J.T. Pennington - Week 1 Lessons Learned

Week 1 : Short week since I started on August 31st and worked the 1st day of September before the weekend.

Lessons learned/reflections : I am filled with optimism, but first initial impressions are the vast differences between commercial and residential firms. 95% of all of my previous work experience has been K-12 schools, heavy industrial manufacturing, restaurants, and community based projects. I have worked on some low cost housing renovations for HUD housing, but only worked on one single family residence project - which was a complicated addition in a historic district of Frankfort, KY, that had to go through a board of architecture review.

Beau Clowney Architects focuses most of their efforts on new construction, renovation, and urban infill of single family homes in the Charleston low-country area; Charleston, Isle of Palms, Mount Pleasant, and Sullivan's Island. 90-95% of their work is residential, with 5-10% of their work is commercial. They write their own contracts, and have a different relationship between architect / client/ and contractor than the more formal and legal contracts typically seen in commercial work.

One of the first things that I learned about were some of the values that Beau Clowney Architects uses in their design - and part of that aesthetic is achieved through regulating sight lines regarding a custom door and window package. Within the custom package, aligned lite lines between doors and windows match the same head and sill heights. This gives you an uninterrupted line of sight to the outside and your eye focuses on a view, instead of the exterior envelope architecture. I'll try to provide some drawings and photographs to illustrate this principle below.

This was all new to me because most of my experience with doors and windows lies in hollow metal door packages and working with metal stud or CMU openings, where the throat of the door is offset towards the exterior side of the wall, or a masonry and CMU cavity wall where the jamb sits in the thermal barrier between the structure and veneer. I've enjoyed learning about hurricane impact resistant doors and windows that are needed in the Charleston area.

Images of work completed :

House #10 - my favorite house on our company's webpage.

Front elevation

Rear elevation

Interior view looking out to the back yard.

Here's what I see:

Notice how the window lites align with the door top rail lite. It's a subtle thing, but it's beautiful. Here's another example:

Here's the photograph of the dining nook adjacent to the kitchen.

Here's what I see : Lite lines indicated between doors and windows.

And here's that view of the low country.