It's been a while

It's been a while since my last post. And alot has happened. I would just like to say I love Design Build. except we seem to be getting rid of the space between those words and are dong a DESINBUILD project. This seems to be working fairly well for us. Today we got alot done in the back porch/landscaping area, alot of which was different than what was drawn on the plans in front of us; and I am completely OK with this. I believe architects should be more involved in the building process, not necessarily a complete design build setup just more on site time. Things just look different in real life, or to full scale.

Circular Process

Architecture truly is a circular process. In our case is seems more like CIRCLES than circular. However, it is moving along. Our major problems seem to be the building inspector. I cant wait till we can actually get down to some real construction. Going to see things in Austin this past weekend has really sparked my creativity (pictures to come). We got some great ideas on materiality, finishes, and even construction (perfect timing right). This weekend has showed me that every project should have a quick break at about this stage to step back and reevaluate things. I just wish our break was not extended by our building inspector.

Happy-ish New Year

So this new year brought some very interesting things. First what is up with the water on the site. Could we get anymore surprises with this site. I really hope that is fixed in time for us to get to work.
Second, Site Safety. Why did we not say anything about poisonous plants before we started taking out brush. Being an Eagle Scout you would think I would have thought of it. Then again who does think they will get poison sumac. So, Ashley you aren't alone. Mine Showed up on Christmas eve and got bad and then started getting better. That is until Sunday night with it just blew up and spread form my arms to my sides. So was going to go the the doctor later this week, but on the first morning of the new year I decided that it covering my stomach was too much and went to the ER. I got right in, thank god all the idiots that burned themselves with fireworks got treated that night. So I spent 4 hours with an IV and several steroids and other drugs. Now I get to be on several pills and covered in calamine lotion until this is gone. so here are the picks from after the ER trip. So I would like to join Ashley in saying "thank you site".

yummy right

Its hard to want to think green when green fights back

The trees came down today, along with a few new temporary relationships in the group(he he he). Yay!!! and as things in the field begin to develop this project becomes more real. With the reality of the project comes the reality of how much we have to still learn. I always expected to come out of school knowing most of what i need and the internship was just to hone that knowledge in to a streamlined practice. I quickly came to the realization last night as to how much I have to learn. Prime example, the plumbing plan. No one in our class had ever done one and the only one we could find to use as a guide was the one from last years project, and apparently they were in the same situation as us. As Mr. Fakelmann always said "you can only draw as good as what you are looking at."
huh, thats the first time I've ever agreed with that one.

Let's just start by talking about the project. Simply put we are building a home for a family in need with the help of the community and Habitat for Humanity. This statement brings us to our first problem, the family. granted we have been designing without a specific client for our entire school career, this is a bit different since someone will actually be occupying this project.
(I don't want to sound like I'm complaining about this project, but when I
use the term problem mean it more as hurdle. If architects are problem
solvers we are going to have problems to start with. )
The next problem is/was the site. First we had to find it and now we have to clear it. Aside from the monetary issues involved in clearing, there are the green issues. We would like to tread as lightly as possible on the land, and will still try, its just turning out that lightly is not as lightly as we all hoped. How do you tread lightly and keep trees when you are told that those many of those trees will pose treats to the house we are building. So in order to fulfill our obligation to our clients and our project they must go, forcing our green architecture to tread a little bit more heavily on our site.