Wednesday, July 2, 2008

Archi- Teck

Making buildings beautiful

So what is it exactly that you do? “Well I’m an architect” . Blank stare, “Oh that’s exiting”. More blank stares, and some muttering. You’d think that this statement would inspire more enthusiasm from people. But no, apparently beyond you design buildings right?

No one seems to have a clue what it is I do from eight to five, or why on earth they have to pay so much for the service.

Recently I had a brief discussion with an ex-client as to why after I’d already completed a significant amount of work on their project that sorry no they just thought R5000 was too much to pay for my having measured up and drawn their house plans because city council had lost the originals. Because and I quote “its too much to pay for a drawing”. As you can imagine,

“Well fine then.” Press end call. To put things mildly I was livid. More because this person was a lawyer, some one who bills in thousands of rand per hour, could not comprehend why I was changing this amount. The general feeling being what I do for a living is not valuable in their eyes as worthy of actually paying for.

Let me state out right, it’s not about drawings. Actually I give you an uneducated person the same task and I’d guarantee council would not pass your house. So no it’s not about the drawings, I did not study for 6 years in higher education to learn to draw. That’s I could do when I was five, but you don’t pay five year olds to draw up a house for you do you? Come on here people, I bring more than drawing to the table. I’ve studies as long as a doctor; surely there must be a reason why?

Think of the building as a body, the walls and windows as the skin. The rooms as organs, working together to make the building function properly. Electrics and lighting as nerves, Bring power on demand. pluming as veins and capillaries plumbing water at the right pressure and removing wastes from the ‘organs’, Air-conditioning as lungs, allowing the building to respirate

effectively and the whole building as the brain directing need and want, making sure everything works the way its supposed to. Designing a building is like designing a person , from scratch and making it look beautiful to boot.

The client comes to me, and says I want a house. I do ok, that’s great tell me what you imagine , most people would say, I have three kids I need 4 bedrooms, we like to entertain I need a big lounge and patio space. I love to cook, big kitchen. And I work from home so a study is important. You get the gist. Now what I do is look at all the wants and dreams and I may say, well how old are your children, or how long do you intend to keep the house for? Or perhaps where do you see yourself in 5 years? And quite importantly what can you afforded to spend. Possible I may send you out there to bring me back things you like textures or ideas. All the while making a picture of what it is you want in my head. Then I look at your site, its potential an possible problems, I look at your life style, what you love, who you are as a person or company. What your goals are and how you see yourself. And then only do I begin to design you a building.

I may consider in a renovation how to best maximise resale value on your house, in future. How to get the most benefit out of the least work. And then I begin to work on the system of how this building will function, how the systems will work best, where they are the most logical locations of various elements, what system you need in the foundation in order to support the roof. I look at how build able the project is in terms of who is available to build the project, what materials may be most accessible. I look at who the client is and bare in mind there may be other future client and uses you cannot imagine. And at the end of the day a year or two later, after many meeting and cross references to various other professionals who specialise in structural engineering, and air-conditioning and electrical ducting and construction, pluming, fixing. All this before we’ve even considered how it going to be finished all this hidden away stuff. You know nothing about, you never see except to turn on the tap or adjust the heating, I consult , on materials and colours and what handle is best on the front door. And at the end of the day you get a building beyond what you could imagine.

So next time you even begin to think, oh you draw pictures right. Stop for a second and remember this little article and go WOW!!! Don’t grumble when the architect want’s to charge you something for their services. Yes, sure you can get some drafts person to do it For less. Remember not to complain when they mess it up, don’t say the building industry is always a disaster. Take a step back and think for a minute, “is it a disaster because I the client was cutting corners trying to do it on the cheep.” Remember cheep equals cheep workman ship . You pay real money for quality. Try to smile happily as you sign the check. For The measly 5000 rand I’m charging you, for your home. To make it a better and more pleasant place for you. It a big part of you life you dream there, you grow there you spend a goodly portion of your time there if your house is lousy it will effect you work your mood possible even your relationships . Anyway that’s less money than you spent last week on your i-pod.

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