Ap, it was nice to meet you and GF(i am hopeless with names),
i just read on Knowlton School of Architecture (Marc Syp) Blog that he lost 6500 fotos from his trip when his Ipod was stolen - such a pity.
Hey guys. I gave notice at my job yesterday. Feeln' pretty blue right now as I don't at all want to leave. Small consolation I guess that I can always come back if I want. Oh well.
Anyone gots any pretty pictures for me to look at today? Bill Clinton was a great helpful distraction to me last night on the Daily Show. Two of my fave peoples sharing one screen... what a joy!
Here is my dilemma, thru the course of design we encouraged the owner to get a contractor involved and/or get a professional estimate. Neither was done. We had 100% CD's when Daryl and Daryl were hired by the owner as STAFF contractors, in other words, part of the owner's project, provided with offices, phones, salary, etc. These guys priced the building at $550/s.f. which is absurd and forces a redesign of most aspects of the building, that we are being asked to do for free.
We didn't believe it should be that much, so we had Contractor Joe price it, he came up with $350 a s.f., still a bit out of budget, but manageable.
They were quite offended with our contractor's low price, even though they approved seeking this 2nd opinion. Bascially, they wanted to put the blame on us, and we threw it right back at them. The owner is sticking with the contractors they have (I'm sure there is plenty of politics invovled on their end), at $550/s.f., and we have to VE the building drastically, causing us and our engineers many hours of redesign which needed to be done yesterday, and ultimately providing the client a far inferior building and a high price.
Have you ever VE'd a building practically in half? Because of politcs, to boot.
Honestly, I would have an ethical problem with that one, Strawbeary, and I would tell owner so. Just because he wants to do it doesn't mean you guys have to be involved in it. I smell a bad client in the works, too--how much you wanna bet you guys don't get paid (somehow) for all this VE? I say: stay far, far away.
Asked around and our original sample, which we tested next to a very hot commercial range, was from Glass and Mirrorcraft, a glass supplier out of Michigan. (A lot of the installers around here order their glass from Glass & Mirrorcraft.) We had called G&M and asked them how they made their back-painted glass, and apparently they don't actually paint it--they glaze it with porcelain, somehow, in some kind of hot glaze process that sounds much sturdier than plain paint. They can glaze to any color you give them.
So, I would call them up and ask them about it--they seem to be the champs in the bizness. Porcelain sounds much better to me than the sandblasting/painting technique. You can order from them and it is really cheap and so is shipping.
daryl and daryl wants to call the shots and wants project to be a sure shot for the money. why should they take risk? afterall they could be sued for earnings (salary, contract, etc) by the wicked owner.
d&d also wants to establish itself as the boss over the architect.
sounds like a big enough or expensive enough project that your firm should insist on a professional estimator/consultant a while ago.
also, if you obtained a doable bid that means you've done your job right and fullfilled your contractual obligations.
my archinect judgement from distance;
owner should pay any or all changes that wants to make on the project or else your firm will be the beast of burden of somebody's schema of building profitable enterprise.
Strawbeary, it's time for me to leave Boston. I am moving home to CA for a few months and then on to Chicago (if all goes well) in January. My grandmother is ill and my family needs me for a bit, at least the holidays.
If anyone knows any "modern" firms in Chicago that need a hard worker who is nutzoid about details, please, please send me a heads up!
myriam,
thanks a lot. jose from melrose glass told me something similar yesterday while he was taking as built measurements of the area glass is going.
he said they bake the glass sometimes twice with paint on it and it adheres to glass real well.
~~~
i am sure your firm is feeling the loss because of your leaving. these are the times you should be a little selfish and persue your own plans.
sorry that you feel a lttle blue right now, but that is good. it shows that you are loyal and responsible, which you will value when you set up your own practice.
thats great myriam, you built a great relationship with your employers, took responsibility, did your job well and learned a lot. your firm's generousity wouldn't be for just anybody, giving responsibilities and teaching you the ropes, they saw a special talent in you.
i am certain you will do well in your next gig, whatever that might be.
lb is once again unable to log onto her treasured archinect. she is fine though as she and i just hung out at a coffee shop. she is nutzoid about details.
Has anybody else notice that the new crop of archinect contributers include some people who should be too busy to be posting? ie J Kaliski and Mr. Prince - are there others?
Are they slumming? or has archinect turned into the new CIAM where all aspiring architects (and insecure principals) hang out?
Ohmigod this not baing able to sign in thing is making me buts! I *may* have figured it out - I signed out of all my McAfee security/virus/privacy protection and was finally able to see the login page. Of course now I feel like my computer is tied spread eagle and naked on top of an ant hill, yikes.
Strawbeary, Orhan did, as myriam said, nail it. You found the client - with their approval - a doable construction cost but they are electing to go with a higher one. I sincerely doubt that your contract would require you to VE for free. If you are using an AIA contract I can virtually guarantee that it doesn't (though I can't cite a specific clause or anything).
Also, I know you aren't the boss, and I'm sorry to get graphic, but if your boss is going to bend over and let the client ream you guys on this then s/he is contributing to the general whipping-boy status of architects in this country in general. Thier political/in bed associations with a given contractor can't nullify your boss' ability to make a contractually allowable fair fee.
myriam, I just sent you an email saying I wanted to comment on your situation but can't sign on - and now I'm signed on! So to reiterate, I know it is a hard choice but you did learn a TON at your job, you are clearly not only *totally* nutzoid about details but also tenacious enough to follow through with them, and I am certain you will have no trouble getting a new job in whatever city you head to next - especially in Chicago.
I have to run over to CD Swap! now to send wilsonjd a huge thankyou....
My Julius Blum catalog arrived today!!! (The discussion on TC a few pages back encouraged me to order my free copy.)
myriam: I'm sad to hear that you need to leave a job you love. It will mean so much to your family for you to be with them. It's just part of what we do for those we care about.
Strawbeary: liberty bell's advice to check your contract is wise. In my opinion, the architect has some obligation to consider VE, within reason. But when it becomes excessive - to the tune of millions of dollars, as you previously described - then it's time to ask for additional services.
I'm in a similar situation right now, although our client recognized the need to pay us to change the design to reduce the project cost. (I nearly weep as I delete beautiful details in AutoCAD that I spent many Saturdays drawing.) I just hope that the sub-contractors will reconcile their bid drawings with the revised VE drawings; I'll be pissed if their shop drawings are based on the old design.
I also had to surpass the hurdle of wanting to defend everything that was on the chopping block for VE. I got over it and have tried hard to give the client a well-designed building that they can afford.
thank youuuuu vado. a perfect way to end the day...
oh man. if i was a musician i'd would want to play in steve miller band. great band, great music, it just keeps going.
when i came to this country, there was a lot of road and road music. now all the infrastructure made me stay around two mile radius. i was a young abraturca. this comes close
his kids were friends with my friend's son in topanga cnyn. the kid loved his dad but it was sad that he wasn't there for him. also got into addiction. very good musician. his sister too. they each had their little bands.
lowell george. left his family too early.
mmmm...little feets. ironic that music so good is so bad for the people who make it...i have lately been playing all kinds of music for my oldest daughter and too often it is someone who is dead from indulgence or silliness...joplin and jimi were gone round the time i was born, but then came (went) jeff buckley, and shannon hoon, tupac...what the hell is it with music and dying young? ah well...another of lifes inponderables...
the whole VE thing is always a pain. but sounds like you are getting shafted strawbeary and no need for that, as LB pointed out.
good news for me today. i was helping my old office on an invited competition to do a big-ish police station, and just got the phone call that we won...so i get a bonus...very happy cus i got nothing else billable going on...
Where exactly are the estimates varying? our project had a major overbudget problem around 75% of the way through SD. however our contractor said we were something like $7 million over and the cost-estimator said something like $25. so it was a huge difference.
so before we went and VE'ed everything. we spent nearly 3 weeks going line by line and making phone calls; parsing out how the beans were counted. in the end we had it pretty much sorted out and were somewhere in the middle.
Remember what I posted a few comments/hours ago regarding my feeling that my computer was naked? Guess what, it totally crashed last night and now I can't turn it off at all OR change any settings without it just locking me out and closing the window on its own! Yay my hard drive is completely f*ed up for the second time in a year!! Yay another $1,000+ on my credit card to either get it fixed or get a new one entirely!!! Yay my life rocks right now!!!!!
I have a back up and hard drive "mirror" from one month ago, and this morning I saved to CD everything I've done in the last month. So it should just be a matter of reformatting the hard drive and reinstalling everything. Which sadly is something I'm not capable of doing, so I'm calling my trusty Butler U student/IT guy who I hope will come to my house at 11pm tonight and fix it.
Interestingly this is the second time the same thing has happened: IE freezes up when I'm on a website and doing ctrl-alt-del gets me out of the web but screws up the machine. Strangely, both times this has happened while I was on a hipster designed product website: last time it was an Italian fabrics site, this time it was a cool shelving system site.
I think I need a new laptop anyway. I admit I do tend to beat up on them a bit.
Also, sorry to blow past your victory with my problems, jump: Yay! and congrats for the win (and the bonus is nice too - as Ike Reilly says, "I'm only in it for the money, but I'd take a little glory too").
A police station, too - a high profile civic building with all kinds of interesting and challenging programmatic requirements? Good job.
Not to be an ass but this is the kind of story I tell people when they say they can't justify the extra $200 for a mac. Please forgive me for saying that.
windows can be a pain. i kind of like that i have to learn tonnes of stupid stuff to fix it when it goes all weird on me. well not really, but i just can't stand macs...so i backup to 2 hard-drives, and have a backup laptop that my daughter uses to practice reading with...no down time...and i got the 5 year insurance plan just in case. the shop i bought from comes to my door to pick up the beast, fix it, and bring it back, all free. which all is a bit absurd isn't it...i am waiting for the day when the software and data are all stored remotely and all i gotta carry around is a touch screen like jeff han showed off at TED. its my new dream.
thanks for congrats, lb, and orhan...not such a big deal (though money is so very nice to have for a change)...the programatic problems were indeed difficult and fun. design approach was not my preference as we went with a kind of brutal dominatrix type of thing, but it worked (i had my doubts)...i will not do so much on it from now on, which is both frustrating and a good thing.
but anyway, LB hope you get the machine fixed without too much effort. btw, you no use firefox?
That sucks, lib bell. Good reminder for all of us that hard drives fail.
ACFA - every single one of Daryl and Daryl's prices are just a bit too high. The thing I didn't mention above is that it is a commercial building and D&D are home builders. The project is very small in size, but a real piece of architecture, a little jewel box (not a decorated box). This is what the client wanted and it is what I gave him. Cost was never an issue during design, they kept pushing for more and more neat stuff, structural glass, concrete counters, natural stone flooring... I designed them a fantastic building (knowing it would be over budget by a bit). I thought that they would either fork out the extra cash or do some minor VE, or both and didn't really worry about it. The project was to be competitvely bid until D&D were hired on. Since it is a very important building for the client, the first, signature building in a several thousand acre high-end planned development, and this building will serve as the initial marketing center and a showcase for the look and feel of the development. It is supposed to be different as the architecture is to be high end and real (on all 4 sides!), not your typical suburban builder/developer schlock. Those are the owner's words. This building is to set the standards for the ensuing projects. There is incentive on the owner's part to remain loyal to D&D home builders, who will be managing construction over the hundreds of homes and buildings to built here over the next 15 years or so. That is why their opinion trumps the architect's, even though when you boil it down, it is completely assinine.
The kicker, they have also "changed" the budget since the onset of the project. We had a number we were working with for construction cost. Or so I thought. Now they say that number was to be the ENTIRE project cost: design fees, landscaping, furnishings, marketing materials (brochures, kiosks, topo models) art work, appliances etc. I must add that they were great clients during design: interested in the project, providing good feedback, listening to my design opinions, etc. The building would have been fantastic if built as designed, and still pretty good if we could use Contractor Joe and a little VE, like scraping the pilkington planar for curtain wall for instance. But now it will look like ass, and it looks like I will be playing the contractor blame and whine game the whole way thru. Boo-hoo.
straw, that sucks. can i ask you if the clients guys are capable of doing quality work? because i have to believe the mark up must have something to do with one of two things; either the d&d don't have the skill to do the work or recognize the quality of design and see a way for them to make some $$$.
jump, i also have two external back up hard drives. my desktop and one of my hard drives are hooked up to a usp system to allow my drives to shut down properly incase there is a power surge or failure. i back up to this external drive daily. i have another drive that i back up to weekly and store in a fire safe that has a one-hour rating and is water proof.
not sure about the quality they can provide, I am sure they do nice work, but on houses. They prices they get are too high because they aren't in the contractor loop like contractor Joe and any other good contractor. They are also costing us plenty of money and time as they need their hand held. They have insisted on meeting with our consultants to have the "drawings explained to them". For instance, they want the structural engineer to draw an iso of the structural steel because they can't figure out how it goes together. Free of charge of course.
I don't know that they have an incentive to charge more to make more - as they are now in-house contractor's and won't bank the extra cash - not sure on that one as not totally sure of the relationship of the owner and contractor. I do know that they share an office space, conference room, etc now and have plenty of opportunities to bad mouth the fancy architect for designing out of budget and making themselves feel good. Which I am sure is happening.
My solutions are as follows, in order of preference: 1. Claim breach of contract on their part (change budget, scope etc) and get out now. 2. Finese a way to get D&D to hire a commercial contractor to act as general under them without stepping on any toes and exposing D&D as the real problem.
Obviously the principal will call this shot, and he knows more implications of both my proposed solutions than I do. He is leaning towards the keep-the-mouth shut, do the VE for free, lose $ bad, and forget it. This, even though he has agreed we will not pursue more work with this client.
Strawbeary, I'm sorry. That does suck. I think everyone else here probably has better insight and advice for you so I will stick with the empathy :o/
lb, now this topic is something that I can address. You might recall that this is exactly what happened to me back in June. Here is my proposed course of action:
1) Purchase an external hard drive.
2) Back up your own hard drive on the external.
3) Wipe your current HD.
4) Reinstall Windows.
5) Reinstall all other programs.
6) Backup work at least once a week on external HD.
Thread Central
lol.
lovely letter, orhan
my girlfriend's great aunt, who's pushing 90 years, took a cruise and they had a computing course on board that covered the internet.
she learned to write an email and wrote one to her family which was written exactly like above with the stops.
Ap, it was nice to meet you and GF(i am hopeless with names),
i just read on Knowlton School of Architecture (Marc Syp) Blog that he lost 6500 fotos from his trip when his Ipod was stolen - such a pity.
hey, the gallery took off last night. i'll have to find time to look at all of it, but it looks like some nice images were posted.
Hey guys. I gave notice at my job yesterday. Feeln' pretty blue right now as I don't at all want to leave. Small consolation I guess that I can always come back if I want. Oh well.
Anyone gots any pretty pictures for me to look at today? Bill Clinton was a great helpful distraction to me last night on the Daily Show. Two of my fave peoples sharing one screen... what a joy!
pretty picture of pretty flowers...
?
that poster is an imposter
I just saw the imposter too. Isn't imitation the highest form of flattery? :o/
Here is my dilemma, thru the course of design we encouraged the owner to get a contractor involved and/or get a professional estimate. Neither was done. We had 100% CD's when Daryl and Daryl were hired by the owner as STAFF contractors, in other words, part of the owner's project, provided with offices, phones, salary, etc. These guys priced the building at $550/s.f. which is absurd and forces a redesign of most aspects of the building, that we are being asked to do for free.
We didn't believe it should be that much, so we had Contractor Joe price it, he came up with $350 a s.f., still a bit out of budget, but manageable.
They were quite offended with our contractor's low price, even though they approved seeking this 2nd opinion. Bascially, they wanted to put the blame on us, and we threw it right back at them. The owner is sticking with the contractors they have (I'm sure there is plenty of politics invovled on their end), at $550/s.f., and we have to VE the building drastically, causing us and our engineers many hours of redesign which needed to be done yesterday, and ultimately providing the client a far inferior building and a high price.
Have you ever VE'd a building practically in half? Because of politcs, to boot.
Honestly, I would have an ethical problem with that one, Strawbeary, and I would tell owner so. Just because he wants to do it doesn't mean you guys have to be involved in it. I smell a bad client in the works, too--how much you wanna bet you guys don't get paid (somehow) for all this VE? I say: stay far, far away.
Orhan, orhan, I'm on the back-painted glass case!
Asked around and our original sample, which we tested next to a very hot commercial range, was from Glass and Mirrorcraft, a glass supplier out of Michigan. (A lot of the installers around here order their glass from Glass & Mirrorcraft.) We had called G&M and asked them how they made their back-painted glass, and apparently they don't actually paint it--they glaze it with porcelain, somehow, in some kind of hot glaze process that sounds much sturdier than plain paint. They can glaze to any color you give them.
So, I would call them up and ask them about it--they seem to be the champs in the bizness. Porcelain sounds much better to me than the sandblasting/painting technique. You can order from them and it is really cheap and so is shipping.
Good luck!!!
myriam, where are you going that you are quitting your job? Did I miss something?
Yeh, my opinion in the situation is to get out now too. Doesn't really work out that way. I guess I'll be having a VE party this weekend.
daryl and daryl wants to call the shots and wants project to be a sure shot for the money. why should they take risk? afterall they could be sued for earnings (salary, contract, etc) by the wicked owner.
d&d also wants to establish itself as the boss over the architect.
sounds like a big enough or expensive enough project that your firm should insist on a professional estimator/consultant a while ago.
also, if you obtained a doable bid that means you've done your job right and fullfilled your contractual obligations.
my archinect judgement from distance;
owner should pay any or all changes that wants to make on the project or else your firm will be the beast of burden of somebody's schema of building profitable enterprise.
yep, orhan nailed it.
Strawbeary, it's time for me to leave Boston. I am moving home to CA for a few months and then on to Chicago (if all goes well) in January. My grandmother is ill and my family needs me for a bit, at least the holidays.
If anyone knows any "modern" firms in Chicago that need a hard worker who is nutzoid about details, please, please send me a heads up!
myriam,
thanks a lot. jose from melrose glass told me something similar yesterday while he was taking as built measurements of the area glass is going.
he said they bake the glass sometimes twice with paint on it and it adheres to glass real well.
~~~
i am sure your firm is feeling the loss because of your leaving. these are the times you should be a little selfish and persue your own plans.
sorry that you feel a lttle blue right now, but that is good. it shows that you are loyal and responsible, which you will value when you set up your own practice.
thats great myriam, you built a great relationship with your employers, took responsibility, did your job well and learned a lot. your firm's generousity wouldn't be for just anybody, giving responsibilities and teaching you the ropes, they saw a special talent in you.
i am certain you will do well in your next gig, whatever that might be.
lb is once again unable to log onto her treasured archinect. she is fine though as she and i just hung out at a coffee shop. she is nutzoid about details.
OMA thread garners more views:posts than CHG thread!?!!!
rounded to the nearest...
OMA 1000:20
CHG 500:20
priorities.
Has anybody else notice that the new crop of archinect contributers include some people who should be too busy to be posting? ie J Kaliski and Mr. Prince - are there others?
Are they slumming? or has archinect turned into the new CIAM where all aspiring architects (and insecure principals) hang out?
no it has become the showplace for celebrity youtube archinect smackdown. tonight s match features the temptuous turkabracadabra versus vadoretrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrro!!!!!!!!
Ohmigod this not baing able to sign in thing is making me buts! I *may* have figured it out - I signed out of all my McAfee security/virus/privacy protection and was finally able to see the login page. Of course now I feel like my computer is tied spread eagle and naked on top of an ant hill, yikes.
Strawbeary, Orhan did, as myriam said, nail it. You found the client - with their approval - a doable construction cost but they are electing to go with a higher one. I sincerely doubt that your contract would require you to VE for free. If you are using an AIA contract I can virtually guarantee that it doesn't (though I can't cite a specific clause or anything).
Also, I know you aren't the boss, and I'm sorry to get graphic, but if your boss is going to bend over and let the client ream you guys on this then s/he is contributing to the general whipping-boy status of architects in this country in general. Thier political/in bed associations with a given contractor can't nullify your boss' ability to make a contractually allowable fair fee.
myriam, I just sent you an email saying I wanted to comment on your situation but can't sign on - and now I'm signed on! So to reiterate, I know it is a hard choice but you did learn a TON at your job, you are clearly not only *totally* nutzoid about details but also tenacious enough to follow through with them, and I am certain you will have no trouble getting a new job in whatever city you head to next - especially in Chicago.
I have to run over to CD Swap! now to send wilsonjd a huge thankyou....
vado look I'm signed in so forget about that email I sent you asking you to post something for me! Thanks!
My Julius Blum catalog arrived today!!! (The discussion on TC a few pages back encouraged me to order my free copy.)
myriam: I'm sad to hear that you need to leave a job you love. It will mean so much to your family for you to be with them. It's just part of what we do for those we care about.
Strawbeary: liberty bell's advice to check your contract is wise. In my opinion, the architect has some obligation to consider VE, within reason. But when it becomes excessive - to the tune of millions of dollars, as you previously described - then it's time to ask for additional services.
I'm in a similar situation right now, although our client recognized the need to pay us to change the design to reduce the project cost. (I nearly weep as I delete beautiful details in AutoCAD that I spent many Saturdays drawing.) I just hope that the sub-contractors will reconcile their bid drawings with the revised VE drawings; I'll be pissed if their shop drawings are based on the old design.
I also had to surpass the hurdle of wanting to defend everything that was on the chopping block for VE. I got over it and have tried hard to give the client a well-designed building that they can afford.
thank youuuuu vado. a perfect way to end the day...
oh man. if i was a musician i'd would want to play in steve miller band. great band, great music, it just keeps going.
when i came to this country, there was a lot of road and road music. now all the infrastructure made me stay around two mile radius. i was a young abraturca.
this comes close
what does pompetous mean anyway? crazy guy that Steve Miller.
weed whites and wine...
i thought that's what he said. good song.
aah...much clearer the 2nd time...
tragic stupid and beautiful...
his kids were friends with my friend's son in topanga cnyn. the kid loved his dad but it was sad that he wasn't there for him. also got into addiction. very good musician. his sister too. they each had their little bands.
lowell george. left his family too early.
mmmm...little feets. ironic that music so good is so bad for the people who make it...i have lately been playing all kinds of music for my oldest daughter and too often it is someone who is dead from indulgence or silliness...joplin and jimi were gone round the time i was born, but then came (went) jeff buckley, and shannon hoon, tupac...what the hell is it with music and dying young? ah well...another of lifes inponderables...
the whole VE thing is always a pain. but sounds like you are getting shafted strawbeary and no need for that, as LB pointed out.
good news for me today. i was helping my old office on an invited competition to do a big-ish police station, and just got the phone call that we won...so i get a bonus...very happy cus i got nothing else billable going on...
congratulations jump. close call happens.;)
Where exactly are the estimates varying? our project had a major overbudget problem around 75% of the way through SD. however our contractor said we were something like $7 million over and the cost-estimator said something like $25. so it was a huge difference.
so before we went and VE'ed everything. we spent nearly 3 weeks going line by line and making phone calls; parsing out how the beans were counted. in the end we had it pretty much sorted out and were somewhere in the middle.
Remember what I posted a few comments/hours ago regarding my feeling that my computer was naked? Guess what, it totally crashed last night and now I can't turn it off at all OR change any settings without it just locking me out and closing the window on its own! Yay my hard drive is completely f*ed up for the second time in a year!! Yay another $1,000+ on my credit card to either get it fixed or get a new one entirely!!! Yay my life rocks right now!!!!!
sigh....
aww, lb, that sucks!!!!!
:( I'm sorry. Did you have it backed up?
damn. sorry to hear that lb...good luck getting it sorted out. I hope you've got stuff backed up.
My sony vaio is getting old, so I put everything important on an external hardrive...
congrats jump on the bonus and victory.
i hate computers. sorry lb.
sorry lb, hope you had backups...
I have a back up and hard drive "mirror" from one month ago, and this morning I saved to CD everything I've done in the last month. So it should just be a matter of reformatting the hard drive and reinstalling everything. Which sadly is something I'm not capable of doing, so I'm calling my trusty Butler U student/IT guy who I hope will come to my house at 11pm tonight and fix it.
Interestingly this is the second time the same thing has happened: IE freezes up when I'm on a website and doing ctrl-alt-del gets me out of the web but screws up the machine. Strangely, both times this has happened while I was on a hipster designed product website: last time it was an Italian fabrics site, this time it was a cool shelving system site.
I think I need a new laptop anyway. I admit I do tend to beat up on them a bit.
Also, sorry to blow past your victory with my problems, jump: Yay! and congrats for the win (and the bonus is nice too - as Ike Reilly says, "I'm only in it for the money, but I'd take a little glory too").
A police station, too - a high profile civic building with all kinds of interesting and challenging programmatic requirements? Good job.
Not to be an ass but this is the kind of story I tell people when they say they can't justify the extra $200 for a mac. Please forgive me for saying that.
hey anyone want to help me pack and move to the twin cities? i make a mean prime rib, and i have some great scotch, wine and tunes.
ahh, IE. IE is the devil!
This story reminds me to backup, something I've been meaning to do.
lol, myriam.
windows can be a pain. i kind of like that i have to learn tonnes of stupid stuff to fix it when it goes all weird on me. well not really, but i just can't stand macs...so i backup to 2 hard-drives, and have a backup laptop that my daughter uses to practice reading with...no down time...and i got the 5 year insurance plan just in case. the shop i bought from comes to my door to pick up the beast, fix it, and bring it back, all free. which all is a bit absurd isn't it...i am waiting for the day when the software and data are all stored remotely and all i gotta carry around is a touch screen like jeff han showed off at TED. its my new dream.
thanks for congrats, lb, and orhan...not such a big deal (though money is so very nice to have for a change)...the programatic problems were indeed difficult and fun. design approach was not my preference as we went with a kind of brutal dominatrix type of thing, but it worked (i had my doubts)...i will not do so much on it from now on, which is both frustrating and a good thing.
but anyway, LB hope you get the machine fixed without too much effort. btw, you no use firefox?
That sucks, lib bell. Good reminder for all of us that hard drives fail.
ACFA - every single one of Daryl and Daryl's prices are just a bit too high. The thing I didn't mention above is that it is a commercial building and D&D are home builders. The project is very small in size, but a real piece of architecture, a little jewel box (not a decorated box). This is what the client wanted and it is what I gave him. Cost was never an issue during design, they kept pushing for more and more neat stuff, structural glass, concrete counters, natural stone flooring... I designed them a fantastic building (knowing it would be over budget by a bit). I thought that they would either fork out the extra cash or do some minor VE, or both and didn't really worry about it. The project was to be competitvely bid until D&D were hired on. Since it is a very important building for the client, the first, signature building in a several thousand acre high-end planned development, and this building will serve as the initial marketing center and a showcase for the look and feel of the development. It is supposed to be different as the architecture is to be high end and real (on all 4 sides!), not your typical suburban builder/developer schlock. Those are the owner's words. This building is to set the standards for the ensuing projects. There is incentive on the owner's part to remain loyal to D&D home builders, who will be managing construction over the hundreds of homes and buildings to built here over the next 15 years or so. That is why their opinion trumps the architect's, even though when you boil it down, it is completely assinine.
The kicker, they have also "changed" the budget since the onset of the project. We had a number we were working with for construction cost. Or so I thought. Now they say that number was to be the ENTIRE project cost: design fees, landscaping, furnishings, marketing materials (brochures, kiosks, topo models) art work, appliances etc. I must add that they were great clients during design: interested in the project, providing good feedback, listening to my design opinions, etc. The building would have been fantastic if built as designed, and still pretty good if we could use Contractor Joe and a little VE, like scraping the pilkington planar for curtain wall for instance. But now it will look like ass, and it looks like I will be playing the contractor blame and whine game the whole way thru. Boo-hoo.
straw, that sucks. can i ask you if the clients guys are capable of doing quality work? because i have to believe the mark up must have something to do with one of two things; either the d&d don't have the skill to do the work or recognize the quality of design and see a way for them to make some $$$.
sorry to hear about that lb. it sucks.
jump, i also have two external back up hard drives. my desktop and one of my hard drives are hooked up to a usp system to allow my drives to shut down properly incase there is a power surge or failure. i back up to this external drive daily. i have another drive that i back up to weekly and store in a fire safe that has a one-hour rating and is water proof.
damn e. that's some serious CYA. impressive.
not sure about the quality they can provide, I am sure they do nice work, but on houses. They prices they get are too high because they aren't in the contractor loop like contractor Joe and any other good contractor. They are also costing us plenty of money and time as they need their hand held. They have insisted on meeting with our consultants to have the "drawings explained to them". For instance, they want the structural engineer to draw an iso of the structural steel because they can't figure out how it goes together. Free of charge of course.
I don't know that they have an incentive to charge more to make more - as they are now in-house contractor's and won't bank the extra cash - not sure on that one as not totally sure of the relationship of the owner and contractor. I do know that they share an office space, conference room, etc now and have plenty of opportunities to bad mouth the fancy architect for designing out of budget and making themselves feel good. Which I am sure is happening.
My solutions are as follows, in order of preference: 1. Claim breach of contract on their part (change budget, scope etc) and get out now. 2. Finese a way to get D&D to hire a commercial contractor to act as general under them without stepping on any toes and exposing D&D as the real problem.
Obviously the principal will call this shot, and he knows more implications of both my proposed solutions than I do. He is leaning towards the keep-the-mouth shut, do the VE for free, lose $ bad, and forget it. This, even though he has agreed we will not pursue more work with this client.
oh man i just overheard one of my bosses say "god is in the details" barf
Strawbeary, I'm sorry. That does suck. I think everyone else here probably has better insight and advice for you so I will stick with the empathy :o/
lb, now this topic is something that I can address. You might recall that this is exactly what happened to me back in June. Here is my proposed course of action:
1) Purchase an external hard drive.
2) Back up your own hard drive on the external.
3) Wipe your current HD.
4) Reinstall Windows.
5) Reinstall all other programs.
6) Backup work at least once a week on external HD.
All of this could be aleviated by the following:
1) Buy a MacBook Pro with Intel chip.
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