Form suddenly meets function

One Monday morning many years ago, the boss came into the office and announced that we were going to enter a design competition for the West Hollywood Civic Center, which would be located on a block across the street from Cesar Pelli's Pacific Design Center. He had seen an ad for the competition on Saturday evening while he was looking through an architecture magazine, and he had come up with a concept that he was sure would win the competition. Soon after telling us about the idea, he sent in a check to get the program coming through the mail, and he called in an old friend who was also a space planner. The boss had already drawn up a building plan before the entry requirements and program information arrived in the mail. His plan - a giant bow tie - would be symbolic of a Hollywood he knew.

When the program and related information arrived in the mail, the space planner went to work, and we also enlisted help from a cost estimator. The program information stressed the importance of the budget.

After several days, the space planner and the cost estimator met quietly with the boss. Then they both left the office, and the boss presented the rest of us with a dilemma.

The space planner had found that the program spaces could not fill the immense bow tie plan that the boss had created. All of the departments and their discrete spaces could be sprinkled along the perimeter wall of the bow tie plan at each floor, but that left a vast amount of unoccupied space in the interior of the building. The construction cost estimate exceeded the project budget severalfold. We were also running out of time; the submission deadline was only a few days away. We would have to abandon the bow tie, cut off part of it, or reduce it. Considering the boss's situation (and ours), we ruled out the first two options.

We determined an ideal efficiency for the building, and we photographically reduced a copy of the building perimeter plan by a percentage that would accommodate the program area at each floor while maintaining a high net to gross efficiency. Then we shuffled and fit the program areas into the reduced bow tie plan. It would not have been the best plan for building occupants and furnishings, but it was mathematically efficient. Also, the cost estimate shrank to fit the budget.

Alas, the firm's entry did not win. The entry's call for knocking down all adjacent buildings on the block - some apparently occupied by competition jurors - may have influenced the outcome and kept the bow tie design from receiving an award. However, there were stranger entries among the hundreds that found their way into the display tent. One, perhaps given more serious consideration, was a billboard-like building featuring a giant Marilyn Monroe.

Zero Slump Concrete

After a few of us had taken the architect license exam, we were talking about the questions. One of the multiple choice questions asked how long to wait before removing the cone during a concrete slump test. My colleague had chosen answer "c. 3 days".

We usually locate the roof drains near the low point

We were working on the layout of the roof plan for a large, irregularly shaped building, designed with the structure gently warped to shed water to the edges. A drafter was adding roof drains to the plan, and I noticed that he was locating some of the drains about half way up the slope between the low point and the high elevation. I asked him why he was doing that, and he replied that he thought the drains at mid-slope would collect half the runoff on its way to the low point.

"Oh, I forgot to tell you," I said. "We usually locate the roof drains near the low point." He looked skeptical until I added, "It's office policy."

What's wrong with this picture?

a. The arrangement and swing of the door make the closet unusable, unless it is part of a set for a Three Stooges movie.

b. It was built as drawn, and it cost $1,000 to change the door to make the closet usable, because it was not part of a set for a Three Stooges movie.

c. The picture was not drawn in CAD.

d. 'a' and 'b' above.

Missing consultant coordination, a hilltop building gets a surprise lift station

If you put a new building on a hilltop, the need for a sewage lift station may be the last thing you would expect. However, if you discover that the plumbing waste pipe leaving the building is below the end of the previously installed outside sewer pipe that goes to a newly constructed septic system, you may realize that gravity acting alone will not get the sewage into the septic tank. A sewage lift station - purchased through a change order - may be the most economical way to get the sewage to its intended destination.

It would be better, if possible, for the engineers to coordinate their work so that the inside pipe and the outside pipe would meet at the same elevation. Apparently, someone did not understand that plumbing waste lines below the floor inside a building usually slope to drain, and that a run of a few hundred feet inside the building could put the waste pipe outlet several feet below the floor level, not just one foot, as suggested by the elevation at the end of the outside sewer pipe.

The person who presented the change order to the owner may have explained that it would be better to have a lift station, because you can't always count on gravity.

How Hard Does It Rain in the Northwest?

A shopping mall developer and the mall's architect have to stand up to the scrutiny of department stores who will be part of the development. I recall attending a meeting where the architect's head designer presented the design of the shopping mall to representatives of 5 department stores that planned to occupy sites along the mall.

One representative from New York was rumored to be the most difficult critic of them all. Scrutinizing the plan, he asked a question about projecting entrance canopies. "These entrance canopies appear to extend quite a ways from the building," he said. "Why is that?"

The designer had a quick response. "We wanted to limit the distance from the parking area to the covered area, because it rains a lot in the Northwest," he said.

The department store representative nodded. "Interesting," he said and then pointed to another area of the plan. "These entrance canopies over here are recessed into the building."

"Well," said the designer, "it doesn't really rain that hard in the Northwest."

The Long View

One of the first projects I worked on was a 2-bedroom addition to a neighbor's house in the mid 1960's. It was pretty simple: a short hallway, two bedrooms, and two closets. The layout was efficient. The neighbor and his father-in-law built the foundation and most of the framing quickly, but when they started laying out the interior partitions, the father-in-law asked me to consider a change in the plan. "I would like to angle this wall with the door to the bedroom," he said. "That way, we can get the furniture into the room." When I looked then at the plan as I had drawn it, I realized that the change was necessary. As designed, the hallway was large enough to accommodate the furniture in one position, but not large enough to maneuver it 90 degrees into the bedroom. It's usually a good idea to plan ahead at least to the next step, even if you are not considering a long term effect on global climate.

Random Lengths to 16 Feet

There are a few buildings from the early 1970's in upstate New York where you may still be able to see running trim in uniform 8 ft. lengths. This was a brief aberration from the standard for running trim, which is "random lengths to 16 feet". I had been working briefly as a lister for a millwork subcontractor. The lister makes out the mill orders, including cuts and finishes to rough stock. At that time, based on limited architectural background and some fence-building experience with my dad, I thought the ideal length for anything made of wood was 8 feet, and, if it didn't come that length, it was our responsibility to make it that length. As a result, the parts that were milled under my listing orders were typically delivered to the construction site in uniform 8 ft. lengths...until I got the call. One day the boss called from a high school construction site, and he asked me why the running trim was all delivered in 8 ft. lengths. He said the contractor's superintendent was upset about that and wanted it the regular way: "random lengths to 16 feet". Once I understood the problem, I also realized there were about 4 other projects that would be making the same call.

Just a Fraction of an Inch

In 1970, when I was working for a millwork subcontracting company in a small town in northern New Hampshire, I was given the task of coordinating the machining of approximately 1,000 wood doors with metal frames ("bucks") for a hospital addition and renovation project in upstate New York. As part of its subcontract, my employer was to coordinate and supply all of the wood doors for the project.

My assignment took me to the job site, where the frames had already been installed. It was an interesting scene. None of the interior partitions had been built, so the 1,000 standing door frames looked like a forest. I had to locate each frame by number (fortunately, they were marked) and verify dimensions (height, width, rabbet, latch, and hinge ("butt") locations). From my perspective at the time, they all looked the same. I had not yet heard the saying "measure twice, cut once". Instead, I measured once, and every one of the 1,000 doors had to be cut twice. First, the door manufacturer followed my dimensions and machined the butt cutouts on the door edge, and then the contractor did it again in the field, because my field dimensions between the butt locations in the metal frames had been off by 1/16 inch. Sometimes, a fraction of an inch really does make a difference.