J.T. Pennington - Week 12 Lessons Learned

Nov 17, 2017
3 min read

Week 12 : November 13th - November 17th

Lessons learned/reflections:

Monday, November 13th: Continued on the interior elevations; half of the first floor is complete, working on the second half later this week then will need to move upstairs. Cabinetry/millwork is something that takes me the longest to draw because I am designing it and looking at porportions / stretching lines, instead of working on redlines. Full overlay doors and drawers are beautiful, and I love the way how they look on the interior elevations and when built in the field.

Wednesday, November 15th: I made some prints for a client meeting at 9:00AM today and was able to hear the conversation with the open office enviornment even without being at the conference room table; the client's primary concern was not understanding the exterior of the home - she was looking for some sort of rendering to see the big picture. It was a reminder to me that with all of our training to draw, read, and see drawings - sometimes we still need to to think of perspective renderings to help someone who doesn't see the same way we see and think. Beau was able to reassure the client that the exterior wood siding and the roof pitches fit into the context of the neighborhood and would feel like it fit and belonged with the neighborhood.

Thursday, November 16th: Kate and I discussed the structural engineering construction documents I redlined last week to see what I missed or if I caught something. We talked about how I caught the back porch beam condition and I learned that a WOLM PSL is a wolmanized parallel strand lumber. I took a brief minute to research this - which falls under one of my goals of, "specifying a range of materials used in residential construction for coastal homes," and its an pressurized immersion of lumber into a CCA chemical mix - Hexavalent Chromium (CrO3), Copper (CuO), and Arsenic (As2O5) in a long tank. It's exceptionally strong with long lifespans and is suitable for high moisture, high humidity, and even immersion of water; this makes it a great material for homes built along the coast or on the oceanfront property lines with hurricanes, storm surges, and the possibility of floods as it minimizes rot and decay of other lumber. You can read more about it here, and I've included some photographs of the process below. This was one of my goals that I had not made much progress on because we don't write typical specifications, so I was happy to learn a little more about it.

I started and developed a marketing RFQ using Adobe InDesign for pursuing new work. Developed page templates and started to plug in marketing data.

Friday, November 17th:

Finished the marketing RFQ I started yesterday; I can't share any of the data because of the privacy associated with the project, but I had fun working on it and it was a good change of pace from my normal workload. Kate and Beau both seem pleased - I hope we get the job.

Around mid October, Ashley Jennings, Kate Campbell, and Beau Clowney encouraged me to look for another goal over the remainder of my time of the mentorship; my new goal is learning to be able to take the graphic style of the office with me going forward in the future as a designer and future licensed architect, and I've enjoyed making more beautiful drawings here than working at previous companies. (To be fair, G. Scott & Associates Architects PLC makes beautiful working drawings too that I aspire to draw as well.) Some of that beauty to me comes from excellent lineweights and visual acuity, but also I've been learning more about drawing what the contractor will need in the field regarding some of the custom detailing.

Images of work completed:

Here are some of the drawings I've been working on for a private residence in Mount Pleasant. I'm including a partial plan and some of the interior elevations that I really like in a closer detail.

First floor plan at master bedroom: