whats your take
“Your opinion counts, unless I don’t agree with it.” Yes, I’ve heard this one before. Talk about choosing your words wisely! This is a craft that I work on constantly. At every meeting, phone conversation or e-mail, I try to give the best opinion I can. Here are some things that go through my mind when I formulate my response.
Be Honest
Don’t lie. Sounds simple enough, but extending the truth doesn’t help anyone. If I’m asked what window style I like, or whether gold trim is back in style, I’ll give you my opinion. It’s just my take on it. Take it as another bit of information to process on your journey to making your decision.
Take Your Time
If I’m being asked a complicated question, like where’s the best place to put a bathroom, I may need to think about it. What factors go into location? Where’s the nearest plumbing wall? Does the spot work with the adjacent uses? Will the flow (sorry for the pun) work for the rest of the house/office/restaurant?
I Don’t Know
I wish I had all the answers, but I don’t. If I’m asked how much something will cost, or how long will it take to build, I may not have the answer. If the question doesn’t fall into one of my specialties, I’ll have to decline.
Know Someone Who Does
BUT!! I make it a habit, if not a sport, to know where to go for answers. I may not know a lot about one specific thing, but I know a little about lots of things. And, I know a lot of people who are specialists in what they do.
Be Concise
I’m good at babbling. I work very hard trying to be concise. Every great design started with an even better problem. I strive to focus on solving that problem as efficiently as possible. Words can get in the way if you’re not careful.
Here are a few points I think about before chiming in.
Photo Credit: piterart
Space & Measuring it
How many square feet is your project? As simple question you say, it’s AxB=C and other geometry equations we all learned in the 4th grade. But what if your project is going to be leased out? Or owned as condos, but have common spaces? Do elevators count? Commercial spaces can have complex considerations for dividing up the area’s between the common areas, areas belonging to the building owner, and area’s leased to tenants. Thankfully there is BOMA – Building Owner & Manager Association – to set a standard to follow. I’m going to go over the types of building areas and some tips on how to measure them using AutoCAD. In general Area counts can go on a separate layer they you can freeze and turn off when not needed. Use an obnoxious color you can’t miss, so you can remember what they are for, and in AutoCAD set it so it is a “Non Printing Layer” in the layers options.
Gross Square footage:
This is your overall building size following the exterior perimeter of the building following the outer finish. This is used by building codes and authorities to establish your buildings’ square footage. If you are going to rent the building in whole, you could use this measurement, especially if the lease allows modifications to the building exterior, and the renter is responsible for all exterior maintenance. If however, the landlord is covering the maintenance and exterior of the building you would look at shell and core square footage.
Shell & Core:
If the lessee is only responsible for the area inside the building, the gross square footage is measured differently. The lessee area is measured up to the exterior wall, and halfway through windows that make up more than 50% of a room’s wall area. If there is a common area, elevator or other shaft the lease line would end at the exterior of the walls surrounding those areas. If there is another tenant the demising wall each share the wall equally. A way of figuring this out in CAD is to use a polyline and the “in-between” snaps. Start at a corner and follow the lease area as above. You can use the “in-between” snaps to get between the inside and outside of window openings, wall intersections and other areas. Always make sure to use the “close” command to make it a full polyline object. Using properties one can get an exact area take off. To get the landlord’s area you must be a little tricky. Start the poly line on the outside corner and follow the perimeter, but when you get back to the start point stop short so it doesn’t automatically close, go to the inside edge of the lease polyline. Follow it back along that line to the start point. Close the polyline as normal then zoom in on the part where you stopped short, edit the polyline so you can move that point back to the “start” area. The polyline object is a big “C” shape essentially. This polyline will now give you the total area of the building’s shell.
Net Square footage:
Net square footage is the area of the space minus the walls, columns, chases and shafts that go through the space. Think of it as the area of the carpet. This has couple of ways of being measured in CAD too. Start on an inside corner and measure around as above, but at doorways go halfway between the walls. To deduct columns and other objects in the middle of the space, drop the polyline down to the center of the column (Good old “midpoint” snap and “O-tracking”) follow around the object back to where the line dropped down, place a point there and continue back up to where you dropped down, and continue around the space. Another useful tool is “Bpoly” command in AutoCAD that will drop a polyline into an enclosed space – like the “Hatch” command can cover an area. However – there is some planning involved. To get columns and other objects included correctly draw a line that connects them to a wall. Lines between doors must made to enclose the room, and other objects like text, hatches, leaders must be turned off (freezing is probably better though). When all of your objects are linked you can drop the “Bpoly” command, then erase your guides. This may take some trial and error to get it right, but it can be very handy to do take-offs very quickly.
Definitely pick up the BOMA standards guide and review it, it is a great resource and you can help your commercial clients make sure they are renting and leasing the correct amounts of space.
Weekly Town Crier
After a long hard week, enjoy this list of random links that we feel you may want to check out. Some may involve design, some may involve small business and others may just be something random we find interesting. Keep checking our site each Friday to find out what inspires or interests us. Feel free to email suggestions.
Follow us on Twitter.
Join our Flickr group.
HTML E-Mail Template Video
Android Apps for web designers
Printable web wire frame templates
Get your crank on!
The pursuit of perfection…scrambled eggs.
Getting all Cloak and Dagger on facebook.
Ninja lessons. That’s right, ninja lessons.
Powering your next vehicle.
Some bokeh photography
A classic…
Under A Microscope
When it comes to craftsmanship, how much is too much? Is there a limit to the precision one can expect on their project? Seeing a paint stroke or maybe a gap in wood work, when does it become a do-over? When do you accept it as a standard tolerance in construction?
Perfection
Perfection is unobtainable. There, I said it. No matter how hard you try to make that shelf level, it’s not EXACTLY level. There are tolerances built into the standards of what is acceptable construction. Typically, larger projects have these tolerances spelled out in their specifications. If there isn’t a spec, it might be worth having a conversation before the project begins. What’s level? Is a half inch out of level okay in a ten foot span? Not sure, but it’s worth talking about it.
What if you want your builder to go that extra step and pay extra close attention to detail? Maybe for a fireplace mantel, will it cost more? Maybe, or maybe not, having the conversation before construction begins, and hopefully during bidding will make sure it’s covered in the pricing.
Cost
Why would perfection cost more? Having a small tolerance for gaps, lets say one sixteenth of an inch between wood paneling may mean purchasing higher quality floor boards. Or, not seeing any form of blemishes on a new wall might mean switching to a plaster skim coat rather than standard mudded joints. Which one do you think costs more?
Time
Paying closer attention to tolerances usually means spending more time working to get it right. If you have a very tight building schedule, you may not have room to allow for the extra time needed.
Availability
Using custom cabinetry as an example, maybe you want a special piece of custom glass installed in your new kitchen cabinets. Maybe you’re looking for hand made glass to match something else already built in the house. If it’s no longer available, hopefully it can be reproduced to match the existing. Sometimes the reproduction just doesn’t look right.
Complete your design. Specifying any special tolerances or unique materials before a project is bid will help keep your project on track!
Photo Credit: white0akart
The Future of America’s Transit – thoughts while waiting for the bus
I grew up in the Washington DC area, a metro area blessed with a well funded transit system. As a kid I could take a bus or subway into DC. I grew up a few blocks from the deepest subway station in the US, I used all the time. When I skipped school I didn’t hang out at the shopping mall, I headed for the Mall in DC with all of the free Smithsonian museums. Later I went to school in Chicago, a fantastic transit town. The L, an extensive commuter train system, and pretty good bus service. I went for 7 years without a car, and I took that system for granted.
Now I live in Puyallup Washington, a small town east of Tacoma Washington, part of Pierce county. For the last few weeks my car has been laid up needing some repairs. To get around I have been using Pierce Transit and King county transit. It is a different experience.
Those of us who would like to see oil consumption reduced, our carbon foot prints diminished, and everyone using as much public transit as possible forget that America has really poor public transit outside of the major metropolises. I am going give kudos to Pierce transit for that they have very modern hybrid compressed natural gas – electric hybrid buses, a free light rail in downtown Tacoma, and have worked hard to have tight schedules. However – as we move to more transit and less individual cars – we really have to rethink our towns. “Downtown” Puyallup could be a set for the Andy Griffith Show, (though St. Charles Illinois is the unofficial official Mayberry), it is walkable and has a good connection to the train line that serves Tacoma and Seattle. But that core quickly becomes sprawl a half-mile in every direction outside of that main street location.There are few sidewalks, and it then quickly becomes farms and industrial parks.
In order to transition from our gasoline car based life style we need to improve the quality and quantity of our transit resources. Not just in the big cities and towns, but focus on the small towns and suburbs, and really find ways to overlay light rail, more bus service, car and van pools in these areas. If the quality and availability isn’t there, everyone’s first choice will still be to own a car. Even an electric car contributes CO2, most of our electricity comes from coal. Our real solution is more mass transit, get the cars off the road. We have to choose to do it, no politician, lobby or group is going to mandate it, but they can fight for more transit dollars to expand service and improve quality.
In the winter of 1997 it was terribly cold. I was working as a temp just out of college in the Greek Town part of Chicago, west of I-90/94. It must have been -20 air temp and a windchill of -30 at least. The rails froze above ground and we had to get off the train and get the Clark St. Bus to get back to Rodger’s Park. In that 90 minute wait I swore I would save every penny I could to by any car – just so I wouldn’t have to stand in weather like this again. I didn’t care if I would still be stuck driving in the slush for 2 hours, I would be warm and dry. If the bus had come sooner it would have been just another Chicago winter day, instead the CTA (Chicago Transit Authority) just sold another car.
Weekly Town Crier
After a long hard week, enjoy this list of random links that we feel you may want to check out. Some may involve design, some may involve small business and others may just be something random we find interesting. Keep checking our site each Friday to find out what inspires or interests us. Feel free to email suggestions.
Follow us on Twitter.
Join our Flickr group.
Careful what you quote.
Nice option for recycling.
Full speed ahead, Mr. Grey!!
I hope they cleaned them first!
The box is sweeter than the contents.
Finally, a safer way to drive!!
The Smashing Pumpkins!!