Week 17

This week i was looking forward to a shortened week, as the 1st of May is Workers Day, and fell on the Tuesday, another ly-in is always gooood :)

By the time wednesday had come, i was ready for the week knowing the weekend was only 3 days away, and a good weekend it was to be :)

first things first, and council visits were top priority as we were to get plans submitted ASAP upon completion.

Admin was always a mission. this meant that being the student, i was responsible for this. I managed to get all the admin work up to dat of the following projects: House Doyle, Stander, Schoch, Myburgh and McIver, finilising the projects for council.

I was then given the task of completing the plans for House Scheibe which was started by last year's student. The project wasn't too big, involving the adding of pergola's, removing and replacing of windows and opening of walls etc. this project would take me a day or two to complete, no biggy :)

Week 16

the week started off pretty well with me attending the talk by Gawie Fagan, a famous South African Architect at our campus.. was a nice outing that involved me taking the BRT's from Table View to Cape Town, and back :) I enjoy the sight-seeing along the way. The talk was good, but seeing some old friends and familiar faces made the time taken off work, all the more better!

House Pearson was a new project for the week, which involved the enclosing of a patio of a ground floor apartment at Big Bay Beach Club in Melkbosstrand. As Enrica is one of the 'referred to' architects of the Estate, we had already had all the blocks of apartments, etc on our system, so small projects like these were simple, and in and out the office within a matter of a day or two.. this meant i just had to copy the standard dwelling of that unit type and enclose the patio to the specific requirements and guidelines of the estate. all that needed to be fitted were two alluminium sliding doors, and a fixed glass panel

During the week i had to get in contact with Gary from Trendmark, the signage company that would be responsible for the signage of Project Nebula, and find out all the relevant details and information regarding the flag-pole signs and wall mounted metal cut-outs, so that i could prepare these on plans for council.

This week i managed to finish the plans for The McIvers. One more set of plans to go into the filing cabnet until we get all the necessary forms and paperwork from the client...

House Castro is a new house that was under construction at the moment at the Estate, Water's Edge in Melkboschstrand. During the week we recieved a phone call from the builder on site saying that certain concrete beams were be aligned at different heights, and not lining up, so Enrica had to go to site and come up with a solution of how to work around this and turn it into a feature. We spent a good few hours on site walking through the house ensuring that work was going according to the plans. We then left and headed towards the Big Bay Beach Club where The Pearson's lived so that we could go measure the balcony to be enclosed and ensure that the measurements correspond to those on the original plans of the dwelling... a few measurements were out and i had to rectify this one as the plans would be used for the manufacturers of the doors and windows. Usually if it's an 'as-built' plan, we dont worry tooooo much about the measurements being 100 % accurate.

Will be keen to see what next week brings :)

Week 15

after eventually having completed the council drawings for House Smith, Monday came, and i could print up the sets oof plans for council, together with all the admin work and documentation, and get it ready for the following morning's submission. This submission resulted in a departure (when building work encroaches the building line) and we then recieved the relevant documents and were told which neighbours needed to sign the consent forms. the departure was for the new concrete canopy that was to be cast on top of the new front entrance of the boundary wall, as this canopy projected over the building line. I then returned to the office, and Enrica took over the documentation and contacted the client and informed her of the departure fee and the forms needed to be signed by the neighbour. once these forms were completed and the fee paid, we could then submit the plans to council... its always a relief seeing a completed project be taken out of your hands and you can now focus on the other 10 projects you're busy with.. :)

I've finally gotten the hang of the submission forms required by council when submitting building plans.. i can now put together all the paperwork with my eyes closed, cause thats how good i am. lol

the week consisted of alot of driving around for the Enrica as she was too busy to take time out for driving her kids from place to place.. so it was my job to fetch Enrica's oldest son, Matthew, from school, take him to the orthodontist, wait for him there, then on to the dermatologist and to then drop him at home.. these errands can take a few hours away from my day at the office, which is sometimes a good thing, but when you have work piling on your desk, every bit of time wasted out of the office is crucial! this always ends up with me having to catch up on the work till after 6 the evening.

Some of the other projects i worked on during the week included some more drafting of House Labuschagne, Project Nebula ( parking and signage plans ), House Myburgh ( a project in Sunset Links, an estate in Milnerton, which i had to take over and complete. this included making a few changes, such as the adding of a new elevation showing a proposed screen wall being built along-side the plot, as this house was next to the golf-course and was permanently being damaged by the flying glof balls. I also had to make a few changes to the door and window schedule as what was on plan, did not match the elevations, which might have not matched the schedule, etc. The extended garage felt a bit bare, so to create a more exciting facade, pot plants of reeds were placed on the concrete roof, behind the parapet all along the garage, and the bare windows behind these planters were made more exciting through the adding of fake american shutters the the facade.. these all resulted in a good finish :)

I then recieved the brief for House McIver, which stated the following:
* to raise the level of the existing covered patio to match that of the inside of the dwelling
* to close of the covered patio with a stacker door on the front side, and the side to be closed off by a fixed glass panel and some brickwork
* the exisiting fireplace was to be removed and a smaller gas fireplace was to be installed, with the gas bottle to be placed at the back of the house
* a new boundary wall was to be built at the back of the house together with a gate leading out onto the golf-course.
* on the inside of this boundary wall was to be a vegetable garden
* a new wood storage and concrete counter was to be built at the back of the house
* the area around the wood storage was to be paved with the pavers removed from the covered patio
together with the requirements of the client, i would have to complete drawings of the following: floor plan, atleast one elevation, a section through the new enclosed patio, as well as the door and window schedule

Quite a week it's been to be honest... so time to reward myself with a good weekend ;)

Week 14

Back to the office after a good Easter weekend....ahhh!!


this week consisted of alot of re-drafting. this included House Labuschagne and Project Nebula


once the drafting of Nebula was complete, i then showed Enrica, and was told to start with the area calculations. I had to also work out the Gross Leasable Area, which is used to determine the number of parking bays required per a square meter of floor space of a business. next on the list were the parking, landscaping and signage layouts, which i could only do after discussing with the boss. together we went through the area calculations, calculated the number of parking bays required, and started playing around with the layout of the parking bays, making sure we provided a minimum of 11 bays to the property.


Unit 28 at Spearhead Business park was approved this week, and construction could now begin :) :)


I was then asked to complete the drawings of House Joffe, which just involved some drafting, the adding of dimensions, hatching, general notes, aswell as drawing out of the existing drainage and storm-water management of the property...


the week turned out ok, but a weekend is always much needed


cheers till next week :)

Week 13

Council visits first thing on a Monday morning arent the most pleasant duties... the queues are long, and people are impatient... but ive learnt it's something i've got to get used to. I had to drop off the ammended plans for House de Nobrega ( the beach house in Melkbos ) and make sure the council signs them off as recieved..

i also managed to finish House Smith during the week, and am just waiting for approval by the clients before we can go the next step of council.

re-drafting inlcuded House Labuschagne as well as Project Nebula

I had to return to Blauuwberg council yet again, this time to collect the approved plans of House Schrauwen, which i was a major part of, and ammend the drawing on the computer to what the plan examiner had changed on the approved drawing. After i had finished the drawings for House Schrauwen, we had sent them to the interior designers, and without taking any notice of the change, they had re-configured the bathroom layout, and placed a window closer than 1 meter from the boundary line, which is not acceptabl, unless fir-rated glass is used, and this is quite costly. the plas examiner was kind enough to move the widow for us, and once i got the approved plans back, i had to fix this on the computer. now the plans were looking pretty good! :) I also collected the plans for unit 28 at Spearhead Business park, and these also needed to be ammended as the suspended timber floor used as the loft area was not permitted, and the material had to be changed from timber, to something combustiable like metal sheeting. the plans were then re-submitted, and the wait continues....

Thursday involved me heading off to Big Bay Beach Club to collect plans we had drawn up, that were now approved by the Home Owners Association of the Estate, good news, and we could now submit these plans to council

now its time to forget about work, and get into the mood for the Easter weekend!! :)

Week 12

arriving at the office to find out we were having problems with the server wasnt a great start to the week at all, as the server was the brain of all the work we do!! this meant having to work off back-ups that were made onto our 'C- drive' until the IT guy, Joe, was able to come in and fix the problem ASAP! only to find out that he would have to take the server for a few hours so that he could fix the problem at his offices.. great...........

House Leclezio was on the agenda for measuring up. This house was made up of 3 seperate flatlets, rented by different families, but the new owners of the building wanted to create one large family home from all of the flatlets. It is our job to re-measure the project, but the re-drafting would be left to Xavier as it was quite a complicated house. but i wasnt complaining :) The measuring took us a long 8 hours

another measuring-up was to be done at House Ogi, as existing soft-copy plans were not available. this project involved a smaller house in Edgemead being renovated. The boundary walls are to be replaced, the garage is to be extended to the boundary line and a dressing room, en-suite and existing bedroom to be extended to the boundary line. The re-drafting was then handed over to Xavier, as i had enough on my plate already.....

the rest of the week consisted of me continuing with the re-drafting of Project Nebular

till next week

Week 11

first on the 'to-do' list for the week, was the measuring up of Project Nebula. This project involved the re-zoning of a property in Koeberg road. It is currently a bussiness situated in a residential area, and the process of re-zoning has gone from one architect to the next over the past 7 years already, with none of them correctley setting up plans for council..... We were then asked by the comany to take over the project and hopefully complete it to council's standards. The project was then to include site, floor and roof plans, elevations, as well and a parking, landscape and signage layout which was never done properly before.
it took myself and Enrica 5 hours to measure up the property and was over it by the time we got back to the office, lol




throughout the week, i kept having to ammend the plans for House Smith. because of the changes every few minutes, i wasnt sure the drawings would ever come to an end.. one of the changes included the extension to be a mono-pitched roof instead of the flat roof as previously asked for, so i had to call the truss company to enquire about the trusses that would be used for this roof as it couldnt be standard sizes due to the 7 degree roof pitch (lower than normal) and i had to correct the section through this room showing the new roof


another project measured up during the week, was House Labuschange. House Labuschagne is situated in Melkbos, and the project involves the complete renovation of the interior layout aswell as the modernising of the facades. 5 hours of measuring and we were good to go. Time to head back to the office and start with the re-drafting.


Seeing as we were in the area, we decided to go take a look at the progress of House de Nobrega. A quick visit turned into a 2 hour site meeting, which resulted in a loooong, exhausting day away from the office. the 'meeting' was to finalise door sizes and whether to break down certain walls or not....


Grateful this LONG week is overrrrrrr! bring on the weekend! :)