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 ;)