Sept 9 – Sept 13 at SMHa
Monday, Sept 9:
Today, I worked on making an addendum for the project I have been working on throughout the summer, Hand Institute of Charleston. This project involves two doctors who are hand surgeons buying an empty shell of a building and designing their own office space to practice. As this project comes to an end, I am helping create revisions and an addenda while working with the contractors, the architects, and the clients themselves.
AXP Hours: 4 PDD
Tuesday, Sept 10:
Today, I continued my work from yesterday. Adding revision clouds to the set of construction documents, adding to the addenda, emailing contractors who are bidding for this project, and reviewing changes on the MEP portion of the drawings.
AXP Hours: 4 PDD
Wednesday, Sept 11:
I continued a lot of Monday and Tuesday’s work today. The architects are still finding revisions that need to be addressed and lots of redlines.
AXP Hours: 4 PDD
Thursday, Sept 12:
Out today!
Friday, Sept 13:
Today, we had our office meetings and a breakfast together. After that, my work had been finished for the week so I worked on practicing Revit skills, watching tutorials, attempting new things.
AXP Hours: None
Hand Institute of Charleston
202 Nexton Square Drive, Nexton, SC
Project Scope: One of our project architects is working on a tenant up fit for an existing shell building in Nexton. This project included programming, construction documents, interiors, and construction administration. Two surgeons are attempting to create a healthcare facility of their own and being that it is their dream, SMHa is working hard to make every detail work together.
Project Manager: Jeff Johnston – Upfit, Samantha Meiders – Interiors
Role of Student: I have assisted with programming, circulation routes, drawing and modeling in Revit, construction documents, interiors, the addenda, and construction administration with Jeff Johnston and Samantha.
What I have learned:
Being able to finally see this project come to an end has taught me more about what it is like to be an architect than anything ever before. Never have I seen a project go from just an idea on the page to an actual, built space. I did not understand the detail or complexity of drawing construction documents, but being that this was a smaller scale project, Jeff allowed me to help draw everything and really wrap my brain around this space. I also have never drawn interior casework or suggested furniture layouts for spaces. Seeing how they work specifically for a medical office taught me so much about the importance of materials and how having an interiors department working close with the architect can create a streamline of production. It also ensures that the architecture and the interiors will work together seamlessly to create the final vision of the building. I had no idea the benefit of having these two Architects working side by side to make sure that the inside of this office was what the two surgeons wanted. Finally, writing the building code and addenda of this project were two things that I did not think I would enjoy. While it wasn’t fun, I have actually never done that before or realized the importance of it. Even when you think a project is finally done and printed, there is always room for changes and they are inevitable. Seeing how many small details we missed even though we poured over those documents for days amazed me. The tiny details that an architect slaves over can make or break a project, and I have never recognized that until working alongside Jeff for this.
