This blog is a collection of musings on our on-going research, design, inspiration, books and travel. As only Es Devlin can articulate, “The piece that one makes is the tip of the iceberg of the research that went into it. Allow your research to take you as far as you want; allow one thought to lead to another. Don’t be afraid to go down a rabbit hole of research. Find the patterns.” This is not to claim we are experts on anything included in the following entries, rather life-long learners enjoying the process.
Rush Dixon Architects’ design for a custom home on the Stono River in Charleston was featured in the October 2023 issue of Charleston Magazine.
Our design for a modern home on the Stono River was featured in the October issue of Charleston Magazine. Thank you to Jennifer Pattison Touhy for the unique storytelling.
“A minimalist, modern home on the banks of the Stono River marries the beauty of the Lowcountry with stylish practicality for one couple’s golden years.” Jennifer Pattison Touhy, Charleston Magazine
Click here for the full article.
Jim Irvin, co-owner of Firefly Distillery and one of this year’s winners of the Icon Honors Award presented by SC Biz News.
You may know Jim Irvin even if you think you don’t. He is one of the guiding forces of Charleston’s hospitality industry, effective at creating special places for Lowcountry residents and tourists alike, a champion of the local business community and that of South Carolina at large, and now one of the 2023 SC ICON Honor Award Winners. We are lucky enough to have worked for Jim and his partners on several building projects and while he has received many accomplishments, awards and accolades throughout his career, perhaps the most noteworthy is his track record of innovation, resilience and reinvention. He is a ‘Jack of many trades’ and master of each of them.
Residential and Commercial Builder / Developer - After studying at chemistry, biology and accounting at Vanderbilt + Sullivan University, he began what would become a 40 year chapter as a residential and commercial builder / developer starting in Kentucky and South Carolina. After relocating to the Lowcountry in 1979 Jim built houses in Crowfield, Kiawah Island and IOP including over 60 spec houses through the 1990s.
Irvin House Vineyard - In 2000 Jim and his wife Ann purchased a farm on Wadmalaw Island and after a trip to a Florida winery were inspired to begin a vineyard. They would eventually establish Irvin House Vineyard, Charleston’s only domestic winery which produced Muscadine Wine, a wine made from the American indigenous grape. Both Jim and Ann were fundamental members of Certified SC Grown throughout Irvin House Vineyard’s chapter. The wine was successfully distributed to every major grocery store in South Carolina thanks to a relationship with Scott Newitt who was a statewide distributor in South Carolina.
Original Firefly Distillery on Wadmalaw Island, SC.
Firefly Distillery is Born - The vintner / distributor relationship led to a friendship and ultimately to business partners in 2006 when Jim and Scott joined forces to create Firefly Distillery. In the same year they produced their first product, a Muscadine wine vodka, which earned 89 out of 100 points from the Beverage Testing Institute in Chicago (outscoring big names like Absolut and Ketel One.) As successful as their first product out of the gate was, an even bigger product was on the horizon. Jim and Scott introduced Firefly’s Sweet Tea Vodka in 2008 using tea leaves from the neighboring tea farm. In the subsequent years, Firefly would introduce various moonshine, whiskey and lemonade products.
Firefly Sunset Resort in the Bahamas
Firefly Sunset Resort - In 2009, Jim and Ann Irvin purchased a run-down resort in Elbow Cay Bahamas. They invested in renovations and new construction to create a vacation destination, restaurant and bar called the Firefly Sunset Resort and opening in 2012. In 2019 Hurricane Dorian severely damaged the resort; as of 2021, the facility was fully open for guests.
Firefly Distillery’s new facility in North Charleston.
Firefly Distillery 2.0 - In 2015, responding to the distillery’s success and Charleston metro’s growing hospitality industry, Jim Irvin and Scott Newitt purchased a former landfill in North Charleston on the banks of Noisette Creek. This land would set the stage for a much larger facility (20,000sf) to house not only the manufacturing process but a large tasting room, gift shop, and event spaces of all sizes in a centrally located and easily accessible locale. The new facility opened in February of 2020 and would need to close its doors just a month later due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Through reinvention and an unwavering commitment to the local community, the distillery, with Jim’s guidance, pivoted to produce hand sanitizer for the Lowcountry and in the summer launched the “Safe Sounds” concert series on their vast outdoor lawn. Firefly just celebrated their 3 year anniversary in the new location and enjoys steady patrons, hosts distillery tours and tastings, gatherings and weddings, and has now grown to be a noteworthy concert destination with Live Nation booking 25 concerts in 2023 each for nearly 5,000 people.
Awards / Accolades
2006: Chicago Beverage Testing Institute 89/100 for Firefly Muscadine Wine Vodka
2009: San Francisco World Spirits Competition awarded Firefly Handcrafted Vodka a bronze medal
2020: Charleston Chamber of Commerce “Champion Innovator” award recipient
Jim Irvin has consistently assisted the local and state business community - specifically the distillery industry through multiple lobbying efforts with the SC state legislature. When Firefly Distillery was just launching the state required $50k to start a distillery on top of the equipment costs which is a very high barrier to entry; Irvin and Newitt successfully lobbied the state to change that to a $1k fee thus opening the doors for more small start-ups. In 2009, Jim and his partner successfully lobbied to allow tastings and sales of the product at the facility location. Additionally, Firefly Distillery’s location in North Charleston has added to Charleston Metro’s hospitality industry by showcasing a South Carolina product, hosting local food trucks and events for non-profit organizations like Lowcountry Local First.
The common thread beyond business acumen is that Jim Irvin is not afraid to reinvent, reimagine + rebuild. From the multiple career pivots to rebuilding after a hurricane and reimagining during the pandemic, Jim Irvin has proven that he is not only a successful builder, developer, vintner and distiller, but a resilient and innovative fixture in the Charleston and South Carolina community. You can probably find him working his magic at the Firefly Distillery in Park Circle these days; swing by for a distillery tour and tasting and say congrats!
Primary bedroom for a mid-century modern inspired house on the Stono River. [Rush Dixon Architects, Interiors by Allison Elebash, Photo by Julia Lynn]
In case you missed it last month, during a Gothamist interview about addressing the housing affordability crisis, NYC Mayor Eric Adams questioned the need to require windows in bedrooms stating “You know, when you sleep it should be dark.” This got many of us in the design industry and beyond imagining a trend of lifeless spaces negatively impacting its occupants. Admittedly, the housing crisis is real, layered and requires a new set of approaches to move the needle; there were many strategies discussed including tax incentives, allowing Single Room Occupancies (SRO) again and the conversion of vacant office buildings into residential spaces (all worthy topics for another blog entry.) And as to not cherry-pick sound bites, the entirety of the mayor’s point was this: “Why can't we do a real examination of the rules that state every bedroom must have a window? You know when you sleep it should be dark. Instead of doing that, have studio apartments with shared living and working spaces.”
First, an important distinction: a studio apartment with windows is very different than allowing multiple windowless bedrooms in an apartment unit or multi-family building. Additionally, compared to being houseless, a safe, lockable shelter, even without a window, is an improvement…but not as a permanent housing solution. Unfortunately, this was not the first time the idea of windowless bedrooms was pitched as a cost-effective solution. Take Munger Hall, a massive dormitory planned for the University of California Santa Barbara which we first learned about via this 99% Invisible podcast. Carolina A. Miranda writes in the LA times “Munger Hall, a.k.a. “Dormzilla,” the warehouse-sized dormitory proposed (and designed) by billionaire non-architect Charlie Munger — a building whose primary architectural feature consists of sleeping rooms that lack windows and therefore access to fresh air and natural light. In lieu of windows, his concept features LED lights — “virtual windows” — that can be adjusted to mimic daylight patterns. As I have previously reported, the proposal flies in the face of years of research on the importance of having access to natural daylight in architecture.” While this approach puts a large dent in the campus housing deficit, we can’t help but wonder at what cost to the well-being of the occupants.
Mayor Adams added the point, “We can’t be so idealistic that we’re not realistic.” Perhaps that is true, in the ‘Don’t let perfect be the enemy of good’ category, but we should not ignore some basic lessons learned on providing a positive built environment for all. So, yes, Mr. Mayor, bedrooms need windows. In fact, most rooms should have windows if it is able to be occupied for long periods of time and does not prevent the required function from occurring such as movie theaters, art museums, and storage facilities. The built environment is not meant to ‘store’ human beings in the most efficient way by weakening precedented building codes and architectural tenets. It should at a minimum provide a safe shelter for its inhabitants and an inspiring sanctuary to create a place of one’s own, dream, gather with family, and yes, even look at the stars from your bedroom window at night. Here are four pre-requisites we believe are relevant as alternate housing solutions are created:
Primary bedroom in Mount Pleasant, SC. [Rush Dixon Architects, Ebony Ellis photographer]
The International Residential Code R310.1 requires emergency escape and rescue openings for every sleeping room. Stating “Emergency escape and rescue openings shall open directly into a public way, or to a yard or court that opens to a public way” and includes minimum sizes of the opening. The code commentary, which pulls from precedent and historic events, explains “Because so many fire deaths occur as a result of occupants being asleep in a residential building during a fire, the code requires that all basements, habitable attics and sleeping rooms have windows or doors that may be used for emergency escape or rescue. The requirement for emergency escape and rescue openings in sleeping rooms exists because a fire will usually have spread before the occupants are aware of the problem, and the normal exit channels may be blocked.”
A dramatic part of multi-family housing design history, and one we should drastically learn from, is tenement housing. In the 1800s, as NYC was seeing a large influx of immigrants, structures that contained multiple living units with little thought given to health and safety were built to house the masses. A Smithsonian article states, “Four to six stories in height, tenements contained four separate apartments on each floor, measuring 300 to 400 square feet. Apartments contained just three rooms; a windowless bedroom, a kitchen and a front room with windows. A contemporary magazine described tenements as, ‘great prison-like structures of brick, with narrow doors and windows, cramped passages and steep rickety stairs. . . . In case of fire they would be prefect death-traps, for it would be impossible for the occupants of the crowded rooms to escape by the narrow stairways.’” The Tenement Reform Law of 1879 provided minimum standards for light and ventilation.
Humans are wired to be connected to the natural environment. Is it sunny? Raining? Cloudy? Can you see the moon? Exposure to natural light is linked to improved health, productivity, sleep, and mood. Click here for NC State’s article on the benefits of exposure to natural light and here for more on biophilic design. In an era where the average American spends 90% of their time inside and more people live in cities than rural areas, attention to the design of the built environment to increase well-being and a connection to nature is paramount. Moreover, studies have shown increased recovery rates in surgery patients if their room has a view of nature compared to a view of a brick wall - imagine if there were no windows.
There is a theory that those individuals leading the charge about loosening code regulations resulting in windowless bedrooms are likely not going to be the folks living in them. “Developers are trying to cram people into small, dark places, which is symptomatic of a much wider failure to provide the kind of decent housing that we need,” Hugh Ellis, head of policy at the Town and Country Planning Association. As alternatives are imagined, a baseline of decent, even if modest, housing types should be strived for. A guiding light for equity and reverence in the most modest of dwellings is the late Samual Mockbee, founder of Auburn University’s Rural Studio. Paramount lessons beyond design and construction are those in human decency, class and racial differences. Working with the smallest of budgets, the design-build studio strived to create dwellings for Alabama’s poorest county. “It’s got to be warm, dry, and noble.” Samuel Mockbee
So, yes, we can and should do a ‘real examination’ moving forward - just not one that ignores history or humanity.
More reading on the topic:
Guest bedroom for a mid-century modern inspired residence in Charleston, SC [Rush Dixon Architects, Interiors by Allison Elebash, Photo by Julia Lynn]
Happy Holidays from our workshop! Thank you for your continued trust and collaboration as we wrap up another year of designing in our community.
Rush + Judy Dixon | Rush Dixon Architects
Inspired by mid-century architecture, this modern residence located in Charleston, South Carolina captures Stono River views with transparency and clean detailing. Forever thankful for our clients who trusted us and the collaboration with these pros:
Landscape Architect: Steve Dudash
Interiors: Allison Elebash
Builder: Cline Homes
Photography: Julia Lynn
Styling: Kate Malpeli
Author: Stephanie Hunt
Excerpt from Luxe Interiors + Design Southeast Nov/Dec 2022 by Stephanie Hunt:
“The sun slipping beneath the horizon of Charleston’s Stono River affords a view unlike any other. The languid humidity, lingering nearly the whole year here, filters light like a kaleidoscope, tossing color to and fro. Frame this scene in the arms of majestic, moss-draped oaks, and it’s enough to take your breath away.
Such were the natural gifts of a picturesque Charleston property, where one couple hoped to capture these Lowcountry dreamscapes from every angle. Although the pair had adored a steel-and-glass addition at their previous, more traditional home, the Stono River site afforded the opportunity to indulge their midcentury preferences from the ground up. A respected real estate developer in the area, the husband already had collaborated with architects Rush and Judy Dixon on several commercial projects in the past, which made teaming up for a new residence a no-brainer. “This house is all about the view and connection to the water,” reveals Judy, adding that a benefit of embracing a modernist discipline is its inherent minimalism. “From our first meeting, these clients were clear they didn’t want something grand, fussy or ostentatious; rather, a home that would be organic, eclectic and clean,” she continues. “They understand the power of simplicity.”
Joining the project from the outset, landscape architect, Steve Dudash had the fortune of consulting heavily on the home’s siting, even directing a 180-degree flip in orientation to best capture the sunset views. To further leverage the river vistas and blur boundaries between inside and out, the Dixons devised a transparent, open living space. Bound by glass on two sides, it’s bookended by the primary suite as well as a two-story tower hosting additional bedrooms and a den. “The main living area easily absorbs all comings and goings when everyone is busy at home, but it still feels intimate when it’s just the two of them,” Judy says. “It was essential that every room, every space, feel comfortable on a personal scale, and with a connection to nature.” In the public spaces, cypress ceilings, soffits and a louvered overhang that filters strong afternoon sunlight all speak to local natural materials. Such details underscore the tireless efforts of buider Jay Godefroy and his team, including design coordinator Alexandra Frick. “Jay was exceptionally patient and thorough,” reveals Rush, who ensured a nod to classic Charleston vernacular by way of a white stucco facade.
Serenity comes not only from the breathtaking location, but from the simplicity of the interiors, where designer Allison Elebash capitalized on the Dixons’ modernist hallmarks. She anchored the main living area, for example, using a curved sofa with 1970s notes. “Solving the seating configuration in such a large horizontal space was tricky,” admits Elebash, adding that its embracing shape and golden mohair upholstery smartly combine form and function: lush to the touch, but durable enough to stand up to daily life. “I loved the practicality of these clients,” continues Elebash. In every part of the house, “they wanted to avoid anything extraneous; everything is purposeful.”
A custom walnut dining table bridges the area between this gathering space and the kitchen, where a calming palette of earth tones and sky blues is expressed through a dark gray island countertop and azure leather stools - all streamlined, per the clients’ request, so as not to compete with the views. But Elebash pushed back against the husband’s “no maintenance, no upkeep” pragmatism when it came to the kitchen backsplash. “I insisted we go with real marble,” recounts the designer, who specified a book-matched slab of Calacatta Namibia because “nothing beats the drama of natural stone.”
Situating the pool deck to capture the same sight lines as the house, however, required no cajoling. “Everyone agreed on the size, shape and location of the infinity pool, which would be surrounded by a bluestone patio,” Rush recounts. “The owners’ bedroom wraps around it, so again, there’s a connection from their personal space as well as the living room.” Keeping the pool and patio on the same elevation as the house likewise guaranteed the outdoor areas - updated by Dudash with fresh plantings of beautyberry, African iris, Foster holly and more - would be a seamless extension of the interior.
From this vantage point, the homeowners can fully soak up their fulfilled vision: a modern homage to Charleston’s ancient landscape that marries old and new, indoors and out, natural and man-made, with peace and practicality. After all, as the storied river and old oaks know, simplicity is best when nature’s beauty is so abundant.”
Lowcountry Local First’s legendary ‘Chef’s Potluck’ fundraising event, which pairs Charleston area chefs with local farmers, fishermen and ranchers, will be held this year at the Firefly Distillery in North Charleston, SC. Rush Dixon Architects is delighted to be one of the sponsors for this 14th annual event which will be held on May 22. Get your tickets or register to volunteer HERE . Proceeds from the event benefit the organization’s mission to cultivate an equitable economy anchored in local ownership.
It is always exciting when worlds collide; especially when they are both forces of good in the community. In this case, Lowcountry Local First, an organization that we have been members of for years that advocates for the local economy including our small business and a wonderful client, Firefly Distillery. When we were working on the design of their North Charleston facility, in addition to the distillery, tasting room and gift shop functions, the notion of creating spaces for gatherings and events of all sizes was a priority. To see their success in hosting concerts, parties and now a signature event is exciting.
The 2022 Chef’s Potluck participating restaurants include:
The 2022 beverage providers include:
More partners will be announced in the coming weeks so check back on the LLF website for more information and to get your tickets!
Earlier this year, the City of North Charleston, SC announced a public competition for the design of a new City flag in honor of North Charleston’s 50th anniversary this year. The goal was to improve upon the existing flag design, which utilizes the City’s seal, to create a less complex and more meaningful graphic. Creators were urged to review the North American Vexillological Association’s elements for a good flag design. For reference ‘vexillology’ is the scientific study of the history, symbolism, and usage of flags or, by extension, any interest in flags in general. Elements to consider include:
Keep It Simple: The design should be enough that a child can draw it from memory.
Use Meaningful Symbolism: Images, colors or patterns should relate to what the flag symbolizes.
Use Two or Three Basic Colors: Limit the number of colors to three standard colors which contrast well.
No Lettering or Seals: Never incorporate writing of any kind or an organizations seal
Be Distinctive or Related: Avoid duplicating other flags, but use similarities to show connections
For a more animated take on the subject, one of our favorite podcasts, 99 Percent Invisible has a great episode on flag design.
Since our architectural studio is located in North Charleston and we apparently can’t pass up a design challenge, we decided to create a submission which references some of North Charleston’s history as well as a nod to the current events and future of the city. After much research and understanding that the flag could only include so many components we distilled the references into the following:
Edges: The edges of the flag are an abstract nod to railroad tracks and the jagged shoreline of the shipyard.
Diagonal Lines: Represent the Ashley and Cooper Rivers
Central Circle: References Park Circle, the community and citizens of North Charleston. The white circle is dynamic; as if in rotating motion. The two halves wrapping around each other in a yin + yang fashion. Symbolic of a modern city that grapples with complex and opposing social issues: History v. Future, Natural Environment v. Development, Economic Growth v. Gentrification, Racial Equity v. Bias, Crime v. Punishment.
Blue Color: updated from the previous flag and inspired by the SC flag, this color represents the nearby waterways and the night sky.
Star: Depicted is the 8-pointed star of the compass, a nod to navigation and the guiding light that the North Star has provided through history. As a symbol, the North Star depicts a beacon of inspiration and hope to many. For a city it may symbolize its aspiration and guiding principles. A unifying symbol for this young and thriving city to the geographic North of Charleston.
See the 10 images below for our formal submission to the City:
Yesterday we were informed that our flag design is one of 10 finalists selected from a field of 160. Click HERE to see the 10 finalists and to provide feedback to the City.
Our clients are avid travelers and collectors, cherishing found and curated objects so we had a some fun designing a custom display built-in that also serves an entry screen. Pictured here is the final solution building by Alka Construction in the Fulton Neighborhood in Mount Pleasant, SC.
Houzz recently included this custom solution in their article "15 Ways to Create Separation in an Open Floor Plan." Click HERE for a link to the article.
