Fixing Columns: The Problem with Styrofoam. Yes, Styrofoam.

[@lmtliam]

Foam columns! Brent, you have more patience in dealing with this stuff than I would have.

[@BrentHull]

Haha. you have to laugh to keep from crying.

[@CountJeffula]

Structural foam! Haha. Love your content.

[@sharonvik2068]

Excellent arguments for understanding the reason behind design. Thanks, Brent!

[@BrentHull]

Thanks for watching

[@josephrizzoiii]

Great video, I feel your pain brother...

[@BrentHull]

I appreciate it

[@lcarsng]

When you said styrofoam 20 seconds into the video, my heart sank.😂We've lost our architectural soul in the US, and I hope your great work will help help bring about a renaissance. I'm in the process of learning Classical Roman and Greek design from the ground up. I want to be able to calculate and draw out columns, room sizes, mouldings, etc. following correct proportions. I want to be able to identify, properly proportion, and describe the purpose of each sub-component of a design.

[@BrentHull]

Good luck, a worthy pursuit.

[@GeorgePetrakov]

imagine that Brent talking about whole our life. So much need too fix.

[@BrentHull]

So much for us all.

[@TonyaO2L]

Appreciate the great content. I learn something new every time.

[@BrentHull]

Glad to hear it!

[@rogerhodges7656]

Thank you!

[@BrentHull]

Of course!

[@ChristopherRNeumann]

Really enjoyed this one. Thanks for pulling up the posters to help explain. Can you please provide the reference for those? Also, if i may make a suggestion, black markers are easier to see than the light blue one.

[@BrentHull]

Noted. ICAA for posters.

[@ryansoo4000]

Hi Brent, great video! I have two questions: 1. At minute 1:22 you show an enlargement of a capital design and there are a number of dotted angled lines rising up from the center of the column, the side of the triglyph and at other places. What do those dotted lines represent? 2. I know you have designed some interior collections of moldings but where can people buy authentically proportioned exterior details like columns, window and door casings and quoins? Are they available in North America in stone or are they only available in wood?

[@BrentHull]

Those are regulating lines that show the proportions and sizing intact in the design. For instance, the metopes, next to the triglyph is always a square. Etc. I'll need to do a video on where to find good items. Thx.

[@miketackabery7521]

Good design begins with copying. Perfect statement. Michelangelo wasn't allowed to do anything original by his workshop master until he'd spent years copying. Thank you Brent for reminding us all.

[@BrentHull]

Yes! Thanks.

[@user-steve_wrwoodclassics]

I like the styrofoam column because of its user friendly design , installed upside down it still looks amazing 🤪

[@BrentHull]

Haha,

[@christopherzehnder]

@@user-steve_wrwoodclassics it’s the “elastic-waistband” of architectural trim

[@chrisclements1169]

Excellent vid. Modern residential design and construction has become a mess of pottage.

[@BrentHull]

Yes, so true.

[@Captain-KTS]

Styrofoam amazing material Brent! You should implement it in your projects, haha! Cheers Kirk

[@pointnemo369]

Styrofoam completely underrated.

[@gregpendrey6711]

😂. 🔵

[@BrentHull]

Haha, not likely.

[@lochlansmith6611]

Where do you get those Classical Orders details? I saw it's ICAA, but I've glanced over their site and couldn't find where it comes from.

[@BrentHull]

You may need to call them, or look for resources on their webpage. Thx.

[@Real_Tim_S]

@@lochlansmith6611 Are you referring to the plates Brent showed with order and column details? Those come from A. Benton Greene's "Elements of Architecture Part One", which is a folio of plates

[@lochlansmith6611]

@@Real_Tim_S Yeah, thanks.

[@joelwatts6890]

Brent, on a square tapered column should the capital also be different than the base? Considering the column is sitting on a pedastal?

[@BrentHull]

Yes! Thanks.

[@Real_Tim_S]

@7:10 that window over the door... is on the second level, but they've "bled" the first and second floor into each other on the exterior of the building. The whole scale/proportion is wrong.

[@BrentHull]

Yep!

[@snafunet]

Yes, good architecture starts before you even start building. Unfortunately, it's impossible or prohibitively expensive to fix after it's built. I have this problem with my house where I have a 16 foot foyer and living room (yes, it has a few McMansion features, ugh) on the right side of the fronte door and 8ft ceilings on the first and second story on the left side of the front door. If I don't have a front door that bleeds into the second floor on the outside, then the proportion from the inside is way off (6'8" door with a 16 ft ceiling just doesn't look right). I was grappling with this problem recently as I am in the process of replacing my 9ft front door and fanlight which currently takes up almost the full two stories. I decided on a compromise by making it significantly shorter but still bleeding into the second story (i.e. 8ft door with 3ft fanlight). I'm not entirely sure but there might be a tiny bit of historical precedence for this (i.e. front door bleeding into the second story). Check out the two sets of baroque double blue doors at 51 Rue Saint-Dominique, Paris, France on google maps street view.

[@Real_Tim_S]

@@snafunet Something to note about those specific doors (and the few buildings in each direction down the street) - they appear to be carriage doors, which allow a horse drawn carriage to pass through to an interior court, where the actual formal entrance to a building is. A visual cue is what the curb does in front of each of those doors - standard doorways do not have a dip down towards street level, but the over sized doors do - this matches each of the buildings when viewed from overhead (those with an obvious courtyard and a very formal looking entrance in the back of the courtyard have those large doors out front). Some of those buildings, like those at 45/47 with a similar arch fanlight door - appear to be more modern in-fill around what was probably a gatehouse. I a bit rusty on my French building codes following the fire, but I recall them being generally very strict with maintaining a visual horizontal line between facades so that they would form a continuity, while still allowing individual characteristics. This was enhanced by limiting color and material variations to make the building along a given street feel more homogeneous. The buildings were allowed closer into the streets to provide a sense of enclosure, but the roofs were required to be leaned back to allow more light down to street level. This makes it a bit easier to spot buildings that were placed much later - as frequently with the classical orders, a lot of the "why" was forgotten.

[@snafunet]

@@Real_Tim_S That's a good theory that those were carriage doors at one point. They must have made those carriages pretty narrow to fit through those doors though. Regarding the dip in the sidewalk, is it that old or could it have been converted to a dip later to make a crosswalk there?

[@Real_Tim_S]

@@snafunet You can orbit in 3D view in Google maps to see the back/interior opening of the carriage passageway, they are all still being used to pass cars from the imagery I looked at. Carriages are about two seat wide. And European cars are generally much smaller than what we see in North America. I have no feeling or believable information to base an opinion on the street curb, but I am aware the French (and a lot of European countries for that matter) find segmented stone and cobblestone favorable to concrete, as it is repairable in small cost-effective parts and don't require heavy machinery to place. It has probably been done that way for quite some time.

[@eurasiantreesparrow7547]

What's the manual his talking about with all the correct proportions?

[@BrentHull]

ICAA for one. Any book on classical proportions Get your house right is one.

[@eurasiantreesparrow7547]

@@BrentHull Thanks, great video btw

[@T_157-40]

Brent; Give your friend an Architectural coloring book and tell him to build a house like on page 10, lol.

[@BrentHull]

haha. right.

[@garyhenderson9303]

Oh Golly Gosh. I am sticking with my Styrofoam Columns. At least my capital is as per your sketch. Have no Base to the column because they are actually on top of a Cast Winged Lion Plinth, which is about one third of the total height.

[@Real_Tim_S]

It's that lion gold painted, with a faux black marble column, in front of pink coral stucco walls?

[@garyhenderson9303]

@@Real_Tim_S 😀No but maybe this could be an idea for Brent going forward Pimp my Home.

[@BrentHull]

Haha. Nice.

[@janderson8401]

Are there manufacturers that produce architecturally correct columns?

[@christopherzehnder]

Yes. Several manufacturers depending on the material and application.

[@BrentHull]

Yes, Chadsworth columns for one.

[@Tedmader-fp3vb]

It’s called bad design - it’s not the styrofoam

[@BrentHull]

True.

[@cborecky]

I have to wonder if some of these shapes are non-Western in origin. E.g. Ancient Egyptian, Persian, Babylonian, Chinese, Japanese, Indian, etc. columns looked different than Greco-Roman designs. Of course, they're not trying to build anything resembling these traditions when they build a suburban styrofoam box-with-carhole, but maybe there's some other inspiration. We can hope anyway.

[@BrentHull]

Ha, yes we can hope. Thx.

[@christopherzehnder]

This is like building a Greek Temple from the packaging contents of an Amazon box. Sheesh!

[@BrentHull]

Yep!

[@Fedgery007]

Raging against the machine!!! Ahhhhhh!!!

[@christopherzehnder]

I was waiting for Brent to “hulk smash” the ugly house rendering. I really enjoyed the smack-talk. Very cathartic.

[@BrentHull]

YES!