WEEK 27: STANFORD CONSTRUCTION COMMENCES

My first project (Stanford project) that I took part in from scratch is finally coming to life! 

Here are some images, including a 3D drawing....

WEEK 26: DISCREPANCIES

This week I went back on site to remeasure the doors and the existing signage mock ups that we stuck a few weeks ago.

The door signs got removed for painting and the installation of ironmongery and some of them went missing. During that process we discovered that some were not even appropriate for some doors, so remeasuring on site and re-sizing on AutoCAD was the next logical step.

WEEK 25: SITE PROGRESS

The signage plan mock up I worked on last week finally made it to the site wall, but did not work as well as we and and the clients would have liked it to. So in the mean time i have to work on another one. but while on site we managed to look at the progress of the overall clinic, instead of just focusing on the boring signage.

The mosaic motif is coming along nicely....

The landscaping is also looking good, but still in the process.

The plan mock up stuck on site. Not looking good at all. I have a feeling we are going to have to change it.

WEEK 24: SIGNAGE CONTINUES

The past few weeks saw me channeling my inner graphic designer, while working on the signage drawings for the Symphony Way Day Care Centre in Delft. This week will require me to put the skills back into action, because there are some things that the client and Carin Smuts are not happy about.

The first thing I have been working on this week is a plan of the building that should be stuck in the pre-waiting area for navigation purposes. The initial plan, hich had been done on AutoCAD was too architectural to be read by any Tom, Dick and Harry.

So I went back to simplify the existing plan and colour code it in order to make it easier to read. I used Photoshop to render it, through a process of trial and error, sending it back and forth to get approval from the clients.

WEEK 23: CONSTRUCTION COMPLETION AND SNAGGING

The Muizenburg project is reaching its completion this week, and of course as usual snagging has to be done. The structure has turned out exactly like we had predicted it. 
I am still on a fan of it but I am glad that we have managed successfully finish yet another project. 

Now there are a few minor tasks like fixing fascia boards, painting and cleaning up. And then we will come back for another round of snagging.

WEEK 21: SIGNAGE SCHEDULES

This week has been filled with the the same thing throughout. I have been working on the Symphony Way Day Centre signage for a while now.

The signage basically consists of all the important door and directional signage around the structure to make navigation easier. What I have to do is draw up each sign individually as the doors have different signs according to their location, type and sizes. The client (Western Cape Health Department) has been a bit of a problem when it comes to delivery of what is required in order to complete the task at hand. They are required to submit pictograms that are supposed to go with the signage but alas, some are missing and some are incorrect. 

The task has been a new experience to me as I haven't done anything like this as far as schedules are concerned. I was not even aware that architects have to face the responsibility if doing this in the first place. But then again, of course we are jacks of all trades. 

So what I have been busy with this week is compiling the signage with my nonexistent graphic design experience in order to make 1:1 scale mock-ups to manually paste on site for the signage company to copy from. That means printing out the big signs, cutting them and sticking them together if necessary. 

WEEK 22: COUNCIL SUBMISSION SET

This week I have taken a short break from what has become a really depressing task of doing and re-doing the same signage due to inconsistency of the client, and went back to what we are good at - alterations. 

A client approached us a while ago to help with altering his Observatory home. The client asked for an extra room to be added to the existing Victorian house. What made this interesting was how we were going to add another room in the already limited boundaries of the site. Unfortunately for the client, the house is joined to another, with only a party wall separating them. 

So what do we do? Well, there's always a way around these old Victorian houses. Because the roof space between the trusses is big enough to fit head height, it was decided that the new room would be a loft space. Problem solved. 

But what we did not foresee was that the truss space isn't actually high enough for head height, so alterations to the roof structure would have to be added. The drawings were drawn up and now it was up to me to finish the council submission set. So this week I have been working on that, and not matter how small the project is, it was welcome with warm hands because it's at least design related.

WEEK 20: THE DELFT CLINIC PROJECT

Last week we had a meeting at Carin Smuts' home studio to discuss a project. It was revealed earlier this week that the project was a Clinic in Delft, and it is being handed over to us in a near complete state.

The clinic had been under Carin's employee who has decided to leave the compnay to pursue her studies. So what we basically have to do is snagging and focusing on the signage around the clinic.We visited the site to see what is being handed over to us before we can actually start working on it.

The Symphony Way Day Care Centre is a typical Carin Smuts design. It consists of different blocks, scattered around the whole site in order to make up one interesting structure. I must say I am excited to be embarking on a different journey this time around,as this is my first project of this scale even though it has come to me in a complete state.

WEEK 19: EQUITY STUDIO

This week takes a different and exciting turn that will see me doing something new. Or at least that is what my boss told me when we went to Carin Smut’s incredible home studio to discuss this super secretive project.

Well of course I could not sit in the meeting to discuss this as I had my babysitting duties, during which I took time to admire Carin’s lovely design. This woman is a design genius, she could be our very own Zaha Hadid if South Africa was not such a design conservative country.

I only looked at the form of the design as that was immediate and most striking.

WEEK 17: WESCAPE GROUP HOUSING

The increasing number of RDP housing has created an evolution on how the underprivileged live their lives, over the past two decades. The housing strategy, which was aimed to decrease the still increasing rate of informal settlers and “equalize” the citizens of South Africa, saw an incredible number of happy home owners but at the same time left a number of people cut off from these services.

The citizens who suffered the fate of being excluded from this housing project were those who earned a “decent” income. What was missed throughout this was that within this group of people existed an unfortunate group that earned around the lower margin, thus being unable to afford paying bonds but at the same time not qualifying for RDP housing.

So the solution to this was to introduce subsides versions that this group of people could fall under so they can benefit from this democratic programme. My bosses managed take part in this in the Mitchell’s Plain Wescape group housing project a few years ago.

This week we revisited the area to check the construction progress and how the housing looks as a community. What we did not expect was how the owners would respond to the designs as individuals, because the entire project consisted of different “template” designs repeated throughout (due to financial and time constraints), with slight changes made here and there depending on the context.

What we saw was very impressive as every house had a sense of individuality which was missing initially. Even though the area is fairly new, you can already see that it is heading towards the right direction. Some have painted differently, some have added their own design elements and some have even extended their houses in a manner that does not even disturb the aesthetics of the community.

It is quite interesting to see their response, and it leaves one wondering how the area will look in 10 years. And if now is anything to judge from, I have high expectations of how it will turn out.

WEEK 16: MODEL BUILDING

Working with pencil on a drawing board the old school way is a very exciting task, because the amount of freedom it offers is limitless. But there are times when a pencils, or even the sophisticated 3D programmes we used fail to solve design problems.

The Muizeburg project we are currently busy with on site has hit a construction problem (or should I say challenge?), that has forced us to stop our endless clicking and put our pencils aside in order to get down and dirty in model building. What is the problem? Well, the opposing pitched roofs require more care than we foresaw. Since the new structure has two blocks of rooms that sit parallel to each other, with one sitting slightly lower than the other and the taller one sitting lower than the existing structure, we were forced to treat the walls on which the roofs go against as parapets.

That meant that we had to physically mock up a construction method that will leave the clients, the builder and the architect happy. Here is the model showing the roof relationshop….