william- later that day in his lecture at cal poly pomona, ando said he saw his concrete from le corbusier, his hero. hoping to meet him in paris, the young ando waited by his door only to find out corbu has died couple of months ago..
rusty- academia threads happen every year and it's intensifying every year as education is getting more and more expensive. younger generation is seeking contracts, assurances before they sign into anything. i don't blame them asking all that before they get into a school they know at the end they'll owe 150k and up. teaching in two places, i know how tough it will be for students to get a job when they graduate. their most marketable skill, unfortunately in most cases, is to do marketing renderings for their employer. relatively mindless stuff they have no design input. the rest of the craft is expected to be learned at the job if one is still insisting staying with the profession.
Hey Rusty,
Is this guy your true identity, or were you just separated at birth? Something about him reminds me of you.
http://www.27bslash6.com/missy.html
I stopped by a clients restoration shop yesterday. It was a nice spring day and he had
a couple of sets of sawhorses set up with flat panel hardwood birch faced hollow core doors laying on top of them. He was stripping the varnish off of them. I thought that is odd. Why would anyone go to the effort of stripping the varnish off of a hollow core birch faced door. It would certainly be alot less expensive to go buy a new birch faced hollow core door. So I ask my client what gives? He explained that these doors came out of a Marcel Breuer house which is being restored, so you just don't go buy a new hollow core door and intstall it in a Breuer House. It made me think about the Paul Roudolph project over in Orange County New York. Sigh!
their most marketable skill, unfortunately in most cases, is to do marketing renderings for their employer
How depressing. I'm happy to finally be in a place in my career where I can not pursue jobs that are overly focused on skills, and go with the ones that care about how I think and collaborate.
i still don't understand that idea that young architects are just presentation machines, doing mindless work. i can't see how any office could afford to waste ideas and energy that way.
i do notice that the younger and fresher the student or graduate the more conservative the output, which is a bit of a surprise. i used to have this idea that starchitects were taking all the ideas from the young staff, but i think lately that it is actually all coming from the top where somehow age has given them less fear....people like ando and koolhaas and so on really are impressive for being able to co-ordinate all those staff in such a directed way without losing the energy of their early work when it was just them. that kind of ability is really amazing to me.
that's interesting snook. in the japanese way the door would be replaced and the house would still be called original. here, tradition rests in the idea and the whole, not the parts. maybe that is why polemic is not such a thing with architects here...
even through the 60s. veneers were heavier, face panels were thicker, grains tighter and less likely to splinter, and fabrication was better. there is still a big salvage market for materials from that period, prior to mass-production's shift to supplying big-box consumer stores.
without wanting to get too much into the 'when i was a young'un..' game, just since the time i worked construction in the 80s i've seen continuous evolution to cheaper, thinner (component parts: face sheets, solid edge material), lighter, more splintery stuff.
the hollow core doors we see now are junk. it's the home depot effect, but it doesn't matter where you buy it now.
i am constantly modifying my door specs (more for solid core, since i won't use hollow core much) to control conditions i see in the doors we get on jobs. but if i go TOO far with it, i'm basically asking for custom built doors since no production doors can meet the requirements of halfway decent that i'm trying to achieve.
makes sense, steven. everything is made cheaper now.
mass manufactured doors are not up to standards here as well. to meet minimum expectations of our clients (and us) we usually make custom doors, but they are still hollow for budget reasons. usually they look pretty good and have a nice weight to them (as long as we spec them that way). it does seem odd to have to do it that way.
will, standard door specification gives you all kinds of options. From feel to look to performance. Nothing magical about the door design process. Vagueness gives you a default (crappy) door.
orthan. not to take away from eternal struggle of academic decisions, but this forum has become extremely unfriendly towards casual 'older' visitors. Filtering out academia questions would make this forum an actual resource. In the meantime DOES ANYONE HAVE A 3D MODEL OF ATLANTIS?
elinor! I would love to meet you (and your equally awesome husband) for a happy hour drink. This forum (still) does not allow contact between members. Donna, you know everyone. Can you get elinor and I in touch? yaaay!
Hi everyone, thanks for all your sympathy. (Especially Erin - I know you know how it goes!) It's $140 later and Linda is once again in beautiful riding shape. My favorite bike shop guy was working that weekend and he did a fantastic job with her - even fixed a few other minor issues while he was at it (for free!). I picked up a second bike lock that I will now have to carry around everywhere I go to lock the rear wheel to the frame. Yay. So far week 1 has gone by and she's still been sitting pretty in front of my building every morning, so, so far so good.
In other news I am working on a drawing for the invitations for my upcoming nuptials. I'm not sure yet if it's going to land on the cheesy side of home-made or on the sweet/touching side... I love to draw & am fairly decent at it in the way that most architects are, but drawing oneself and one's cherished partner is turning out to be another level of drawing difficulty entirely. I'm aiming for sweet/touching, but right now it looks like I'm hitting somewhere around cartoonish/1970s garage sale art.
For me sometimes the hardest part of drawing (like the hardest part of architecture) is stopping while I'm ahead. I usually scan a drawing at multiple stages, so if I end up adding too much I can go back to an earlier version, but didn't do that this time... and it's already looking a bit heavy-handed for my taste. Oh well! Wedding is imminent so what I see is probably going to be what I get!
rusty, i agree must be good doors out there from standard factory. we haven't found any yet that don't feel dead. it's a fetish maybe. so we make our own. pity you aren't in tokyo, you could point us in the right direction for the good stuff...
am sure the picture is great manta. cool to hear the wedding day is near!
you CAN still email folks from their profile page - if they've provided the email - can't you? it looks like i can email will if i want: just click on his name, 'contact', and click on the envelope clicky thing.
so kentucky won last night and my car didn't get set on fire, so today can already be considered a good day. some folks in lexington won't be able to say the same.
steven is correct you can email but only to users who have a profile and you have to do it from their profile page. not exactly the old way but works for some.....
the discussion re: hollow core doors while not totally surprising given general trend of cheapness/mass manufacturing, is still interesting to hear the perspective of the ones on ground who actually deal with it on a "daily" basis.
Mantaray, i have long carried a u lock and a longer covered chain type lock so i can lock by tire as well. it also makes for convenient carrying of the u lock.
Rusty, you can filter discussions by category you know?
oh and i don't suppose i will have much time for exploring but i will be up in Madison/Verona Wisconsin this week for work, anyone have suggestions on places to see/visit if I have time?
Rusty, elinor is one of the few members here that I really respect but haven't had personal contact with. I just checked citizen off that list as I had a lovely email exchange with him.
Man I just feel like going onto every one of those "which school?" threads and screaming in all caps that unemployment in architecture is still at 20% what the hell are you thinking?!". But I had someone say that to me and 1. I thought he was a bitter old man and 2. it's worked out fair enough for me so why crush the kids' dreams.
Actually, Donna, a 1-in-5 chance at being unemployed isn't that bad if you reframe it as 4-out-of-5 people in architecture are currently employed.
What you should point out, though, is that those who don't develop enough skills to be offered gainful employment during or after school will only have a 1-in-25 chance of landing an internship that pays more than minimum wage.
Career chance or not, those who don't make the first draft will have to find a way to sustain themselves for 1 to 3 years while working an unpaid job.
Between cycling this past month and my recent hobby of Olympic weightlifting, my shoulder is beginning to kill me.
Instantly reminded of how much it sucks to be self-employed when an MRI costs like $3000— and it's not even possible to diagnose a shoulder injury without one.
the world is going wrong when even the optimists are turning to the dark side. the profession still seems worthwhile to me. it is a hard slog even in the best of times, but i expect that is true for all professions in the end.
Hi Orhan - got too wrapped up in my prose on your series post - that last sentence was unfortunate, and I feel bad about it.
actually - Boston is a pretty interesting microcosm of a politically active populous in terms of development - some neighborhoods where you have large transient populations you get institutions that run roughshod over large swaths of land. Whereas others, you get people all worked up over perhaps the tiniest Whole Foods ever, enough to disrupt and get arrested at a neighborhood meeting. Mostly it's somewhere in between, but I think what makes this city great is that things move veerrrry slowly, and people are very protective of their neighborhoods. I know there's a certain dean at a certain architecture program who would disagree with me, but this really crazy process where everything needs to go before the most nutty neighborhood committee (and this one guy who keeps the torch of the old west end alive) keeps crap from getting built. It turns our job into actually listening to people and being very persuasive, instead of designing crazy shit we (and the developers) think people need.
yes - people did actually protest a Whole Foods moving in. I'm not sure if this would happen anywhere else in the US.
Phillip yeah i forgot about that one. Saw it when drove past on way to hotel. will try and get time to investigate later. Lots of very nice old post-industrial type architecture...
ADA is a federal law. if your jurisdiction does not require adaag, it's because they don't understand what it is.
ansi is a model code spec'd in the ibc, which is a model code created by the icc, which creates model codes. that means jurisdictions (your city our county or whatever) can chose whether to adopt it or not. also, many jurisdictions only adopt portions of the ibc, so they could adopt all of the ibc except chapter 36 or something like that.
everything has been ada for like 25 years or whatever it's been.
up until about 2 weeks ago ansi was more restrictive than ada. on march 15, a new ada went into effect, so ada and ansi are pretty close now.
i tried to do capitals, but then felt elitist and dirty.
ANSI IS VALUNTARY, ADA IS INVOLUNTARY. I AM NOT YELLING JUST DOING THIS FOR DONNA. PRICE OF GALLON OF CAPITAL LETTERS IS REACHING RECORD HIGHS EVERYONE PANIC!
So the new ADA calls for single occupant restrooms to be about 15 by 25 feet in plan, right?
I had a stress dream last night about showing up to teach totally unprepared. Guess what, I teach tomorrow, and I am TOTALLY unprepared! Better get to it if I want to get any sleep tonight.
@will: the world is going wrong when even the optimists are turning to the dark side. the profession still seems worthwhile to me. it is a hard slog even in the best of times, but i expect that is true for all professions in the end.
it's tough staying optimistic when you're stressed out all the time. I also really dislike being around defeatist and negative people - it brings me down and If I'm around these people for too long I find myself repeating the same mantras of doom and gloom and it's hard to break free. It doesn't help anyone to be cynical, you can be skeptical and critical and passionate without resorting to cynicism. Pervasive cynicism really means you hate people in general, and once you go there as an architect you end up doing more harm than good (both to yourself and the built environment). people are awesome - they're weird, creative, imperfect beings who just want to be happy.
I went to Ikea other day, there was a lady freaking out at the register about being lost in the store and unable to find her way out for hours. I had to agree with her. Ikea stores are a horrible trap, very unnecessary.
probably true donna. i don't believe its exactly a zero sum game but there are definitely costs for others that come from the choices of the better off...
Purpurina, that story is sad and hilarious at the same time. Poor woman...
And can you really get hit by a tornado? It's usually the debris that hits you, right? Either way, I'm good. There was a house on the news, however, that had the entire upper story removed, just the carpet and tile remained. Even the wall base-plates were gone! And another house had about 4 or 5 various sized boards, 2x4s and what looked like 1x8s, stabbed through the half-wall banister in the house's entry way. Honestly, that looked pretty cool. If it were my house, and I could, I'd keep them. They were nicely pickled, and stabbed so artistically.
The thing Ikea wants you to do is keep moving forward....so they can have you trapped for at least four hours. Once you have entered their is no going back....and their are always the Swedish Meat Balls to look forward to.....ya Meat Balls.. I still hate the Ikea Buggers for tearing down the Perrilli Tower in New Haven....just because they could.
Hope your enjoying your time in the desert....Donna...
I'll never forget the section on Tornadoes in my Structures test prep book. After chapter after chapter discussing the various ways in which you can design resistance to earthquake and hurricane damage through an understanding of lateral forces and shear and bending moment and all that, I finally got to a section titled "Tornado Resistance." The section was about 2 paragraphs long. It essentially said: "In a tornado, wind speeds can reach over 400 miles an hour. Due to the fact that the winds are constantly shifting direction, and reach such incredible extremes of speed, there's actually no real way to design a tornado-proof structure. Therefore you won't be tested on it." AKA, if you see a tornado coming, FREAK OUT because your building will not save you. Terrifying!
Since reading that I like to cite it whenever people asked me how anyone "could live in California, with all those earthquakes all the time!" Give me an earthquake over a tornado ANY day. Plus tornados seem to be all over most of the middle of the US. You can't escape those suckers!
"In a tornado, wind speeds can reach over 400 miles an hour. Due to the fact that the winds are constantly shifting direction, and reach such incredible extremes of speed, there's actually no real way to design a tornado-proof structure. Therefore you won't be tested on it.
I happen to agree with the above statement. Especially since you can find pictures of buildings where a room was ripped off and the only things left standing are the base plate and the one stud that was attached to a tie down. Yea that worked. Or when you see pictures of semi's flying thru the air like they are made of paper.
However, perhaps someone ought to let the court system know that there is no way to design tornado proof structure. Because designers do loose lawsuits because of it. I will never forget the Elementary school disaster in Valley Central NY in the 1980's. I was freshly out of school and doing my apprenticeship in the area. That school sustained a direct hit on a 1.5 story glass curtain wall from a severe down burst during an F1 tornado. The personnel at the scene claimed it was a natural disaster and no one could have prevented it. Yet, everybody, even the deceased architect, was sued, and lost, and paid for that one. There was a huge hubub for Tornado proof designs throughout the state, especially in school buildings. It was a crazy time.
Thread Central
william- later that day in his lecture at cal poly pomona, ando said he saw his concrete from le corbusier, his hero. hoping to meet him in paris, the young ando waited by his door only to find out corbu has died couple of months ago..
rusty- academia threads happen every year and it's intensifying every year as education is getting more and more expensive. younger generation is seeking contracts, assurances before they sign into anything. i don't blame them asking all that before they get into a school they know at the end they'll owe 150k and up. teaching in two places, i know how tough it will be for students to get a job when they graduate. their most marketable skill, unfortunately in most cases, is to do marketing renderings for their employer. relatively mindless stuff they have no design input. the rest of the craft is expected to be learned at the job if one is still insisting staying with the profession.
starchitects do hire sexy ppl
Hey Rusty, Is this guy your true identity, or were you just separated at birth? Something about him reminds me of you. http://www.27bslash6.com/missy.html
I stopped by a clients restoration shop yesterday. It was a nice spring day and he had
a couple of sets of sawhorses set up with flat panel hardwood birch faced hollow core doors laying on top of them. He was stripping the varnish off of them. I thought that is odd. Why would anyone go to the effort of stripping the varnish off of a hollow core birch faced door. It would certainly be alot less expensive to go buy a new birch faced hollow core door. So I ask my client what gives? He explained that these doors came out of a Marcel Breuer house which is being restored, so you just don't go buy a new hollow core door and intstall it in a Breuer House. It made me think about the Paul Roudolph project over in Orange County New York. Sigh!
their most marketable skill, unfortunately in most cases, is to do marketing renderings for their employer
How depressing. I'm happy to finally be in a place in my career where I can not pursue jobs that are overly focused on skills, and go with the ones that care about how I think and collaborate.
i still don't understand that idea that young architects are just presentation machines, doing mindless work. i can't see how any office could afford to waste ideas and energy that way.
i do notice that the younger and fresher the student or graduate the more conservative the output, which is a bit of a surprise. i used to have this idea that starchitects were taking all the ideas from the young staff, but i think lately that it is actually all coming from the top where somehow age has given them less fear....people like ando and koolhaas and so on really are impressive for being able to co-ordinate all those staff in such a directed way without losing the energy of their early work when it was just them. that kind of ability is really amazing to me.
that's interesting snook. in the japanese way the door would be replaced and the house would still be called original. here, tradition rests in the idea and the whole, not the parts. maybe that is why polemic is not such a thing with architects here...
in the u.s., i'd definitely take the (circa '50s?) breuer door over the new crud.
hollow core was better in the 50's you think?
even through the 60s. veneers were heavier, face panels were thicker, grains tighter and less likely to splinter, and fabrication was better. there is still a big salvage market for materials from that period, prior to mass-production's shift to supplying big-box consumer stores.
without wanting to get too much into the 'when i was a young'un..' game, just since the time i worked construction in the 80s i've seen continuous evolution to cheaper, thinner (component parts: face sheets, solid edge material), lighter, more splintery stuff.
the hollow core doors we see now are junk. it's the home depot effect, but it doesn't matter where you buy it now.
i am constantly modifying my door specs (more for solid core, since i won't use hollow core much) to control conditions i see in the doors we get on jobs. but if i go TOO far with it, i'm basically asking for custom built doors since no production doors can meet the requirements of halfway decent that i'm trying to achieve.
makes sense, steven. everything is made cheaper now.
mass manufactured doors are not up to standards here as well. to meet minimum expectations of our clients (and us) we usually make custom doors, but they are still hollow for budget reasons. usually they look pretty good and have a nice weight to them (as long as we spec them that way). it does seem odd to have to do it that way.
will, standard door specification gives you all kinds of options. From feel to look to performance. Nothing magical about the door design process. Vagueness gives you a default (crappy) door.
orthan. not to take away from eternal struggle of academic decisions, but this forum has become extremely unfriendly towards casual 'older' visitors. Filtering out academia questions would make this forum an actual resource. In the meantime DOES ANYONE HAVE A 3D MODEL OF ATLANTIS?
elinor! I would love to meet you (and your equally awesome husband) for a happy hour drink. This forum (still) does not allow contact between members. Donna, you know everyone. Can you get elinor and I in touch? yaaay!
ps. Sarah: I'm familiar with that website. I would like to think I'm not that much of an asshole. Silver medal!
Hi everyone, thanks for all your sympathy. (Especially Erin - I know you know how it goes!) It's $140 later and Linda is once again in beautiful riding shape. My favorite bike shop guy was working that weekend and he did a fantastic job with her - even fixed a few other minor issues while he was at it (for free!). I picked up a second bike lock that I will now have to carry around everywhere I go to lock the rear wheel to the frame. Yay. So far week 1 has gone by and she's still been sitting pretty in front of my building every morning, so, so far so good.
In other news I am working on a drawing for the invitations for my upcoming nuptials. I'm not sure yet if it's going to land on the cheesy side of home-made or on the sweet/touching side... I love to draw & am fairly decent at it in the way that most architects are, but drawing oneself and one's cherished partner is turning out to be another level of drawing difficulty entirely. I'm aiming for sweet/touching, but right now it looks like I'm hitting somewhere around cartoonish/1970s garage sale art.
For me sometimes the hardest part of drawing (like the hardest part of architecture) is stopping while I'm ahead. I usually scan a drawing at multiple stages, so if I end up adding too much I can go back to an earlier version, but didn't do that this time... and it's already looking a bit heavy-handed for my taste. Oh well! Wedding is imminent so what I see is probably going to be what I get!
Yes I truly wish we had our email buttons back. Argh.
ditto with the e-mailing ease of yore.
rusty, i agree must be good doors out there from standard factory. we haven't found any yet that don't feel dead. it's a fetish maybe. so we make our own. pity you aren't in tokyo, you could point us in the right direction for the good stuff...
am sure the picture is great manta. cool to hear the wedding day is near!
you CAN still email folks from their profile page - if they've provided the email - can't you? it looks like i can email will if i want: just click on his name, 'contact', and click on the envelope clicky thing.
so kentucky won last night and my car didn't get set on fire, so today can already be considered a good day. some folks in lexington won't be able to say the same.
good morning all,
steven is correct you can email but only to users who have a profile and you have to do it from their profile page. not exactly the old way but works for some.....
the discussion re: hollow core doors while not totally surprising given general trend of cheapness/mass manufacturing, is still interesting to hear the perspective of the ones on ground who actually deal with it on a "daily" basis.
Mantaray, i have long carried a u lock and a longer covered chain type lock so i can lock by tire as well. it also makes for convenient carrying of the u lock.
Rusty, you can filter discussions by category you know?
oh and i don't suppose i will have much time for exploring but i will be up in Madison/Verona Wisconsin this week for work, anyone have suggestions on places to see/visit if I have time?
Rusty, elinor is one of the few members here that I really respect but haven't had personal contact with. I just checked citizen off that list as I had a lovely email exchange with him.
Man I just feel like going onto every one of those "which school?" threads and screaming in all caps that unemployment in architecture is still at 20% what the hell are you thinking?!". But I had someone say that to me and 1. I thought he was a bitter old man and 2. it's worked out fair enough for me so why crush the kids' dreams.
Nam, the one thing that came to mind immediately is FLW's Monona Terrace, which was designed in 1938, but not built until the 1990s.
*Donna, look, capitalization! :)
Actually, Donna, a 1-in-5 chance at being unemployed isn't that bad if you reframe it as 4-out-of-5 people in architecture are currently employed.
What you should point out, though, is that those who don't develop enough skills to be offered gainful employment during or after school will only have a 1-in-25 chance of landing an internship that pays more than minimum wage.
Career chance or not, those who don't make the first draft will have to find a way to sustain themselves for 1 to 3 years while working an unpaid job.
Between cycling this past month and my recent hobby of Olympic weightlifting, my shoulder is beginning to kill me.
Instantly reminded of how much it sucks to be self-employed when an MRI costs like $3000— and it's not even possible to diagnose a shoulder injury without one.
the world is going wrong when even the optimists are turning to the dark side. the profession still seems worthwhile to me. it is a hard slog even in the best of times, but i expect that is true for all professions in the end.
Hi Orhan - got too wrapped up in my prose on your series post - that last sentence was unfortunate, and I feel bad about it.
actually - Boston is a pretty interesting microcosm of a politically active populous in terms of development - some neighborhoods where you have large transient populations you get institutions that run roughshod over large swaths of land. Whereas others, you get people all worked up over perhaps the tiniest Whole Foods ever, enough to disrupt and get arrested at a neighborhood meeting. Mostly it's somewhere in between, but I think what makes this city great is that things move veerrrry slowly, and people are very protective of their neighborhoods. I know there's a certain dean at a certain architecture program who would disagree with me, but this really crazy process where everything needs to go before the most nutty neighborhood committee (and this one guy who keeps the torch of the old west end alive) keeps crap from getting built. It turns our job into actually listening to people and being very persuasive, instead of designing crazy shit we (and the developers) think people need.
yes - people did actually protest a Whole Foods moving in. I'm not sure if this would happen anywhere else in the US.
Phillip yeah i forgot about that one. Saw it when drove past on way to hotel. will try and get time to investigate later. Lots of very nice old post-industrial type architecture...
no worries toaster. i think it is better understood now. thanks for your overall thoughts which are great.
So I guess everything is now ADA? I'm wondering if any state still uses ANSI...
I'm all for using Chicago Manual of Style as my building code.
as far as i know the IBC still references ANSI, toaster. and IBC is still our (KY) model code. ??
ADA is a federal law. if your jurisdiction does not require adaag, it's because they don't understand what it is.
ansi is a model code spec'd in the ibc, which is a model code created by the icc, which creates model codes. that means jurisdictions (your city our county or whatever) can chose whether to adopt it or not. also, many jurisdictions only adopt portions of the ibc, so they could adopt all of the ibc except chapter 36 or something like that.
everything has been ada for like 25 years or whatever it's been.
up until about 2 weeks ago ansi was more restrictive than ada. on march 15, a new ada went into effect, so ada and ansi are pretty close now.
i tried to do capitals, but then felt elitist and dirty.
ANSI IS VALUNTARY, ADA IS INVOLUNTARY. I AM NOT YELLING JUST DOING THIS FOR DONNA. PRICE OF GALLON OF CAPITAL LETTERS IS REACHING RECORD HIGHS EVERYONE PANIC!
curt - oops - I meant to ask if more states are adopting ADA as their base code instead of ANSI.
ADA is a federal anti-discrimination law. Can't really not adopt it.
So the new ADA calls for single occupant restrooms to be about 15 by 25 feet in plan, right?
I had a stress dream last night about showing up to teach totally unprepared. Guess what, I teach tomorrow, and I am TOTALLY unprepared! Better get to it if I want to get any sleep tonight.
HI RUSTY!!!! GOOD TO HEAR FROM YOU!
what is wrong with me? of course I know ADA trumps everything else. Never mind what I posted earlier. I'm an idiot.
@will: the world is going wrong when even the optimists are turning to the dark side. the profession still seems worthwhile to me. it is a hard slog even in the best of times, but i expect that is true for all professions in the end.
it's tough staying optimistic when you're stressed out all the time. I also really dislike being around defeatist and negative people - it brings me down and If I'm around these people for too long I find myself repeating the same mantras of doom and gloom and it's hard to break free. It doesn't help anyone to be cynical, you can be skeptical and critical and passionate without resorting to cynicism. Pervasive cynicism really means you hate people in general, and once you go there as an architect you end up doing more harm than good (both to yourself and the built environment). people are awesome - they're weird, creative, imperfect beings who just want to be happy.
Wondering when ANSI will catch up with Electric Wheelchairs?
people are awesome - they're weird, creative, imperfect beings who just want to be happy.
Mostly true. But to many many many people their own happiness only comes at the expense of someone else's. And they are fine with that.
Maybe that describes all of us.
Sarah I can't remember where you are but I hope you didn't get hit by a tornado!
I went to Ikea other day, there was a lady freaking out at the register about being lost in the store and unable to find her way out for hours. I had to agree with her. Ikea stores are a horrible trap, very unnecessary.
probably true donna. i don't believe its exactly a zero sum game but there are definitely costs for others that come from the choices of the better off...
Purpurina, that story is sad and hilarious at the same time. Poor woman...
And can you really get hit by a tornado? It's usually the debris that hits you, right? Either way, I'm good. There was a house on the news, however, that had the entire upper story removed, just the carpet and tile remained. Even the wall base-plates were gone! And another house had about 4 or 5 various sized boards, 2x4s and what looked like 1x8s, stabbed through the half-wall banister in the house's entry way. Honestly, that looked pretty cool. If it were my house, and I could, I'd keep them. They were nicely pickled, and stabbed so artistically.
Here's what I was talking about...
Lets try that again
That's scary. I also saw this picture, which I find hilarious. EIFS fail!
The thing Ikea wants you to do is keep moving forward....so they can have you trapped for at least four hours. Once you have entered their is no going back....and their are always the Swedish Meat Balls to look forward to.....ya Meat Balls.. I still hate the Ikea Buggers for tearing down the Perrilli Tower in New Haven....just because they could.
Hope your enjoying your time in the desert....Donna...
I'll never forget the section on Tornadoes in my Structures test prep book. After chapter after chapter discussing the various ways in which you can design resistance to earthquake and hurricane damage through an understanding of lateral forces and shear and bending moment and all that, I finally got to a section titled "Tornado Resistance." The section was about 2 paragraphs long. It essentially said: "In a tornado, wind speeds can reach over 400 miles an hour. Due to the fact that the winds are constantly shifting direction, and reach such incredible extremes of speed, there's actually no real way to design a tornado-proof structure. Therefore you won't be tested on it." AKA, if you see a tornado coming, FREAK OUT because your building will not save you. Terrifying!
Since reading that I like to cite it whenever people asked me how anyone "could live in California, with all those earthquakes all the time!" Give me an earthquake over a tornado ANY day. Plus tornados seem to be all over most of the middle of the US. You can't escape those suckers!
"In a tornado, wind speeds can reach over 400 miles an hour. Due to the fact that the winds are constantly shifting direction, and reach such incredible extremes of speed, there's actually no real way to design a tornado-proof structure. Therefore you won't be tested on it.
I happen to agree with the above statement. Especially since you can find pictures of buildings where a room was ripped off and the only things left standing are the base plate and the one stud that was attached to a tie down. Yea that worked. Or when you see pictures of semi's flying thru the air like they are made of paper.
However, perhaps someone ought to let the court system know that there is no way to design tornado proof structure. Because designers do loose lawsuits because of it. I will never forget the Elementary school disaster in Valley Central NY in the 1980's. I was freshly out of school and doing my apprenticeship in the area. That school sustained a direct hit on a 1.5 story glass curtain wall from a severe down burst during an F1 tornado. The personnel at the scene claimed it was a natural disaster and no one could have prevented it. Yet, everybody, even the deceased architect, was sued, and lost, and paid for that one. There was a huge hubub for Tornado proof designs throughout the state, especially in school buildings. It was a crazy time.
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0EIN/is_1994_Dec_20/ai_15942207/
$80 a square foot?
hmmm... structural masonry? dumb box? granite lintels?
Block this user
Are you sure you want to block this user and hide all related comments throughout the site?
Archinect
This is your first comment on Archinect. Your comment will be visible once approved.