Monday: 3.11.19
Today, I spent the day working on Redlines for the MLK Pool enclosure. (Revit)
AXP Hours: PDD: 4 Hrs
Tuesday: 3.12.19
Day Off
Wednesday: 3.13.19
Today, I went with a coworker to Mary Ford Elementary School to meet with contractors and the project manager to discuss restroom renovations. We walked the school to visit all of the bathrooms and establish a plan for this summer to complete the renovation.
Then I spent 2 hours working on Redlines for Mike on the Deer Park Elementary School Portable. (AutoCAD)
AXP Hours: PM: 2 Hrs, PDD: 2 Hrs
Thursday: 3.14.19
Today, I worked on the Deer Park Mobile AutoCAD drawings. I made edits and corrected Redlines from the architect.
AXP Hours: PDD: 4 Hrs
Weekly Blog:
Deer Park Middle School Portable
2263 Otranto Rd, North Charleston, SC
Project Scope: One of our project architects is working on moving and renovating 5 new portables from different public schools within CCSD.
Project Manager: Mike Nixon
Role of Student: Editing Redlines and creating sheets in AutoCAD for the project manager and contractor to use in their multiple site visits.
What I have learned: Regarding my previous projects, the MLK Pool and the Deer Park MS portable, I don’t think I made any more huge revelations. I did work on them for the majority of the week, but when I had a huge learning curve was on my site visit. I realized the importance of being a people-person. When I went to Mary Ford Elementary school, me and Jamie (designer at my firm) had to work closely with a group of painters and a contractor to create a schedule for how we are going to renovate the bathrooms. With projects like these, I realized you really have to be careful coordinating what and when you are going to work. You can’t have the tile people replacing tile when you want the painters working, and you can’t have someone painting when plumbers need to be in there, etc. We had to coordinated all the way down to the janitors and when they needed to come in and wax the floors for summer break! So even though this really wasn’t my project for the week, it did teach me a lot about architectural practice. It’s imperative to be organized, a good planner, cooperative, friendly, and sociable. These contractors and painters were people that SGA uses all the time and they even remembered me as the intern.
In a place as small as Charleston, which I’m sure is also true of many places, you probably run-into or work with a lot of the same people. So building good relationships and creating a name for yourself in the community is huge. Cooperative, smart architects will get asked to do many more projects than those that can be difficult. This isn’t a job that you can sit behind the computer all day and isolate yourself. You have to be able to switch from socialite, project manager, organized maniac, coworker, and designer. This small trip made me gain a lot of perspective on the wide range of responsibilities and skills an architect must have to be successful in this business.