hand drawing schematic floorplans over CAD plans - decided a while ago to hand draw the initial schemes even though we start with everything in the computer for accuracy. otherwise the clients don't understand why we charge what we charge (very low fees, btw). it's hand-wringing, this profession, but can't see myself doing anything else, except maybe making cheese.
from my office in the backyard i can see the black concrete slab we poured for our addition, rough plumbing in all it's glory, pile 'o lumber waiting to be used... back to work
Nice to see you RA. And yes it is a ridiculous profession! I guess the myth of the architect has so pervaded collective culture that we might as well give the clients what they want - the hand drawing /sketch being a huge part of that. The funky glasses, black turtlenecks, ability to speak poetically about concrete, etc. all included. Oh and we have to know math, a whole lot of math ;)
And truthfully my clients loooove a good messy sketch: Sharpie on trace with dashes of bold colored marker, something they can show their friends/mothers and say "My archiect did this for me." We need to make it look effortless.
Also reminds me of the Squiggle (tm) program from years past - plots an AutoCAd drawing with squiggly, hand-drawn-looking lines. Took hours to plot a single 24x36 sheet but looked oh so crafty!
Its also amazing when you run a nce, crips render through the photoshop watercolour filter. Instant art... people lap it up.
I could not draw when I started arch school, and to this day I cant really do poetic. I find drawing impresses people because its kind of like most people are afraid of it, like public speaking but to a lesser extent.
It always amazed me when i played in a a band that people were impressed if you could cover a simple song, but not if you came up with something original...
i sketch constantly, and used to make a poverty filled living as an artist, so can totally get around the idea of presentating things nicely, and using hand drawn work as preseentation tools. but WHY oh WHY do you want to do the plans twice?
i get to write the specification for a project to turn a storage room at a middle school into a concession stand.
i get to put together a letter explaining why the price of constructing 9 30" concrete piers is so much higher than anticipated.
i get to review submittals for acoustical ceiling tile, wire glass, doors, and hardware for a boiler room addition to a school.
i get to talk to a millwork supplier about how much of his existing off-the-shelf plastic laminate medical cabinetry we can reuse in a hospital pharmacy so that we can purchase as little as possible in its renovation.
i get to start the hardware/door/frame specs for the same hospital renovation.
i get to do several other equally riveting things and probably won't get to push forward the design for a new alternative school which is what i really want to be working on today!
What CAD program R.A.? We're on AutoDesk2004... in the "DOCUMENT" pull down is "napkin sketch"... click, window around everything, click, pick just how squiggly you need, click, there's your baby, print any size you need, splash a little Prismacolor around and then you're golfing for the next two days.
I'm updating the floor pattern plan for a condo building that had 33 units, and now has 29 units. I don't know if there is a more boring way to spend a day... all those little lines. Architecture = fun!
BTW, those napkin sketch commands come out looking all goofy, like your plotter has parkinson's, and not looking hand drawn at all.
rim joist? im on autocad 2005, and dont see anythink like that...are you working on architectural desktop??? maybe that has a function like this one....
There are two functions to a drawing: to communicate with yourself, and to communicate with your audience. RA is workng on a schematic design drawing. For herself, she wants it to be dimensionally accurate. For her client, she wants it to read as if it is still schematic: not final, still open to changes and ideas which will most likely come from both her and the client's side.
I don't have a problem with drawing a drawing twice: once for yourself, and once as a communication tool for the client. A presentation drawing - which is what she's doing by hand - is a totally separate animal from a working drawing, which is what the cad drawing will become.
all the schematic plans and sections we are presenting to our clients (a high school) are hand drawn traces over cad drawings. we just find that people assume that cad drawings are more final or definative than hand drawings and get more agressive over planning decisions
new possible project. reception area for beverly hills hair salon. 40K budget. 14% comission. 400 sq. ft of acoustical 2x2's to be replaced by drywall clg. new hot and hip reception desk, bathroom fixtures, new upholstery for built in L sofa. track lighting thruoghout and some painting work, are the major elements. no floors they are already nice terrazzo. overall design is morphosis meets a beverly hills interior designer with concrete look alike walls. i figured, it could bring a lot of work through their customers. i am glad i've done a lot of interiors before and know about furniture, millwork and glass as well as metal. almost an hour i was there, i've seen hot people with perfect everything. another aia contract for a small project or should it be a different interior design contract?
abra, we would just do a letter contract for a job that size. A letter stating what is included in your scope - design work, drawing and spec deliverables - and some brief language re: they have the right to stop work at any point and will only be charged for work completed to that point, you have the right to photograph upon completion and use said photos plus your own drawing product for future marketing purposes, etc. If the people you are working with aren't jerks I would think a letter contract would be fine?
I always think that even the short form AIA contracts scare clients away, and *most* of the people I work with are honest enough that a letter contract is sufficient.
What I'm doing right now?
Finishing up addendum 1 for a community center / wellness facility that went to bid last week...waiting for estimates to come back before issuing addendum 2...hoping they come back low so ad.2 is a "make it hot" addendum, not a V.E. addendum...
lb, do you mean a letter contract is a contract that simply states my responsibilities and goods i am being hired to design and prepare their specifications?
a simple short letter signed by them and i?
i think i understand you. i use to use those all the time before i got my license.
you are right about long and wordy contracts aia has. but their contract for small projects is really 2 pages but it is not specifically for interiors.
i am going to write something similar to what you mentioned above.
thanks a lot for your professional advice and wisdom. not to mention being a great friend.
lb & upside hit it - also, i think that my needing to start immediately in CAD with the as-builts comes from having worked on schools for a couple of years doing lots of ada upgrades. inches matter, and i like to know what i'm looking at. but then tracing the cad drawings by hand actually gives me time to think a little longer about what i'm doing, and i do believe that something connects in my mind when i'm hand drawing that allows me to visualize the space better. i might try perspectives too if the job wasn't so blah and I could actually draw... it's a small bedroom addition to a traditional house, match everything, yipee!
I WOULD LIKE TO MEET THE ARCHITECT WHO MAKES ONLY ONE DRAWING OF A GREAT PROJECT!
Architecture is a process with differen levels of information being provided from the Client, The Goverment, and the Engineering aspects of a project. So change will happen it always does, and I try to always make it work for the better in a project. Sketch Freehand, napkin dabble, trace dabble, Explore until your heart is content or your budget is suffering.
One of the best architectural projects I have ever seen was carried out in free hand. Every thing was laid out on 22X34 sheets taking into consideration everything would be reduced to 11.5 X17 (50% reduction). It was offset printed at the time and the outcome was
a project on budget, on time, and of high quality design.
I fall into the “multiple step†process for schematic presentation drawings as well. I sketch on trace, to work it out in my head (definitely not presentation quality, even though I think the sketches look cool…). Then into cad (much easier to modify when the owner make schematic changes), then present with Squiggle. I admit that I, too, find irony in this process, but it works for me!
I completely understand the tracing autocad drawings into hand drawn. Right out of college I worked with an architect that would do schematics on trace paper with no scale. Then he'd present it to the client who would, of course, love it. Next I'd get it and was told to "make it work." Of course there was no scale and getting it to work often compromised the "look" he sold. I usually presented the DD product and took the blows from the client myself. Ever since then I've learned that presenting schematic, while not necessary to be 100% accurate, has to have some notion of reality. While I still don't touch the computer until late schematic or into DD, I do pick up that thing called a scale.
05/17/06 9:17
What CAD program R.A.? We're on AutoDesk2004... in the "DOCUMENT" pull down is "napkin sketch"... click, window around everything, click, pick just how squiggly you need, click, there's your baby, print any size you need, splash a little Prismacolor around and then you're golfing for the next two days
can u please tell the path in detail ............. i didnt find the option
went to a job site this morning. a spec house in silverlake. real estate broker's decorator brought in the most senseless and rediculous furniture to 'dress up' the place. i felt like sledge hammering the stuff. anyway i am working with owner to get rid of that stuff. it is like levitz wanna be goes modern.
but things got better later on when the client steve and i went to have lunch at the restaurant on the corner. low and behold, this people walks in and i am pretty sure it was R.A. Rudolph and her family with their beautiful baby standing up on the next table. i almost went up and wanted to ask about black concrete but i didn't want to scare them. imagine someone walking up to you at a restaurant and saying "hi this is abracadabra and i know you from the internet"? probably it would freak out the parents who were with them. i just said hi to sweet baby and that was it. nice people. los angeles. small town. it is a good feeling my photographic memory is still intact after and during years of substance use.
today i'm editing specifications for asbestos abatement at the v.a. hospital: "All personnel in the regulated area shall not be allowed to eat, drink, smoke, chew tobacco or gum, apply cosmetics, or in any way interfere with the fit of their respirator."
so orhan is abra? and what restaurant was that? did you literally mean our baby was standing on the table, or would that be in a carseat on the table? cause she's only 4 months old... sorry, it's late and i'm tired...
I just have to add that the clients on the small room addition just e-mailed me with what they want to do - a hybrid of the two plans I presented that's the worst of both. So my options are a) tell them they shouldn't do anything because they're going to ruin their house and i'm out of a job, or b) whatever you want, boss - then we build it, grimace whenever we look at the photos, and keep on truckin. And yes, I'll try to convince them otherwise but I already know what the result will be, sigh...
hm, maybe i am wrong about doing work twice...your comments are quite reasonable...
then again, why not just do hand drawings to scale to begin with? i grew up before computers and cad were the way to get things going, so maybe i am just an old man...but i can and do make sketches to scale by hand.
personally my process is a mix of sketching and photoshop and cad. i generally do all three at the same time, and paste together to show the client (using in-design). dwgs are messy and real as can be. i don't generally make presentation images that aren't also part of the design process, so there is never need to duplicate work...is that weird?
this month i have had 2 jobs get pulled in the middle of design development...financing. got paid, but MAN it is frustrating when things don't get built. didn use to bother me so much when this happened and i was working for someone else, but when it's jes me and me mates, it feels different...
today I am working on framing plans for a chuch renovation. Removing a simple wooden altar and replacing it with a very large marble altar that was donated from another church across town, scheduled for demo.
at noon the computer gets shut down and I will make my way to the nearest ocean for a weekend of boating and heavy drinking.
R.A. Rudolph, i don't know the name of the restaurant even though i go there all the time. @ corner of sunset and descanso. across from 7-mares taco stand. semi french.
baby was just briefly on the table and hold by her father. she and i had a little hi-hi type of thing going. i thought two other people on the table were yours or your husband's parents. we were a table down, me wearing green shirt and left shortly after you guys were there. last wednesday. around 1?
i don't know i thought they were you.
nope - never been to that place although i've heard it's good... i was wracking my brain because I don't think we've been anywhere to eat with Rei other than Din Tai Fung (dumplings in Arcadia - went again last night, mmm) and Ikea lately. Though I have been to the Back Door Cafe a couple times minus the husband. But if you do see us - definitely say hi!
oh, and the black slab is great - they started framing wed and should have all the exterior walls up in time for our pizza party tonight (friends with kids coming over). Colin (my husband) flooded it to help cure and it seems to have worked - no cracks so far. We had some polishers come and look at it and they both recommended we just seal & wax it because it looks fairly decent as is.
for the tracing over cad, gotta do it that way because i'm so much faster with cad than drawing to scale by hand. i do think it's wierd but it works. i remembered that the other thing i don't like about presenting cad drawings right away is that once people see how fast & easy it is to put things into cad, they want a million options. sort of opposite of what liberty said about things being final if I think about it, though that makes sense as well. we don't narrow it to three options or whatever in our contract because that wouldn't work for our process, but for the same reason we decided not to do 3D renderings ever again after the first time when we had to make a million changes so the client could see the walls moved over 2 inches, etc. Physical models work much better, and people seem to think they take a long time to build so they don't ask for a million versions. Also, I think when people see things in CAD, it's not so much that they think it's final, but that they think it can be built and will look good no matter what, just because it's a computer drawing...
hey orphan, or abracadabra I think it is important to have a pretty comprehensive contract, and not feel pressure to condense everything onto a page, a savvy client will not mind combing through a little leagalese. they will let you know if they are uncomfortable signing off on any part of the contract, and you should have a boiler-plate contract that you can modify as you see fit. I learned (the hard way), that it is not only important that you have a clause about being able to photograph the finished space, but also another brief clause that if the client/and or agent of the client photgraphs the space and publishes the photographs, that your name is specifically published in connection to the work shown. This may sound heavy-handed, but the client should not mind doing this. It is better to do this than to see pictures of your work without your name published along with it. Simply put...this (and any other photos you take of the project) is part of your payment. I have been using a contract that an attorney friend drew up for me a few years ago. I tweak it as I see fit. This is for specialty contracting, but (I think) it should also apply to independant design projects.
Despite this warning, I also decided that sometimes, depending on the scope a one page ouline will do, if the billable amount of the job is less than about $3k.
On another note...will you need any custom metal fab/design for your hair salon project? Sounds like fun!
Is it Architecture? Reading the International Building Code_2003. Trying to figure out why R-2 Additions trigger the whole building requiring an Automatic Sprinkler System. Heck it is Friday, and I have lost enough sleep over it.
Wondering why drive Thru Teller Machines have Brail key pads. Must be something some code offical thought up.
when you put it like that lady Rudolph, i totally get ya.
Now HERE is a mystery of architecture.
an architect fella that i met 2 weeks ago took us to his home in the country, made entirely out of polyurethane ( ! )
this made sense cuz he lives in a place where ya gotta WALK through a series of tunnels that feel earily like the tunnel leading to the otherworld in the movie by hayao miyazaki (spirited away, in english). this is a place for very small cars only...
so we wnt through the tunnels and climbed up a long stone-lined path up to his home on a hillside, which is still under construction, but sure enough really is made out of insulation board..
now this architect is kinda eccentric-like (and used to be slightly famous, and $uccessful), and so it is taking him time to get the thing finished...so much so that part of the insulation is rotting away under UV radiation
when we pointed this out to him he just laughed and said he still had another meter and a half of wall so there was time yet before he had to cover it up...
but the REAL story was that he originally planned to build his house out of stone, and so there was a pile (200+ tonnes) of beautiful granite that formed a huge deck in front of his home. he had rigged a few small trucks and had his son's friends help him move it to the site, which is insane...BUT then he decided stone was too heavy, and after pouring a lovely foundation big enough to take this stone house he went for the insulation boards, which he could carry in by himself.
He cut holes in the foundations (which were about a meter thick), and made them into subterranian bedrooms
and proceeded to build this on top...
it was kinda funny to see rebar poking out of the insulation boards, as he no longer needed it, and the whole thing is still not quite ready for prime time...but the real show was not, in the end, the architecture. It was THIS
we had dinner with this before us, unmediated by architecture cuz the whole end wall came down for just this purpose. best tofu i have ever eaten, some very nice sashimi, and sake to wash it down with. and heaven on earth laying in front of us. lovely.
best architecture in the world really has nothing to do with building...
R.A.Rudolph, i apologize for unnecessarely making you wonder. well, in my mind i have already met Rei. Silverlake is a small world and i love the neighborhood and lived in echo park in 80's and 90's. we used to hang out at tropical bakery, then called tropical cafe owned by cubanos. they sold it jeff bey who is half afghani married to chinese and owns hollywood billiards as well. rotondi's girlfriend/wife april greiman, jimmy, roger hermann, arjuna, tom waits, tony baloney, gronk, architect/writer john chase and many other known and unknown celebreties like me use to hang out there at least 2 hours a day. everybody knew eachother. i sometimes see some of those people over there from the old days. like, john hack who is a music composer and greg black who paints now but use to make/produce cool music videos. i'd say some kind of community feel is still there but most of my generation has moved on to different venues. silverlake is a great neighborhood and i like that it still maintains the creative and urban edge as well as being the most racially integrated neighborhood in la.
tektrix, thanks for the pointers. i basically did a 1.5 pages, simple like lb suggested, agreement stating some must haves in cali and similar points of what you've suggested;
name adress lic # client name address, scope of project, services provided identified, method of payment, use and ownership of docs. cancellation notice, publicity rights, reimbursables.
i think this is more than sufficient for this job. i am charging 14% to make it worthwhile for myself too. i know i will spend a lot of time making it look good the few pieces i am gonna be doing. but project is fairly simple and broken down. its, design, get it fabricated, install in three months max. using weekends for installation couple of times.
anyway, they rushed me to send and now taking their time. i feel like they are a little dealseekers and i know a lot of people in this town would bend over backwards to get this type of hi visibility job. specially one of their celebrity customers' decorator friend for example.
i am not losing sleep over it myself and i might increase my fees as the time goes by. what goes around comes around.
have good 'memory..!' day everybody... now i am gonna write a short response to myriam's comment about armenian turkish relations in thread central.
i just got a call from the hair salon wanting to meet next thursday for going over the scope of work and talk about s'more lighting needs. well, i expect them to sign the contract that evening which i am glad i've written and sent. its 8; 57 and tina and i yet to put the meat on the bbq. funny, last week at this time i was 2 hours into weekend sleep already.
May 26, 06 11:59 pm ·
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what i'm doing right now and the mysteries of architecture
hand drawing schematic floorplans over CAD plans - decided a while ago to hand draw the initial schemes even though we start with everything in the computer for accuracy. otherwise the clients don't understand why we charge what we charge (very low fees, btw). it's hand-wringing, this profession, but can't see myself doing anything else, except maybe making cheese.
from my office in the backyard i can see the black concrete slab we poured for our addition, rough plumbing in all it's glory, pile 'o lumber waiting to be used... back to work
Nice to see you RA. And yes it is a ridiculous profession! I guess the myth of the architect has so pervaded collective culture that we might as well give the clients what they want - the hand drawing /sketch being a huge part of that. The funky glasses, black turtlenecks, ability to speak poetically about concrete, etc. all included. Oh and we have to know math, a whole lot of math ;)
And truthfully my clients loooove a good messy sketch: Sharpie on trace with dashes of bold colored marker, something they can show their friends/mothers and say "My archiect did this for me." We need to make it look effortless.
Also reminds me of the Squiggle (tm) program from years past - plots an AutoCAd drawing with squiggly, hand-drawn-looking lines. Took hours to plot a single 24x36 sheet but looked oh so crafty!
Its also amazing when you run a nce, crips render through the photoshop watercolour filter. Instant art... people lap it up.
I could not draw when I started arch school, and to this day I cant really do poetic. I find drawing impresses people because its kind of like most people are afraid of it, like public speaking but to a lesser extent.
It always amazed me when i played in a a band that people were impressed if you could cover a simple song, but not if you came up with something original...
I also played in a b band, but we won't go there.
the idea of doing work twice is abhorrent.
what is the word coming to?
i sketch constantly, and used to make a poverty filled living as an artist, so can totally get around the idea of presentating things nicely, and using hand drawn work as preseentation tools. but WHY oh WHY do you want to do the plans twice?
wouldn't a perspective be better?
profoundly baffled...;-)
today:
i get to write the specification for a project to turn a storage room at a middle school into a concession stand.
i get to put together a letter explaining why the price of constructing 9 30" concrete piers is so much higher than anticipated.
i get to review submittals for acoustical ceiling tile, wire glass, doors, and hardware for a boiler room addition to a school.
i get to talk to a millwork supplier about how much of his existing off-the-shelf plastic laminate medical cabinetry we can reuse in a hospital pharmacy so that we can purchase as little as possible in its renovation.
i get to start the hardware/door/frame specs for the same hospital renovation.
i get to do several other equally riveting things and probably won't get to push forward the design for a new alternative school which is what i really want to be working on today!
What CAD program R.A.? We're on AutoDesk2004... in the "DOCUMENT" pull down is "napkin sketch"... click, window around everything, click, pick just how squiggly you need, click, there's your baby, print any size you need, splash a little Prismacolor around and then you're golfing for the next two days.
I'm updating the floor pattern plan for a condo building that had 33 units, and now has 29 units. I don't know if there is a more boring way to spend a day... all those little lines. Architecture = fun!
BTW, those napkin sketch commands come out looking all goofy, like your plotter has parkinson's, and not looking hand drawn at all.
rim joist? im on autocad 2005, and dont see anythink like that...are you working on architectural desktop??? maybe that has a function like this one....
atleast your not accountants.
Also. i agree with 'jump' . please just do the sketch by hand next time. no wonder you are having so much strife at work.
There are two functions to a drawing: to communicate with yourself, and to communicate with your audience. RA is workng on a schematic design drawing. For herself, she wants it to be dimensionally accurate. For her client, she wants it to read as if it is still schematic: not final, still open to changes and ideas which will most likely come from both her and the client's side.
I don't have a problem with drawing a drawing twice: once for yourself, and once as a communication tool for the client. A presentation drawing - which is what she's doing by hand - is a totally separate animal from a working drawing, which is what the cad drawing will become.
They also serve different uses in your portfolio.
Exactly, I have done the same.
all the schematic plans and sections we are presenting to our clients (a high school) are hand drawn traces over cad drawings. we just find that people assume that cad drawings are more final or definative than hand drawings and get more agressive over planning decisions
new possible project. reception area for beverly hills hair salon. 40K budget. 14% comission. 400 sq. ft of acoustical 2x2's to be replaced by drywall clg. new hot and hip reception desk, bathroom fixtures, new upholstery for built in L sofa. track lighting thruoghout and some painting work, are the major elements. no floors they are already nice terrazzo. overall design is morphosis meets a beverly hills interior designer with concrete look alike walls. i figured, it could bring a lot of work through their customers. i am glad i've done a lot of interiors before and know about furniture, millwork and glass as well as metal. almost an hour i was there, i've seen hot people with perfect everything. another aia contract for a small project or should it be a different interior design contract?
abra, we would just do a letter contract for a job that size. A letter stating what is included in your scope - design work, drawing and spec deliverables - and some brief language re: they have the right to stop work at any point and will only be charged for work completed to that point, you have the right to photograph upon completion and use said photos plus your own drawing product for future marketing purposes, etc. If the people you are working with aren't jerks I would think a letter contract would be fine?
I always think that even the short form AIA contracts scare clients away, and *most* of the people I work with are honest enough that a letter contract is sufficient.
sounds fun, abra...
What I'm doing right now?
Finishing up addendum 1 for a community center / wellness facility that went to bid last week...waiting for estimates to come back before issuing addendum 2...hoping they come back low so ad.2 is a "make it hot" addendum, not a V.E. addendum...
lb, do you mean a letter contract is a contract that simply states my responsibilities and goods i am being hired to design and prepare their specifications?
a simple short letter signed by them and i?
i think i understand you. i use to use those all the time before i got my license.
you are right about long and wordy contracts aia has. but their contract for small projects is really 2 pages but it is not specifically for interiors.
i am going to write something similar to what you mentioned above.
thanks a lot for your professional advice and wisdom. not to mention being a great friend.
lb & upside hit it - also, i think that my needing to start immediately in CAD with the as-builts comes from having worked on schools for a couple of years doing lots of ada upgrades. inches matter, and i like to know what i'm looking at. but then tracing the cad drawings by hand actually gives me time to think a little longer about what i'm doing, and i do believe that something connects in my mind when i'm hand drawing that allows me to visualize the space better. i might try perspectives too if the job wasn't so blah and I could actually draw... it's a small bedroom addition to a traditional house, match everything, yipee!
I WOULD LIKE TO MEET THE ARCHITECT WHO MAKES ONLY ONE DRAWING OF A GREAT PROJECT!
Architecture is a process with differen levels of information being provided from the Client, The Goverment, and the Engineering aspects of a project. So change will happen it always does, and I try to always make it work for the better in a project. Sketch Freehand, napkin dabble, trace dabble, Explore until your heart is content or your budget is suffering.
One of the best architectural projects I have ever seen was carried out in free hand. Every thing was laid out on 22X34 sheets taking into consideration everything would be reduced to 11.5 X17 (50% reduction). It was offset printed at the time and the outcome was
a project on budget, on time, and of high quality design.
I fall into the “multiple step†process for schematic presentation drawings as well. I sketch on trace, to work it out in my head (definitely not presentation quality, even though I think the sketches look cool…). Then into cad (much easier to modify when the owner make schematic changes), then present with Squiggle. I admit that I, too, find irony in this process, but it works for me!
I completely understand the tracing autocad drawings into hand drawn. Right out of college I worked with an architect that would do schematics on trace paper with no scale. Then he'd present it to the client who would, of course, love it. Next I'd get it and was told to "make it work." Of course there was no scale and getting it to work often compromised the "look" he sold. I usually presented the DD product and took the blows from the client myself. Ever since then I've learned that presenting schematic, while not necessary to be 100% accurate, has to have some notion of reality. While I still don't touch the computer until late schematic or into DD, I do pick up that thing called a scale.
Rim Joist
Total Entries: 4
Total Comments: 186
05/17/06 9:17
What CAD program R.A.? We're on AutoDesk2004... in the "DOCUMENT" pull down is "napkin sketch"... click, window around everything, click, pick just how squiggly you need, click, there's your baby, print any size you need, splash a little Prismacolor around and then you're golfing for the next two days
can u please tell the path in detail ............. i didnt find the option
went to a job site this morning. a spec house in silverlake. real estate broker's decorator brought in the most senseless and rediculous furniture to 'dress up' the place. i felt like sledge hammering the stuff. anyway i am working with owner to get rid of that stuff. it is like levitz wanna be goes modern.
but things got better later on when the client steve and i went to have lunch at the restaurant on the corner. low and behold, this people walks in and i am pretty sure it was R.A. Rudolph and her family with their beautiful baby standing up on the next table. i almost went up and wanted to ask about black concrete but i didn't want to scare them. imagine someone walking up to you at a restaurant and saying "hi this is abracadabra and i know you from the internet"? probably it would freak out the parents who were with them. i just said hi to sweet baby and that was it. nice people. los angeles. small town. it is a good feeling my photographic memory is still intact after and during years of substance use.
today i'm editing specifications for asbestos abatement at the v.a. hospital: "All personnel in the regulated area shall not be allowed to eat, drink, smoke, chew tobacco or gum, apply cosmetics, or in any way interfere with the fit of their respirator."
Making Dreams Happen...
so orhan is abra? and what restaurant was that? did you literally mean our baby was standing on the table, or would that be in a carseat on the table? cause she's only 4 months old... sorry, it's late and i'm tired...
I just have to add that the clients on the small room addition just e-mailed me with what they want to do - a hybrid of the two plans I presented that's the worst of both. So my options are a) tell them they shouldn't do anything because they're going to ruin their house and i'm out of a job, or b) whatever you want, boss - then we build it, grimace whenever we look at the photos, and keep on truckin. And yes, I'll try to convince them otherwise but I already know what the result will be, sigh...
hm, maybe i am wrong about doing work twice...your comments are quite reasonable...
then again, why not just do hand drawings to scale to begin with? i grew up before computers and cad were the way to get things going, so maybe i am just an old man...but i can and do make sketches to scale by hand.
personally my process is a mix of sketching and photoshop and cad. i generally do all three at the same time, and paste together to show the client (using in-design). dwgs are messy and real as can be. i don't generally make presentation images that aren't also part of the design process, so there is never need to duplicate work...is that weird?
this month i have had 2 jobs get pulled in the middle of design development...financing. got paid, but MAN it is frustrating when things don't get built. didn use to bother me so much when this happened and i was working for someone else, but when it's jes me and me mates, it feels different...
right now im taking the day off...
cant beat a day off....
today I am working on framing plans for a chuch renovation. Removing a simple wooden altar and replacing it with a very large marble altar that was donated from another church across town, scheduled for demo.
at noon the computer gets shut down and I will make my way to the nearest ocean for a weekend of boating and heavy drinking.
R.A. Rudolph, i don't know the name of the restaurant even though i go there all the time. @ corner of sunset and descanso. across from 7-mares taco stand. semi french.
baby was just briefly on the table and hold by her father. she and i had a little hi-hi type of thing going. i thought two other people on the table were yours or your husband's parents. we were a table down, me wearing green shirt and left shortly after you guys were there. last wednesday. around 1?
i don't know i thought they were you.
nope - never been to that place although i've heard it's good... i was wracking my brain because I don't think we've been anywhere to eat with Rei other than Din Tai Fung (dumplings in Arcadia - went again last night, mmm) and Ikea lately. Though I have been to the Back Door Cafe a couple times minus the husband. But if you do see us - definitely say hi!
oh, and the black slab is great - they started framing wed and should have all the exterior walls up in time for our pizza party tonight (friends with kids coming over). Colin (my husband) flooded it to help cure and it seems to have worked - no cracks so far. We had some polishers come and look at it and they both recommended we just seal & wax it because it looks fairly decent as is.
for the tracing over cad, gotta do it that way because i'm so much faster with cad than drawing to scale by hand. i do think it's wierd but it works. i remembered that the other thing i don't like about presenting cad drawings right away is that once people see how fast & easy it is to put things into cad, they want a million options. sort of opposite of what liberty said about things being final if I think about it, though that makes sense as well. we don't narrow it to three options or whatever in our contract because that wouldn't work for our process, but for the same reason we decided not to do 3D renderings ever again after the first time when we had to make a million changes so the client could see the walls moved over 2 inches, etc. Physical models work much better, and people seem to think they take a long time to build so they don't ask for a million versions. Also, I think when people see things in CAD, it's not so much that they think it's final, but that they think it can be built and will look good no matter what, just because it's a computer drawing...
Oh man R.A. I know exactly what you mean about clients going crazy with options. We made the same informal no-3D rule after one such tortured process.
hey orphan, or abracadabra I think it is important to have a pretty comprehensive contract, and not feel pressure to condense everything onto a page, a savvy client will not mind combing through a little leagalese. they will let you know if they are uncomfortable signing off on any part of the contract, and you should have a boiler-plate contract that you can modify as you see fit. I learned (the hard way), that it is not only important that you have a clause about being able to photograph the finished space, but also another brief clause that if the client/and or agent of the client photgraphs the space and publishes the photographs, that your name is specifically published in connection to the work shown. This may sound heavy-handed, but the client should not mind doing this. It is better to do this than to see pictures of your work without your name published along with it. Simply put...this (and any other photos you take of the project) is part of your payment. I have been using a contract that an attorney friend drew up for me a few years ago. I tweak it as I see fit. This is for specialty contracting, but (I think) it should also apply to independant design projects.
Despite this warning, I also decided that sometimes, depending on the scope a one page ouline will do, if the billable amount of the job is less than about $3k.
On another note...will you need any custom metal fab/design for your hair salon project? Sounds like fun!
Is it Architecture? Reading the International Building Code_2003. Trying to figure out why R-2 Additions trigger the whole building requiring an Automatic Sprinkler System. Heck it is Friday, and I have lost enough sleep over it.
Wondering why drive Thru Teller Machines have Brail key pads. Must be something some code offical thought up.
when you put it like that lady Rudolph, i totally get ya.
Now HERE is a mystery of architecture.
an architect fella that i met 2 weeks ago took us to his home in the country, made entirely out of polyurethane ( ! )
this made sense cuz he lives in a place where ya gotta WALK through a series of tunnels that feel earily like the tunnel leading to the otherworld in the movie by hayao miyazaki (spirited away, in english). this is a place for very small cars only...
so we wnt through the tunnels and climbed up a long stone-lined path up to his home on a hillside, which is still under construction, but sure enough really is made out of insulation board..
now this architect is kinda eccentric-like (and used to be slightly famous, and $uccessful), and so it is taking him time to get the thing finished...so much so that part of the insulation is rotting away under UV radiation
when we pointed this out to him he just laughed and said he still had another meter and a half of wall so there was time yet before he had to cover it up...
but the REAL story was that he originally planned to build his house out of stone, and so there was a pile (200+ tonnes) of beautiful granite that formed a huge deck in front of his home. he had rigged a few small trucks and had his son's friends help him move it to the site, which is insane...BUT then he decided stone was too heavy, and after pouring a lovely foundation big enough to take this stone house he went for the insulation boards, which he could carry in by himself.
He cut holes in the foundations (which were about a meter thick), and made them into subterranian bedrooms
and proceeded to build this on top...
it was kinda funny to see rebar poking out of the insulation boards, as he no longer needed it, and the whole thing is still not quite ready for prime time...but the real show was not, in the end, the architecture. It was THIS
we had dinner with this before us, unmediated by architecture cuz the whole end wall came down for just this purpose. best tofu i have ever eaten, some very nice sashimi, and sake to wash it down with. and heaven on earth laying in front of us. lovely.
best architecture in the world really has nothing to do with building...
R.A.Rudolph, i apologize for unnecessarely making you wonder. well, in my mind i have already met Rei. Silverlake is a small world and i love the neighborhood and lived in echo park in 80's and 90's. we used to hang out at tropical bakery, then called tropical cafe owned by cubanos. they sold it jeff bey who is half afghani married to chinese and owns hollywood billiards as well. rotondi's girlfriend/wife april greiman, jimmy, roger hermann, arjuna, tom waits, tony baloney, gronk, architect/writer john chase and many other known and unknown celebreties like me use to hang out there at least 2 hours a day. everybody knew eachother. i sometimes see some of those people over there from the old days. like, john hack who is a music composer and greg black who paints now but use to make/produce cool music videos. i'd say some kind of community feel is still there but most of my generation has moved on to different venues. silverlake is a great neighborhood and i like that it still maintains the creative and urban edge as well as being the most racially integrated neighborhood in la.
tektrix, thanks for the pointers. i basically did a 1.5 pages, simple like lb suggested, agreement stating some must haves in cali and similar points of what you've suggested;
name adress lic # client name address, scope of project, services provided identified, method of payment, use and ownership of docs. cancellation notice, publicity rights, reimbursables.
i think this is more than sufficient for this job. i am charging 14% to make it worthwhile for myself too. i know i will spend a lot of time making it look good the few pieces i am gonna be doing. but project is fairly simple and broken down. its, design, get it fabricated, install in three months max. using weekends for installation couple of times.
anyway, they rushed me to send and now taking their time. i feel like they are a little dealseekers and i know a lot of people in this town would bend over backwards to get this type of hi visibility job. specially one of their celebrity customers' decorator friend for example.
i am not losing sleep over it myself and i might increase my fees as the time goes by. what goes around comes around.
have good 'memory..!' day everybody... now i am gonna write a short response to myriam's comment about armenian turkish relations in thread central.
i just got a call from the hair salon wanting to meet next thursday for going over the scope of work and talk about s'more lighting needs. well, i expect them to sign the contract that evening which i am glad i've written and sent. its 8; 57 and tina and i yet to put the meat on the bbq. funny, last week at this time i was 2 hours into weekend sleep already.
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