Punchlisting Disney

After 14 years in the field of architecture, punch listing projects and cataloging and visiting world-class masterpieces of design, we as architects are especially unforgiving to the places of our past. 

Opportunities to test the architecture of your memory are always interesting.  Particularly when viewed as an adult looking back to what a place impressed upon you when you were a kid, it's amazing how much doesn't hold up to the myth we build around significant places from our youth.  The elementary school that was bright and colorful, or looming and foreboding, is now just a dingy unimpressive, or even tiny, structure that you wouldn't look twice at had you not had this intense memory of the place to draw you back. 

Revisiting Walt Disney World is the ultimate test of putting childhood wonder under the microscope to see, now knowing all the tricks behind the magic, if the architecture of my 13-year old memory would hold; and by that I mean, the feeling of ultimate awe and wonderment at a place that people built, now being a person who builds. 

The answer is shockingly well.  It's similar to going back and watching old Saturday Night Live sketches I loved as a kid; the jokes that went right over my head actually land this time, and makes the whole thing fresh again.  Which is not to say that everything was as magical to me as it was in 1993, but a lot more of it was than I had expected. 

How fun would drawing this RCP be?

As with any project, the memory of the space is in the details.  The basics are important - that the building stands, doesn't leak and doesn't create new problems is prerequisite; but for that emotional connection, the details make it or break it.  Especially when you're waiting an hour and a half in a line for a 2 minute ride.

Moody alt-country album cover, or waiting for Br'er Fox and Br'er Bear to send us down Splash Mountain?

Wait, there's not really ghosts in this old hotel... are there?

I appreciated the inclusion of what looks like actual classic building panels and equipment salvaged from who-knows-where.  They had this genuine old mining equipment on Thunder Mountain, that I could actually pay attention to now that I had the ability to keep my eyes open. 

Some moments disappointed, but you can't get it all right.  The control joints in the Campanile in EPCOT Italy annoyed me to no end.  Maybe the contractor blew through all the contingency on the Norway log flume ride.

The Venetians didn't have to comply with Florida Wind Codes, but that's no excuse...

I found EPCOT Morocco to be my favorite - all of the EPCOT(tm) Countries had hidden details that I appreciated, but Morocco felt the most subtle - without the glitz and glamour of French waiters and Chinese acrobats, Morocco was a nice oasis of rest in an exhausting circus of ornament.  And the food at the Marrakesh restaurant in the back, which you get to through a series of alleys and courtyards, was just as fantastic as the ambiance.  

I'm not sure what spec section this goes under...  Badassery?

#downspoutgoals

Eventually I became overwhelmed by all the details... I found myself investigating all the back alleys to see where the details stopped, but they just kept on going.

Even their ceiling tile grids made it past my eye at first... I stood under this one for an hour before realizing it was just your standard lay-in grid, albeit well decorated.  So, safe to say, Disney gets a 100 on its punch list.

Never more important to center your smoke detectors and speakers!

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Three Advantages of Hiring an Architect

We live in a Do-It-Yourself culture these days. Especially when it comes to saving money. More often in the construction process, many people will cut design services to save money. While we understand the need for saving, cutting design services can actually cost you in the long run. I will briefly touch on the top three financial advantages of hiring an architect for your next construction project. 

1. Information is Everything! 

Imagine you ask your neighbor for a quote to put together a dresser from Ikea and when they ask for the installation manual, you say "I don't have one". That person is more likely to give you a quote for more labor hours than if you were to send him the installation manual to review. This is obviously a small scale example but architecture works in the same way. Design is one part inspiration and one part information. Too little information often yields inaccurate bids. Furthermore, architectural drawings help contractors identify the client's design goals, whether it be an emphasis on integrated mechanical systems or custom cabinetry or clean lines and open spaces. 

You wouldn't build Billy without a manual, would you? Photo credit: Ikea-usa.com

2. Don't Put the Negotiator & Decision Maker in the Same Room!

I had a client tell me this once and I thought it was pretty smart. As an Architect, I am usually the negotiator between the contractor and the owner. The advantage here is that as a design professional, I can offer third party expertise in controlling budgets and costs. Building a home is sort of like buying a car, but continuously for 3, 6, sometimes 9 months. If the contractor needs to make changes, you may feel pressure to increase your budget, the same way you sometimes feel pressure to add a sunroof or leather seats. Now imagine yourself in this situation with a third party who can creatively address challenges without the need to increase your budget. Sorry - contractors - you aren't all car salesmen! 

3. Small Budgets can have the Most Unique Design Solutions! 

Some of the most inspiring projects are often the ones with small budgets. Doing a lot with a little is the root of what we do as design professionals. If given the opportunity, Architects can transform your modest idea into a powerful one without increasing your budget. Our holistic approach to design solutions can you save you money because we think about how project behaves and operates in the early stages of design, eliminating the need for costly adjustments half way through construction. We recently saved a client over $20,000 in construction costs by assisting in materials research. Our fee for the entire project was less than that amount we saved her. Smart planning will always save you money.    

Architects are trained to think about solutions holistically and differently. Photo credits to DesignBoom.com

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Modern Camp: Sustainable Systems

Camping, in its simplest form, is all about self sufficiency.  Its about getting back to, and relying on, nature, and using your own skills to harness it.  The modern take on camping can be far removed from the humble Boy Scout pup tent, but the goals should remain the same.  A modern camp should harness nature, help in every way possible to preserve that nature that provides for it, and allow for its inhabitants to reconnect with nature.  Here, we take advantage of what nature provides in abundance to make the Modern Camp a responsible answer to its challenging environment.

1. WATER

At the Modern Camp, a smooth metal or tile roof is preferrable to collect the water, and storing the water underneath the deck structure keeps it cool and protected behind the gabion wall and pool structure.

Though water is plentiful in Louisiana, it is still a resource to be controlled and utilized thoughtfully and carefully.  Rainwaters can inundate both natural and man-made drainage systems and cause backup riverine flooding.  Rainwater is also a natural resource as potable water with fewer contamination and taste issues, reducing the desire for treated bottled  water. Rainwater collection is common practice in drier climates with unreliable precipitation, but we certainly see limited dry spells in South Louisiana as well.  The water can also serve irrigation systems, to ensure your thirsty tropical plants don't burn up during a dry month or two.

These sorts of reservoirs will fill up quickly in our climate, however.  The Aggies over at Texas A&M have a nifty Excel calculator to determine what your system needs might be.  Once their retention abilities are maximized, it's important to avoid dumping the stormwater directly back into city or parish stormwater infrastructure, if any is present.  

You can even incorporate condensation from your AC system.  According to the Alliance for Water Efficiency, a central AC for an entire home can collect 5 to 20 gallons of condensate water per day, equating to more than 300 gallons per month in the summer! 

2. HEAT REMOVAL AND POWER

Key to a sustainable and resilient home able to be used in a disaster are efficient mechanical and electrical systems that take advantage of natural resources.  These can often be pricey, but Residential Energy Credits can be taken to be reimbursed for many of these systems that make the most sense.  All of the systems below are currently eligible for 30% reimbursement, including install, from the Federal government (find out more here).

Geothermal Heat Pump - Using the earth, or large bodies of water, to help get rid of the large heat loads in Louisiana homes makes sense, and especially so with access to a large cycling body of water.  Geothermal systems essentially replace the exterior condenser unit with a long tube that circulates water through either the earth or a body of water to dissipate heat in summer and absorb heat in the winter.  On top of that, it eliminates the exterior equipment that is most vulnerable to the elements.  Geothermal systems are eligible for tax credits as energy-efficient residential equipment, which I talk about a bit more below.

Photovoltaics - Solar energy is already deployed on many rooftops across Louisiana, and the technology is rapidly improving.  Recent presentations by Tesla indicate that options will become more attractive, too, in the coming years.  We envision a smooth PV tile that will also aid with potable water collection by not collecting as much dirt with fewer nooks and crannies.  With promises of a 22% efficiency (compare to ~10% now), and improvements in battery storage capacity, the loud, very heavy, fossil-fuel guzzling generators will no longer be needed to keep a livable structure during a grid outage.

Google's Project Sunroof is an attempt to analyze and quantify all the roofs in America for their potential for solar panel installation.  The numbers they come up with in terms of savings should probably be vetted with your local installer, but it's a good benchmarking tool for making a decision, and interesting to fly around the city and see the potential for solar.  It would be great if they could detect via their satellite view those surfaces with panels already installed so that we could see how a city is doing at optimizing its potential for solar harvesting.

FEDERAL TAX CREDITS

Not deployed here but also available are credits for solar water heating, small wind energy production assemblies and fuel cell technology.  You can learn more about these credits from the IRS by learning about Form 5695.  Louisiana's own solar credit has expired, but power providers like Entergy and Cleco still have some incentives available at the local level.

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Journal of a Revit Noob: 3 Reasons BIM Offers Architects an Opportunity for More Purposeful Design.

In the early 1980's, AutoCAD was introduced to the market and began facilitating construction documents for architecture and engineering firms, promising quicker drafting times. The days of hand drawings were coming to an end. Younger architects managed the drafting process while the more experienced architects designed, managed day-to-day coordination, and produced hand-sketches or red-lines. This created a generation of young architects who considered projects first in plan, then elevation, then details - as they were handed down to them to draft - this was my generation. So much of our energy was spent perfecting the minutiae of the drawing set and less time was given to the initial design concepts. I felt as if my generation only spent about 10%-15% on design and 85%-90% on construction drawings. This was before BIM. 

What I have realized in my first year of learning BIM in my practice is that we are spending about 50% of our time designing and only 50% of our time managing the construction set, which is yielding more thoughtful architecture. I can't believe I am saying this because one year ago, I told my best friend/architect buddy that there was no way I was learning the software. I am 14 years into my career. I'm almost to the point where I can hire interns. I really don't see the point. 

What I have learned in the past 8 months has been that I can have more purposeful projects. Instead of having to develop ideas first in plan format, then elevation format, then in detail, we design holistically, shifting all our energy from rote production tasks to developing our design's expression, character and forms in 3d. My husband and business partner told me this would be the result of BIM, but I didn't really believe him at the time. Now, I am totally on board and excited about our future projects. As a small design firm in a competitive environment, we need to work fast, cheap and well – to hell with the old saying that we have to pick two.  But we really all are capable of that in delivering a design product, by working smart!

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Modern Camp: 3 Things to Consider When Building in a Hazard Area

The percentage of the US population projected to live near a coast is expected to approach 50% by 2020. The draw of these places is clearly stronger than the fear of the growing dangers generated by a heating and rising ocean - a testament to the inevitability of coastal architecture's importance.  Building to co-exist with hazards has created great architecture throughout history.  We think that good buildings respond to disaster not by retreating from it, but adapting to and learning from disaster; and that resiliency is what ultimately makes a place great over time.  This is the first in a series on our study for the Modern Camp, a prototype for development in a changing coastal Louisiana and the importance to not reacting to hazards, but to owning and integrating them into a design.

1. ELEVATION

Crucial to all development in coastal Louisiana, and increasingly the coastal United States, is the elevation of the structure above the constantly shifting, and sometimes sinking, ground.  FEMA guidelines are a good place to start, but many cities and parishes are looking at these as minimums that may be appropriate now, but insufficient in the future.  Local governments may require a set distance ABOVE what's already required by FEMA - this is called 'freeboard'.  Depending on where you are, your elevation could be the top of your lowest floor, or the bottom of your floor structure (if elevated).  A good starting point to check the status of land you're looking to build on is LSU's Flood Maps project.  In our case we have a minimum elevation of 11 feet, on land that is generally around 2 feet, creating a challenging opportunity to address a welcoming entry to a home 9+ feet off the ground.

To avoid having the gigantic staircase look of many elevated camp homes, we decided to break up the upward travel into segments.  Grading the site to get a higher starting point, we have an initial ramp to an elevated platform, from which you can choose which entry to use.  One ramps up towards the bayou views and the dog-trot guest house, while the stair entry heads around toward the main house entrance.  The natural inlet is spanned with a boat house structure that provides access from both the boat's raised storage position and fully lowered position.

2. STRUCTURE

FEMA published a residential guide in 1984 (FEMA 54) and an updated version in 2010 (FEMA 4969) that outlines general best practices for building homes in high-risk coastal areas.  Some of these principles can be seen already employed in vernacular camp design in the area.  Piles extending up and through an elevated floor, for example, provides a rigid structure tied together by the floor structure than can be braced beneath the floor with sufficient room and protection.  As piles are already generally needed throughout the Louisiana coast, continuing this structural system above ground makes sense.  Locating the piles outboard of exterior wall envelopes alleviates some of the tolerance issues with locating piles exactly where walls need to go.  Cantilevers for exterior walkways is an old strategy for increased efficiency when using a pole-frame system - less piles, more floor area.  The guides are a good primer on basic strategies to consider with regards to site, structure and systems in a hazardous and changing environment.

3. PROTECTION

In an emergency situation, with surging water, protection of what cannot be elevated is important.  Siting behind natural berms and breakwaters is the cheapest option, but in order to site the building with water access, construction of a barrier will be necessary.  Many of the homes along the bayou utilize sheet piling to retain the land and hold back the water, however, the issues here are evident in the many rusted out walls that can be seen.  Steel and maritime environments do not mix without significant expense.  Oysters do, however.  In a strategy already deployed in many places along the Delta, oyster shells from restaurants are collected and repurposed as ballast for open cages called gabions, typically filled with rocks for civil projects at inland locations.  These oyster-shell filled gabions are an effective seawall and protect the structure below flood elevation, as well as an utility lines, vegetation, vehicles, or anything that has to remain at grade.  Any equipment that can be located high, is located high by using space-efficient systems in attic space, well above the reach of flood waters.

We'll continue later with our strategies on both passive and active energy efficient design in our series on our study of the Modern Camp!

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