WORK EXP. DESIGNS

In the beginning of my M.Arch program, a professor gave a lecture. His slide showed an image of Jackson Pollack’s N. 5. In my memory he said “You don’t know what you’re doing yet and that’s ok. Don’t let it stop you. Right now, we’re just putting drops on canvas.”

Four years later, I’m at a new job, frozen in front of my screen. There, I had been given complete stewardship over a few projects. The one open was ready for construction documentation. It needed details. While it was one of my goals to learn detailing, I hadn’t done it before.

Should I pass this on to the Project Architect? I mean, this is a big deal, and I’m surely going to mess this up, right?

No. I wouldn’t have been hired to just pass it on. I decided to always propose something first before going to the Project Architect. I started putting drops on canvas.

The following selections are designs and details that began with a proposal to the PA of how I imagined it could work.

Floor Plan To Suit

Here, the elevations were already given. My role was to design standardized floorplans that would fit in the given volume. I created two guiding principles for myself.

After many iterations and collaborative back and forth, the final layouts still reflect these guiding principles.

One. Avoid creating a block of private space that makes the unit feel short and limits natural light.

Two. The balcony should be accessible from public space.

MODULAR MECH. SCREEN

South Elevation

North Elevation

In this adaptive reuse project, new mechanical equipment would be needed for a new restaurant. That mech. equip. needed to be screened per city requirements. HP requested that minimal changes be made to the building.

My proposal was to limit the amount of skilled labor and on-site welding needed by designing modular pieces that could be easily assembled on site. This would screen the mech. equip. and could be removed on a future date, preserving the original structure.