Saturday, April 2, 2011

Elevator Modernization Project Marketing

One project I was given was to design a marketing piece/poster for the Electric Tower Elevator Modernization Project that will be completed throughout this next upcoming summer. Here is the design that is just about final:

The idea was to create almost like a thermometer with the electric tower logo to show at what point the project is at. The logo instead of the actual building is used so that focus is not deterred from project completion to the completion of actual floors within the building because in the logo the floors are not distiguishable.

Billboard Design

We are planning on renting a billboard on the 33 as you drive downtown for the Electric Tower. The interesting thing I think of this is the fact that a motorist will see the billboard then within seconds past the billboard the Electric Tower will be in view. I gave feedback on the company's designs as well as feedback to the marketing manager about what I think would be a good idea as well as he gave me some ideas. I also started working on a couple ideas for the billboard and the main idea I liked was trying to find a way to highlight or somehow point to the actual tower with the billboard. Here is one of the ideas I was working on

The beam coming from the tower is supposed to point to or highlight the actual tower if the billboard we rent is one of the closest two to the city.

I also received the specs on the costs and avg traffic that passes each billboard every day, which I thought was interesting.

2410 North Forest image 3


This image shows one side of the building that is open for lease. It will remain unfinished until a tenant leases the space and we can design the space for their needs. Here you can see how the raised floor is installed as a grid with square tiles being held up by metal supports. The supports are glued or adhesed to the floor which I thought wouldn't be sufficient, but apparently it is. Also you can see the raised concrete near the exterior windows which is where they have the windows for the basement on the exterior.

2410 North Forest image 2

These two images show the showers and lockers that are in the basement of 2410 which help give credit towards LEED Certification.

2410 North Forest image

Indoor planting:

Throughout the lobby at 2410, there are self watering planters. There is a separate system that was installed to provide the watering. One comment I would have about this would be to utilize storm water to provide the water for the system or somehow use recycled water which they currently do not. I brought this up and they said they looked into it, but it is too expensive.

2410 North Forest Property (new build)


This new build was done and just completed to get LEED Certification. There is noone in the office who is LEED Certified so they have to get someone from outside the organization to do it. There are a couple archtiectural designers who have the knowledge, but just havent been certified yet.

In this image you can also see the windows along the base of the building to get natural daylight into the basement.

image 4 from 6467 Maint st visit

Ceiling waves:

These were used mainly as a design element within the office space, but they have other qualities as well such as reflecting and absorbing sound so it isnt as noisy throughout the space

image 3 from 6467 Maint st visit

Frame detail:

The cauking between the frames and wall created an issue as well because it wasn't consistent and also had to be redone to proper quality and detail level. This along with the baseboards were two major callouts on the punchlist

image 2 from 6467 Maint st visit

Main hallway space under construction:

Throughout the space this curve was used on the celing and floors as a design element. You can see the drop in ceiling tile grid being installed here

Images from 6467 Main St property

Baseboard details:

This part of the detail work had some issues throughout the design and construction. The drywall seams caused an issue with the baseboard getting pushed away from the wall and the contractor was supposed to take care/fix it, but didn't until it was already completed and had to be redone. The main option at avoiding this problem was to feather the bottom of the wall so that it was even and the board would stay flush with the wall

Architectural Punch List from 6467 Main st property

I am not sure how visible this is... but this is the sheet we went through when we took the site visit to 6467 Main St. We were supposed to go over this and complete it before the tenant moved in about 2 days later. Being able to walk through a bldg or space that you designed with this sheet is very interesting because details and certain elements of the design and finish can be nitpicked and dealt with so that they are completed the right way.

Here are a few images from the 6467 Main St space in the posts to follow

Friday, April 1, 2011

Friday April 1st, 2011

The architecture manager has had me working on a space planning exercise for the past week. I feel this has been the biggest learning experience thus far due to the nature of what I have been given. Basically I was given the location, the plan of the current building, what we plan on doing to the building in terms of an addition and what the required office space dimensions are.

So to start this I created blocks for the different office sizes and work stations as well as blocks for the different spaces that are required in the building. I had to look through code books to determine how many toilets were needed for the occupancy load in the building. I also had to read through the code book to figure out the minimum/maximum distance for the egress access.

Talking with one of the architectural designers, she was giving me tips and ideas on how spaces are generally laid out to get me started. This included public spaces such as conference rooms & training rooms being located somewhat near the front of the space so that visitors dont have to walk through the workstation areas to get to the conference rooms. Restroom location should be considered on a basis of once it is there then it stays there even for future tenants down the road so that the plumbing or anything else associated with the restrooms doesn't have to be relocated.