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A Village in a Garden By Avery Harden
The element that degrades the aesthetic dignity of the Village even more than the tortured trees, yews and azaleas is the way some people do their awnings. I know people are not going to go out and spend money on changing their front porch awnings, but if you have been thinking about doing something, here are my 2 cents on the subject. Loch Raven Village is famous for its green canvas awnings. They are unique architectural features. When executed properly, they provide three-dimensional relief to our long, tall brick facades. I understand that in the old days, families would sometimes have meals on their front porches under these canopies. The Village’s porches and awnings are a nice catbird seat for watching the world go by. The awnings that are properly designed and executed are like a smile on the front facade. They look fun, fresh, and classic. They even look cool. The problem is with the awnings that are poorly executed. There are many cheesy looking ones that look like what you might see in a lower-end trailer park. When every design corner is cut and the common denominator of sticking something overhead as cheaply as possible is practiced, the appearance of the homes, the street and the dignity of the entire Village are compromised. The awnings that fully envelope the structural pipes look better than those with naked pipes and laced stretched sheets. But the full, enveloping awnings sometimes also look inappropriate. When they extend too far from the facade and hang down low over the edge of the porch, they remind me of Leonid Brezhnev’s eyebrows— serious and dour. As an element of architectural relief, they would look better if they did not come out as far and hang so low. I know one is thinking functionally by exaggerating the porch overhang, but a small concession to aesthetics should be considered. A foot or two less cover can provide adequate shade while relieving the dour effect. Sort of like trimming bushy eyebrows. The material of the awning is important. The heavy green canvas is ok but some of the lighter more draping canopy materials one sees on the homes along Pleasant Plains Road near the Giant are very appealing. The lighter, nicely draping material freshens up a façade better than anything else I have seen in the Village does. As a cost saving measure, many homes have awnings that consist of a simple stretched sheet that is laced to exposed pipes. This treatment is not so bad per se; check out the awning arrangement at the new Home Elements store in the old Hutzler building in Towson. They used the method of stretched canvas laced to exposed pipes and it looks very handsome. The difference is the shorter protrusion from the facade, the enclosed ends, and the welding treatment of the exposed piping, the sheeting material, the handsome lacing and the overall craftsmanship. The joints of the pipes were welded while ours are joined with screwed on sleeve joints. I understand cost is an issue and the unwelded sleeve joints are not necessarily bad, but what makes the Home Elements canopy sing while ours’ often cries is the attention paid to materials, details and craftsmanship. If the full enveloping awnings are like eyebrows, the stretched sheets are eyelids. For the eyelid approach to work aesthetically, it must appear to be more firmly attached to the facade. The Home Elements store accomplishes this first by not appearing to defy gravity and reach too far from the facade and second, by stretching small triangular sheets into the ends of the awning. Adding the end enclosures visually secures the awning to the facade in a dignified manner. The end sheets also add to the functionality of the awning and tone down the look of the exposed pipes. The effect is a closed-in, finished, more-refined look in lieu of the cheesy, tacked-on, eyelid look. To summarize the porch canopies; concede some cover area out of respect for aesthetics. Don’t appear to defy gravity. Lighten up the appearance. Use quality materials. Practice craftsmanship and please don’t attach the canopy pipe supports directly down vertically to the decorative porch railing, particularly if they are painted a color different from the railings. Reserve that treatment for your camper in the woods.
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