal government bookstore in Houston. It looked at the design details of wooden houses that had survived in the USA for up to 200 years. The number one takeaway was how they were designed and built to deal with shedding water and avoiding moisture build up.

    Relying on treating crappy wood to go uphill against the moisture is a bad idea.

  7. When New Orleans banned CCA treated lumber (if a child ate five to ten lbs of treated would they could die) about 17 years ago?, the only wood that could kill the invasive Formosan termite was Yellow Cedar from the coast of BC. Natural toxins are so much more eco friendly than man-combined toxins, I guess. BM is correct than soil to wood contact is never a long lasting solution. What I find so ignorant in that design, besides the foundation, is the lack of overhang on the roof – an almost universal failing of the architectural “profession”. Rain could blow right in from any side! As well, those posts could not hold down high wind up-lift. To this day, I see the artsy influence of no or inadequate overhang in many new buildings and on the Coast of all places. Timber structures, well designed to shed water can last hundreds of years. The Japanese roof design is a clue that Architects seem to have missed.

    1. Hi just checked in again. Yes, the design bible at Kicking Horse Mountain Resort had 36″ overhangs, NO eavestroughs (they sheered off from the weight of the snow load) and preferred metal roofs over pre-fab 12″ thick insultation sandwich membranes for the roof construction. You were either “building into the hillside” or “away from the hillside”. Each condition had its own unique challenges.
      I have always designed for the existing environmental conditions of soil and climate.

      1. Metal roofs are best in snow country so long as the ridges are “vertical”. After years of shovelling snow off their shingle roof, parents installed a bright red metal roof with the seams running vertically, and the need to shovel disappeared. Though the whole house would shake when a particularly big patch of snow broke loose.

  8. Concrete slab, concrete walls, cement block if needed, and the interior framed with steel and the walls covered with one of the dozens of waterproof, soundproof materials available. Seal the roof and make sure it will not allow the wind to rise under it. Now please tell me just why this cannot be done?

    1. vowg, I have often thought that if I was forced, or must, live in Tornado ally, that is precisely how I would build my house, and ensure it was well anchored down as well. I still scratch my head when I see those homes torn into oblivion for lack of such planning. My thoughts also think similar designs with stilts of Big Momma type concrete pillars would work in New Orleans as well. The initial cost would be worth the ease of keeping the home cool and waterproof for a long lifetime.

        1. My old man built a house in Baja that had a Cat-3+ hurricane roll right over it. Never even cracked a pane of glass. The walls were built out of hollow concrete blocks, which then had rebar added to the voids and then they were all filled with concrete. The local builders thought he was going overboard.
          Yes it can be done, and it’s not even that hard.

  9. Things may have changed, but I remember being somewhat astonished to learn that civil engineering was not a pre-requisite for the School of Architecture. Any old Arts degree would do.

    1. Kakola, Of course, its all based on envision and feelings that emote granduer , nuthin needed for engineering, that’s the peasants job, get out of my way, I’m creating here!

  10. We bought a 1960 house in a beach community last year. It’s not on the beach, it’s a half block west. There’s the A1A, a commercial strip, and a sand alley separating the house from the beach. In 2018 hurricane Michael took part of the roof. The absentee owner didn’t repair it and later an electrical fire started and burned through the roof, the kitchen and two bedrooms. Still the foundation, the walls and windows were undamaged. It’s cement block. That’s why it’s been standing all these years. Oh, it also has the original terrazzo floors which were scorched badly and then cleaned using egregious methods. An expert refinished them a couple of months ago, and they are glorious.
    Ironically, there is a large detached garage constructed in 1970 off to one side in back on the double lot. It’s stick built and, except for the fiberglass garage doors, suffered no damage at all. We had it inspected twice before we bought the place for obvious reasons.

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