HinterSpace

This is a very schematic look at the house that we've been designing. Doing this kind of work in the computer can be tricky because on one had we can be very accurate from a dimensional point of view, which we want to be so that clients can be assured that the design is working, but we don't want to make the building look too real, because if we do then clients might feel that they have to settle for something less than what they want because it seems "done". Hand sketching really captures the schematic feeling of a design, but lacks somewhat in the dimensional accuracy, also, it's not a skill I've mastered in 25 years of being at this (including School). So I've developed an aptitude for being fast and accurate in Revit while also attempting to present things in a way that don't seem too "real" or "finished". This house is being designed as a destination home for a family with 3 grown kids who will be having children in the nex...

Towards the end of last week I started working on a project with the head architect of the firm. It's a pretty interesting program and design for new house on 30 acres of land (by far the largest site I've worked on) in Western Mass. The client is a couple that worked with the firm on a house in Metrowest about 10 years ago and they have a good relationship with the architect and he understands their idiosyncrasies well which is why they've come back to him for this project. He had me start off by reviewing his sketches and then we talked about it for a while so he could get could get a feel for where I was coming from and while he agreed with several of suggestions for tweaking the design, he didn't go with them because of he knew that the client wouldn't go for them. Getting to know your clients mindset and perspective on how they want their home to be is critical part of the work we do, and as you might imagine, isn't always easy, so I understood why he didn...

It was bound to happen sooner or later, but I didn't expect that I'd have to stay home with a sick kiddo during my first week at a new firm, yet here we are. One of my boys has a fever and has been sleeping nicely on the couch all afternoon while I've gotten work done. I hate that kids get sick, but I do love the technology allows me to give care to a child while also still getting some work done. When I heard about the fever late in the day yesterday I was nervous about telling my new boss about it. We were measuring a house at the start of a new project and I had gotten a call from pre-school on the way over. Fortunately my wife could go get him and I could finish out my tasks. As my boss and I were getting ready to part ways for the day I told her that there was a good chance that I would have to stay home the next day. Her immediate reaction, and I mean before I had finished talking, was to give me her notes from the site measure so that I could work on them from hom...

It's been two days and I have a lot of thoughts about how this new organization operates. I can't tell if it's because I think that they're doing things wrong or if it's just because it's different than what I'm used to. In my previous role I had some ability to effect changes in the way the group operated and it often made things run better, but here I'm the outsider and there's a voice in my head saying that I should hold back my suggestions until I'm more settled into the workflow that these people have developed over 20 years of working together. That is a long time obviously, but it hasn't been just them that whole time, they've had several other members of the team over the years, including someone who left just in the last few weeks. Each of them left their own impact and impression on the function of the office, some of which have been manifested in lines of the office manual which specifically requests us to not "yawn loudl...

I'm an architect with about 20 years of experience and tomorrow I'm doing something that I haven't done in almost 15 years - I'm starting a job at a new firm. It's a change that I've been needing for a long time; a few years ago my family moved to a location that was good for my children and close to my wife's work, but further from mine. On paper it's a distance that seems like it would be a reasonable commute, but realistically it started out long and has gotten longer each year that I've done it. My work hours were flexible in the way that means if traffic makes you arrive late then you can stay late to make up for it. Of course there are parts of my day that are inflexible; morning meetings, kid drop-off times, spontaneous meetings with my bosses, and bedtimes. So if traffic made me late to the staffing meeting it looked, and was, bad. If I stayed late to make up for missed time then I missed what little time I had with my kids in the day. Tha...