A few months ago, one of my old professors from architecture school -- Phu Hoang -- reached out to me through this blog. That's one of the benefits of writing publicly -- it becomes your calling card. In this case, it had been at least 16 years since I was in his design studio.

We connected over a call. He told me about his and Rachely's firm, MODU Architecture. And he let me know that he's no longer teaching at Penn. He is now the Head of Architecture of the Knowlton School at Ohio State University.

Then, following the call, he was kind enough to send me a copy of his new book, Field Guide to Indoor Urbanism:

The typical approach to modern building design is to have clearly defined boundaries between interior and exterior spaces. The outside is the outside. And the inside is a climate-controlled space that is, for the most part, sealed to the outside.

Most of us spend the vast majority of our lives in these latter spaces. In fact, since the advent of modernism and the International Style over a century ago, the general idea has been that these spaces can and should be mostly the same.

HVAC systems make it so that you don't really need to worry about context or the environment. What works in Toronto can work in Phoenix. You just need to dial up your cooling loads.

This is so much the case that whenever I'm in a city with a fairly benign climate, such as somewhere in California, I always find myself fascinated by the fluidity between interior and exterior spaces. It's such a foreign concept to me that it stands out: "Wait, how is this not sealed?

Indoor urbanism, on the other hand, makes the argument that this binary approach is the wrong way to think about spaces. Here's an excerpt from a recent Metropolis article about MODU:

They call this approach “indoor urbanism,” which privileges the blurred boundary between what has traditionally been considered interior space and exterior space. This in-between space–straddling open and closed, artificial and natural–deserves architects’ keen attention, especially as the planet warms. “Indoor urbanism recognizes that architecture and cities are situated on an environmental continuum, as a matter of degrees rather than absolutes,” write Hoang and Rotem in Field Guide.

Examples of this thinking can be found throughout their work. This project in Jackson, Wyoming is one of my favorites both because I love Jackson and because it's a cold and snowy place. And yet, even in this climate zone, their design includes for several "semi-exterior areas" that serve to connect you to nature.

This is a decidedly different way to think about architecture and urbanism. But as our climate crisis intensifies, it's only going to become more relevant.

Below are the US counties with the highest per-capita income (as of 2018), according to this recent Bloomberg article:

Teton, WY is home to the Jackson Hole valley (which has some of the best skiing in the world). And Pitkin, CO is home to Aspen. Turns out, rich people like ski towns.

Interestingly enough, 2018 saw per capita income grow in the greatest number of US counties since 1981. According to the Bureau of Economic Analysis, it was 97% of all counties:

For the full Bloomberg article, click here.

Charts: Bloomberg

Jackson Hole Airport (JAC) has one runway. It is 6,300 feet long by 150 feet wide and it was originally constructed in 1959. In 1965, the first of many proposals was put forward to lengthen the runway to 8,000 feet so that jets could fly into the airport. But it was never adopted. Subsequent proposals were made in 1992 and 1999, but they were again highly contentious and similarly never adopted. The runway remains 6,300 feet long.

However in the early 1980s jets began using the existing runway and the area started to boom. According to this old New York Times article from 2002, the town’s growth exactly parallels the introduction of jet service at JAC. The town doubled from 9,000 people in 1980 to 18,000 people in 2000. Its per capita income also shot up from a steady $20,000 in 1984 to more than $67,000 in 2011 – making Teton County one of the richest in the US.

Tourism destinations and second home markets like Jackson Hole are heavily dependent on access. In 2003, a total of 211,788 passengers flew through JAC airport and, in 2016, it was over 340,000 people. But second home markets are also the first to get hit during macroeconomics shocks. Following the 2008 financial crisis, passenger volumes at JAC didn’t recover until 2014.

If you look at air traffic throughout the year you’ll also see that it is highly seasonal. Below is a chart showing monthly passenger volumes at JAC from 2003 to 2016 (data from the Bureau of Transportation Statistics). Some of you may be surprised to see that more people visit Jackson Hole in the summer, compared to the winter. But what’s perhaps even more conspicuous is the sharp drop off during the swing seasons.

I am thinking about all of this not only because I just got back from Jackson Hole, but also because I am very interested in the demand drivers that fuel the real estate in many of these mountain towns. It’s easy to get it wrong. Unlike major urban centers – which often operate under a perpetual supply deficit – you can’t just build and necessarily expect people to come.

Revelstoke Mountain Resort, for instance, first opened in 2007 with grand aspirations of building one of the largest ski resorts in North America. But they got crushed in 2008 and have never fully recovered – at least relative to their original plans. Maybe the answer is a bigger airport.