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Drainage Design Criteria & Policies: A review of the drainage sections of the design criteria, as well as my personal experience with the design review procedures, indicates a manifold set of problems with the implementation of the criteria. No formal analysis appears to have been performed by a qualified Geologist, or Engineering Geologist, to determine what the long-term cumulative impact on landsliding will be with the implementation of a drainage criteria that encourages building applicants to retain and detain surface drainage on site. There is no oversight by Geologists required by the design criteria for surface water disposal sites under any conditions. Communication regarding drainage design issues between the Department of Public Works and the Planning Department appears to be fractured and incomplete. The objective of the talk is to briefly discuss some of the design and construction perils of surface drainage from an Engineering Geologist’s perspective and how to resolve those issues. One of the most important aspects of drainage design is that it touches and impacts all of the elements developed by all the members of the design and construction team and has a profound impact upon the liability for a project. We will discuss the concept of the design team with the audience, and how the sundry professions can work together on this issue to develop successful drainage design protocols that could conceivably incorporate most of the criteria issued by the Department of Public Works. Finally, we would like to open the floor to a forum where we can explore constructive solutions to the drainage design review and departmental procedural issues that appear to be vexing many of our projects. It is unrealistic to believe that these issues can be resolved during one short talk, but hopefully the talk and forum will give our design community a unified direction to explore within our ranks, as well as with county personnel, in the future. Eric Zinn is a local Engineering Geologist in private practice.
AASCC Nominations Three Officer Nominations for 2008 have been received so far. President: Vice President: Treasurer: Election Ballots for Architect Members issued in the next edition of the Newsletter.
Residential Architect's 2006 Conference A synopsis by Jim Stroupe Architect It cost $1000. to attend three days with airfare, hotel, registration, et cetera. You receive 15 continuing education units from the AIA and lots of inspiration. I strongly recommend attending this December’s conference at Charleston, South Carolina. It ran like clockwork and all presenters had something helpful to share. It was sponsored by material suppliers so all meals were included. Over 250 Architects from across the country heard experts of our peers discuss the additional roles many Architects play in our world today. Design / Build firms shared their expertise of communicating budget expectations before they sign a contract. Teachers told us how keeping a sketchbook while traveling and construction experience are critical. Authors suggested to begin by submitting articles to local newspapers and magazines with a couple digital photos and a brief professional bio and never to sign away rights to our writing. Day One, Wednesday: We hopped on three chartered busses and toured five new residential projects in San Diego, La Jolla, and Encinitas with a welcome breakfast, awards lunch, several panel discussions in between and an evening reception. Friday was a design charrette in the morning and the Congress of Residential Architects (CORA) annual meeting in the afternoon where seven developers discussed their future relationships with Architects and product design. Seattle Architect, Tom Kundig, the keynote speaker, challenged us to discover what is special about who we are and what we bring to designing a home. He reminded us we never know where our next project will come from, so take everything you get a chance to do and just keep growing and maturing. The key is to build relationships with good craftspeople who can execute our work by frequent site visits (every other week). Don’t be a “design star” in your black turtleneck and funny glasses prancing about being critical of everything. Citizen Architects are spending 1% of their time doing pro bono work usually for a local habitat For Humanity or a nonprofit community development group. Concerning practice management: 15 persons seemed to be the agreed upon maximum size of a manageable office, most didn’t charge a markup for reimbursables or consultants, and fees ranged from 8-18% of construction cost. Construction costs varied wildly from just under $200 per square foot to over $1000 per square foot. The maximum effective length of a client meeting is one hour, and some big 50 person firms still hand draw 75% of their construction documents. Building information modeling systems like REVIT are not widely used yet. Make sure you get good photographs of every project as soon as you can because you never know when someone will decide to remodel or demolish. Design/Build is the typical construction delivery system in Japan and produces 40% of all homes in the United States, but only 4% led by Architects. Design/Build minimizes liability because you are in control, and when you are drawing for yourself you produce more clear and complete documents. Greater opportunity comes with greater risk, but so does greater control. Before the AIA was founded in 1957, most Architects were design-builders. In Los Angeles, Gill, Neutra, and Shindler built on the same street. Original 1957 AIA documents forbade Architects from doing Design/Build work due to fears over conflict of interest. In 1978 the AIA ban was lifted. Some speakers were a bit “the artiste” for me, stating, ”One begins to wonder if these incredibly rich and quite challenging subtle sensations one might encounter could become perfectly banal”. And, ”next year they want to add client-based work”. But most were realists. San Diego Housing Tour Matthew Wells’ own home on Canon Drive in Point Loma, Canonlands. 10 inch hollow steel moment frame supported on four columns with double cantilevers, three stories. Large glass sheets with mitered corners. Pervious concrete and loose gravel were used for exterior walks and drives. Jonathan Segal’s own home in La Jolla on an old gas station “brownfield”; 9x9 sheets of single pane laminated glass and Nana walls with 24 openings. It had a glass outdoor ceiling over an enlarged basement, which doesn’t count in FAR. Sheets of Corten steel were used at the exterior, and proportions of glass attenuated . Safdie Rabine’s single story home for a retired couple on a bluff in La Jolla was an elegant curved circulation spine with views to the north creating a protected south courtyard. A vehicular gate retracts into the side of the garage and narrow horizontal cedar slats sheath the building inside and out. A loose pebble floor in the bathroom continues outside the glass door. Kevin deFreitas explained how his multifamily market-rate housing complex in Escondido was designed by land costs and lawyers. It takes intuition, hard work, and luck to succeed in development and he puts his little extra money into the high-touch areas of his units with upgraded door hardware, cabinetry, plumbing fixtures, and appliances. He provides extra acoustical privacy between units. The last project was an urban duplex by a Latin designer who created a very ornamental exterior with exposed aluminum spacers and clips attaching black slate tiles. He used 1 inch thick wooden screens for non-bearing interior walls and provided natural light to all floors with a three-story bamboo slit courtyard. Ipe, a Brazilian renewable hardwood, covered all floors and led to a large open roof deck. These five projects were very photogenic and unusual, so they appealed to the magazine editors, but I don’t think they were any more livable than the homes put on the AASCC Open Architecture Tours. The more I saw, the more proud I am to be part of the architectural community in Santa Cruz County. If anyone would like to hear more, they can contact Jim at Jim Stroupe is an Architect in private practice
Open Architecture Tour 2007 As always, proceeds will be donated to Habitat for their use in helping deserving families earn their way into home ownership. For the first time, there was also an after Tour gathering hosted by local restaurant, La Posta, where Tour patrons could sip a glass of wine, nibble on appetizers, and discuss their favorite Tour sites with the participating Architects. We hope to continue this feature next year. Another feature of this year’s Tour was a Survey Card to return for a chance to win limousine service and free tickets to the 2008 Tour. Survey Card respondents overwhelmingly preferred a single day format, 63%, rather than a two day one, 26%; with most patrons, 55%, visiting seven or more sites. A hardy few, 7%, managed to hit them all. More than half of the patrons, 52%, were attending for the first time. Other survey responses gave us valuable information on how people heard of the Tour, and suggestions for improvements. We thank all of our Sponsors, advertisers, and patrons without whose support the Tour would not be possible. Special thanks to Catherine Moon, of New Moon Design Group, and Andrea Tolaio and the staff at Habitat. Be sure to save Saturday, May 24th 2008 on your calendar for next year’s Open Architecture Tour!
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