Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, July 27, 1990 TAG: 9007270107
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Ed Shamy
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
But you can get an idea by driving down Peters Creek Road and looking at their odd-looking new office building.
Truth is, the newfangled-looking office at 6120 Peters Creek looks like a box that has fallen from a cargo jet, landed on edge in the mud, tilted, been jolted by an earthquake and spun a bit and then hit broadside by a runaway gyroscope.
One guy says it looks like an upside down check mark.
"It's a 30-60 triangle, laying on its hypotenuse," says Pete Jones, an architect who uses language not suited for family use. Can you believe the guy would say "hypotenuse" in a family newspaper?
Jones and his son, Jyke, are both architects. Together, they are Jones & Jones Associates, Architects, and for years they have practiced out of Pete's Roanoke house. Three weeks ago, they opened an additional office - 2,000 square feet in two stories' worth of building, and Roanoke County may never be the same.
"As architects, we wanted to come up with something that would be different, but not so different that it would scare people away," said Jyke. "And not that expensive."
So Jyke did some sketches. He built some models. For two years, father and son refined and mulled and redrew. And finally, they built.
"We wanted something that would fit into this neighborhood," says Pete.
The neighborhood - the stretch of Peters Creek between Interstate 581 and Williamson Road - is not one that is revered for its architectural pizazz. Car dealers, animal hospitals and motor vehicle offices are not the stuff of great monuments.
But the Jones fellows have interrupted the low-slung Peters Creek look with their unorthodox building.
And yes, wisecracker, inside the walls are straight up and down and the ceilings are flat. The desks do not lie on their hypotenusii - or whatever is the plural of hypotenuse.
The office cost about 5 percent more than an ordinary square building, but the father-and-son architecture team did much of the carpentry, plumbing and finishing work themselves to help save money.
The roof is pitched so sharply, says Pete, that it wouldn't leak even if the asphalt shingles were punctured: "The water moves too fast."
"We wanted to bring the roof down to the ground, to give the building a human look. Buildings are for people. We didn't want a monument," he said.
They didn't get a monument.
What they got was a vertigo-inducing building that has had too much to drink. Pity the poor pilots flying into or out of nearby Roanoke Regional Airport.
One look out the cockpit window and ascending pilots will think they're plummeting. Plummeting pilots will think they're climbing. Social climbers will pass out altogether.
But everyone is bound to look, probably twice.
"We know some people will poke fun. We wanted gaiety," said Pete Jones.
by CNB