Emily Fisher, R & E Brooklyn

Working together we have been figuring out the lighting pattern for 93 Nevins and 453 Pacific. We decided not to use can lights for the double height part of the living room because a) they would have to be very bright to match illumination of lower ceilinged areas and b) where do you buy not to mention where in your home do you store a ladder adequate for changing light bulbs in fixtures twenty feet overhead, as at the entry way? We plan to use drop chandeliers for that part of the living room.

Big discussion re fluorescent lighting. Fluorescent lights can use less than one third the energy incandescent lights do and they last for years and years (that’s one way to solve the problem of changing bulbs in double height living room!) Good quality 24-watt fluorescent bulbs use as much energy as 150-watt incandescent bulbs. But….let’s face it, as Rolf says, nobody wants to LOOK green just because they want to BE “green.”

Can we use these super efficient fluorescent bulbs and still guarantee a pleasing light quality? Interior designers on the project Erika Doerring and Erika Hanson reminded us that fluorescent lights have improved a lot since that flickering green effect we all remember from old-school fluorescent tubes. A little research reveals that for “overall quality of light” a study by Popular Mechanics and a teacher at Parsons The New School for Design (Note: coincidence that we are working with Parsons students, aside from an interest the school has in sustainability in design) found that subjects preferred the light of compact fluorescent lights (CFLs) to that of traditional incandescent bulbs. And it was a double-blind study…so subjects presumably had to rely on their eyes, not their consciences, in evaluating lighting quality. The Erikas are big on fluorescent lights. I’d like to be big on them too but… too many bad memories of poorly lit conference rooms?

Maybe it’s the Missourian in me talking (my mother hailed from “The Show Me State”). I think we should follow up with a trip to a lighting store and see for ourselves.

Flooring: We talked over the pros and cons of engineered wood and salvaged wood for the living room. Both options would perform well over the sub-floor radiant heat.

As for stairways– we’ve decided on closed treads for 93 Nevins and open treads for the entry way of 453 Pacific Street, then closed treads above. This reminds me of a choice that one Parsons student made in design idea for 453 Pacific – she suggested creating a wall to screen out the stairs above the mezzanine to create a more private feeling for the stairs leading up to bedrooms, to differentiate the private and more public areas of the house.

And speaking of Parsons students, it was exciting to have the Parsons New School for Design students back on the site. They each had such different but fully realized ideas for the houses. A theme that came up in several students’s works was built-ins, which is great, because we have quite a few planned already.

Finally, we are closing in on closing on the construction financing that will allow us to complete these two houses. Just “ a few more documents”… where have we heard this before?