had the opposite experience yesterday at a meeting. got caught between dueling bureaucrats of the CRA (community redevelopment agency) and the CAC (community advisory commitee) Design Review Board (of an un-nameable LA 'hood). Got told that my concept design elevations looked like a soviet government building by the board members- way too harsh and uncalled for (this isn't a studio review). The design board was real pissy since we were way to early in the process to have presented to them, but the CRA wanted us to present, so what cha gonna do? then again the CAC and the CRA are inventing the process as they go along. The CRA trashed our project when they were supposed to be our advocates - sigh. Politics are crazy-we've all but rolled over and played dead- gave up almost 10,000 sf of the site for a setback that doesnt have any real uses except as a bureaucratic pipedream of a midblock passage. But we can't legally provide access to the neighbors property!
If this was a by-rights development, life would be much easier, but we need variances for the redevelopment district and the local specific plan.
Oh well, I'm walking away from this one for minneapolis next week. I'll miss the fun of starting schematics and being the de-facto lead designer since our NY office is ignoring the LA operations.
this will totally make me come across as an elitist wank, but i have to admit that part of my skeevishness with going into WalMart or any big "one-stop-shop" kind of place involves taking note of (and having to deal with) my fellow clientele. i just don't feel like i have anything in common with them other than a desire to save a buck or two here 'n' there.
i could go into detail, but suffice to say that this (coupled with myriad other reasons voiced by folks here on archinect) is why i'd rather spend a few extra bucks somewhere else.
treekiller -- in your experiences with all this, are you finding that most of these committees are aimed more towards being risk-averse instead of success oriented? i deal with this a lot in my current line of work (acquiring defense satellite systems) and it is the apex of frustration. it forces a lot of good talent to throw up their hands in futility and move on to other projects.
seems like there are far too many parties in the process that may or may not be value added, but can still gum up the works.
the community is their own worst enemy- it's not only risk aversion, it's the clinging to the status quo and lack of big picture thinking. Our client's family has lived in the hood for 3+ generation, they know everyone and have a great reputation for community boosterism. There has been a great effort to provide significant public ammenities from parking, workforce housing, pedestrian scaled streets, and not blocking the view of an adjacent condo tower.
The at the public meetings, it turns into lord of the flies with parochial interests winning versus creating benefits for everyone. we've just shelved continuing a masterplan with 3 years of work so farm that could have been great - but there is a vested interest in keeping the post-industrial areas underutilized, blighted, and vacant. So this one corner of LA will stay stagnant and rust away untill somebody kicks some sense into them. (and there aren't even any good food).
oh man...at the risk of putting too many cliches into one sentence, it sounds like the squeakiest wheel is getting the grease despite the real problem being a broken chain.
sorry you're going through this treekiller. although it's a different industry, i can relate. the program i'm working is projected to be $50M overbudget in 2007 (on a $2B program), but instead of coming up with the extra funding, our customer has told us to make do with what we've got. this means we have to throttle back the program, push our schedule to the right by a year and, when all's said and done, it will probably cost more like $80M when $50M would've done the trick!!
way to save our taxpayer dollars guys. why must we keep making the same mistakes over and over??
Thanks for the cheering, everyone! I just finished making a ton of post-meeting revisions, zipped up the drawing pdfs, and sent the little bundle off. Not bad for a small charette project. I feel good! ...Not good enough to go swimming tonight, though ;) I slept like 2 hours on my crummy couch last night and that was it, so if I got in the pool right now I'd probably zone out in the calm suspension and drown.
A drink actually sounds really good. I hadn't thought of that! I'll have to see if I can rally the troops. I'm probably a one-drink knock-out at the moment.
Any drink suggestions???? I'm getting tired of the ole Sidecar. Also pooped out on the staple Seven-and-7.
Abra--oddly enough, my mcmaster-carr is sitting in front of me in almost that same position! I have to look past it to look at yours on my screen. :)
I've heard that the hippest neighborhoods in moscow and berlin are in the old soviet housing blocks- I think the board member was just trying to be snarky- My elevations were so abstract and basic, there was no intended style. The board wanted colored rendered elevations and finish materials so they could play martha stewart, not review the massing and concept design that we were showing. All we needed was approval of the height, setbacks, location of entries, and where the parking structure was....
Hey, I learned something about living the architecture life from this meeting. I'm proposing a toast - have a vodka, maybe a few belinis with cavier- long live the motherland!
Orhan- eversince I found the M-C website, I've not opened my catalog.
But the catalogue is so... tactile... It's like going to a bookstore instead of buying online: you never know what'll turn up next to the page you were looking for! (those people make EVERYTHING! I briefly toyed with the idea of buying a GASOLINE PUMP NOZZLE last night! For no reason at all! What a conversation piece!)
I also pore over the Hafele catalogue for hours at a time. Mmmmm, Hafele.
Someone should make a "great catalogues" thread.
and thanks for the drink suggestions! I went with hot saki, since I treated myself to sushi. I finished my umpteenth re-read of The Maltese Falcon just as the last bit of salmon sashimi reached my mouth. HEAVEN.
"i have to admit that part of my skeevishness with going into WalMart or any big "one-stop-shop" kind of place involves taking note of (and having to deal with) my fellow clientele. i just don't feel like i have anything in common with them other than a desire to save a buck or two here 'n' there."
say what? if you are too good to share space with them how can you design for them (really, seriously)? nah, you must be joking, right? ah well, you are in god company. reportedly mies van der rohe vomited on the train when he had to take coach instead of first class. but that was just insecurity...
What I love about the m-c site is that it is so close to replicating the experience of the catalog with a great search functions. yeah, there is something to be said about flipping through the 1643-something pages....
OMG, treekiller, I SO wish I had come across that site literally one week ago!!! I've been trying to find these in anything greater than 1" dia. and THESE EXACT L-SHAPED HANDLES for literally WEEKS!!! It has been a huge stumper for a project of mine. Finally I got some random aluminum extrusion place out in CA to send us a 6' length of L-shaped aluminum which we're going to have to cut up into lengths. It's not going to look anywhere near as good as those would have. Dammit dammit dammit. Maybe I can convince the client to switch... (yeah, right). Hmm!
They even have a squash court pull and a soss hinge that comes in something other than brass... shit. I can't take this. I cannot believe all the things I've been looking so hard for are in one little catalogue! I wish I'd known... I can't believe I settled for brass soss hinges when all the rest of our hardware is oil-rubbed bronze... sigh. Ahh well. Next time! They have our special window lock hardware that we order from halfway around the world right now, they have a pivot hinge that you don't need to round the back edge of the door to use, they have harmon hinges for pocketing doors that I could have used instead of the Soss... wow. What a learning experience. Thanks!
and why do we let hardware consultants have all the fun? The best part of being a set designer was picking out the hardware from the studio's hardware collection. It's like walking into a hardware museum and getting library borrowing priveledges. Room after dusty room of old locksets, knobs, pulls, and hinges - in every style from flynstone to jetson with lots of deco inbetween.
then there is the staff department (aka plaster and castings)
before you get too excited about nanz you may want to price
out what you're looking at...nanz is usually about twice as much
as you'll find elsewhere...at least. you pay for the beauty.
My boss and I have been marvelling over treekiller's hardware find all morning, and cursing our luck that we didn't have it literally 2 weeks ago. His exact words were: "Where were these guys when we need them! Great Find, why use anyone else."
So that makes it: one yellow book, one yellow-orange (Hafele), one orange, and one red... can we fill out the rest of the rainbow?
1. Rubber bands last longer when refrigerated.
2. Peanuts are one of the ingredients of dynamite.
3. The national anthem of Greece has 158 verses.
No one in Greece has memorized all 158 verses.
4. There are 293 ways to make change for a dollar.
5. The average person's left hand does 56% of the typing.
6. A shark is the only fish that can blink with both eyes.
7. There are more chickens than people in the world.
8. Two-thirds of the world's eggplant is grown in New Jersey.
9. The longest one-syllable word in the English language
is "screeched."
10. On a Canadian two dollar bill, the flag flying over the Parliament
Building is an American flag.
11. All of the clocks in the movie "Pulp Fiction" are stuck on 4:20.
12. No word in the English language rhymes with month, orange, silver
or purple.
13. "Dreamt" is the only English word that ends in the letters "mt."
14. All 50 states are listed across the top of the Lincoln Memorial on
the back of the $5 bill.
15. Almonds are a member of the peach family.
16. Winston Churchill was born in a ladies' room during a dance.
17. Maine is the only state whose name is just one syllable.
18. There are only four words in the English language which end in
"-dous" tremendous, horrendous, stupendous and hazardous.
19. Los Angeles's full name is "El Pueblo de Nuestra Senora la Reina de
los Angeles de Porciuncula"- and can be abbreviated to 3.63% of its
size: "L.A."
20. A cat has 32 muscles in each ear.
21. An ostrich's eye is bigger than its brain.
22. Tigers have striped skin, not just striped fur.
23. In most advertisements, including newspapers, the time displayed on
a watch is 10:10.
24. Al Capone's business card said he was a used furniture dealer.
25. When the University of Nebraska Cornhuskers play football at home,
the stadium becomes the state's third largest city.
26. The characters Bert and Ernie on Sesame Street were named after
Bert the cop and Ernie the taxi driver in Frank Capra's
"Its A Wonderful Life."
28. A goldfish has a memory span of three seconds.
29. A dime has 118 ridges around the edge.
30. On an American one-dollar bill, there is an owl in the upper
left-hand corner of the "1" encased in the "shield" and a
spider hidden in the front upper right-hand corner.
31. It's impossible to sneeze with your eyes open.
(DON'T try this @ home!)
32. The giant squid has the largest eyes in the world.
33. Who's that playing the piano on the "Mad About You" theme?
Paul Reiser himself.
34. In England, the Speaker of the House is not allowed to speak.
35. The name for Oz in the "Wizard of Oz" was thought up when the
creator, Frank Baum, looked at his filing cabinet and saw A-N,
and O-Z, hence "Oz."
36. The microwave was invented after a researcher walked by a
radar tube and a chocolate bar melted in his pocket.
37. Mr. Rogers is an ordained minister.
38. John Lennon's first girlfriend was named Thelma Pickles.
39. The average person falls asleep in seven minutes.
40. There are 336 dimples on a regulation golf ball.
41. Stewardesses" is the longest word that is typed with only
the left hand.
Damn it I'm so dumb. I guess all the radiation coming from my computer monitor in the 60+ hours I spend at it each week has caused me to post in the wrong thread. I will now turn around and grab my ankles so you may all take turns kicking me in the ass.
Speaking of Hafele, has their bus (Mobile Design Center) ever come to your office? In 2000, it rolled up to our office, and the reps gave mini-presentations to small groups using the smart pull-out displays contained within the semi-truck-sized vehicle.
I've gotta get in on the catalogue talk! It's like porn to me!
I often used the Outwater Plastics catalogue back in Philly - they are based in NJ. The catalogue was really helpful, it tended to always give the information an architect would want, like how big the interior clearance of a cabinet had to be for a pull-out garbage bin next to a disposer, etc.
I also spent many an hour cooing over the Julius Blum catalogue. It's wonderfully geeky: each shape (tube, rectangular extrusion, square solid bar, etc.) is color-coded as to what material it comes in (aluminum, stainless, brass), etc. I could waste an entire billable day of so-called "detailing" work just looking through those books!
And myriam I was laughing my a** off when I read this sentence from you: I can't believe I settled for brass soss hinges when all the rest of our hardware is oil-rubbed bronze We're such architects!
Julius Blum is great, although I can't wrap my head around how it can be a thin catalogue and have a hard cover at the same time...
...oh! I can order it for free? Goodbye to the days of borrowing the only office copy or reading the incessant emails from people in the office who are looking for it.
lars, i figured as much :) doesn't matter to me--the problem in this case is that we couldn't actually find suppliers for most of what we were looking for, so anything would have been better than making custom hardware!
Also, for example, we used a soss hinge ($$$) on a pocketed door when we could have used the "harmon" hinge from nanz, which is undoubtedly cheaper than a huge soss hinge.
These are all great hardware ideas! We also tend to look in yacht or boating supply catalogues, like Jamestown Distributors, etcetera.
jump -- sorry i'm just getting back to you now (re: WalMart comment on the last page)...work was insane today. as much as i'd love the discussion to continue, you're absolutely right. i have yet to make the transition into the architecture field, so i hadn't thought of it from that perspective. it's my problem and something i would certainly have to get past if i hoped to design for people whose tastes i might not share. i'm not proud of this from a humanist perspective, but it certainly affects my consumer decisions (of which i'm not ashamed).
no worries, m. broccoli. i was just taking the piss.
i grew up poorer than the people who use wal-mart, and find it just as hard taking wealthy people seriously as you do the opposite. a few months ago a feller asked me if i had seen the new japanese opera (hell if i can recall what it is called) and i had no response. my partner laughed. luckily he is into it and could speak intelligently...while all i can talk about is whether sun house is as influential as robert johnson...on the other hand i don't feel uncomfortable shopping at prada or issey miyake, so maybe it is easier to go the other way... nothing to stress over though.
Thread Central
ms. m-
had the opposite experience yesterday at a meeting. got caught between dueling bureaucrats of the CRA (community redevelopment agency) and the CAC (community advisory commitee) Design Review Board (of an un-nameable LA 'hood). Got told that my concept design elevations looked like a soviet government building by the board members- way too harsh and uncalled for (this isn't a studio review). The design board was real pissy since we were way to early in the process to have presented to them, but the CRA wanted us to present, so what cha gonna do? then again the CAC and the CRA are inventing the process as they go along. The CRA trashed our project when they were supposed to be our advocates - sigh. Politics are crazy-we've all but rolled over and played dead- gave up almost 10,000 sf of the site for a setback that doesnt have any real uses except as a bureaucratic pipedream of a midblock passage. But we can't legally provide access to the neighbors property!
If this was a by-rights development, life would be much easier, but we need variances for the redevelopment district and the local specific plan.
Oh well, I'm walking away from this one for minneapolis next week. I'll miss the fun of starting schematics and being the de-facto lead designer since our NY office is ignoring the LA operations.
this will totally make me come across as an elitist wank, but i have to admit that part of my skeevishness with going into WalMart or any big "one-stop-shop" kind of place involves taking note of (and having to deal with) my fellow clientele. i just don't feel like i have anything in common with them other than a desire to save a buck or two here 'n' there.
i could go into detail, but suffice to say that this (coupled with myriad other reasons voiced by folks here on archinect) is why i'd rather spend a few extra bucks somewhere else.
treekiller -- in your experiences with all this, are you finding that most of these committees are aimed more towards being risk-averse instead of success oriented? i deal with this a lot in my current line of work (acquiring defense satellite systems) and it is the apex of frustration. it forces a lot of good talent to throw up their hands in futility and move on to other projects.
seems like there are far too many parties in the process that may or may not be value added, but can still gum up the works.
Ahh, bureaucracies...
the community is their own worst enemy- it's not only risk aversion, it's the clinging to the status quo and lack of big picture thinking. Our client's family has lived in the hood for 3+ generation, they know everyone and have a great reputation for community boosterism. There has been a great effort to provide significant public ammenities from parking, workforce housing, pedestrian scaled streets, and not blocking the view of an adjacent condo tower.
The at the public meetings, it turns into lord of the flies with parochial interests winning versus creating benefits for everyone. we've just shelved continuing a masterplan with 3 years of work so farm that could have been great - but there is a vested interest in keeping the post-industrial areas underutilized, blighted, and vacant. So this one corner of LA will stay stagnant and rust away untill somebody kicks some sense into them. (and there aren't even any good food).
don't worry tk you aren't the first reject by the experts
oh man...at the risk of putting too many cliches into one sentence, it sounds like the squeakiest wheel is getting the grease despite the real problem being a broken chain.
sorry you're going through this treekiller. although it's a different industry, i can relate. the program i'm working is projected to be $50M overbudget in 2007 (on a $2B program), but instead of coming up with the extra funding, our customer has told us to make do with what we've got. this means we have to throttle back the program, push our schedule to the right by a year and, when all's said and done, it will probably cost more like $80M when $50M would've done the trick!!
way to save our taxpayer dollars guys. why must we keep making the same mistakes over and over??
sad really.
That's a great link, abra.
Thanks for the cheering, everyone! I just finished making a ton of post-meeting revisions, zipped up the drawing pdfs, and sent the little bundle off. Not bad for a small charette project. I feel good! ...Not good enough to go swimming tonight, though ;) I slept like 2 hours on my crummy couch last night and that was it, so if I got in the pool right now I'd probably zone out in the calm suspension and drown.
Don't drown myriam! But do have a drink, and eat something, and pat yourself on the back for a job well done. Then sleep.
yeah, those are beautiful, abra. can't believe that a southern california a.r.c. wouldn't love to have one like that aeroflot building.
good job myriam.
.
i owe a lot to this book.
A drink actually sounds really good. I hadn't thought of that! I'll have to see if I can rally the troops. I'm probably a one-drink knock-out at the moment.
Any drink suggestions???? I'm getting tired of the ole Sidecar. Also pooped out on the staple Seven-and-7.
Abra--oddly enough, my mcmaster-carr is sitting in front of me in almost that same position! I have to look past it to look at yours on my screen. :)
Manhattan, or for something even a bit sweeter, Old Fashioned.
Guarantee a one-drink knock out.
Or if you're sitting outside, gin and tonic can't be beat as a hot weather cocktail.
(Marion, if you're still here, really we DON'T drink too much...)
I've heard that the hippest neighborhoods in moscow and berlin are in the old soviet housing blocks- I think the board member was just trying to be snarky- My elevations were so abstract and basic, there was no intended style. The board wanted colored rendered elevations and finish materials so they could play martha stewart, not review the massing and concept design that we were showing. All we needed was approval of the height, setbacks, location of entries, and where the parking structure was....
Hey, I learned something about living the architecture life from this meeting. I'm proposing a toast - have a vodka, maybe a few belinis with cavier- long live the motherland!
Orhan- eversince I found the M-C website, I've not opened my catalog.
But the catalogue is so... tactile... It's like going to a bookstore instead of buying online: you never know what'll turn up next to the page you were looking for! (those people make EVERYTHING! I briefly toyed with the idea of buying a GASOLINE PUMP NOZZLE last night! For no reason at all! What a conversation piece!)
I also pore over the Hafele catalogue for hours at a time. Mmmmm, Hafele.
Someone should make a "great catalogues" thread.
and thanks for the drink suggestions! I went with hot saki, since I treated myself to sushi. I finished my umpteenth re-read of The Maltese Falcon just as the last bit of salmon sashimi reached my mouth. HEAVEN.
broccoli-dude,
"i have to admit that part of my skeevishness with going into WalMart or any big "one-stop-shop" kind of place involves taking note of (and having to deal with) my fellow clientele. i just don't feel like i have anything in common with them other than a desire to save a buck or two here 'n' there."
say what? if you are too good to share space with them how can you design for them (really, seriously)? nah, you must be joking, right? ah well, you are in god company. reportedly mies van der rohe vomited on the train when he had to take coach instead of first class. but that was just insecurity...
if you want fetish, check out nantz
What I love about the m-c site is that it is so close to replicating the experience of the catalog with a great search functions. yeah, there is something to be said about flipping through the 1643-something pages....
oh, that's alright liberty bell - make mine a mojito!
OMG, treekiller, I SO wish I had come across that site literally one week ago!!! I've been trying to find these in anything greater than 1" dia. and THESE EXACT L-SHAPED HANDLES for literally WEEKS!!! It has been a huge stumper for a project of mine. Finally I got some random aluminum extrusion place out in CA to send us a 6' length of L-shaped aluminum which we're going to have to cut up into lengths. It's not going to look anywhere near as good as those would have. Dammit dammit dammit. Maybe I can convince the client to switch... (yeah, right). Hmm!
All that to say: Holy hinges, treekiller! That catalogue is great! Thanks!!!!!
They even have a squash court pull and a soss hinge that comes in something other than brass... shit. I can't take this. I cannot believe all the things I've been looking so hard for are in one little catalogue! I wish I'd known... I can't believe I settled for brass soss hinges when all the rest of our hardware is oil-rubbed bronze... sigh. Ahh well. Next time! They have our special window lock hardware that we order from halfway around the world right now, they have a pivot hinge that you don't need to round the back edge of the door to use, they have harmon hinges for pocketing doors that I could have used instead of the Soss... wow. What a learning experience. Thanks!
Myriam so glad to make your night!
and why do we let hardware consultants have all the fun? The best part of being a set designer was picking out the hardware from the studio's hardware collection. It's like walking into a hardware museum and getting library borrowing priveledges. Room after dusty room of old locksets, knobs, pulls, and hinges - in every style from flynstone to jetson with lots of deco inbetween.
then there is the staff department (aka plaster and castings)
oh- check out the moulds in the background
this is old school craftsmanship- still using horse hair (and fiberglass)
g-night folks
I felt myriam's pain .... I groaned when I saw this
yes, i'm still alive...thanks for asking
myriam
before you get too excited about nanz you may want to price
out what you're looking at...nanz is usually about twice as much
as you'll find elsewhere...at least. you pay for the beauty.
is another good catalog - a red one!
i'm a fan of these guys as well...
http://www.chdist.com/
also if you're looking for cheapish power tools:
http://grizzly.com/
My boss and I have been marvelling over treekiller's hardware find all morning, and cursing our luck that we didn't have it literally 2 weeks ago. His exact words were: "Where were these guys when we need them! Great Find, why use anyone else."
So that makes it: one yellow book, one yellow-orange (Hafele), one orange, and one red... can we fill out the rest of the rainbow?
archinect should just become a consulting service.
1. Rubber bands last longer when refrigerated.
2. Peanuts are one of the ingredients of dynamite.
3. The national anthem of Greece has 158 verses.
No one in Greece has memorized all 158 verses.
4. There are 293 ways to make change for a dollar.
5. The average person's left hand does 56% of the typing.
6. A shark is the only fish that can blink with both eyes.
7. There are more chickens than people in the world.
8. Two-thirds of the world's eggplant is grown in New Jersey.
9. The longest one-syllable word in the English language
is "screeched."
10. On a Canadian two dollar bill, the flag flying over the Parliament
Building is an American flag.
11. All of the clocks in the movie "Pulp Fiction" are stuck on 4:20.
12. No word in the English language rhymes with month, orange, silver
or purple.
13. "Dreamt" is the only English word that ends in the letters "mt."
14. All 50 states are listed across the top of the Lincoln Memorial on
the back of the $5 bill.
15. Almonds are a member of the peach family.
16. Winston Churchill was born in a ladies' room during a dance.
17. Maine is the only state whose name is just one syllable.
18. There are only four words in the English language which end in
"-dous" tremendous, horrendous, stupendous and hazardous.
19. Los Angeles's full name is "El Pueblo de Nuestra Senora la Reina de
los Angeles de Porciuncula"- and can be abbreviated to 3.63% of its
size: "L.A."
20. A cat has 32 muscles in each ear.
21. An ostrich's eye is bigger than its brain.
22. Tigers have striped skin, not just striped fur.
23. In most advertisements, including newspapers, the time displayed on
a watch is 10:10.
24. Al Capone's business card said he was a used furniture dealer.
25. When the University of Nebraska Cornhuskers play football at home,
the stadium becomes the state's third largest city.
26. The characters Bert and Ernie on Sesame Street were named after
Bert the cop and Ernie the taxi driver in Frank Capra's
"Its A Wonderful Life."
28. A goldfish has a memory span of three seconds.
29. A dime has 118 ridges around the edge.
30. On an American one-dollar bill, there is an owl in the upper
left-hand corner of the "1" encased in the "shield" and a
spider hidden in the front upper right-hand corner.
31. It's impossible to sneeze with your eyes open.
(DON'T try this @ home!)
32. The giant squid has the largest eyes in the world.
33. Who's that playing the piano on the "Mad About You" theme?
Paul Reiser himself.
34. In England, the Speaker of the House is not allowed to speak.
35. The name for Oz in the "Wizard of Oz" was thought up when the
creator, Frank Baum, looked at his filing cabinet and saw A-N,
and O-Z, hence "Oz."
36. The microwave was invented after a researcher walked by a
radar tube and a chocolate bar melted in his pocket.
37. Mr. Rogers is an ordained minister.
38. John Lennon's first girlfriend was named Thelma Pickles.
39. The average person falls asleep in seven minutes.
40. There are 336 dimples on a regulation golf ball.
41. Stewardesses" is the longest word that is typed with only
the left hand.
I had some free time.
Damn it I'm so dumb. I guess all the radiation coming from my computer monitor in the 60+ hours I spend at it each week has caused me to post in the wrong thread. I will now turn around and grab my ankles so you may all take turns kicking me in the ass.
I can't tell what's going on any more.
Speaking of Hafele, has their bus (Mobile Design Center) ever come to your office? In 2000, it rolled up to our office, and the reps gave mini-presentations to small groups using the smart pull-out displays contained within the semi-truck-sized vehicle.
I've gotta get in on the catalogue talk! It's like porn to me!
I often used the Outwater Plastics catalogue back in Philly - they are based in NJ. The catalogue was really helpful, it tended to always give the information an architect would want, like how big the interior clearance of a cabinet had to be for a pull-out garbage bin next to a disposer, etc.
I also spent many an hour cooing over the Julius Blum catalogue. It's wonderfully geeky: each shape (tube, rectangular extrusion, square solid bar, etc.) is color-coded as to what material it comes in (aluminum, stainless, brass), etc. I could waste an entire billable day of so-called "detailing" work just looking through those books!
And myriam I was laughing my a** off when I read this sentence from you: I can't believe I settled for brass soss hinges when all the rest of our hardware is oil-rubbed bronze We're such architects!
Oh and Chili: where were you trying to post? And did the radiation from your screen melt a chocolate abr in your pocket?!?
No, but it is payday (pardon the bad pun) and I'm off to happy hour!!!
Julius Blum is great, although I can't wrap my head around how it can be a thin catalogue and have a hard cover at the same time...
...oh! I can order it for free? Goodbye to the days of borrowing the only office copy or reading the incessant emails from people in the office who are looking for it.
this has been a fun page- so why am I obsessed with the number of posts??????
Gotta love fetishizing hardware- also babes in toyland has some nifty metal work (and pyrex too)
is anyone else totally stoked to watch snakes on a plane this weekend?
lars, i figured as much :) doesn't matter to me--the problem in this case is that we couldn't actually find suppliers for most of what we were looking for, so anything would have been better than making custom hardware!
Also, for example, we used a soss hinge ($$$) on a pocketed door when we could have used the "harmon" hinge from nanz, which is undoubtedly cheaper than a huge soss hinge.
These are all great hardware ideas! We also tend to look in yacht or boating supply catalogues, like Jamestown Distributors, etcetera.
jump -- sorry i'm just getting back to you now (re: WalMart comment on the last page)...work was insane today. as much as i'd love the discussion to continue, you're absolutely right. i have yet to make the transition into the architecture field, so i hadn't thought of it from that perspective. it's my problem and something i would certainly have to get past if i hoped to design for people whose tastes i might not share. i'm not proud of this from a humanist perspective, but it certainly affects my consumer decisions (of which i'm not ashamed).
I think the only thing more dangerous than snakes on a plane are a bunch of Chuck Norrises on a plane:
chuck norris and samuel l jackson on a plane would be nothing but muti-racial trouble.
My dog looks exactly like that.
Chuck Norris hates your dog.
no worries, m. broccoli. i was just taking the piss.
i grew up poorer than the people who use wal-mart, and find it just as hard taking wealthy people seriously as you do the opposite. a few months ago a feller asked me if i had seen the new japanese opera (hell if i can recall what it is called) and i had no response. my partner laughed. luckily he is into it and could speak intelligently...while all i can talk about is whether sun house is as influential as robert johnson...on the other hand i don't feel uncomfortable shopping at prada or issey miyake, so maybe it is easier to go the other way... nothing to stress over though.
getting in on hardware places. we are lately using these guys fairly often.
union . coincidentally they just made an english version of their site.
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