double –roof

This morning I set out in search of old adobe or stone buildings. My first stop was a park in Encino with a natural-fed spring which had been home to the native American tribe called the Tongva for hundreds and even perhaps thousands of years according to the official state of California website. I came upon a building called “The Food House.” Designed with food storage in mind, it had double walls and a double roof to keep the interior as cool as possible, very important with the intense summer heat in the San Fernando Valley.   The upper roof acts as a shade over the lower roof, separated by about 6 inches. A docent explained to me that it would cost 2 to 3 million dollars to properly restore this structure to its original state. At this point, it is so damaged that the public cannot go inside, and one can see visible cracks in the walls all the way to the interior. The 1994 Northridge Quake was responsible for much of this damage. So far it remains the only building at this site which still needs restoration, thus providing me with my desired image of an aging, textured surface.