When I was around 50 I was immersed in Universal Design. As a result of working with Hearth and on UNA (Feb 16 and 17), I began contemplating what our homes require for us to live well: how we use our space. I began imagining what future users would need, and how to create room for those future needs now.

What grabbed me was not the idea of accessibility as much as sensibility. There’s no reason to build new structures that have spaces which are hard to get into. That’s expensive, a drag to clean, and silly in the long term. (It reminds me of when Lisa and I got our college apartment (South Berkeley, 1969). Our first residential act was to paint the kitchen yellow and orange. Cabinet doors and drawer fronts alternated colors and had contrasting knobs, you know? It was a lot of work and we really liked it, for about two weeks. To this day both of us, in our separate residences, favor white paint.)

So among other subjects, I contemplated the shapes of multi-family residences. I thought of three. I’m not going to have time to build them myself. I offer the ideas to anyone who cares for them.

The first shape that arose in my mind was inspired by the Guggenheim Museum in New York. Frank Lloyd Wright designed a satisfying structure by putting an elevator core in a cylindrical building, and then constructing a lovely big ramp that encourages the visitor to wander the exhibit top to bottom. He made a fountain of people; they are pumped up the elevator and then cascade down the ramp to the bottom!

I googled the Guggenheim and was shocked to learn I misremembered it. Certainly it has the spiral ramp. There’s the elevator shaft and all the art on the exterior walls. But the elevator doesn’t run right up the middle of the structure. It is set to one side of the building.

ArcAngle 1 is a modified version of Wright’s cylinder. Its elevator shaft and other plant equipment are in the center, its roof is clear for light, its ramp spirals around that equipment core, and instead of art on the outside walls, it has apartments.