Category Archives: Construction

No Notes Allowed!

We hosted a reserved-only-for-us architectural walking tour in downtown Seattle, and one of the “tourists” was chapter member Carol Wanda Spradlin. We asked her to share a little bit with us, and this is what she said:

No, I did not take notes. How could I take notes when I was so busy looking and listening? By not focusing on capturing notes, I was enthralled in some visually-interesting, architecturally-cool info. You can’t experience that by trying to take notes.

So, hands-free (other than snapping pics), I’ll share these visuals with you:

  • The terra cotta reliefs on the Cobb Building are NOT Chief Seattle or a compilation of all the tribes here in Washington. The reliefs were ordered out of a catalog from a company back east. The designer (or builder) looked in a catalog and ordered 10 Indian reliefs. The artist who designed the reliefs just put a bit of this with a bit of that and VOILA, Indian Chief (of course now it’s “Native American Chief”). There are 8 reliefs on the building, and one in the concourse between 4th Avenue and the One Union Square building.  You can walk up to it and touch it.  It’s very tall—very, very tall. (Okay, it’s a bit taller than me!) The 10th relief is in the Convention Center (I think).
  • I didn’t take any notes because my focus was on looking around at things I hadn’t noticed before. Like: Little streams of water. The south face of a building that has multi-colored aluminum rectangles that are oh so beautiful (the 5th & Madison Condominiums—very upscale/high end). The side of the “pencil” building that is tiny little tiles . . . and I never noticed that before. I also didn’t know some people refer to the Rainier Tower as the pencil building, because, duh, it looks like a pencil standing on its point.
  • In the downtown library, there is one corner just by the door that has five structural beams coming together at one point. It’s very unique.
  • Did you know the Seattle Tower building has metal trees on top? From afar, they look like tiny, thin towers. Nope. They are trees. For decoration. And the building has white tiles at the top of each outside level to resemble . . . snow (on top of mountains). How cool is that?

Our Seattle Architecture Foundation tour guide, Garrett Lumens (of CallisonRTKL), was an absolute delight. It was a really interesting tour, and I hope the chapter hosts another one soon!

Thanks for sharing, Carol (and for the photo for this blog post); and thank you, Garrett, for leading the tour!

A little old-school industry humor

architect-294338_1280Contractor: A gambler who never gets to shuffle, cut or deal.

Bid Opening: A poker game in which the losing hand wins.

Bid: A wild guess carried out to two decimal places.

Low Bidder: A contractor who is wondering what he left out.

Engineer’s Estimate: The cost of construction in heaven.

Project Manager: The conductor of an orchestra in which every musician is in a different union.

Critical Path Method: A management technique for losing your shirt under perfect control.

(Author unknown)

They’re coming . . . are you prepared to modify your contract agreements?

image The FAA recently proposed regulations for the commercial use of drones, according to Jim Yand (partner at the Seattle law firm of Miller Nash Graham & Dunn). Jim presented an interesting session on “Construction Photos: Avoid Putting Your Selfie in the Crosshairs.”

If you have been thinking about using drones to capture construction photos, make sure you are covered, in more ways than one: Get proper insurance to safeguard against property damage caused by crashes, trespass claims, and invasion of privacy.  And make sure your contracts spell out everything, like who owns the drone images, and how those images will be used (can they be posted to social media?).

Drones can be beneficial to our design industry: Think cost-effectiveness, ability to reach difficult project areas, efficient inspection processes, and even sophisticated marketing and bid presentations.

“Stay tuned,” Jim said. A number of states and municipalities have passed or are considering limitations on unmanned aircraft, and the effect of such restrictions depends on the precise nature of the limitation.

Making Golden “Golden” Again

WelcomeToGoldenChapter members Carrie Thompson and Judy Beebe are in Golden, Colorado at SDA’s EDSymposium15 (October 8-10, 2015).
The keynote speakers, Steve Glueck and Marcie Miller, talked about the development of Golden, made possible by GURA (Golden Urban Renewal Authority), which was created by Golden’s City Council. What a difference GURA made! Check out this video they shared, which gives a great overview of the impact and effectiveness of GURA, which made Golden what it is today. If you ever get to Colorado, be sure to visit Golden.

FlatMountainAs Steve said, “One of the reasons Golden is so cool is the topography—the shape, the hills.”

 

 

 

 

Photos by Carrie and Judy

More on OSHA’s Confined Spaces standard

After we blogged/tweeted about OSHA’s new Confined Space standard, The Ferri Group tweeted us back with more information—OSHA has granted a Temporary Enforcement Period until early October. Continue reading →

OSHA’s new Confined Space standard for construction

under-constructionOSHA has issued a new Confined Space standard for construction. The new standard, 29 CFR 1926, Subpart AA, goes into effect 8/3/15. If you have employees working on construction sites with confined spaces, they need to become familiar with the new standard, and ask the controlling contractor or the client how the new standard will be implemented on the project site. Continue reading →