J.T. Pennington Week 9 Lessons Learned

Week 9 : October 23rd - October 27th, 2017

Lessons learned/reflections:

Monday 10/23: This week was my first time ever drawing switches and electrical outlets, which made me smile and chuckle at one point. I remembered conversations with an old professor my freshman year of architecture school that if I wasn't drawing floor tile patterns on my architecture plans than I didn't know how I wanted the space to be finished - and I should know the locations of all of the electrical outlets. I laughed during the review that day over a decade ago, and today thought about his words.

Tuesday 10/24: Ground floor lighting and electrical plan discussion with Kate revealed the extend of switch mounting locations and discussion of ground floor electrical with break-away wall assemblies. When you are close to the flood plain zone as we are in this residence on Sullivan's Island. The switches are permitted to be in the ceiling, but after we complete the job and the owner receives a certificate of occupancy a owner sometimes hires an electrician to run switches down to within comfortable reach (~48" AFF) so they aren't turning their lights on and off with a yardstick or broom handle, which made me laugh at that thought.

Wednesday 10/25: I spent some time double checking the door and window heights, which didn't take too long - but it was a duplitious document control process from what I'm used to doing. Due to the 2D nature of our drafting software, there are not parametric updating modeled components, so to ensure quality and reduce errors and omissions, it takes longer to do this task.

Thursday and Friday: I'm making progress on a couple of my goals that I had established for myself at the start of the semester - custom residential detailing in construction documents, specify a range of materials commonly used in residential construction for coastal homes, and design with flood resistant materials. I will try to elaborate some of those things through writing and photographs below:

Images of work completed:

Redline from Kate for conceptual layout of lights and switches.

Ground floor electrical plan

First floor electrical plan

Second floor electrical plan.

...

I also thoroughly enjoyed a construction observation site visit for a home in Mount Pleasant that is close to sustiantial completion; the general contractor is wrapping up his painting and needs to install his electrical fixtures and some of his door hardware, but most of the house is put together. This was the first project I've seen since working with Beau Clowney Architects that was in this late phase of construction; the previous two projects were in the framing stages but didn't have any gypsum board on the walls.

Photos of some of the overview and some of my favorite details for a private residence in Mount Pleasant, SC:

Front elevation from the driveway.

Panorama - Corbit (General Contractor Site Superintendent) and James (Beau Clowney Architects) talking in the garage along with construction site dog (she was super friendly).

Detached gate house, I loved the details of the doors; the roofing subcontractor needs to return to the site to remove the copper roofing protective film.

Copper gutter miter detail; it will patena over time.

I took this photograph for evidence of making progress on one of my goals for the academic semester, which was designing with flood resistant materials. The garage space pictured here is within the flood plane for Mount Pleasant but the house is elevated; the garage does not have breakaway walls that are used in some other construction assembly processes, but the garage is not insulated so there is no batt insulation in the exterior wall assemblies that would create mold in the event of a flood.

There are vents in the lower part of the walls with a double flap system that when horizontal pressure is applied during a storm surge or flood, the flaps open in a horizontal direction; when there is no water present, they are gravity driven and the flaps are closed to prevent mosquitos from entering the garage; the exterior face (visible from the public right of way) are a metal lathe looking grid, which are painted white so they blend into the wooden tongue and groove siding.

Flaps

Double flap system

Second flap lifted, metal grid and exterior beyond.

Refrigerated dedicated wine cellar room. The cabinetry inside is a beautiful mahogany shelving system; I ran my finger along the guelph cross like form for the wine bottles and was looking for the shop drawing detail of how the horizontal members were connected to the continuous vertical elements. There is no exposed hardware present (a beautiful detail) which made me think that the vertical elements have a dado groove and the horizontal elements are glued in with a mortise and tendon detail. Beautiful! On a funny note, there is no wine in the cabinetry yet but along the left wall beyond the limits of the photograph one of the contractors had set a water bottle horizontal to imitiate the form of a wine bottle; it made me laugh.

Standing in the living room looking back into the kitchen and corridor going to the garage. Love the exposed beams - but they are a false system; they are milled 1x members that are mitered together to look like an old real beam while in fact there are new hardwood beams beyond to carry the load. I caught the detail with my own eye before James explained it to me - there was a small gap on the right hand beam that is seen from another angle in the dining room area.

In my best Captain Kirk voice, "Enhance."

"Enhance."

Check out the little tiny shadow filled gap that was my clue that it wasn't a real beam.

Scaled mockups and prototypes. Lime wash pictured above.

White wash finish pictured above, lighter and darker below.

Wax finish pictured above for the original wood, a little wax finish on the left no wax and on the right hand side.

View of the living room looking out into the back patio and pool.

Back porch, with the grill on the left hand side, TV yet to be installed over the exterior patio fireplace. This would be one of my favorite places in the house.

Back porch grill is about to be installed but the stone cap was added this week. Nice view to your next door neighbor when you're grilling out in the summer.

View from their back porch out to their dock; I took several photos as a tug boat was passing by and this was the best photograph; I'm happy to share that I also included the rafter bracing in this photograph, which is a subtle detail for helping to solve some of the long spans represented here.

Continuing to talk about goals, notice the long distance span and how we solved the high beam condition with louvers. This was a challenge that James shared with me that was tackled during shop drawing review because the millwork vendor said that the louvered slats would buckle or deflect because the span was too long. James worked out that the support needed could be a spacer, but he didn't want to break up the aesthetic of the proportions with the vertical elements and the wood columns, so he asked for a spacer. I love the solution that Beau Clowney Architects solved because the spacer is not visible from the interior side of the back porch that the client/home owner will see from their view, but solves the material limits. The spacer is only visible from the exterior side - and it's subtle. If I hadn't pointed it out to you, it never would be noticed by a casual observer.

Inside view the home owner will see.

Exterior view where the spacers in the central louver are visible.

Louver spacer detail.

Here's the view out to the back porch. Please excuse me while I drink my coffee out there every morning before the day starts. (The dock actually faces west so it would be better for sunsets in an adirondack chair, but drinking coffee out there in the morning the sun would rise behind your right shoulder. Not a bad view all in all.)

Back patio looking to the living room; the thru-wall scuppers haven't been resolved yet, we had a brief discussion and laugh about how long they are now - I liked the shadow line that it created for the photograph.

Integrated photovoltatics onto the copper roof - I've never seen this before in person - and they are awesome!