Overview:

I was able to get out of the office this week and make some job site visits as well as a stakeholder meeting at the Old Library. For our job site visits I went with our CA Director out to North Charleston where we have a project under construction for Charleston Library Support Facilities. This project was a renovation of an existing CMU building that the Charleston County Facilities Department purchased. The only remaining element of the existing building is the exterior walls, foundation, and roof structure; everything else is being newly installed in the building. The reason for our visit was that the contractor had some questions for us before an OAC meeting on site. During a site walk with the owner and contractor we noticed some issues with the sheet rock that was being installed and asked the sub contractor to have his workers pull down a part of it so that we could see if there was proper mudding under corner beads… There was not. So the contractor proceeded to tell them to take all of the corner beads down that had been done, which was about 50% of the buildings corner beads. We then had our OAC meeting where the plumbers joined us to discuss a bathroom drain we detailed. As a spectator of this conversation I noticed great frustration from the plumbers and what they were being asked to do by the architect as there was a detail that we had drawn showing the bathroom drain in the center of one of our hexagonal shaped tiles, this was a 6″ drain that would need to go directly through a 9″ tile which was very difficult to place. The placement of the drain ended up being resolved and will land wherever it lands in the bathroom within one of the stalls.

Thursday afternoon I was able to join Michael Edwards in a pre-bid meeting where we presented the EP Lab project to a group of contractors that may be interested in the job. This was a relatively quick meeting as the job is not too big, but it was very informative for me to see how one of these meetings typically goes and the types of questions that contractors have. Following this meeting I joined Michael at the VA Hospital where we walked a few projects that we previously worked on and discussed with the project manager some of the issues that they are having with the recently finished areas of design. This was a fun opportunity for me to walk the campus of the hospital with Michael and see the plethora of projects that we have done at the hospital that I actually go to for my own health care and have experienced these spaces since living in Charleston.

Weekly Tasks:

Tuesday 10/29 – Joined our CA Director on a site visit to North Charleston where I walked the site with the contractor before having an OAC meeting. I learned to check the work of the sub contractors and know what your drawing and the importance of being able to tell if the construction of your design is being done properly.

Total hours worked: 8

Thursday 10/31 – In the morning I worked on red lines for about an hour until I left for a stakeholder meeting at the James Island Old Library to discuss program and schematic design options moving forward. This meeting was very informative as we listened to some of the parties who would be using the building and what they would like to see in the final product. In the afternoon I went the Veterans Administration Hospital for a pre-bid meeting and site visit.

Total hours worked: 8

AXP Hours to Date: 

Practice Management: 0

Project Management: 16

Programming & Analysis: 3

Project Planning and Design: 31

Project Development & Documentation: 98

Construction & Evaluation: 13