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I had an interesting conversation with a contractor the other day – it centered on job site culture and how to create the right sort. I’m not talking about Fight Club sort of culture or stuff found on toilet seats sort of culture, this is about setting expectations for what sort of standard level of care and service will be expected from everyone working on the project.
This conversation happened when I was complimenting the contractor on the job he did installing the wood ceiling that is on the roof top terrace of the large modern house I have been working on. I covered some of this in Monday’s post (Exterior Ceilings – Here’s an idea for you) but I thought it would be interesting to see another one of the patios because in some ways, this covered patio is even more impressive than the ones I featured on Monday. I also decided to cover this today because it is a holiday week and people are starting to mentally check out and I thought just looking at some pictures with minimal text would be just about the right speed.
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The topmost 3d picture was a design study that I had created early on into the design process and all the photos today feature that covered rooftop and trellis. The picture immediately above shows an intersection where you can see the rough framing in two quadrants and the finished ipê wood ceiling in the other two quadrants. Take note that there aren’t any exposed supports for the ipê wood boards and that each section starts and ends with a full width piece. That isn’t an easy thing to coordinate when the structural steel is being erected (about 15 months ago). But wait … it gets even better and far more impressive if you are a detail nerd like me.
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In the upper right-hand quadrant of this photo you can see the in-line radiant heater that will make this rooftop terrace nice and comfy on those freezing 50 degree Fall Texas nights (brrrrr). Again, please note the full size boards …
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This is a picture of one of the two guys installing the ceiling. The ipê wood boards are glue and finished nailed into position … you can get a little better view of the entire wood ceiling where you can see the recessed can lights and the in-line radiant heater.
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Okay … this is where it starts getting really good. See how the length of the in-line radiant heater fits nicely within the wood ceiling and none of the boards are cut to accommodate it? How about the 2 lights to either end? See how they are centered into the joints between two boards?
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A detailed look at how the spacing for the boards, lights and heater all come together … perfectly.
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Here is one of the other bays where all the recessed can lights are ALL centered on the joints between boards. This stuff doesn’t happen on accident people!
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I included this last picture to show how the full width board in the corners were slightly radiused to accommodate the weld where two pieces of steel came together. That is attention to detail and once you start to realize that this sort of attention to craft is occurring, you start to recognize it everywhere on the project. The very best part? I didn’t actually have anything to do with it – this was all on the contractor.
This finally brings me back to my conversation with the contractor about creating the right sort of culture on the job site. When I was there taking these pictures, the contractor wasn’t there bird-dogging every move made by the two guys working on this particular task. The expectation and attention to the finish product had already been established by everyone else who had already done some work on this job site. Nobody wants to be the guy, or the crew, that sucked. The bar is set high for everyone to pay attention to every move they make so that the every little bit contributes to the whole. Everyone on this project has pride in their work and it shows … and it makes everyone look good.
One of the modern day 7 deadly sins – pride, or hubris, is considered the original and most serious of the seven deadly sins, and is considered the source from which all the others arise. It is identified as a desire to be more important or attractive than others, failing to acknowledge the good work of others, and excessive love of self.
It is also what separates a good contractor from a great contractor.
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Not every residential project I work on as an architect is large with an even larger budget – that just happens to be the case lately and where I find my role in the office. Since smaller projects with smaller budgets tend to be less complicated, let’s just say they don’t always need me to work on them and the client becomes the beneficiary of assigning someone with a lower billing rate than me shoulder much of the load. However – since my office is an “all hands on deck” sort of office, everyone contributes whenever and however they are needed. Such was the case with me at the end of last week.
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I found myself working out some design ideas for a small addition with a respectable yet modest budget. The clients are a young husband and wife who had just bought this house and have bigger visions and better taste than their budget can really accommodate. The project is moving really quickly (for reasons I won’t go into here) and my task for the day was to develop elevation design studies to present the clients that reflected the floor plan addition that had already been roughly worked out and previously approved.
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This is a picture of the front of the house – great neighborhood, large site, fantastic trees and … not so great curb appeal. This house has had (from my estimation) at least three additions that have been scabbed on to the original house over the years. By “scabbed” I mean the additions are obvious and stuck on in the cheapest, most direct manner, without any consideration of the whole. On the left you see a detached garage, and on the right, I am going to say it was the second additions garage that the third addition turned into a sunken playroom. If you want to walk up to the front door, you have to shoot the 5′ wide gap between the garage and playroom structures for approximately 50 feet.
Perfect for an ambush, not so great for welcoming people to your home.
So on last Thursday, I sketched up a series of exterior elevations – real quick studies (12 in all) and presented them to the clients that afternoon … except they had a hard time reading the 2 dimensional drawings. Since communication is really the name of the game, I told them that on Friday I would generate a 3-dimensional model of the house in SketchUp.
I thought it would be interesting to see the difference between the sketches I drew using nothing more than trace paper, sharpie pens and a straight edge – and the dimensionally accurate ones I generated using SketchUp.
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This is a look at the main house – this is the passageway up to the front door (with the garage taken out-of-the-way for clarity).
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This is the front elevation – same as the photo shown up above (but with the Volvo taken out-of-the-way for clarity). This 2 dimensional look is a little misleading because I have removed the pitched roof on the garage and replaced it with a flat roof. It doesn’t appear that way in this view because you are looking at the pitched roof of the main house well behind the garage. (Good thing the clients get to see the actual 3D version).
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These sorts of projects are always a lot of fun and I am excited to see it develop. Trying to find a way to marry the clients budget with their modern aesthetic and budgetary goals is a rewarding way to design a project. I have always enjoyed the challenge to designing with common materials and reasonable budgets – its part of the reason I started the Low Cost Modern House Challenge (despite not being able to find the time to develop it properly). The major design consideration here is the budget – there are 100 things I would do differently if I had 25% more money to work with … but I don’t. Being clever and finding a way to solve the clients problem without spending money they don’t have is part of the puzzle and part of the solution.
Have a great day!
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