Posted by Susan Isaacs
Today I’m giving you a peak at the sort of thing designers would rather not point out: sometimes we make mistakes. Gasp! Unfortunately it’s true, and with the permission of one of our fav clients, I thought I’d share one of our mistakes from a few weeks back…and what we did to fix it.
More than anything else, I want to share it because in Architecture school my professors often told my studio-mates and I to “measure twice, cut once.” We practice this on a daily basis, but there are those occasions when everyone forgets to measure that second time. Even more importantly, I’ve learned over the years that a pair of fresh eyes can sometimes catch a problem you’re too close to see. Usually it would not be a big deal (after all we work hard to get it right the first time!), but this particular snafu was the perfect storm of mis-measurement, tired eyes and a real error we should have caught.
I recently read a great article by Steve Baty of Meld Consulting entitled “The Idiot Check” in which he uses a simple metaphor to explain the value of doing “a last minute, top-to-tail, make-no-assumptions check before you turn out the lights and close the door behind you.” I recommend you read it.
To make use of Steve’s analogy, we did the walk through about 50 times, but then drove off with the front door unlocked, because it was so ‘obvious’ we all thought someone else had checked it. Someone else hadn’t and here is our humbling story of what happened:
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Posted by Philip Joyner
There is something about history battered by age. It appeals to me more than shiny classic cars and restorate structures of times past. Broken tile, peeling paint, old letters, rusted metal… To me, history isn’t supposed to be prestine. It involves wrinkles and scars. It stands against time and says, “I might be battered but damnit I’m still here.”
I had a chance to document one such place in the form of the 2nd and 3rd floors of Oatland Island Wildlife Center’s main building. Next week (June 15th, 2009) these floors will be renovated into offices and classrooms. Read More of this post
Posted by Andrew Davies
This past Friday night we had the great honor of getting a personalized tour of the Loci Design Gallery.
Designed and built by one of Susan’s architecture professors Tim Woods, the LDG is an example of a LOCI MODular home; created to be flexible, affordable and above all else sustainable.
More pictures after the jump but for a better look and deeper understanding of this great concept check out his website.
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Posted by Susan Isaacs
I know we’ve been doing quite a number of “green” themed posts lately, and hopefully you’re just as interested as we are in the conservation and longevity of our natural resources. If you’ve been reading the blog you’d of course recall our mentioning some of the things we are doing to be greener graphic designers.
For me particularly (because of my background in architecture) I am extremely interested in green building technology, so I was very intrigued at the news that Skidmore Owings & Merrill (SOM), one of the premier architecture firms in the world has designed the very first ‘Energy Plus’ and ‘Carbon Zero’ office building (70,000 sq m), to be constructed near Paris.
The entire roof of the structure will house solar panels and the resulting power will be enough the run all air conditioning, heating and lighting required to keep its 5,000 occupants comfy. While most modern buildings of this scale consume between 80 and 250 kilowatts per square meter (older buildings as much as 300kw/sq m), this new building will employ a new type of insulation that will help cut consumption down to as little as 16kw/sq m. [1 sq m is equal to roughly 10.8 sq ft].
Admittedly this is quite an ambitious undertaking and has required some big-name backing to bring it to this point, but hopefully this will be the first of many projects that radically change the way we view large commercial structures and their impact on the environment.
Click here to read more about this project.
