also sara are such things covered by insurance?

Relatedly

You know, nam, I don't really know.  I mean, the drought is an act of God, right, and those are usually covered.  Just never thought about it.

are those really covered?

Depends on which God. If Poseidon turns your living room into a splash pool ... not covered.

Locust infestations are usually covered as are all of Buddha's shenanigans. 

<insert joke about Muhammad's fireworks mishaps being covered since he's just a lowly prophet.> 

it's the small gods who cause the most mischief.  the big ones are much easier to deal with.

i thought acts of god were NOT covered by insurance?

jump that is what i thought to...

Seriously losing it with how much sh*t I have to get done in the next 21 days!

Hi all... sorry for the long absence. The missus has been on island for the last 3 weeks and we've been busy putting the final touches on the wedding planning. Thank goodness too - there were far too many things in limbo for my liking. I blame it on my profession idiosyncrasies. Nonetheless things are shaping up very very well.

Yes Nam you are right - I'm on a little vacation. Trying to recharge my batteries before school resumes at the end of the month. What's good is that it coincides with the missus birthday so we've been relaxing on the coast, enjoying the weather and break from work.

There's also some great news. I had shared with most of you a paper I wrote for Columbia well apparently it was turned into a book - much to my shock. 

that is very cool david.  well done!

That is excellent David!  I have to come visit you in Jamaica some day, we ALL do!

Congrats David and good morning all!

Hey Steven Ward or other Louisville (or adjacent) necters what do you think about this news, “Museum Plaza's not being built!"

Is the upside that this decision will result in people in Louisville focusing on smaller scale/grained, more grassrooty efforts for arts/regeneration in the downtown area?

Or is just purely a bust?

Steven Ward,  hadn't they started digging for the Museum Plaza?  Is that accurate or did I make that up?  

To SH re: the clay foundation (wait, who builds a foundation on clay to begin with?  bad idea!) -

So, without having any experience in this whatsoever, I guess my thinking would be that it would likely be either a waste of water or downright dangerous to attempt to rehydrate your clay soil yourself.  Presumably the drought has caused the entire water table to drought - so my thinking is that it would likely be extremely difficult for you to, by yourself, re-hydrate your soil in such a way as to stabilize it.   Also, given that clay reacts really badly and unpredictably to changes in water content, you may end up doing more harm than good if you randomly start watering one part of it.  

But again - not something I have any experience in - just giving thoughts since you asked.

here is an excerpt from Joan Didion's essay "Many Mansions" from 1977, published in her collection "The White Album" that I think you all might enjoy:

...That the river is running low is of no real account, however, since one of the many peculiarities of the new Governor's residence is that it is so situated as to have no clear view of the river.

It is an altogether curious structure, this one-story one-million-four dream house of Ronald and Nancy Reagan's.  Were the house on the market (which it will probably not be, since, at the time it was costing a million-four, local real estate agents seemed to agree on $300,000 as the top price ever paid for a house in Sacramento County), the words used to describe it would be "open" and "contemporary," although technically it is neither.  "Flow" is a word that crops up quite a bit when one is walking through the place, and so is "resemble."  The walls "resemble" local adobe, but they are not: they are the same concrete blocks, plastered and painted a rather stale yellowed cream, used in so many supermarkets and housing projects and Coca-Cola bottling plants.  The door frames and the exposed beams "resemble" native redwood, but they are not: they are construction-grade lumber of indeterminate quality, stained brown.  If anyone ever moves in, the concrete floors will be carpeted, wall to wall.  If anyone ever moves in, the thirty-five exterior wood and glass doors, possibly the single distinctive feature in the house, will be, according to plan, "draped."  The bathrooms are small and standard.  The family bedrooms open directly onto the nonexistent swimming pool, with all its potential for noise and distraction.  To one side of the fireplace in the formal living room there is what is known in the trade as a "wet bar," a cabinet for bottles and glasses with a sink and a long vinyl-topped counter.  (This vinyl "resembles" slate.)  In the entire house there are only enough bookshelves for a set of the World Book and some Books of the Month, plus maybe three Royal Doulton figurines and a back file of Connoisseur, but there is $90,000 worth of other teak cabinetry, including the "refreshment center" in the "recreation room."  There is that most ubiquitous of all "luxury features," a bidet in the master bathroom.  There is one of those kitchens which seem designed exclusively for defrosting by microwave and compacting trash.  It is a house built for a family of snackers.

And yet, appliances notwithstanding, it is hard to see where the million-four went.  The place has been called, by Jerry Brown, a "Taj Mahal."  It has been called a "white elephant," a "resort," a "monument to the colossal ego of our former governor."  It is not exactly any of these things.  It is simply and rather astonishingly an enlarged version of a very common kind of California tract house, a monument not to colossal ego but to a weird absence of ego, a case study in the architecture of limited possibilities, insistently and malevolently "democratic," flattened out, mediocre and "open" and as devoid of privacy or personal eccentricity as the lobby area in a Ramada Inn.  It is the architecture of "background music," "decorators," "good taste."  I recall once interviewing Nancy Reagan, at a time when her husband was governor and the construction on this house had not yet begun.  We drove down to the State Capitol Building that day, and Mrs. Reagan showed me how she had lightened and brightened offices there by replacing the old burnished leather on the walls with the kind of beige burlap then favored in new office buildings.  I mention this because it was on my mind as I walked through the empty house on the American River outside Sacramento.

...

A guard sleeps at night in the old mansion [the existing official State Residence which the Reagans decided not to live in], which has been condemned as a dwelling by the state fire marshal.  It costs about $85,000 a year to keep guards at the new official residence.  Meanwhile the current governor of California, Edmund G. Brown, Jr., sleeps on a mattress on the floor in the famous apartment for which he pays $275 a month out of his own $49,100 annual salary.  This has considerable and potent symbolic value, as do the two empty houses themselves, most particularly the house the Reagans built on the river.  It is a great point around the Capitol these days to have "never seen" the house on the river.  The governor himself has "never seen" it.  The governor's press secretary, Elisabeth Coleman, has "never seen" it.  The governor's chief of staff, Gray Davis, admits to having seen it, but only once, when "Mary McGrory wanted to see it."  This unseen house on the river is, Jerry Brown has said, "not my style."

As a matter of fact this is precisely the point about the house on the river--the house is not Jerry Brown's style, not Mary McGrory's style, not our style--and it is a point which presents a certain problem, since the house so clearly is the style not only of Jerry Brown's predecessor but of millions of Jerry Brown's constituents.  Words are chosen carefully.  Reasonable objections are framed.  One hears about how the house is too far from the Capitol, too far from the Legislature.  One hears about the folly of running such a lavish establishment for an unmarried governor and one hears about the governor's temperamental austerity.  One hears every possible reason for not living in the house except the one that counts: it is the kind of house that has a wet bar in the living room.  It is the kind of house that has a refreshment center.  It is the kind of house in which one does not live, but there is no way to say this without getting into touchy and evanescent and finally inadmissible questions of taste, and ultimately of class.  I have seldom seen a house so evocative of the unspeakable.

That's fantastic, manta.

If you'all want to see a really, really, REALLY good movie and you like guitars and/or tinkering and expressions of joy, please watch It Might Get Loud.  Jack White, The Edge, and Jimmy (f'in!) Page just talking and reminiscing and jamming.  A beautiful look at people just enjoying doing the thing they love doing most of all.  It probably helps one fully enjoy the movie if you believe - way down inside - that Jimmy Page is a god, as do I, of course.  The dude is almost 70 and still freaking sexy as ever!

correction - my post to SH above should read:

*Presumably the drought has caused the entire water table to drop

not sure how i feel about museum plaza, nam. it would have brought some welcome attention to louisville, as it was an eye-catcher, but the local partners will continue to bring good things to the city - in fact, are already embarking on other projects that preserve endangered historic buildings as well as bringing some exciting designers back to town. 

i think louisville is already pretty attentive to smaller-scale fine-grained arts-oriented development, and - yes - these developers' next projects seem to be in support of that strength that we already have. 

so, it's probably OK. museum plaza may have helped with the perpetual underdog status that louisville bemoans, but being a smallish city in the middle that a lot of people don't think about may be one of our charms, not a liability. i prefer that we focus on doing things well, not big. 

I have heard a theory that the water table in Texas is dropping because of widespread irrigation of crops. I don't know why they don't just grow what grows well in the climate they have!

The same though could be said about California.  It's arid there as well, but the aqueduct system and irrigation is what keeps that area growing during the dry months. 

steven good to hear.

i prefer that we focus on doing things well, not big.

couldn't agree more.

morning all.

Manta, Texas is a slab-on-grade sort of place; everything is built that way, in regards to homes, at least, and if it's not slab-on-grade, then it is pier and beam, and even those aren't sunk very deep.  It's actually quite common for people to water their foundations around here.  I think that's why they invented soaker hoses.  I would love to have my house built on rock, but it's just not available here.  Could be worse.  Could be in New Orleans, and have my house built on piles and have to replace my yard every so many years when it sinks too far below the front steps.

As for growing things for your climate, Texas used to not be so dry.  We've just had unlucky weather for a few years.  Then again, Dallas had so much rain this spring that my garden nearly drowned.  In my area of the state, we don't have any of those giant rotating irrigation sprinklers, you know the big agricultural ones?  Our main crop is cattle, and we don't water the grazing lands.  But I don't know what they do up in the pan handle, or in west Texas.  There's nothing out there.

time to ask the publicans if  climate change needs to be addressed?  guess they will suggest prayer because that works so well.

asking god to dig us humans out of our stupidity seems such a dangerous idea to me.  s/he might decide to set off the super-volcano in Yosemite just to let us know it could be worse.

@ steven you don't think is possible to build well AND build big?  the design seemed like an intelligent step towards improving a dog's breakfast of a site...

Didn't get the job.  At least they sent me an email to let me know.

sarah that sucks... sorry :i

JUMP.....DA SUPER VOLCANO IS IN YELLOWSTONE!  IT IS A BIGGIEEEEE! 

THE OTHER VOLCANO HAPPENS TO  BE ON WALL STREET AT THE MOMENT!!!!!

Ugh, sorry, Sarah.  That's too bad.

So sorry to hear SH... great things are around the next bend I'm sure. Keep your chin up and focussed on the horizon. 

Oh and has anyone else seen this? Architects, architecture students, fight against the crafting of the CE LAW (SB 2770) allowing Civil Engineers to prepare, sign and seal architectural documents. Just because one can make a building stand doesn't mean he can design one. Reblog this and spread the word! I have no idea where it's from but sounds sucky nonetheless.

Wups yes that's what I meant. Sarah very sorry to hear that. Getting the interview is a good thing though. Next time fer sure it's yours. What kinds of jobs would an engineer steal from an architect anyway ? Guess this is the downside of hanging status of architects on lifesafety issues. Of course that is not something only architects can do. We painted ourselves into that corner no?

can't engineers sign drawings in most jurisdictions already anyways? i'm pretty sure that they can in florida...

sorry about the bad news sarah...

in the good news department... my wife, who has been unemployed since the week before christmas, got a job today... its only a temporary contract-based position, but the project will be a minimum of 6 months and could last more than 18 months...

Naw I'm not worried about the slab-on-grade construction - that's totally fine, great way to build, and having been raised on a fault line personally I'm quite happy with floating houses - my worry is regarding the slab-on-CLAY construction!  Shouldn't there be some good gravel or something under there?  Clay has horrible, awful "structural" characteristics.

 Guess this is the downside of hanging status of architects on lifesafety issues. Of course that is not something only architects can do. We painted ourselves into that corner no?

Totally agree.  Have often wondered about that one...

hm, where did all the spaces between paragraphs go? 

@ manta yeah i been thinking about it since grad school when we learned about the legal justification for our protected status.  it felt kinda dodgey even then and more so now.

@ philip, that is very good news.  awesome even.  pass on congratulations

jump, yes big and good work are not mutually exclusive. BUT.

for louisville, this project was very big: 61 floors in a city where our tallest and most expensive building to date is 27. its program was an amalgam of things that we already have in surplus. the floor plates were tiny and inefficient. for all the talk of energizing downtown, one of the defining features was a diagonal lift which - if effective - would vacuum pedestrians off of main street and up to the 25th floor. all of the money reasons you'd do something seemed to be missing, but we were getting this cool project, so everyone cheered it. 

re: the site: the project dealt with it well overall, but also in a very heavy-handed way. it's messy down there, but the messiness makes it really intriguing - the city grid starts to rotate, some roads end. others pick up. it's the edge of downtown infrastructure and a step down in scale to something else. i'd like to see someone really engage all of the colliding systems and existing conditions rather than erase them.  

i'm not saying it wasn't a smart project and a very exciting design, only that for louisville, at this point in time, it was a stretch - and that's been borne out. 

the investors are very smart people and i trust them to do many more very smart projects for louisville - museum plaza maybe just wasn't the one. at least we, as a city, got to dream about it for a while.

makes sense steven.  would be nice if the economy would allow a little bit of not so much making sense to go on, but expect that is not going to happen for awhile anymore.  woulda been totally cool for louisville to be the city on the cutting edge for a change.

changing subject looks like my team at uni was granted permission to join the COP talks this year as observers.  we were also picked to lead a UN project on climate change adaptation.  not sure how i am going to manage all this stuff but apparently i am in charge.  shit. 

I believe Architecture Design is about to make a major U-Turn. Alot of these messy projects are going to evaporate, and those which are well thought thru and economically feasible will step up and fill the void of "Excess, Do It If You Can Projects."  In the long run I think it will be the best thing for Architecture Design.  You know the client who says, Who Cares how much the Project Cost, cause we just have to cuddle with your Architectural Uniqueness.

SH, hang in there. I had a friend thats been unemployed for a while get a job recently at a very interesting place. He was trained as an architect but found employment in a related but different industry. And frankly, I think the opportunities he'll find there are more than most architecture firms.

David, I just did a quick google search. Is that going on in the Phillipines? I've worked with civil engineers enough (at least in the US) to know they wouldn't be qualified.

And some random venting based on frustrations I've had on multiple levels lately... Working in a truly collaborative atmosphere doesn't always mean compromise or finding common ground; it just requires better arguments and less ego*. Ego in the sense that one's status somehow makes their arguments automatically better.

I meant to say "truly collaborative environment" not atmosphere. That being one where everyone on the "team" is miraculously working towards the same goals.

Just had a long night out with girl/momfriends.  We all agree that value in coming economy is going to be in two areas:

1. personal even intimate services that cannot be replicated by robots (massage therapy, dominatrixing) and

2. creative content.

Architectural practice IMO falls under both these areas.

Also, both these kinds of work may be exchanged increasingly via bartering not money.

So: I'll dress you in a skirt and rub your shoulders IF you'll fix my leaky roof.  Then we'll let our mutual pal write a novel about it.  Sounds like a plan for a strong community!

sounds like alcohol was involved in that conversation.

Lots of it.  But! in keeping with the theme, it was locally-brewed-on-premise beer.

Good morning all,

Steven you seen this project on the main Archinect splash page? The Green Building in NuLu by form environment research (fer) studio

Donna I like your crowd... sounds inspiring to say the least.

Came to the sad, sad realisation that we are going to broke until the end of the first quarter 2012. Weddings are expensive... sadly I missed the generation when the bride's parents paid for it and all I had to do was show proof of dowry. 

why do the old farts hang out in this thread so much?

@David: "Weddings are expensive ... sadly I missed the generation when the bride's parents paid for it "

Wait -- are you telling me I don't have to pay for my two daughers' weddings?  I must have missed that memo.   Woo hoo !  Think I'll go shopping for a boat.

@Louis: "why do the old farts hang out in this thread so much?"

Well, we gotta be somewhere.

louis, why don't the young folks hang out here more? Plus, which one am I?

Clearly the UK riots are to blame for Archinect being out all day.

The server is hosted in Greece and was thrown through a storefront during their Wednesday night 2for1 sishkabob&riot special. 

well everyone here is younger than Oscar Neimeyer and ironically younger than Louis Kahn when he died.

huh. nam, i answered you about the green building yesterday but i guess the response may have gotten eaten up in the server black hole. 

we love the green building - a beautifully realized project by an owner who has committed a LOT of time, energy, and resources to bringing up the whole neighborhood around it. i had dinner in the restaurant on the first floor just this friday, prelude to a night out for a gallery walk in the surrounding blocks. 

the same architects (likely through the green building owner's involvement) have a lovely addition to the st francis school just outside louisville in their archinect portfolio. i hope it gets built! 

if only those guys were from here instead of CA...

steven i was actually going to ask "how" that building was realized by a CA and not local firm...

not that all buildings have to be designed by a local group. but seems like the sort of project that would have been ideal for a local firm, just in terms of connections/involvement in revitalizing a district\

morning all. and was it just me or was that the longest downtime Archinect's had since i have been a member?