Confessions of an Architect

You would think that being a professional architect with 25 years of experience and running my own practice, I should know it all. Well early in my career I believed I knew it all. I opened an office as soon as I was licensed to practice confident that passing the grueling exams and completing an internship qualified me as an expert. However the more I practiced the more I realized how little I knew. Every project is unique with its own life story and lessons. Projects can be similar but they are never identical. Experience did teach me to be prepared for most potential problems (or like I prefer to call them situations) but it did not guarantee that I will always have an answer. What I have become really good at though is how to find the answer and to not be satisfied with illogical and non-practical solutions. So here I am documenting this adventure of our own home remodeling willing to candidly share with you my experience with its ups and downs, successes and failures recognizing that even an expert has still much more to learn.

Friday, June 25, 2010

Week One: We have a PERMIT


Monday June 21st 7:45 am; I get the call from the building department. The permit is ready to be picked up. Finally after 6 month of submittals, changes, revisions and delays due to an understaffed and overworked building department; we can now start construction.
Tuesday; I meet with Steve the general contractor to go over the plans and schedule and he drops a bomb. He informs me at the eleventh hour that he needs to move the foundation walls 2 feet away from the existing to allow for form installation and removal. Forming the walls the way I had them is not impossible just more complicated and the concrete subcontractor had not planned on doing it that way. Moving the foundation walls affects the space and layout. It's like a domino effect. I scolded him for not telling me about this problem until now especially that he had the plans for 6 month and had assured me that he had gone through them with a fine tooth comb. This was not a small oversight and I am now wondering what else will pop up at the last minute. The excavator was already lined up and there was no time to reconsider a different method; after waiting so long to get started I was not willing to postpone the work, so I went along with the change scrambling to make sure that the layout will still work and that everyone had updated plans reflecting the changes and dimensions. So as you see even an architect is not immuned from unexpected complications and the truth is that additions and remodeling are the hardest to do because of all the hidden and unknown situations.In this case though there was nothing hidden and there was no excuse.
Confession:  I knew that the way I designed the foundation was non conventional, and that I should have verified it with the contractor ahead of time but I relied on the fact that he had the plans for a long time and that he studied all my details and since he did not bring it up I did not think it would be a problem. I broke one of my most important rules. NEVER ASSUME.

The rest of the week: The tractors are here and the guys begin demolishing the porch and concrete slabs. Excavation begins and we now have a mini grand canyon in the back yard. Huge piles of dirt are forming. By the end of the week the footings are formed and poured. They need 5 days to cure.

See pictures http://adventures-in-remodeling.blogspot.com/p/week-1.html
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