What Was I Thinking?

Did you ever have one of those days in your early profession that made you second guess all of the decisions you had ever made up to that point?  I am sure every young architect has questioned his or her career path.  One day in particular comes to mind for me.  

Our office had just completed a very high-profile Seniors apartment that had received lots of awards, had gotten a lot of press in the trades, and was very high end.  It had three stories of apartments, each with a nice sized balcony.  What more could you ask for, right?

On the top level, there were several variations of balconies at that floor for the apartments.  Some were open trellises, others were covered with clear Plexiglas and some had a more traditional (solid) porch roof.  It seems that none of these options was exactly what the Client had in mind.  The residents with the solid roofs didn’t like that their balconies were darker than their neighbors', the residents without any covering didn’t like that their balconies got wet while others stayed dry, and the residents with the Plexiglas covering didn’t like that they could see debris on their roofs.  The Architect was called in to suggest some compromises.

A rendering of the Project.  Note some of the balconies are trellises, some have solid roofs.

One suggestion for the dark balconies was to paint the underside of the roof structure white instead of the dark green of the original design.  So instead of getting a painter to paint one of the balconies, an intern architect was dispatched with a knife, a box of white Foam Core sheets, a ruler, a cutting board and several tubes of Liquid Nails.  So there I was, in temperature and humidity both in the mid-90’s, on a resident's balcony. Standing on a ladder, I fitted squares of Foam Core into the coffers of the porch roof while trying to keep the sweat from burning my eyes.  I was miserable.  Having been part of a meeting prior to this exercise, I had been dressed in a coat and tie, not exactly appropriate for the task at hand.

Not only was the work undesirable, but the gracious gentleman who allowed me to enter his home and walk out on to his balcony had some memory issues.  He was also a retired military officer.  Though he was extremely accommodating when he first met me, in the time it took me to place the white Foam Core under his roof (I am guessing about two hours), he had kind of forgotten who I was.  When I reentered his living room, he didn't take kindly to me barging into his life and interrupting The Price Is Right.  I felt bad, but what could I do?  There was no other way off the third floor balcony!  I just apologized profusely and left his apartment as quickly as possible.

After I finished inserting the panels into the coffers, I was literally drenched.  My boss (and the person that assigned this task to me) was meeting elsewhere in the building, so I just found the nearest restroom and tried to dry out, wishing fiercely I had a change of clothing.  It was maybe the most uncomfortable I had ever been.  Forget hot yoga, try hot architecture.

I am told that the Liquid Nails gave way to the humidity over the summer, dropping the foam panels on the Major’s head every so often.  Days like those really made me question my sanity for entering the profession.  I am sure the Major would agree with that assessment.

This post is part of the ArchiTalks series where a group of us (architects who also blog) all post on the same day and promote each other’s blogs. This month’s theme is "What Was I Thinking" and was led by Cormac Phalen.  A lot of other talented writers who also are architects are listed below and are worth checking out:


Lora Teagarden - L² Design, LLC (@L2DesignLLC)
What was I thinking?

Eric T. Faulkner - Rock Talk (@wishingrockhome)

WWIT -- Convenience Kills!
Brian Paletz - The Emerging Architect (@bpaletz)
What was I thinking?
Jeffrey Pelletier - Board & Vellum (@boardandvellum)
What Was I Thinking? (Learning from Your Mistakes When Starting a Business)
Mark Stephens - Mark Stephens Architects (@architectmark)
What was I thinking!

Michele Grace Hottel - Michele Grace Hottel, Architect (@mghottel)
“what was i thinking?”
Jeremiah Russell, AIA - ROGUE Architecture (@rogue_architect)
what were we thinking: #architalks
Mark R. LePage - EntreArchitect (@EntreArchitect)
What Was I Thinking?
Cormac Phalen - Cormac Phalen (@archy_type)
What was I thinking?

Intern meets Partner

Picture it. The year: 1995. The place: the lunchroom. A new summer intern sits eating his bag lunch in silence. I will save you the suspense and tell you it was me. It was May and I hadn't met a lot of people yet. There were a lot of people on vacation, in fact, I recall that I started the the week that Gregg Scott (the partner I was ultimately to work for) had gone on his honeymoon. I had met only the people to whom I had been assigned to work that week - we were building a very detailed model with several people in the office. I had yet to meet any of the partners, other than maybe on my initial office tour, but that would have been very briefly.

Bob Patrick came out of his office at the bottom of the stairs that day and sat down at the table adjacent to me. He pulled out his sack lunch and revealed his bologna sandwich. I would see him pull out that exact same sandwich every single day at lunch, no exceptions.

Bob Patrick - note the sack lunch to his right in the picture.

I had no idea yet as to how the office worked. I knew Bob was a partner and I think I realized he wrote those very thick, typed books I had seen. But I really didn’t know anything else about him or any of the partners yet. After we ate in silence for a few moments, he acknowledged me sitting across from him and said, "So, you go to Penn State, huh?" I didn’t know if he knew me specifically from any of the other interns or not. There were four of us and we all went to Penn State, and I guess he knew that. I said that I did go to Penn State, and failing to think of anything else intelligent to say in reply I asked, "Where did you go to school?"

Bob in his office.

"I didn’t!", he replied gruffly. I about soiled myself. I certainly didn’t mean to insult anyone, least of all a partner. Here I had just started and I had ticked off someone whose name was on the letterhead. I had failed to consider that there were other means to becoming an architect, one of which took alternative methods of learning into account and did not require a college degree of any kind. Then he said, "I did it the old fashioned way, by working." He went on to explain, in a somewhat less intimidating fashion, that he had experience in the Armed Forces in an engineering battalion along with the time he spent working in civilian life that counted toward the 13 years the registration board required for someone to take the exams.

Bob's retirement party in 1996.  He would continue to work with us for several years.

That was my first experience with Bob or any other partner in the office for that matter. Bob retired about a year later but continued to work part time on a variety of projects for quite some time. I worked directly with him on several occasions, and eventually learned that I could talk to him as a colleague. From that first conversation we had in the lunchroom, he always seemed just a little bit scary to me. That fear may have a very small part in the esteem I had for Bob, but mostly it was just respect for the man and his work ethic. He was as consistent with his work as he was with his bologna sandwich.

Bob's lunch.

It's not the Heat, It's the Humidity

There are plenty of situations that can make an architect uncomfortable.  I had one day at that tops them all for me.  RLPS had several retirement projects going in the Northeastern part of the State when I was a young intern, so I had the occasion to stop by one of them to carry out some sort of chore at the project (it seemed that we continually “adjusted” something at this project).

On the top level, there were several variations of balconies at that floor.  Some were open, others were covered with clear Plexiglas and some had a more traditional porch roof.  It seems that none of the residents liked what they had.  The residents with the roof didn’t like that their balconies were dark, the residents without any covering didn’t like that their balconies got wet, and the residents with the Plexiglas covering didn’t like that they could see debris on their roofs.

One suggestions for the dark balconies was to paint the underside white instead of the dark green of the original.  So instead of getting a painter to paint one, an intern architect was dispatched with a knife, boars of white Foam Core, a ruler, a cutting board and several tubes of Liquid Nails.  So there I was, in temperatures and humidity both in the mid-90’s, outside on a retired military officer’s porch on a ladder fitting squares of Foam Core into the coffers of the porch roof while trying to keep the sweet from burning my eyes.  I was miserable.  Having had a meeting prior to this exercise, I had been dressed in a coat and tie, not exactly appropriate for the task at hand.

After I finished inserting the panels into the coffers, I was literally drenched.  My ride (and the person that assigned this task to me) was meeting elsewhere in the building, so I just sat in the men’s room and tried to dry out, wishing I had a change of clothing.

I am told that the Liquid Nails gave way to the humidity over the summer, dropping panels on the Major’s head every so often.  Small consolation for a truly uncomfortable day.