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! :)

Week 10

It felt like a long weekend after the block days we had last week, which makes the routine of waking up early, peak-hour traffic, and the job of sitting infront of the computer all day, all the more daunting.... but i guess its part of life ay...


the week started off at bull-blast, because of the fact that i had missed 2 days of work last week and it was my job to make sure i catch up on all outstanding work.


the first project of the week was 'House Rumbelow,' a log cabin in the Cederberg that was to be re-drafted, as the previous architect's drawings of the extension was not approved by council, yet building had already been completed.... We had a variety of old and existing plans to work with, and was my job to compile these new plans for approval by council, showing the extension as if it was still to be built. Included in these plans, were the floor and roof plans,  all elevations, sections, the door and window schedule, drainage section, as well all the general notes. It took me 2 days to complete this project, which meant one more project scratched off the 'to-do' list :)

i then continued with the drawings for house Smith, after Enrica had met with the clients and discussed some changes.

Wednesday was the Receptionist, Tammryn's, last day at work, as she had resigned a month ago... so i decided to have a party the day she left ;) i brought the Starbucks coffee, and tammryn brought the cupcakes that she had baked the previous night.. hmmmmm :) although id only known her for about 2 months, we had gotten to know each other quite well, and every day was a laugh and a half with the two of us in the same room.. but she is quite crafty, and wants to go into the crafting business of making mosaics and paintings, so i wish her well

i then realized i had forgotten to do the area calculations for 'House Rumbelow,' and quickley went back to the drawing and completed this. these calculations included: the coverage, bulk, area of new work, etc. where i had to get the mathematical part of my brain working again,, lol

Friday had eventually come, and the previous year's student was kind enough to come into the office and show me how to go about setting up for the PSS portfolio, as i was not sure of what was needed..

i could say its been a pretty good week after all!