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This is officially the last article I am going to write for Life of an Architect in 2011 so it seemed only fitting that it should address what is going to happen in 2012. I’m not talking about how I’m finally going to break the 4 minute mile mark – unless I’m on a bike and even then – kinda dodgy. No, this is about the next big project I will be working on – and therefore documenting – here on LoaA.
Just an FYI, all the images here are click-able and will open up jumbo shrimp size if you need a closer look … just ’cause I’m considerate that way *high five-snap-pistol fingers-wink-tongue cluck*
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This house should be really amazing and I’m looking forward to the construction process. We have a great contractor on board – one that I have worked with many time before, and two amazing clients, well, I think they’re amazing. The wife is super friendly (so far…) and the husband makes an effort to be funny, which seems to be a rare client trait for some unknown reason. Besides, I think they read this blog and so I have nothing but good things to say. They’re the BEST!! As always, as a courtesy, the projects location, the clients names and any personal information will remain a secret – so don’t ask how much it costs or for me to publish plans because it isn’t going to happen.
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Because there are some serious eagle eye readers out there, I need to issue a disclaimer that these 3d images are not current with the construction drawings. These were created during the design development phase and once we go into construction document mode, we don’t go back and update the model. This 3D model made by none other than yours truly using SketchUp. They are intended to be study models – not photo realistic representations of the final product. We generate these to evaluate sun angles and building massing but we endeavor to make them pleasant enough looking that we can show them to the clients during the design phase so they can get an idea what to expect.
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This house sits on a 5 acre piece of property and is covered in trees – way more than I have shown here. Since the objective is to show the house (and the fact that SketchUp seriously bogs down) we thin the trees out a bit. Same thing goes for the landscaping – none of which I’ve shown here. The final landscape design isn’t done yet because the landscape architect likes to go onsite and sense the chi of the land before settling in on his final plant selections.
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This project has a few specialty features to it – most notably the 3 cantilevered rooms that face the acreage at the rear of the property. At the smallest, the distance from the ground to the cantilevered box is around 18″ – at most, it’s around 6 feet – should be pretty dramatic.
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One of the things I am going to do in 2012 here at Life of an Architect (besides sleep more) is focus on the detailing and architectural side of what I do. I always seem to get a lot of positive responses when I include details, construction photos, and final product images, so I am going to respond to the will of the people and oblige them with the goods. For today, I’ve included two wall sections through the cantilevered rooms. In the wall section above, we have built-in window shades to provide some relief from the sun. Above the shades, there are transom windows (above the flat roof). For these areas, we have designed an exterior metal louver that wraps around the room – you will still be able to see through it, but the harsh summer sun will be blocked out.
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In this wall section, there isn’t a transom so there wasn’t a need for the metal louvers. This is however the master bedroom so if you look carefully, you will see that there are two automated roller shades in the ceiling. The reason there are two is that during the day, when it’s brighter outside than inside, we have a 8% opacity so you can see through the shades while still getting solar protection. At night when it’s brighter inside than outside, we have a 3% opacity shade so the owners can walk around in … well, however they want, without people being able to see through the shade and get any of the juicy details.
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I get asked some times about our drawings and what sort of effort do we put in to document these sorts of projects. To say “a lot” probably isn’t a very satisfying answer. I thought it would be interesting to lay out some data for you on some of the metrics on this projects construction drawings:
- 53 – pages of construction drawings at 30″ x 42″ sheets – the breakdown = 31 architectural, 14 structural, 4 landscape, 4 lighting design. That’s 463.75 square feet of drawings or 61.83 yards if the sheets were laid end to end
- 62 – interior and exterior doors
- 34 – window types
- 19 – wall sections
- 71 – door and window details
- 105 – interior elevations
- 14 – exterior elevations
- 299 – individual architectural drawings
- unknown – sodas and cups of coffee consumed during the drawing of these documents
I look forward to continuing these sorts of posts in 2012 – I hope you do too.
Cheers,
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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