Blitz Build Update September 30, 2007
Posted by Vincent in Architecture.Tags: 512 Peyton
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Here are a couple Blitz Build photos, as promised. I have flagrantly stolen everything in this post from James Wheeler. Thanks James!
Day 1, AM:
Day 1, PM:
As of last Friday, the house was very close to done. I think they will be putting finishing touches on the cabinets and trim and so on tomorrow. All told, the Blitz Build has been a great success.
Blitz Build September 26, 2007
Posted by Vincent in Architecture.Tags: 512 Peyton
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Here’s a fun idea for building a house: finish it in ten days. That’s the idea behind the volunteer blitz build on Edward Parker’s house, designed by the Studio’s very own Kristen Zeiber. The schedule:
Day 1: Framing (walls framed and sheathed, roof framed and sheathed)
Day 2: Building wrap, begin siding, install windows and doors, electrical and plumbing, roofing
Day 3: Sheetrock taping and mudding, siding and trimming
Day 4: Texturize sheetrock, finish siding, begin handicap ramp
Day 5 (today): Paint inside, exterior trim, finish handicap ramp
The house looks nearly finished on the outside. The inside still needs trim, cabinetry, light fixtures, flooring, and so on. This method, while it can’t be done with every house because of the amount of coordination involved, produces results - fast but with good quality. Helping out are Habitat, Hopeforce, Hands On, the Design Studio, and probably others.
It’s also a great way to learn how to build a house. I’ve been able to go down and help out one full day and two half-days, building walls, raising beams, helping install rafters, wrapping Tyvek, installing windows, nailing down roofing, digging holes, carrying heavy things around, bending steel girders with my bare hands. Sometimes I’m so manly it frightens me.
Never bothered to take pictures, but I’ll try to steal some from somebody and post them.
Link o’ t’day: Some perspective on the hysteria surrounding Ahmadinejad’s visit to the States.
Watching Bush and Ahmadinejad spar over the past few years has been disconcertingly like watching the two kids who nobody likes show-fighting with each other on the playground. Sadly, every juvenile barb fuels the other’s more fanatical supporters at home. Further reading: a transcript of a recent CBS interview with Ahmadinejad.
Food Network September 19, 2007
Posted by Vincent in Life.2 comments
So yesterday the Food Network very generously cooked dinner for a Volunteer Appreciation event over at the Salvation Army. I didn’t get any awards (have my two weeks of work gone so completely unnoticed?!) but the food was good enough to ignore the oversight. The show was Dinner Impossible with Robert Irvine. I wasn’t previously familiar with it, but Robert Irvine is dispatched every episode to cook a meal for a large number of people on very short notice. Watch the episode whenever it comes on, you might get a glance of me. (I’m presuming you have nothing better to do with your life). Pictures after the break.
New home away from my home away from home September 19, 2007
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Moved out of the trailer and into m’new house last Sunday. It’s a smallish cottage duplex near the beach, two bedrooms, good kitchen, nice front porch. My mum brought the majority of the stuff down this past Friday (thanks!) and I’ve got everything more or less arranged. As a housewarming of sorts, I cooked dinner (Moroccan chicken & sausage curry over couscous! Tasty) for a crowd o’ people — the Americorps folks, Price from the Studio, and my roomates Becca, Quincy, Anne, and friends — and good times were had by all.
Here’s my room (the cleanest it’ll ever be; I thought I’d take a couple pictures in case Hurricane Vincent hits).
No internet in the house, so everything I post has to come from either the Salvation Army or the office. I’m still looking into the cost of an internet connection around here.
In work news, I had my second meeting with the Hoxie St. client, developed a steel and concrete stair and other details for Rosetti St., and I’m looking forward to helping out with the blitz build on the Parker house tomorrow. (Lots of volunteers = framing the house in a day).
Salvo! September 9, 2007
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Bienvenidos todos al Salvation Army de Biloxi! This retrofitted high school football stadium has been the home of their relief efforts since only a few days after Hurricane Katrina, but by now Susan and Edwin, the directors, have it converted into a first-rate volunteer base. There’s everything a volunteer needs: three meals a day, showers, laundry, wireless internet, cable tv, and it’s all completely free. It’s pretty quiet right now: the hundreds of volunteers will start coming in in a couple weeks, when the weather cools down.
Here’s Sunset Creek, our trailer! Today, however, I’ll be moving into a house a mile or two from here; pictures soon.
The GCCDS : our digs September 8, 2007
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Today’s post is a quick photographic tour of our office. But first, exciting news — I met with my first new client today, Lendell. I’ll be designing a house for Lendell, and David Perkes and I discussed with him what he wants and needs in a home (David is the head of the studio, and my boss). It went well; of course no firm decisions are made at this stage, but with the information he gave us I’ll be able to start drawing up some ideas.
So here’s the unassuming brick building where we work. This is actually the EBCRRA — the East Biloxi Coordination, Relief, and Redevelopment Agency — which houses a number of organizations, including Architecture for Humanity and our own, the Gulf Coast Community Design Studio (GCCDS).
Plain on the outside, to be sure. On the inside, we get an open, well-lit space to work in:
The building has been recently and skilfully renovated. Here’s one of my favorite parts, our project tracking board:
And examples of past and current work:
Finally, a trip through the hallway to our offices in the back:
It’s a nice place to work, even if it’s modest enough that I drive past it by accident half of the time. The office interesting because it’s demonstrative of the sort of relaxed yet efficient professionalism under which the studio operates. Good organization helps push a project through the various stages of planning, designing, permitting, and construction. The result is that, for a group of roughly a dozen young students and interns and only one licensed architect, the studio produces a remarkable volume and quality of work.
145 Rosetti September 6, 2007
Posted by Vincent in Architecture, Design/Build.Tags: 145 rosetti
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Here’s a first look at one of the projects I’ll be working on completing over the next couple of months. This one’s interesting because it’s already well into construction: this house was begun by the Design Corps Summer Studio, which ended — after making impressive progress — and handed it off to the GCCDS and a contractor to finish designing and building.
This house, built for a lady named Patricia, shows a couple characteristics of Biloxi architecture. First, it’s elevated approximately 12 feet above the ground, based on federal flood height estimates. Not all new buildings are elevated that high, and some aren’t at all, but it’s a requirement in some places. Second, it exemplifies the Dogtrot style of house: two enclosed, conditioned spaces, separated by an open-air walkway (the dog-trot), which in this house also serves as the landing for the stair.
As you can see in this second photo, the porch also becomes an important exterior space. If this were my house, I’d love to keep it sans railings (what building codes?)
The stairs down. The railings for the exterior spaces and stairs will have to be designed over the next week or two.
Next, the distinctive bracing pattern under the floor, as designed by the summer studio folks. It looks great, and reminds me of a tree, which is a theme that comes up several times in this building.
General shot of the floor framing, Sonotube columns, bracing, stairs, scaffolding, and so forth.
That’s the status as of today. More news as it breaks.
