Rowlett Fire Station #1
In addition to the residential work, I also design fire stations. I love fire stations – they are fun to work on, most of them are interesting to look at and the activities that go on inside are typically a lot of fun. I suppose there is the obvious connection between these two user groups which would suggest that any architect that does residential work could also do a fire station – but that’s not true.
Fire Stations are extremely complicated buildings technically and they are one of the few commercial building types that are open for business 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. There is also the challenge of integrating commercial uses with immediate adjacency to residential uses so that the building can maintain the duality of its purpose by providing a home to the people that live there while serving the greater public at large (people actually walking into a station for help). It should be pointed out that in my residential work, I don’t design kitchens with 3 refrigerators, living rooms with 12 barcalounger’s, community bathrooms with handicapped accessibility and mixed gender community sleeping areas. Actually, we do design mixed gender community sleeping areas but not for 12 people.
You have to consider that fire stations are civic buildings that are placed in residential environments, and that while these buildings need to fulfill many perceptions from the public at large, more specifically they need to address the perception of the community they serve. This could mean breaking the components of the building into smaller units and selecting materials so that the station fits into its neighborhood. It could also mean adjusting the architectural features to create a heightened sense of civic pride and stability.
Whenever I am meeting with a group of fire fighters, it doesn’t take long before one of them will mention that they hate when people describe fire stations as a house with a really fancy garage. While it is true that a portion of the building serves as the residence for the shifts of fire fighters who work there, there are public spaces designated for community uses, training areas, workout facilities, offices and watch stations
There are typically 3 crews of varying size that operate in 24 hour shifts – work one 24 hour day, off the next 48 hours and repeat. (Do the math – they are on duty over 800 hours more per year than the typical 8-5 M-F worker. That’s over 100 days more – no more weekends for you, get to work). They spend a lot of time in these buildings and their culture is highly defined (and for my fire fighter friends, I said defined, not evolved). They cook together, eat together, exercise together, and risk their lives together. To say they develop close personal bonds to one another is putting it lightly. In an effort to better understand how the fire fighters use these spaces, I have gone out on 24 hour shift ride-a-longs as this is really the best way to see how fire fighters spend their time while on duty and how they interact with the building; do the spaces work, what do they like, what do they hate, etc.
As serious as this work is (and it is deadly serious) I have never met a fire fighter who didn’t love their job. The enthusiasm for their job is extremely contagious and I always think how much I would like to be a member of this unique fraternity after every visit I make to a fire station. I have always been warmly welcomed and incorporated into the group for my day working the shift (even received a few nicknames that I will keep to myself).
If you ever get the chance to spend time with these amazing people and observe them during a shift you should do it – you will have an experience you will never forget.
Some quick info about the images here – the station at the top was the second station we designed and it won a national 2010 Bronze Station Style Award. This is Rowlett Station #1 – the main station – and it had a design goal of projecting the civic pride of this community.
The first movie here is for a station still in the design stage and is designed to fit in the scale and material palette of the residential neighborhood where it resides.
The last movie was a short film we produced to illustrate that despite the technological advancements that have occurred the culture of fire stations has not. The black and white station shown here is DFD Station #31, one of the oldest post WWII stations in the Dallas Fire Department.
I find Intelligence Quotient, or IQ, scores incredibly fascinating. When my wife and I learned that my daughter (39 months old at the time) would be required to get hers tested as part of the required application process to Dallas area private schools, I decided to educate myself on the subject.
The concept of measuring the IQ of an individual is credited to either German psychologist and philosopher Wilhelm Stern in 1912, or to Lewis Terman in 1916 (sources vary). Prior to these dates, large scale testing was done by psychologist Alfred Binet in 1904 as part of a commission by the French government to create a system to differentiate intellectually normal children from those who were inferior (wow – that’s harsh). Binet created the Binet-Scale and sometime later, Dr. Terman revised this scale to become the Simon-Binet IQ Scale. That scale classified the scores as:
Over 140 – Genius or almost genius
120 – 140 – Very superior intelligence
110 – 119 – Superior intelligence
90 – 109 – Average or normal intelligence
80 – 89 – Dullness
70 – 79 – Borderline deficiency in intelligence
Under 70 – Feeble-mindedness
You can find lists of typical IQ scores by profession on the Internet and I’m not vouching for their credibility but the part that is the most interesting to me is how these scores can be used to measure the relative capabilities of the individual in a real world environment (i.e. what kind of job would you be capable of as the most valid predictor of future performance is general mental ability). To think that the intent of measuring one’s IQ is to determine to capability and capacity of an individual and that no amount of effort or preparation will allow someone with a 110 IQ to work a job that typically requires the capacity of a brain measuring something higher.
Top civil servants, Professors and Scientists – 140
Surgeons, Lawyers and Architects/ Engineers – 130
School teachers, Pharmacists, Accountants, Nurses, and Managers – 120.
Foremen, Clerks, Salesmen, Policemen and Electricians – 110
Machine operators, Welders, and Butchers – 100
Laborers, Gardeners, Miners, Sorters and Factory packers – 90
If you decided to have your IQ measured, the tests are most likely to use the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS) or your child (like mine) would be tested with the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children. I have had my IQ tested twice in my life; once when I was a child in the second grade and again when I was in my early thirties and interestingly enough, the scores of the two tests, almost 25 years apart were virtually identical.
All that having been said, having a high IQ doesn’t mean all that much to the unmotivated individual and success is relative and not a indicator of happiness (unless of course you are only measuring it against failure). Click here for a list of estimated IQ’s of famous people past and present.
This is a weekend house that I have just about completed and should probably go into construction sometime over the summer. I have adjusted the original design model to reflect the actual roadway conditions and modified the typography (to 12″ increments) in an effort to paint a clearer picture for the eventual contractor. Since this house is located several hours outside of Dallas, the pool of contractor’s we have to work with probably aren’t familiar with building modern houses. By extension and for obvious reasons, this model will provide additional value in describing to the contractor the intent of what we designed.
Another benefit to having this model is that it will help with the architectural review board who might look at the drawings, with their obvious lack of ornament, and think there isn’t a lot going on here (and they would be wrong). Having this model as a visual aid will allow us to describe the building within the context of the entire project. The basic concept behind the choice and color of the building materials we selected is to make use of locally available products (with their familiar construction techniques) but to reinterpret the specific nature of how they are used. We also studied the massing and the location of the building on site in an attempt to minimize the perceived volume from the public right of way. Since the site is heavily wooded, this house will not be perceived from the road as an intrinsic jewelry box but rather a building developed specifically for this site. Being able to demonstrate these concepts with the building placed in the midst of the existing trees on site, in real time 3-dimensionally, makes for a far more provocative and beneficial presentation to a group of people who might be predisposed to thinking modern houses are essentially boxes with overly simplified program requirements. If they only knew…oh wait, it’s my job to educate them – and my little study model here will go far in doing just that.
(watch it in full screen mode to see everything. the file size has been reduced to accomodate the size limitations of my blog but you can still get my drift)
We are getting ever closer to submitted the drawings to the city for permitting on this residence. This project is near downtown Dallas and is a horizontally tiered duplex residence on a urban infill site and is surrounded by multi-storied condominiums and 4-5 story single family attached town homes. That surprisingly makes us the “small project” on the block. I have attached a study animation here but in an effort to view more of the building, I have turned off information like the surrounding buildings, perimeter fencing and a majority of the landscaping that will be planted to provide some privacy screening for the owners.
The ceremony yesterday was pretty interesting and for someone who isn’t literally a part of the Jewish community, I was happy to be there and witness the fellowship. It took a lot of commitment, dedication and involvement to get this done. Most of the people who worked on this project donated their time and resources, from our office all the way to the contractor (Mark Albert with ArtHouse Homes) who built the project without a contracting fee.
The scale of the project went through several revisions to find a construction budget point that intersected with the amount of private funding available and the project is not as grand as was once originally intended. All that aside, I think everyone is very happy with it. I have posted some before and after photos up above.
Thanks to those who came out.
As a sort of follow up to my last blog on community service, there will be a ribbon cutting ceremony today at 1:00 for the newly designed and constructed entrance to the Jewish Community Center (click here for address and directions).
Bruce Bernbaum, one of the partners in our firm, Bernbaum Magadini Architects, donates a considerable amount of his personal time and some of the firms resources to the Jewish community – this new entry being just one example. I designed the new plaza and entry for our firm and today is the day that it will open. I will take some pictures and post them later.
If anybody is in the metroplex and wants to pop over and say hello, it’s an open ceremony and I’d love to see you.
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Donating your time to the benefit of others is important and as an architect, the opportunities to use our abilities and knowledge to perform community service are plentiful. One event that I will be working on this year will be the Dallas CASA Parade of Playhouses. CASA (which stands for Court Appointed Special Advocates) is a nonprofit organization of community volunteers trained and supervised to serve as voices in court for abused and neglected children. On any day in Dallas County, there are nearly 2,000 children waiting for a safe place to live. Many times the CASA volunteer is the only constant in the child’s life during this very difficult process. Parade of Playhouses raises funds for Dallas CASA to continue serving more children who need safe, permanent homes where they can thrive.
I worked on this event last year, designing two of the playhouses that were raffled off and it was an incredible experience. Of the 15 entries, we designed two; one for ORIX (the events title underwriter) and one for Dallas CASA. If you want to see a 3d animation of the design study click here for SmartCar Plahouse or Japanese Playhouse
This year I am working on this event again because it provides an opportunity to apply my creative abilities in fun and beneficial manner. One of my personal objectives is to involve the Dallas Chapter AIA. The plan I am working on is to have a design competition with young architects (newly licensed) associate architects, and members of the AIAS (students). Representatives from CASA, our local construction community and other architects will jury the competition with the top entries being built and displayed at NorthPark Mall during the month of August as part of the annual CASA Parade of Playhouses event.
I really think this will be an amazing experience for all who participate and I will be working feverishly over the next few weeks to try and align all the different groups of people who will be necessary to pull this off. Some important dates to remember are:
Friday, April 30th – Preliminary evaluation round by YAF competition sub-committee members to bring number of final entries to be judged to manageable number of semi-finalists entries.
Monday, May 3rd – Semi-finalists will be notified that they have advanced to the jury round. The entries will be printed out full sized and mounted to foam core for final judging. These boards will remain the property of Dallas CASA.
Friday, May 7th – Final Judging at AIA Dallas/Dallas Center for Architecture. Winners will be announced at a reception at the Dallas Center for Architecture at a cocktail reception.
For current information and status updates, please go to the Dallas AIA YAF blog (here). You can find the competition guideline here. For questions please feel free to send an email to AIADallasYAF@gmail.com
When it comes to choosing which size architectural firm is better for you, which is better – big, little or something in-between? Turns out small was the right size for me (insert easy joke here) because it suited my interests and my skill set better.
When I graduated from college in 1992, the economic environment was pretty similar to what we have now. There were not a lot of great jobs hanging on trees so when I began my search, it started and ended pretty much with a job my mom got for me (long story best left for another day). It was for a sole practictioner who had recently gone out on his own and had been working out of a closet in his house. My first day on the job involved driving around with my new boss buying lateral files that were going to serve as the bases that we were going to put 36″x80″ slab doors upon for our drawing surfaces. We took my jeep because these things could pile up and over the boundaries of my car whereas his finely crafted Swedish super Saab could only fit human beings.
This firm focused on designing “genesis retail environments” which is a 21st century way of saying we designed one-off mom and pop stores. This work was fun but we worked all the time, I mean like 15 hour workdays and a full day on the weekends. I was at this first job for just under three years and other than working lots of hours (which eventually led to me burning out as my life added more life components and the opportunity for conflicts increased) this was a great job. I was able to have my own projects, write proposals, meet with clients by myself as a 24 year old. Heck, I even wrote a spreadsheet program in Excel to keep track of our billing which meant my boss didn’t have to go down to Kinko’s and sit at a typewriter all weekend. Yes, I am fully aware of how antiquated this all sounds…just don’t worry about that for now.
What was being laid at my feet out of an apparant neccessity (because there wasn’t anyone else to do it) was the responsibility for a broader range of tasks than my associates who were working at larger firms. When I left this job, my skill set was far more developed than my peers in the areas of project management and client relations, but that’s when I discovered that I had a job skills problem – I was both over-qualified and under-qualified at the same time.
I went to a larger firm, about 40 people, but they had senior people in place who handled things like management and proposal writing. They didn’t need a 27 year old who had 3 years of retail design experience with a mix of upper level management skills. I was behind the curve now of my peers and still hadn’t had to draw anything that had to keep out water – flashing? vapor barrier?…what?
I went from firm to firm looking to find a good fit and to try and learn what I hadn’t previously so that I could collect the skills that I thought every good architect needed. The firms I worked at and the project types were:
Urban Architecture (now the Beck Group) – movie theatres and shopping centers
RTKL – mixed use retail
Forrest Perkins – interiors firm and historic preservation
The Michael R. Coker Company – land use planning, best use development
Michael Malone Architects (now part of WKMC Architects) – retail environments and residential
At every one of these firms, what I went there for would change so that my employers could make use of my emerging skill set – design, critical thinking and communicating. Eventually I would leave as soon as a pattern became established and I would go somewhere new to learn how to detail a building so it wouldn’t leak. It wouldn’t take long before the things I was good at to present themselves and my job role would change back to essentially the same role as the job I just left. I fought this for a long time without recognizing it for what it was – I liked to draw and wanted to work out details. I was getting bored doing the same thing over and over every day and missed the thrill of getting to do it all – designing, detailing, talking to the client and yes, even the billing.
The way most large firms work is that the skill set of each individual is finely honed so that each individual becomes what I call “awesome” at what they do. This is a person whose skills have been developed along a narrow band of tasks and they become extremely qualified in their roles. I am not saying that they can’t do other things, just that they aren’t asked to do other things. Therein lies the singular difference between large and small firms. The individual at the small firm is asked to do everything and wear all hats. Now depending on which side of the firm-size fence you stand on, you might have the grass is greener mentality towards the other side. No me – I’ve been on both sides and have learned that I am better as a jack of all trades rather than a master of one. I couldn’t do what they do but the good news is that I have finally realized that I don’t want to do what they do (and I’ll be 42 years old in April….)
I forgot, if you want to know where I am at now…
How much money do I make? I never get asked this question even though people are probably curious. There is a perception from the general public (at least those that I run across) that architects make a lot of money. There is also the perception from within the younger members of architectural community that think architects don’t make enough. Both of these perceptions are irritating to me because it removes some really basic considerations from the criteria one should know in order to provide a qualified answer.
Are you any good at what you do?
Do you have a skill set that is in demand?
Are you able to provide more than one basic service with competency?
I graduated from the University of Texas School of Architecture in 1992 (currently ranked as the #5 Best Architectural undergraduate degree program in the country) with a Bachelors Degree in Architecture. My resume is pretty good and have worked in a lot of different types of practices and have run across a lot of different personality types. Most of these people have graduated from various architecture programs from around the country but the different abilities and skill sets among these people is as varied as any slice across any other profession. And surprise – some of the folks I worked with I thought were great and some were terrible. I have had 9 jobs in the last 17 years. Prior to the one I have now (8 years), I have never stayed anywhere more than 3 years, most were no longer than 18 months. Sounds bad I know, but, I could more than likely go back to any of my previous places of employment and get a job (except for one job that was a 4 month stint that has all disappeared from my permanent record…)
According to the United States government Bureau of Labor Statistics - the Occupational Outlook Handbook,the salary range for architects is:
Median annual wages of wage-and-salary architects were $70,320 in May 2008.
The middle 50 percent earned between $53,480 and $91,870.
The lowest 10 percent earned less than $41,320
The highest 10 percent earned more than $119,220.
I know a lot of people who make considerably more than these figures and I know some people who fall below these levels. Of the people who fall above these numbers, the one trait that almost all of them share is that they are not motivated by the money. They do this because it’s what they love to do, at least at some level. Talented architects seem to never take a day off from architecture; it’s part of who they are. They plan vacations around buildings and places they want to see, take pilgrimages to these special buildings, buy books endlessly about architecture, etc.. Bottom line – it’s not just a job and by extension, not about receiving a paycheck.
Several employers know this and endeavor to make opportunity part of the compensation package for younger architects; opportunity to take on new challenges and get to do something above their current pay level. Some of the best firms to work for are also some of the lowest paying firms but they have a culture in place that rewards achievement with more opportunities for achievement. From the firms standpoint the downside to this type of “compensation” is that eventually your best talent will leave because someone will pay them more to continue doing what they are currently doing for you. From a business standpoint, architectural firms will pay someone a lesser salary but provide them with more opportunities to do things that maybe they have not yet mastered instead of having someone do this work who can complete the task in less time (remember that TIME = MONEY). In order to maintain a viable business structure, if someone is going to take longer to do something, you have to have a lower operating expense assigned to that person – seems pretty obvious to me.
I was reading another architectural blog yesterday and someone had asked the question “why don’t architect’s get paid more?”. Paid more?…Paid more than who? Doctor’s? Lawyer’s? Just like in our profession, there are some Doctors and Lawyers who make a lot of money but they don’t ALL make a lot of money. It’s seems pretty simple to me – people who are exceptional at what they do and/ or provide a service that few other can make higher salaries. Doesn’t that hold true with everything? Where did this sense of entitlement come from? People complaining that they went to school for a long time, took a lot of hard tests and don’t make as much as some other vocation from our society. That drives me insane.
Also from The Bureau of Labor Statistics, the Occupational Outlook Handbook, the salary range for lawyers is:
Median annual wages of all wage-and-salaried lawyers were $110,590.
The middle half of the occupation earned between $74,980 and $163,320.
Based on were those lawyers work:
Management of companies and enterprises was $145,770
Federal Executive Branch was $126,080
Legal services was $116,550
Local government was $82,590
State government was $78,540
For someone to determine what they should be making simply based on the fact they are an architect is foolish. There are extremely competent architects out there that don’t make a big salary because they don’t have commensurate abilities to run an office, or communicate, or manage the time spent working on a project. There are also architects out there that are doing tilt-wall construction warehouses and site adapting Circuit City’s and Taco Bells that are getting rich.
The most important thing for anyone considering a career in architecture is to try and determine what you like and what type of projects your skill set is best suited. IF you can do that, than regardless of what your paycheck is, you will be rich.
It’s true and I can tell you why. That’s why it’s better – because I can tell you why.
Have you ever been somewhere and thought “I really like this place” but if asked why, you don’t know? You just do. This could be about anything or any place.
Architects, and specifically architects who design, have been trained to understand why they like something and to then be able to articulate the reasons. You might like the color green because it’s pretty but I might say I like green because the way the light hits it and causes the surrounding areas to change and modify the perception of the size of the room.
It doesn’t mean your wrong or that there’s no value in your opinion, it’s just that I can evaluate the motivations for why I perceive things a particular way. Being able to express the reasons for evaluating a thing makes that judgement more valid. It isn’t a gift, it’s a skill that takes a long time to develop and understand and I work at it constantly.
The ability of any designer to be any good at what they do (at least in a service capacity) is their ability to listen to a client, who can’t describe why they like something other than they like it, and walk them through what they are looking at and describe it for them. Hopefully, the process will get you both to the essence of what makes a thing great and apply those qualities to something new without resorting to copying.
My desk is 20′ long. That’s a big desk but I need it because the drawings I use take up a lot of space. There are other items that have found a home on my desk because I use them (sketch paper, pens and various beverages that were only partly consumed) and when done, I am indifferent to removing them. It doesn’t take long before the crap on my desk starts to generate it’s own life force. I try to ignore it for as long as I can but it’s like talking to someone with bad breath, you can go only so long until you just can’t take it any longer. Since it’s MY desk, I can’t just walk away.
The things that are the biggest contributors to the clutter are magazines. Sure, they look innocent enough, with their glossy pages and alluring photos, but when you turn your back on them, they will multiply. For some reason, architect’s get free magazines. You start off with good magazine’s like Architect, Progressive Architecture, The Architectural Review, and Dwell. After awhile, you start getting really specific fringe magazines like Alternative Power Construction, North American Pipelines, MetalMag and Log Cabin Builder. Why am I getting North American Pipelines and Log Cabin Builder? Who do these people think I am?
I get way more magazines than I have time to read – a lot more. They get piled up in “to look at later” stacks but they come in too fast. The stacks become structurally unsound as they get higher and higher so new stacks are formed. Soon my office starts looking like the residence of a shut-in with OCD and I think – I’m going to need Mr. T and the A-Team to get me out of this mess. Eventually, with a little bit of sadness, I force myself to put these glossy, full-bleed, thick page beautiful magazines into a recycling bin(s), with most never having been looked at.
If you want your own magazine tsunami, go to here and have fun – but don’t say I didn’t warn you.
Technology is cool.
I am sitting at my desk looking at the treasured relics of my architectural ancestors – rolls of sketch paper, at least 15 scales (or rulers), and a stack of orange triangles. These items share the precious real estate of my work area with more modern architectural tools – computers (hardware and software), 24″ monitor and at least 5 music speakers.
This is my desk -it’s not really a desk rather than a work surface made up of medium density fiberboard attached along the entire length of two walls of my office but it’s really good at taking all sorts of abuse and it contains items that I use all the time. The thing is, some of these things are from my father’s generation and some are the beta versions of things that are coming. I’m not sure what I should be keeping and what to replace.
We have discussed the need to be relevant in our office on several occasions. This can be related to current design trends but in our case it has more to do with how we go about doing our jobs. Do we keep doing things the same way and can we expect similar results if we do? I don’t think so but the speed at which the technology of my profession is changing, I can’t keep up. I already work a lot of overtime (and not always because I have to) and the thought that I need to learn another type of drafting software, build a web site, to blog or not to blog and how (in progress), evaluate rendering software…..it’s an endless stream of new technology, most of which will most likely need to be updated to a newer version by the time I finish typing this sentence. Meanwhile, I still need to call 5 different contractor’s, schedule the meeting with the MEP engineers, get an interpretation from the planning and zoning department, and figure out how I am going to put together a design competition on children’s playhouses for the CASA Parade of Playhouses. When am I going to learn how to weld?
Soon I will pull out a roll of tracing paper, a stack of my favorite sketching pens and pencils, and retreat into solving design problems the old fashion way by drawing by hand. For now I will ignore the way the younger architectural interns look at me with a look of befuddled amusement because I can’t discard the “technology” of the past. That’s okay, I think I see them checking some door hardware schedules in the very near future.
Maybe this is more about evolution than simply leaving the past behind.
