W A Kibby's WebSite
Member Emeritus American Institute of Architects
Architecture
One of the most fun projects that I have ever done was this Resort Hotel, Vacation Village, near the future site of Sea World in Mission Bay, San Diego. The Owner was Jack Skirball, who also produced Alfred Hitchcock Pictures. The work was a team effort. There were four main designers, Zach Stewart, Val Agnoli,Dan Osborn, and myself. In the early 1960's, this project was a pioneering use of pole construction, and one of the largest of such built for that time.
The observation tower featured a sculpture built from common steel reinforcing bars by one of the four designers, Val Agnoli. He built it in one month helped by a concrtete construction worker who understood how to bend the steel bars. The treated telephone poles were the foundation and main elements of the structure for the buildings.
Photos: Philip Hyde
The restaurant:
Reinforcing steel bent shapes make up supporting beams for the heavy
timber roof decking.
Photo: Julius Schulman
Photo: Julius Schulman
I called the Guest Rooms caves because three walls were adobe block walls without windows and the fourth was windows. The guest would get a feeling of security inside the room.
I took the first PSA flight from San Francisco to San Diego several times a week to do the layout of the buildings and supervise the construction work and returned on the last flight of the evening. The site plan reveals the "cave" guest rooms distributed at random, but with careful attention to the outlook from the cave mouths.
This is a model I made of a pool at Jackson Lake Lodge, Grand
Teton National Park, Wyoming. This was another whimsical version
of a pole structure. I designed a hyperbolic paraboloid pole
canopy. I intended to echo the traditional early Wyoming Indian
tepees.
When it was built it looked just like my model 
Photos: Jerimiah O. Bragstad 
Photos: Jerimiah O. Bragstad
We did a lot of work in National Parks, particularly in Yosemite. Here is my own design for guest rooms at Yosemite Lodge. There were four rooms to a floor with private balconies facing out in each of the four sides.
Interior of one of the four-way facing guest rooms.
Here are some other nearby Guest Cottages at Yosemite Lodge. These were designed by our collaborative design team led by Pat Angell.
3 photos above: Phil Hyde
This was one of the first few buildings for the new UC Santa Cruiz Campus.
When I designed this building, I borrowed an idea that I admired for the concrete finish that was developed by Alfred Preis, a Honolulu Architect. My challenge was to replace the labor intensive hand worked procedure and adapt some modern techniques of construction to make a similar effect. We were able to form up full height and pour the walls in a continuous lift operation and expose the stone work after the forms were removed.
The Building was designed to serve Fine Arts Studies and included the Campus Telephone Exchange and the first Campus Computer Center in the basement.
It was in a Redwood forest and only two mature trees were displaced for the building.
Photo: Philip Hyde
I made a study model to identify relationship of the Building and the surrounding trees. The tree locations are accurate on this model
Photo: Philip Hyde
In 1964 I laid out 150 campsites near the Merced River in Yosemite.
The earlier wooden tent platforms were often swept away by spring floods.
The Yosemite Park and Curry Company wanted to avoid the rebuilding of
the campsites after the floods in time for the Summer season. We designed concrete floors
with concrete tilt-up walls and canvas roofed duplex units. Here again
was the "Cave" concept of San Diego's Vacation Village -- Three sides
had heavy walls and the fourth side opened to a small private
outdoor space. I laid out the sites in a little under two days using a
chain loop device I had used in the layout of the San Diego project.
This was a chain in a loop with rings at each corner. I
walked the site and used metal spikes in the rings to quickly locate and
adjust each campsite. I could easily get a unit sited with respect to the
views and trees in plenty of time for a crew to follow along
behind me and set more permanent corner stakes for forming the slabs.
The Camp Curry Housekeepyng Camp has remained popular and I believe is
still in use with its
original form today.
Photos: Phil Hyde and Pat Angel; Brochure: Pat Angel
