Pushing the "envelope" in architecture

[archie_struthers]

 


I wonder how many golf architects played it safe over the years?  Given the inherent limitations of design and build, whether it be client preferences, budgetary limitations or accepted norms of design. Are we looking at work that could have been great with a little more freedom in the process. Its an interesting question to ponder.


Here in Southern NJ one of the most unique architectural wonders of the world emerged from the mind of one man George Crump, formulated in great part on train rides to play in his weekend game at the shore. Two unique golf courses Stone Harbor and Running Deer were built with tremendous imagination! Both pushed boundaries yet certainly neither has received critical acclaim for breaking with accepted tradition in the design process. Why?   

[Tom_Doak]

Archie:


The results show pretty clearly that most architects have played it safe, don't they?


I feel a lot of that is due to ASGCA and their idea of how one should enter the profession, after years of serving one of their members.  It almost guarantees that guys don't start on their own until they have families and can't afford to take chances.  One of the reasons that Mr. Dye's former apprentices have been successful is that we were never on payroll, and got used to the uncertainties of living from one job to the next and moving to where the work was.


I'm curious about your examples. 


Pine Valley is great, precisely because it was built for a specific target market and stuck to its guns. 


Stone Harbor, for me, was just 100% marketing gimmick -- it broke with tradition but the whole point was to sell houses, wasn't it?  An island bunker in the shape of Manhattan [or was the green Manhattan and the bunker New Jersey?  Thankfully I can't remember] was not designed for its strategic merit.


But what is Running Deer?  I haven't even heard of that one, and I try to keep up.

[Ian Andrew]

Two unique golf courses Stone Harbor and Running Deer were built with tremendous imagination!

Stone Harbor is really about art over sport. You can draw on any influence you like to add a little spark of creativity, but in the end it's still a game played on a golfing landscape. Stone Harbor doesn't play well. Fun and playability give way to art. Art is not enough to engage a player. When "nobody" enjoys a course - it's irrelevant as an influence or statement - it reminds us that it's still a game first. The art of architecture is secondary to the play of the game. Stone Harbor is then reduced to conversation starter.


Minimalism's success is not the rough edged bunkers, to pick a single element to be lazy, its the return of more playing freedom. The success lies in the foundation underneath the aesthetics that this site spends far too much time talking about.

[Thomas Dai]

Ian makes a a very valid point about art and aesthetics etc.
Some practitioners of design and maintenance seem these days to be aiming to make things look nice in photos which is very different to playability and fun.
Almost as though courses are now purely a photography setting, a photography opportunity, rather than a place to play golf. Now I’m not adverse to a nice view and they’ve been utilised in golf forever but these days with digital photography and drones and social media things seem to have gone way OTT.
Atb

PS - golf can be pretty simple - see this note penned by Lindsey Ross (a Pro born in St Andrews) who played the game during the late 1800's - early 1900's.

[Tommy Williamsen]

Wolf Creek is one that pushed the envelope off a cliff. It is beautiful but is wall to wall green in a desert setting with huge changes in elevation on many holes.

[Blake Conant]

i have fun looking outside of golf for inspiration and then trying to relate it back to golf. I think less about the product and more about how it functions and the techniques used to create it.  So many courses have been built and designed, it's hard to keep looking inward for inspiration.  That's just going to lead to more and more bombastic architecture.  That's fine to a point, but if we get to a place where a triple Sitwell green is looked upon as pushing the envelope I think we'll have missed the mark.  Looking beyond golf is where I think some new ideas will emerge.  And as Ian said, golf still needs to be played on whatever is created, so pushing the envelope can't just be art for arts' sake.


Skateboarding, particularly street skating, has many parallels to golf. Street skaters are constantly finding design elements and finding ways to utilize them. They sequence tricks over obstacles and hazards to create routings. The more i learn, the more i realize street skaters and the original links golfers have a lot in common.


Also reading a book called Built By Animals: natural history of animal architecture. very cool to look at architecture of animals.


Some artists working in LA did an installation at the MoMA with drain pipe that was worth researching more. makes me wonder why all that stuff stays below ground.


Kendrick Lamar, a rapper, made an album a few years back called DAMN, that was later revealed to be reversible. The songs played in reverse order and the sequence of the content still held up. Always thought it’d be interesting to have Kendrick Lamar and Tom Doak sit down and discuss their reversible designs and see if certain design processes or techniques overlapped.

[Jeff_Brauer]

Archie,


I'm sure most have.  In each generation, there was only 1-2 pioneers at most, the rest were followers.


Even though I entered ASGCA the most traditional way, I doubt that had a lot of influence, given all the walks of life our members have come from.  I do agree, having quit on my 29th birthday and to move to Texas on my own, that it helps to be young and naïve enough to live by the phrase, "What could possibly go wrong?"  But, that is to start a business.  All along the way, people will tell you your dream is stupid, unlikely to be achieved, etc.  I always guessed the first test of whether you are qualified to be a gca is to not be talked out of it by well meaning parents, professors, friends, spouses, etc.


But going back to actual design out of the box thinking, I agree most of us basically want to replicate what our mentors did, make a living, etc.  We want to do some cool work when given a chance and site, but again I ask, how many really set out to change the biz?


And, I recall Mac, I think, writing that there is difference between excited and different design.  Stone Harbor and others that specifically seek to break the box in an "artificial" way (i.e., let's put shock value visuals over playability) probably don't do as great a job as a design that evolves from unique circumstances, i.e., form follows function in very unusual situations.  Or, necessity is the mother of invention and so forth.


So, what was the greatest out of box architecture?  Probably moving it from seashore inland, or maybe from GBI to the vast climate differences in the US, maybe in tropical areas like India, Asia, etc. which required quite a bit of innovation.  Just a guess.


I remember Geoff Cornish's book saying just how radical the dogleg was when first introduced, perhaps another good guess at innovative thinking, and probably conceived when a large land form had to be skirted.

[Don Mahaffey]

i have fun looking outside of golf for inspiration and then trying to relate it back to golf. I think less about the product and more about how it functions and the techniques used to create it.  So many courses have been built and designed, it's hard to keep looking inward for inspiration.  That's just going to lead to more and more bombastic architecture.  That's fine to a point, but if we get to a place where a triple Sitwell green is looked upon as pushing the envelope I think we'll have missed the mark.  Looking beyond golf is where I think some new ideas will emerge.  And as Ian said, golf still needs to be played on whatever is created, so pushing the envelope can't just be art for arts' sake.


Skateboarding, particularly street skating, has many parallels to golf. Street skaters are constantly finding design elements and finding ways to utilize them. They sequence tricks over obstacles and hazards to create routings. The more i learn, the more i realize street skaters and the original links golfers have a lot in common.


Also reading a book called Built By Animals: natural history of animal architecture. very cool to look at architecture of animals.


Some artists working in LA did an installation at the MoMA with drain pipe that was worth researching more. makes me wonder why all that stuff stays below ground.


Kendrick Lamar, a rapper, made an album a few years back called DAMN, that was later revealed to be reversible. The songs played in reverse order and the sequence of the content still held up. Always thought it’d be interesting to have Kendrick Lamar and Tom Doak sit down and discuss their reversible designs and see if certain design processes or techniques overlapped.

Blake, Good stuff!
I don't remember the quote exactly, or where I read it, but Ben Crenshaw once wrote CB Mcdonald had transitioned golf architecture from an obstacle course style to a more professional art form...something like that.
I understand that, but it seems to me that as golf architecture has progressed as a profession, courses have become much more standardized. Number of holes, par, handicap system, competitions...all these "constraints" have made it so golfers know what to expect no matter the course. So now, what might have seen as normal during the obstacle course era is today seen as "pushing the envelop".
My question, if CB Mac took us out of that era, who will take us back?

[MCirba]

Archie,

I'm thinking Shore Gate might be another south Jersey candidate for pushing the envelope, but IMO it's more like "maximalism", or putting everything but the kitchen sink into play.

Running Deer plays more like an assortment of rather creative ideas lacking a cohesive theme or consistently successful holes, but for an amateur designed effort (Mr. Ed Carman did design and build the pretty good Centerton GC some decades prior) it is certainly bold and quite enjoyable if you keep your sense of adventure and humor.

[Peter Pallotta]

Archie -
previous posts got me thinking that very few push the envelope because of the primary importance of *function* in gca.
In this the architect is most like not a writer or film director or painter or musician but a tailor.   
A bespoke $4000 Italian-made fine wool suit has (and must have, in order to be called a suit) much more in common with a $300 off-the-rack version than it has differences. 
They both have lapels and a vent at the back and three buttons and two sleeves and a breast pocket and flat front two-legged trousers with belt loops etc etc. And from 20 yards away I wouldn't be able to tell one from the other.
But *up close* (the way we tend to look at gca here), the former's finer 'textures' and 'materials' and 'craftsmanship' and 'drape' and intangible sense of 'classic style' would be much more readily apparent.
And yet, that $4000 suit is not 'pushing the envelope'. It's still just a suit.     
 

[Tom_Doak]

Kendrick Lamar, a rapper, made an album a few years back called DAMN, that was later revealed to be reversible. The songs played in reverse order and the sequence of the content still held up. Always thought it’d be interesting to have Kendrick Lamar and Tom Doak sit down and discuss their reversible designs and see if certain design processes or techniques overlapped.

I wasn't aware of the album, but that would be way harder to do than building a golf course you can play backwards.  If anybody knows him [yeah, right], set it up!


One of the points of impetus for the update to The Confidential Guide was that I knew I was more likely to find out-of-the-box design in the far corners of the globe than in places where the American model is being followed.  Sure enough, courses in Kenya and India and Sri Lanka and Vietnam have included some eye-popping examples.  Unfortunately, in many cases the designer didn't know enough about golf to know what to do with his "found" genius.  That's why a place like Himalayan Golf Club was such a revelation:  it was entirely well thought out and adapted to local conditions.

[Tom_Doak]

Archie -
previous posts got me thinking that very few push the envelope because of the primary importance of *function* in gca.
In this the architect is most like not a writer or film director or painter or musician but a tailor.   
A bespoke $4000 Italian-made fine wool suit has (and must have, in order to be called a suit) much more in common with a $300 off-the-rack version than it has differences. 
They both have lapels and a vent at the back and three buttons and two sleeves and a breast pocket and flat front two-legged trousers with belt loops etc etc. And from 20 yards away I wouldn't be able to tell one from the other.
But *up close* (the way we tend to look at gca here), the former's finer 'textures' and 'materials' and 'craftsmanship' and 'drape' and intangible sense of 'classic style' would be much more readily apparent.
And yet, that $4000 suit is not 'pushing the envelope'. It's still just a suit.   

But that's exactly the problem, everyone is designing the golf equivalent of a three-piece suit.  Most people around the world do not wear suits!


There is a million times more creativity in clothing design than in golf course design.  Climate, culture, and tastes are all factors in that, but the overriding factor is that clothes are cheap to make so many people with new ideas can afford to try their hand at it.  You can make a new piece, but you don't have to commit to making two million of them until you see how people react.


Ultimately, what holds back golf course design the most is the conservatism of clients, due to the economics of the business.  But the lack of decent criticism is surely also a factor.

[Thomas Dai]

Not just course either, clubs (and balls) too.
atb

[Bernie Bell]

The architects who consciously pushed the envelope were those of the post-war era through the early 1960s.  Today's style favors those who hearken back.

[Jeff_Brauer]

The architects who consciously pushed the envelope were those of the post-war era through the early 1960s.  Today's style favors those who hearken back.

So, I always wonder what the next big thing will be. Surely, minimalism, dating to 1995 and Sand Hills has to be running its course in a society moving fast in culture change.  If the 90's looked back to the 20's, what will the next gen use?  The 1950's (next full decade of gca to emulate?)  Skip ahead to the 70-80's?  Or skip them all and go high tech, emulating Top Golf?

[Ian Andrew]

My question, if CB Mac took us out of that era, who will take us back?

Don,


Limit yourself to the last 10 years and North America.
Do you still feel the same way? Do you think what we see is standardized and predictable?
I'm only curious for your answer - I won't be debating something that is your opinion.

[Kalen Braley]

I'll throw Jim Enghs name in the ring.  I know he's love/hate in this group, but I really enjoy some of the out-of-the box stuff he's done.

[Alex Miller]

Wolf Creek is one that pushed the envelope off a cliff. It is beautiful but is wall to wall green in a desert setting with huge changes in elevation on many holes.

That envelope was probably pushed by Tom D at Stone Eagle - part of the reason it's my favorite desert course ever built.


While Wolf Creek isn't always the most playable or suited to my architectural tastes there's no doubt that it is unique! Not sure it's wall to wall green with the stark sand/rock walls being its standout feature, but my one play there felt like I was golfing on an alien planet - not many places where you can get that!


A couple others that spring to mind - Tobacco Road and Streamsong Black

[Peter Flory]

I would imagine that finding a client who either directs or allows you to push the limit would be the most difficult part.  They obviously usually want to make money and they aren't architects themselves, so they are mostly trying to commission a variation of something that they've already seen and liked.  And if it is a group of investors, then even worse. 

This thread does raise a question that I have been wanting to ask for a while to the architects on here- If you had the perfect client and they gave you complete freedom to shop for a property and to create your magnum opus upon it, what would you do?  I'm assuming that you'd push the envelope, but do you have a concept in your head that realistically you'll never get to try due to the realities of the industry?

[Blake Conant]

Peter, short courses provide a good opportunity to explore some “out there” ideas. Less risk for the client, but still some parameters to work within. I’d like to see the envelope pushed as much as possible on short courses.


I also think there’s a misconception that the most creative ideas spawn from a blank canvas. i think a lot of innovation comes from a really complicated problem and a really creative problem solver.

[Peter Flory]

I also think there’s a misconception that the most creative ideas spawn from a blank canvas. i think a lot of innovation comes from a really complicated problem and a really creative problem solver.

I remember that feeling in school when you got the art project where you could do whatever you want... and you just cycle endlessly through fantastical ideas and can't get started.  Constraints can definitely force you to have to think differently. 

[Tal Oz]

Kendrick Lamar, a rapper, made an album a few years back called DAMN, that was later revealed to be reversible. The songs played in reverse order and the sequence of the content still held up. Always thought it’d be interesting to have Kendrick Lamar and Tom Doak sit down and discuss their reversible designs and see if certain design processes or techniques overlapped.

I wasn't aware of the album, but that would be way harder to do than building a golf course you can play backwards.  If anybody knows him [yeah, right], set it up!

The more I think about this analogy the more I like it. Two guys who had very high level mentors (Dr. Dre, Pete Dye), smaller early success (Section.80, High Pointe), before making a critical darling (Good Kid Mad City, Pacific Dunes), and eventually with enough cache and funding pushed the envelope into reversible gems (DAMN., The Loop). Never thought I'd type that sentence out!

Tom, ironically enough in our tiny corner of the internet I actually am that guy who posts here AND knows Kendrick. His labelmate Schoolboy Q, however, is the golf addict. He was even on the SCGA magazine cover last year! https://www.gq.com/story/schoolboy-q-crash-talk-golf

I'm lucky enough to work in music which might be the world's #1 profession for pushing the envelope and still having career prospects. However unlike golf courses which are expected to last decades and make money, the vast majority of albums flop and are expected to! Precious few are both boundary pushing and commercially successful. Recording a new album doesn't have to cost millions, but building golf courses does.

Getting off my soapbox now and in an effort to bring this back on topic, would Mike Stranz be a guy who both pushed the envelope and had success? I've never played a course of his so genuinely curious.

[Tom_Doak]

This thread does raise a question that I have been wanting to ask for a while to the architects on here- If you had the perfect client and they gave you complete freedom to shop for a property and to create your magnum opus upon it, what would you do?  I'm assuming that you'd push the envelope, but do you have a concept in your head that realistically you'll never get to try due to the realities of the industry?

Peter:


I am a big believer that the "perfect concept" is really a function of where and when.  I've got four or five more concepts I'd like to explore before I retire, but I will only get the chance if I find the right site and the right client for them.  It does look like there's one of them in the works.

[Joe Bausch]

For those wanting to see photos of the two courses Archie mentions at the beginning of the thread, go here:

http://www80.homepage.villanova.edu/joseph.bausch/images/albums/RunningDeer/index.html

http://www80.homepage.villanova.edu/joseph.bausch/images/albums/StoneHarbor/index.html

I'm a big fan of Running Deer.  In particular the 3rd hole, a par 4 that just fits my eye.

[Tom_Doak]

Peter, short courses provide a good opportunity to explore some “out there” ideas. Less risk for the client, but still some parameters to work within. I’d like to see the envelope pushed as much as possible on short courses.


I also think there’s a misconception that the most creative ideas spawn from a blank canvas. i think a lot of innovation comes from a really complicated problem and a really creative problem solver.

Two of the most creative projects we have built were Aetna Springs    and The Mulligan Course at Ballyneal.  Because one was nine holes and the other a par-3 course, they were "just for fun" and we did not have to worry at all about fairness, because people aren't thinking about posting a score on such courses anyway.


Aetna Springs had a bunch of half par holes with tiny greens . . . you could try to drive a couple of the par-4 holes or reach the par-5 in two, but hitting a 2500 sf green from 250 yards out [or even 50 yards out!] is not so easy.  It also had a couple of very narrow holes by our standards.  I thought it was a pretty ideal setup for a "family" course, where the good player would still be challenged while the scale was well suited to beginners.


We started The Mulligan at the same time I thought I was going to build another par-3 course at Bandon, so for the Mulligan the mantra was "Let's build all the greens here that Mr. Keiser wouldn't let us build there."  Plus it came not long after I saw the Valliere course at Morfontaine, which is the pinnacle of such design.  The Mulligan includes three or four of the wildest greens anywhere, but also some very simple ones, not to mention a blind par-3 which I can't imagine any of our other clients letting us build.


The most interesting thing about The Mulligan is, it's quite easy because many of the greens are in bowls and a ball might come back to the hole off a slope . . . I played it a couple of years ago in a mixed fivesome and there were a dozen times that it looked like someone might hole a tee shot.  I have never played a round of golf where the players were more excited and yelling after their shots.  The idea that courses have to be hard in order to be interesting is really put to rest there.  But, again, if I did that on a regulation sized course people would moan about how easy it is . . . I think we only got away with it because it's a par-3.