Unlikely Inspiration

Necessity and her daughter, Invention.

Don't you hate blogs that start with a tired, old cliche?  I know I do.

I am from Lancaster, Pennsylvania.  Lancaster has a lot of barns.  Barns have doors that slide along a track.  Lancaster also has a lot of retirement communities.  I think you know where I am going here....  No?  Let me back up.

One of the biggest trends in the last 20 years is trying to get some privacy into shared, or double-occupancy nursing rooms.  This makes a lot of sense.  Shared rooms are much more economical, as that means building half as many bathrooms as private rooms.  But residents, family members, health care staff and even HIPPA, want some privacy for each individual occupant.  As square footage is king, any ways to improve privacy in tight spaces are at a premium.

I know nursing homes aren't "sexy" to architects.  But consider this is what we are trying to improve:

Typical "semi-Private" Nursing Bed - Unchanged from 1900 

Ideally, we would layout a new building to provide layouts that accommodate separate quarters for each resident, along with a common foyer that allowed for entry into the bathroom as well as the corridor.  Pretty straight forward, but this was not what most nursing rooms looked like in the early 1990's.  This was a big leap.  What's more, if you've ever worked in healthcare, you know that they hate pocket doors.  You can't clean the pockets, yet stuff can get back there, so there is a fear of infection, etc.  In our original plans, we used cubical curtains.  

State of the Art Circa 1990-something.  "Shared Room" takes the place of "Semi-Private.

What can we do to improve upon this?  Doors are the obvious answer, but how?  It turns out, we were able to convince the Health Department that "barn doors" are a hygienic alternative to pockets.  With a barn door, we get all the benefits of a pocket door and eliminate all the space a typical swinging door needs.  Did I mention that all these doors needed to be 3'-8" wide to be able to move the beds through them in an emergency?  Each room not only has its own space, but each bed has a window.  Not the case in the first example:  one resident gets proximity to a window, the other gets the bathroom door!

Saving space is particularly important in projects that combine additions that have the nice layout of the Shared Room, but also renovations that try to provide the same privacy in a space that wasn't designed for it.  Below is a sample reconfigured space - the exterior walls and corridor walls did not move:

Here we had two former traditional layouts combined but maintain privacy.

In the diagram above, barn doors can literally slide behind the dressers.  Swinging doors would not have worked at all.  The bathroom also uses a barn door.  In this instance, we were completely re-configuring the space "inside the box", but were able to provide similar privacy in the renovated space as in the brand new building.

But what if you have a double occupancy room which cannot be reconfigured substantially?  The diagram below is an example of that.  The alterations only include a dividing wall to create privacy.  But the space was so tight, that the openings into the rooms were forced into a 45 degree angle.  

Revised room with added privacy wall and sliding doors.

The intervention is minimal but we are left with a problem as to how to close off the private rooms.  The client was not satisfied with cubical curtains.  The door track required to open a sliding door at a 45 degree angle is not something that's off the shelf at Home Depot.  As we are not in the business of inventing door hardware, the Contractor and a local metal fabricator designed and built something that actually worked.  But that is only the first hurdle.  We had to get the health Department to sign off on it.  Did I mention that a floor track was forbidden?  The Contractor devised a track that ran along the wall to keep the door from flopping around.

A complete mocked up room and opening was built to demonstrate its performance.

Mock up - Half Open.  Or is it Half Closed?

Mock up - Mostly Closed.

Mock up - Track from Foyer Side.

Mock up - Track from Resident Side.

The door was approved and went on to be installed.  Between the modest renovation plans, tight spaces and an Owner who was unwilling to compromise, a brand new type of door was created.  We just don't have a name for it yet.  Any inspired suggestions?

Finished project - door in closed position.  Transom lights allow borrowed light into the foyer.

Finished project from the room side.

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 "Unlikely Inspiration" and was led by Eric Faulkner.  A lot of other talented writers who also are architects are listed below and are worth checking out:

Lee Calisti, AIA - Think Architect (@LeeCalisti)
unlikely inspiration was there all along
Eric T. Faulkner - Rock Talk (@wishingrockhome)
Inspire -- A Clover
Jeffrey Pelletier - Board & Vellum (@boardandvellum)
Unlikely Inspiration: The Strange Journeys of the Creative Process
Mark Stephens - Mark Stephens Architects (@architectmark)
Unlikely Inspiration - Herbert Simms
Lora Teagarden - L² Design, LLC (@L2DesignLLC)
Unlikely inspiration
Michele Grace Hottel - Michele Grace Hottel, Architect (@mghottel)
"unlikely inspiration"
Tim Ung - Journey of an Architect (@timothy_ung)
Inspired by Leather Working
Steve Mouzon - The Original Green Blog (@stevemouzon)
A Most Unexpected Inspiration

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?

Noisy Neighbors

Originally appeared in the AIA Design for Aging Newsletter in August 2014.

Moving is always stressful.  You have to find enough boxes to hold all your stuff.  You have to have utilities shut off in one place and turned on in another, hopefully at the appropriate times.  You need a van and a lot of friends who will move you for pizza and beer or soda.

Moving into a retirement community is stressful too, although hopefully you can afford professional movers at this point in your life.  However there are a lot of adjustments to be made.  For one, most of the residents moving in will be leaving a single family home and are accustomed to the buffer they have between their house and any neighbors.  This is not the case in most residential accommodations in a CCRC.  In most instances, at best, you will have one neighbor directly on the other side of the wall from you.  In many cases, you will have neighbors to both sides, plus above and below.

Sales people will likely not understand and thus not explain to residents the reality about what they may expect to hear from their neighbors.  And this is a disservice to the residents and to the administrators who will hear the complaints.  But expectations need to be managed in order to not to disappoint new move-ins.  The walls, ceilings and floors between units will in most cases never be “sound proofed”, but we as designers will do what is possible to manage and dissipate sound to acceptable levels.

I grew up in a semi-detached home until I was 15 and then lived in a townhouse with my family or the college dorms until I was 27, when I bought a single family home with my wife.  You could say I was used to having neighbors.  For almost 30 years I expected to hear my neighbors come in the door, hear their garbage disposal and generally, hear a bit of their everyday life.  But as long as the neighbors kept their AC/DC album to a normal level, this was ok because this is what I had come to expect.  However, this is not what many incoming residents to retirement living may expect.  They may expect the same quite environment they have now in a single family home.  They have no children.  They may even live completely alone.  The only sound they may hear is made directly by themselves personally.

When Aerosmith is your neighbor...you're going to hear something.

None of the close quarter living units I experienced growing up were even close to complying with ‘modern’ sound requirements.  Current building codes address both air-borne sound and structure-borne sound.  Simply stated air-borne sound is hearing your neighbor’s voice or TV.  Structure-borne noise is hearing your neighbor’s footfalls above you or their garage door open.  So as a minimum the wall, floor and ceiling assemblies between dwelling units must meet and sound transmission class of 50.  This far exceeds standard wall construction found in older building stock or in a single family home.  A wood stud wall with a layer of wall board on either side has an STC of about 34.  To get to about 50-54 STC (as measured in a laboratory) a wood stud wall must have 2 layers of wall board on one side of the studs, the stud cavity is filled with fiberglass insulation,  with another layer fastened resilient metal clips which offset the board from the stud by ½ inch.  These clips allow one side of the wall to vibrate independently from the other side and as such the noise does not translate from one side of the clip to the other at 100%.  The fiberglass insulation works as an attenuator, reducing the strength of the signal, so to speak.  This wall is also in effect 50% more dense than the standard wall.  The building codes also require that all openings, cracks and seems must be sealed with acoustical caulk and that penetrations, such as electrical outlets, must be staggered between studs, so that there aren’t one in each side within the same cavity opening.

Also, from the laboratory to the field conditions of the actual building, the STC is expected to be reduced by 5 levels.  This is most likely due to imperfect conditions and inherent weak points in corners and along edges, as well as penetrations needed.  So while we design to meet an STC of 50 in our drawings and the code plan reviewers see this, it is expected that a field test on the same assembly would provide a result of 45 and this still meets code.  Sound will penetrate a system at the weakest point, so anywhere the defenses are down such as at a door or an electrical box, that is where the sound will transmit.  Unfortunately, if the rest of the room is treated well acoustically, it doesn’t really offset a break in the assembly, like a hole or seam that is unsealed.  It only takes a small hole in a rubber raft to sink it.

So in a sense, a standard party wall is about 15 to 20 STC points higher than it would have been prior to the regulations in the building codes.  That seems pretty good, but is it?  Consider these facts.  A rule of thumb is for every 10 STC you add to an assembly, the sound coming to the other side is roughly half as loud.  In diminishing returns, 5 STC is clearly noticeable, 3 STC is just barely perceptible, and 1 STC is almost imperceptible.  Mass is important to acoustical performance.  If you double the thickness of a membrane, such as 2 layers of wall board in lieu of one, the STC rating will increase by about 5, which is clearly noticeable.  Installing insulation is a wall also adds about 5 to the STC.

Example of an STC 30 wall - Photo Credit:  Gypsum Association

Walls assemblies with STC values far exceeding the code are often called a “luxury” and as such they come with a price.  A wall with an STC of 60 will pretty much eliminate the perception of loud speech from one side of the wall to another.  A double wall certainly improves STC ratings.  But they take up a lot of square footage (which often can’t be factored into rentable space) and they are more costly to build.  Also masonry walls are very dense and as such very good insulators of sound, but again come at a cost.  A 10 inch hollow block wall by itself attains nearly a 50 STC. 

Example of a 55-59 STC Wall - Photo Credit:  Gypsum Association

Floors will be very similar to walls, except a typical assembly “sandwich” would be made up of wood joists and fiberglass insulation topped with plywood subfloor and gypsum poured topping.  The bottom would have several layers of wall board attached to the same kind of metal clips on the underside of the joists.  Additionally, a floor needs to perform in terms of impact noise, i.e. footfalls, which is a structure-borne noise.  Typically this is addressed additionally with an acoustical mat placed between the gypsum topping and the plywood in the assembly.  These mats provide additional mass as well as resilience to the floor make up.  The mats can also be placed right below flooring as well.

Example of an STC 37 Floor - Photo Credit:  National Gypsum

Example of an STC 60 Floor - Photo Credit:  National Gypsum

STC ratings are a fairly sensible predictor of how a wall will perform.  However, SCT uses a range of 125 to 4000 Hertz, which are the range of frequencies associated with human speech.  This range does not really consider very high or very low frequencies, such as those produced by machines, air handlers or electrical transformers.  It isn’t perfect but the STC rating system is the standard by which designers live by.

I am using examples above in terms of wood construction because that is fairly standard in low to mid-rise residential construction.  But actually metal studs preform a bit better than wood studs.  This is due to their flexibility characteristics as they a can soften or decouple some of the noise vibrations from one side of the wall to another. In terms of the big three in acoustical dissipation, there is Mass, Airspace between and Resiliency (or materials that flex and decouple).  Any time you can add two or more of these properties to an assembly, improvements will be realized. 

During the pricing exercises on building or renovation project, we as designers are often asked to make concessions to reduce costs.  Many of these decisions, which the Owner must be a part of, may affect acoustical comfort.  These items include replacing cast iron waste pipes for PVC pipes, reducing or changing types of insulation on pipes, providing alternate wall assemblies (here we can point to code now to limit this reductions), alternate finishes which may be less absorptive of sound, alternate HVAC and mechanical items that may perform worse acoustically or alternative door hardware.  All of these issues can degrade the acoustical comfort in a building versus the initial design, so be careful.

How does this all translate to the expectations of future residents?  When discussing their future neighbors, the sales team must not convince the clients they won't hear anything their neighbor does.  It is expected in new construction that dwelling units will not be sound proofed, but that sound will be reduced to an accepted standard.  They are likely moving into new type of housing product whether it be apartment or semi-detached home, so it must be explained that there is an inherent difference between living on your own plot versus living in a community.  The sales team should learn, with the help of their design professionals, how a standard house wall performs next to the proposed party walls in the housing product.  How do they relate in terms of STC to each other and to the minimums mandated by code?  If the product is new, a pricing alternate could be explored for “luxury” STC 60 walls.  It could be an option to residents to buy up to this option.  But this is a very difficult feature to add later.

I’ve always found it interesting that in aging, it is often said the hearing goes first, yet in many cases the resident population we serve seem to be ultra-sensitive to sounds in their new homes.  I believe much of this is the result of expectations.  People coming to live in an apartment after having lived on their own plot for 30 or 40 years tend not to expect to hear their neighbors at all.  They don’t have common walls or hallways.  They don’t have elevators nearby.  They may be on the same routine as their spouse and don’t worry about someone being a night owl while the other is an early bird.  Let’s face it, if they’ve lived with another person for 40 year, they probably have adjusted to their routine.  A new neighbor is a completely different story.  They are probably used to the noises of their old HVAC system, but their new one may make different sounds.  Not more noise, just different.

Communication in a Yada Yada World

Gary Cooper, as Howard Roark in the Fountainhead.

Gary Cooper was the strong, silent type.  When it comes to writing it is almost always better to use fewer words to express a thought rather than more.  This is especially true in business writing and the same can be said for spoken presentations.  That is not to say that one should haphazardly remove words, or force sentences to their minimum lengths, but a well thought out paragraph should remove extraneous phases and redundancies.  As all things ultimately relate to Seinfeld; this is not a suggestion simply to gloss over the body of the story...

Did Elaine just yada yada the best part?  No she mentioned the bisque.

But this takes some time and thought, as does improving anything, and that is why it seems to seldom happen in business correspondence.  To illustrate, below are some of my favorite quotes on the subject:

Thomas Jefferson quipped, “The most valuable of all talents is that of never using two words when one will do.”

Blaise Pascal said (in French), “I have made this [letter] longer than usual because I have not had time to make it shorter.”

This last historical example I present is not only clever, but ironic.  In Hamlet, Polonius states that “brevity is the soul of wit” in an exceptionally long winded explanation as to why the Prince is mad.  The Queen then interjects, “More matter, with less art.”  Quite possibly the most elegant way to say, “Get on with it,” that I have ever come across.

If I can be indulged a final personal example, I was working with an engineer on faucet specification.  Exciting, no?  There was a major difference between the faucet the Owner suggested (Faucet A) and the type we typically use (Faucet B).  First I received a ten minute phone call from the engineer explaining why Faucet B was specified by them in the first place and how it was more appropriate for use in this case.  Then the same engineer sent me the product cut sheets along with a very lengthy email further explaining the situation.  My task was to distill all this information to get a final decision from the Owner.

I was able to shave 1/3 of the word count from the original engineer generated email and send it to the owner for a value-based decision.  I believe it was clear, concise and yet courteous.  I actually got a note back from the engineer thanking me for sending out the question because, as he put it, my correspondence was what he was trying to say in his head, it just wasn't coming out that way.

The Gettysburg Address contained 270 words, roughly 200 less than this article.  Lincoln’s Address was not the only speech in Gettysburg that day. Edward Everett gave a two hour eulogy prior to Lincoln’s two minute talk and yet no one remembers the former’s content.

For the record, the owner responded the way we hoped he would and used only nine words to do so.  

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 "Communication" and was led by Brian Paletz.  A lot of other talented writers who also are architects are listed below and are worth checking out:

Jeff Echols - Architect Of The Internet (@Jeff_Echols)
Communication and the Question of Relevance

Lee Calisti, AIA - Think Architect (@LeeCalisti)
what does it communicate?

Lora Teagarden - L² Design, LLC (@L2DesignLLC)
Types of communication in architecture

Eric T. Faulkner - Rock Talk (@wishingrockhome)
Talk, Write, Draw -- A Com Hat Trick

Michele Grace Hottel - Michele Grace Hottel, Architect (@mghottel)
"communication...."

Meghana Joshi - IRA Consultants, LLC (@MeghanaIRA)
Architalks #36: Project Amplify

Brian Paletz - The Emerging Architect (@bpaletz)
Communication - What, How, Why?

Jeffrey Pelletier - Board & Vellum (@boardandvellum)
Tips for Communicating with Your Architect, Interior Designer, or Landscape Architect

Samantha R. Markham - The Aspiring Architect (@TheAspiringArch)
Why Communication Skills are a Must for Aspiring Architects

Keith Palma - Architect's Trace (@cogitatedesign)
Who's Bad!

Mark Stephens - Mark Stephens Architects (@architectmark)
Communication

Jane Vorbrodt - Kuno Architecture (@janevorbrodt)
Explain Yourself...

Starting a Design: First Thing's First

I am going to guess I look at the start of a design differently than any of the other architects writing about this topic today.  I think most people picture a person hunched over a slanted drawing table in a dark room, inking lines on vellum under the halo of the single incandescent bulb of an articulating lamp.  While I do get to look at each and every project in our office, my input has more to do with compliance and practicability than design notions.  And instead of ink and vellum, I typically have my codes pulled up on my tablet.  Or I may have one book open on top of another book. 

How TV Shows Portray the Architect.

Normally, I see projects after they’ve taking at least a rough form.  Programming and discussions with the Owner have already taken place, at least to some degree.  Our projects are seldom “simple”, meaning they usually involve a good bit of renovation and connections to existing structures, which means firewalls and other code related goodies.

To get started, I need at least three bits of information.  What is the Occupancy?  What is the height & area?  What is the construction type?  A fourth component may often be:  What are we connecting to?  This is assuming we know which codes to use in this Jurisdiction.

This is What My Desk Really Looks Like at the Start...

Occupancy (or building use) may seem simple, but it can get complicated.  Our focus is primarily senior living projects.  Many of the buildings in communities serve multiple uses.  Are we separating the uses by fire barriers?  Are they allowed to mix?  Can that occupancy be open to the corridor next to that occupancy?

Height and area is pretty straightforward until it isn’t.  First, areas could change due to design changes, so you have to make sure there is some flexibility in the allowable areas or be prepared for heartache.  Do we get extra square footage (SF) for sprinklers?  Do we get extra stories, or is it capped at 4?  Then, where there are more than one occupancy in a building and those uses are not separated, the sum of the ratios of actual SF to permitted SF of each occupancy cannot exceed 1.  And you thought high school algebra was a waste of time!

Construction type is the variable I can help determine.  The further to the right in the code chart, the cheaper it is to build, typically.  But the cheaper construction types are the most restrictive in terms of how high or how big you can build.  So it is a balancing act.  In wood construction you just can't build certain building uses or you can't build them high enough.  In other cases, we have to divide the building into two separate structures, connected at fire walls, in order not to exceed the allowable area.

 

Exciting, Right?

The dance continues.  In a building containing multiple occupancies, you can separate them or allow them to “mingle” together (unseparated).  Unseparated occupancies must abide by all the most restrictive conditions for any of the uses.  This means if you have apartments and assembly spaces in the same building, you may be looking at a higher level of protection in the whole building due to the presence of that one use.  Or you can separate them with protected construction.

A Little Later on in the Process, Code Books on Top of Code Books...

When buildings are renovated or connected to additions, there is another layer of compliance complexity.  If the building is not separated into two independent structures with fire walls, what do we have to do to the existing building to make it compliant with current codes?  Sometimes this is not much, but other times the added square footage of an addition will require life safety systems that aren’t provided in the existing building, like sprinklers, smoke detection or fire alarms.  There are other triggers for accessibility as well.

This May Be Closer to Reality...

This is the stuff I start thinking about when I begin to look at a building design.  A little more than form follows function, isn't it?  And we haven't even gotten to the details yet. Like:  Where's your vapor barrier?  What's the flame spread of that material?  What's the UL of that roof/ceiling?  But early is the time to address these topics.  

Never has anyone ever told me, "I wish you would have waited until after permit submittal to tell me about the flaw in my fire wall!"

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 "Starting a Design" and was led by Jon Brown.  A lot of other talented writers who also are architects are listed below and are worth checking out:

Matthew Stanfield - FiELD9: architecture (@FiELD9arch)
Slow Down. Hold Still.
Lee Calisti, AIA - Think Architect (@LeeCalisti)
where do we start?
Lora Teagarden - L² Design, LLC (@L2DesignLLC)
How to Start a Design
Jeremiah Russell, AIA - ROGUE Architecture (@rogue_architect)
Starting a Design: #Architalks
Eric T. Faulkner - Rock Talk (@wishingrockhome)
On Your Mark, Get Set -- Start a Design!
Michele Grace Hottel - Michele Grace Hottel, Architect (@mghottel)
."starting a design..."..
Meghana Joshi - IRA Consultants, LLC (@MeghanaIRA)
Architalks #35: Starting a Design
Brian Paletz - The Emerging Architect (@bpaletz)
Where do we begin?
Jeffrey Pelletier - Board & Vellum (@boardandvellum)
Where do you start when designing a new home?
Keith Palma - Architect's Trace (@cogitatedesign)
do-re-mi- Design
Tim Ung - Journey of an Architect (@timothy_ung)
5 Tips for Starting an Architecture Project
Mark Stephens - Mark Stephens Architects (@architectmark)
How it all begins...
Steve Mouzon - The Original Green Blog (@stevemouzon)
Starting Wrong - The Amazon Mistake

Renewal

Renewal

I love beginnings. I marvel at beginnings. I think it is beginning that confirms continuation.

-        Louis I. Kahn[1]

To be honest, I was struggling to come up with the stream of consciousness that would stitch together my thoughts with this month’s theme.  I suppose that is appropriate for this theme, like a painter, staring at a blank canvass for the first time.  I have written many posts over the years; some come much easier than others do.

This is LBJ, having a worse day than I am.  I believe presidential photos to be part of the Public Domain.

I started writing regularly about my perspective as a young architect over fifteen years ago.  Cripes, I am old.  Anyway, back then I wrote for our monthly newsletter, which we actually printed out and placed a copy in everyone’s mailbox.  I started to look back at some of the topics, and I am all over the place.  Many of the stories I told are about people who are retired, moved on or in several cases, no longer with us.  I tried to write in a way that anyone could appreciate the story.  While most of my articles had something to do with architecture and my exploits with the Firm, I was just as interested in being relatable to our bookkeeping and clerical staff as I was to the firm Partnership.  I still strive for that universal appeal today.

In searching for ideas for this post, I looked back at the content from all the earlier articles, which I keep on a thumb drive.  My very first article was about how my mom actually interviewed for me at this Firm while I was studying abroad at school.  I wrote subsequent articles about projects I worked on which we have since added onto; about co-workers who very few current employees here will remember; about comical tasks I had to do as an intern; and about technology that no longer exists (remember fax machines and floppies?).  And while some of the articles I wrote have no real value as stand-alone texts, they all lead me to the architect and would-be writer I am today.

I had a professor once tell me that I should finish every thought I have, even if it is on a roll of trace paper that I know I will throw out, because that thought has purpose in the process, even if not necessarily the finished design.  In other words, I may still learn something from it.

Every time I begin anew, whether it be a building diagram or a blog post, the beginnings build upon all the other experiences in my data bank.  Some of those experiences have no relationship to the new destination, other than they are part of the road that lays behind me.

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 "Renewal" and was led by Larry Lucas.  A lot of other talented writers who also are architects are listed below and are worth checking out:
Lee Calisti, AIA - Think Architect (@LeeCalisti)
get out of town renewal
Lora Teagarden - L² Design, LLC (@L2DesignLLC)
Goal Renewal
Jeremiah Russell, AIA - ROGUE Architecture (@rogue_architect)
renewal: #architalks
Eric T. Faulkner - Rock Talk (@wishingrockhome)
Renewal - Re-Ranch
Michele Grace Hottel - Michele Grace Hottel, Architect (@mghottel)
"renewal"
Meghana Joshi - IRA Consultants, LLC (@MeghanaIRA)
Architalks 34: Renewal
Stephen Ramos - BUILDINGS ARE COOL (@BuildingsRCool)
No guts, no glory!
Brian Paletz - The Emerging Architect (@bpaletz)
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Jeffrey Pelletier - Board & Vellum (@boardandvellum)
5 Tips for Harnessing Renewal to Advance Your Goals
Samantha R. Markham - The Aspiring Architect (@TheAspiringArch)
reNEWal. new year. new goals
Tim Ung - Journey of an Architect (@timothy_ung)
Break Routines
Larry Lucas - Lucas Sustainable, PLLC (@LarryLucasArch)
Renewal is Valuable for Heart and Hometown

Steve Mouzon - The Original Green Blog (@stevemouzon)
The 12 Steps of Sprawl Recovery

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[1] “The Invisible City”.  International Design Conference, Aspen, CO, June 19, 1972.  In What Will Be Has Always Been: The Words of Louis I. Kahn, ed. Richard Saul Wurman (New York: Rizzoli International Publications).  1986, p. 150.