Contemporary Designs

La Jolla – Seagull Bedroom Windows

The clients of this condominium in La Jolla were interested in obscuring the view of the roof next door. They showed Tico Tech, Inc.^TM a 3” x 5” post card depicting a scene with seagulls and asked if it could be used as the inspiration for the window. Tico Tech, Inc. met the challenge of transforming this small drawing into a large seven-foot wide by five-foot high glass window commission.

Initially, they thought they would want to have colored glass in the window but after meeting with them at the condo, we noticed that the roof lines and skyline would coincide well with the lines in the post card such that the colors behind the window would be sufficient to create the effect they were seeking, so clear textured glass was used throughout. However, to highlight the birds, the birds were the only glass pieces cut from white, grey and yellow glass. Extra care was given to provide dimension to the birds and that is most notable in the seagull that is flying straight at the viewer and the one standing on the rock. The effect is dramatic and the “mood” of the window changes with the weather outside and the time of day.

A challenging aspect of this commission was solving how it would be installed. Given that this was a condominium, the client was limited to not remove the existing exterior glass. The art glass, therefore, would need to be installed to the interior of the existing glass frame. A further complication existed in that the operable windows for the unit were at the bottom of the glass and the art glass was to cover the upper portions of the window. Therefore, the solution involved making a wood frame for the art glass windows, this frame fitting just inside the walls of the existing windows, and then adding aluminum cladding on the wood frame such that the cladding not only hid the wood frame but blended in with the existing exterior window frame. Nothing of the art glass frame is screwed into the existing exterior frame, so that the art glass installation did not affect the building envelope in any way and the lower operable windows can still open as before.

Glendale Chiropractor Office Front Door

After being contacted by a chiropractor in Glendale asking if we could design a stained-glass window for the front door of his office, we met in his office one afternoon to discuss the project. We quickly settled on the idea of doing the full image of the spine and include the vertebrae cross sections in the corners. With excited energy the chiropractor proceeded to give us printed posters of the spine and even gave us a 3-D model of a skeleton to use as a reference. One comment he made prior to our leaving the meeting was that the spine needed to look healthy. He did not want anyone entering his office stating that their spine hurt “like the one in the front door” so the pressure was on to be sure we depicted it correctly. To give a sense of dimension to the composition we opted to cut all the background glass contiguously from a single pane. Given the many teeth-like jagged parts that would need to be cut in the background glass, we knew that we could not make any mistakes with the cuts. We call this kind of work, “Working without a Net.” If one of the pieces breaks incorrectly, then we must start all over. Fortunately, they all came out correctly the first time.

Upon installation the chiropractor and the office staff were extremely pleased at the detail, spacing and angles of each of the vertebrae. That is the image of a healthy spine they wanted to portray!

Peacock Entry in Arcadia

We used the photo of the completed Encino Entry Door in some of our advertising. Seven years after that installation we received a call from a man in Arcadia asking if we could make the same door for the Entry to as a gift to his wife. We will not copy a custom design from one client to another, so on the call, we had to disappoint the gentleman and say that we could not produce a design more than once. We did, however, make note that we had developed a second design at the time of the first commission and that we would be happy to see if they liked the alternate design.

Upon seeing the second design the wife loved it immediately stating she liked it even more than the first one. That door design became the Peacock Entry door in Arcadia. As anyone who has been to Arcadia much knows, peacocks freely roam the streets of the city. Much to our delight, while we were installing the door, a male peacock flew up to the roof of the house and watched while we installed the door. We could not help but think he was giving us his approval calmly looking on as we worked.