What will $100 get you?

It will get you:

1. A silk dress for summer,
2. 48 truffles in a keepsake box,
3. A manicure and pedicure at a top-notch spa in downtown Denver, or
4. An hour of my time

I found this out yesterday when I received news that a small project I'd been working on with Gregg went on hold. We (well, mostly I) had done a mad scramble to get the owner, a small hospital in the foothills, some floor plans and code analysis information that they needed to take their case to the state health department and ask for permission to do an unusual kind of joint venture with a group of doctors in Colorado Springs. The state looked it over and felt like it wasn't quite right, so now the hospital and the doctors are going to have to meet another couple of times to figure out what they want to do now. In order to do their joint venture, it seems, the rooms and service areas that get leased to the doctors have to be closer together than we originally planned, and that's going to require some serious renovation. So, the owner called me up and said to stop work for now until they knew what they wanted to do.

I called Gregg (who was on vacation yet again--he was just gone for a week during the week after Memorial Day) and informed him, and then I asked what I should do with the intern working on the project for me. He said to pass him off to Mickey, and then he instructed me to have our accounting department run a project report. "It should have all the hours spent on the project so far," he said. "We can go over it when I get back on Monday." Okey-dokey, said I. A few hours later, I found the report from accounting in my mailbox, and there it was in black and white--$100 an hour for a Shorty's time.

Now, I suppose I should feel like a playa--nay, a baller--askin' peeps to peel off that kind of cabbage roll for da P-I-X-I-E, but bear in mind that my paycheck only sees a little more than a quarter of that, and then there's taxes, medical, and 401(k) to be taken out of that before it ever hits my bank account. I also found interesting that the intern, with about a year and a half's worth of experience bills at $60 an hour, and Gregg, a vice-principal at Design Associates, bills at $175 an hour. Today, when I began working through some fee proposals for Jann, I found out that she bills at $140 an hour.

Again, these sound really impressive. However (there's always a however), remember that the rest of my $100 an hour that doesn't make it into my paycheck goes into rent, utilities, building maintenance, professional and property insurance, healthcare matches, 401(k) matches, and a little bit of profit as well, for both the partners and me (more them than me, but I do get a little). It was rather eye opening to find out what they charge for me with my architect's license and 8 years of healthcare experience.

Also interesting was trying my hand at fee proposals on Jann's behalf. She was going to be in the meetings from hell all day today, so she asked me to take a shot at fee proposals for a few projects at MHRC. (Ah, good old MHRC.) If it's a smallish project, like remodeling several rooms and not affecting any structure and not too much ductwork, plumbing and the like, we'll budget for it as an hourly thing. Based on how much it looks like we'll have to do, Jann and I estimate how much it will take us to do meetings, drawing stuff, doing code research, going to the site and taking pictures and making sketches of existing conditions, and so on. Then, we have to budget about how many hours a week we'll be spending doing OAC meetings, reviewing shop drawings, answering RFIs and various owner concerns in the field. Add to that the fact that the client is MHRC, a notoriously high-maintenance client. Hence, I added on a few more hours a week than I usually would.

Hourly pricing is for small projects, though. If the project is larger, like a new building, a new addition to an existing building or a full renovation of a building's floor (moving a bunch of walls and doors and plumbing pipes and mechanical ducts), we'll charge a percentage of the construction costs. For example, if we estimate that the cost to add on a cardiovascular clinic to an existing facility is $20 million, we might charge about 7%, or $1,400,000. If we're remodeling an existing 15-year-old patient floor and the construction estimate is $5.5 million, we might charge 8%, or $440,000, a little more because remodeling is generally harder than building anew. If you've ever remodeled your own home, you know there are inevitably surprises in the walls, the floors, etc. If we're remodeling a clinic and office floor into a patient floor in a 30-year-old building and the renovation cost is priced at $9 million, we might charge 9%, or $810,000, because severe remodeling (like changing the code-defined occupancy and function of an area) and working in a building that's fairly old (yes, not even as old as me) poses even more possible difficulties. Inaccurate or nonexistent CAD or paper drawings (as-builts), asbestos, bad floor-to-floor heights*, difficulties making the program match up in the given space and meet all the codes, especially ADA...those all mean more work for us.

So, it was quite the experience to see how we price what we do. Jann and I will review my first pass at this tomorrow morning.

*Floor-to-floor height is the height from the top of one floor slab to the top of the floor slab above it. Most medical buildings and hospitals these days are at least 13'-4" floor to floor, with floors that have operating rooms on them running about 15'-0" floor-to-floor to allow for the equipment and extra ductwork that has to go in the ceiling. Some of the floor-to-floor heights in older buildings I've done, at least 30 years old, range from 10'-0" to 12'-0". It's a pain in the ass getting anything in there other than a few lights, cable trays for power and data connections, and a few 8x18 ducts.

You kids get off my porch; I just planted those lettuce seeds!

Saturday was overly busy for Guy and me--my office summer picnic and then dinner in the foothills with some coworkers of Guy's. Hence, this Father's Day was spent laying around the house, with one quick trip for me to the nearby hardware store to get a bigger pot for my consumptive-ailing-but-not-willing-to-die gardenia. I can't seem to stop gardening here lately. Having blown about $260 a week ago (and everything from that trip is still alive, I'm proud to say) and almost another $100 since then, I don't know if the futzing is because I feel like I need to get my money's worth or if I'm just finally enjoying the balcony/garden. I think it's the latter. The balcony looks really good, and I finally feel semi-surrounded by green and growing things. I managed to get my wooly thyme in a pot, and Guy even found a nursery for me out in Arvada in between the office picnic and the dinner date so I could get some long planters and yet more potting soil for planting my spinach and lettuce. After calling home today and wishing my stepded El Seebeno "Happy Father's Day, mofo!", Mom suggested that I repot the gardenia from its 8" home of the past couple of years into a 10" pot. I insisted that it wasn't rootbound, but Mom suggested otherwise. Shes also sending me some Georgia red clay to powder and mix into the gardenia's new soil. And why not? Her gardenia is going apeshit in red dirt back home, so maybe it'll help mine. Otherwise, it's been a quiet day.

I tell you what, I've gotten downright curmudgeonly in my recent age. Now, I've never been a night person, pretty much ever. As long as I can remember, I've been a morning person, and especially so in college and as an adult. Even as a morning lark, I've always had tons of energy, for the most part. However, it seems like nowadays if I have a busy Saturday, I ain't worth a damn on Sunday. Or, if I'm out late on a Wednesday night, it's takeout and an 8:30 bedtime Thursday night. I'm not sure if it has to do with hitting my 30s, not being very challenged at work right now, or maybe it's backlash after working my ass off in 2006 on Wheatlands, when I worked no less than 7 8-hour days a week for eight months while taking and passing the ARE and I promised myself I'd never let myself get that tired ever again. Maybe it's valuing my down time even more than I used to, now that I've mostly achieved having and maintaining healthy boundaries.

I also apologize for my lack of posts and lack of quality posts here lately. As I mentioned before, things aren't very challenging at work. I'm doing little two- and three-week projects for Guy's old boss as well as small things here and there for Howie and Jann. All my work is filler work, and it feels really uninspiring. Yeah, I know work isn't always fulfilling, and I"m glad to have a job in a shitty economy, but still. The sun is up at 5:30 every morning, and this morning lark is still having problems dragging herself out of bed for a morning run or weight-lifting session. I mean, I get up, but I'm all over that snooze button before I do.

Anyway, I'll try to come up with some interesting stuff this week. I need some more CSI:Houseplant help, and I need to get off my chest my love/hate relationship with Brad Pitt.

Happy anniversary...of sorts

Today is an auspicious day, to say the least. Not only is it my 8th anniversary at Design Associates, it's also 8 years since I first met and was so terribly starstruck by Guy. I mentioned this fact to him, and he replied calmly and matter-of-factly, "Well, happy anniversary." Indeed.

I've come a long way personally and professionally in eight years. I should hope so--I've gotten sharper, more talented, more skilled, more comfortable with myself, better able to handle criticism and conflict. It's nice to know how times have changed.

Operation Grow Something, Part 2

I walked this evening to a nearby hardware store and picked up some more potting soil, a decorative planter, some cutesy little flowers, and a broom. I should use this moment to address a few of the comments from yesterday. First, Bax, I do indeed own a broom, but I didn't want to use it on my nasty-as-hell balcony and then bring it back in to sweep my nice parquet floors. Witch license firmly ensconced in wallet. :-) Second, I nearly did buy an asparagus fern at the hardware store, Kitteh, but it looks like too much work. I still didn't buy enough soil to plant my lettuce and asparagus seeds, and I also didn't get any planters for them. I was walking and only wanted to buy what I could semi-easily carry. Now, I'm watching "Deadliest Catch" and watering and potting my wooly thyme and the new cutesy flowers during commercial breaks. Further updates as details warrant.

Nice to have something else to think about and do instead of be cranky about how slow, tedious, and Dance of the Bullshit work has become lately. I'm trying to post about interesting or upbeat things instead of constantly complaining. Sometimes, architecture is just slow and you get stuck doing cruddy stuff for people who aren't clear or will help you and then hose you, and sometimes you spend hours and hours in meetings and feel totally unproductive. Today was one of those days. So, better to plant and watch crab fisherman than to be cranky.

Operation Grow Something

It was time, my people. After a strange, long, oddly-cold May, June arrived and bit me with the let's-grow-some-shit bug. My pal Ethel and I were off to the plant nurseries and home garden centers (like Lowe's, Home Depot, and the like) to find a Shorty some proper flora for her balcony. You can take the girl out of the South, but...I still call my balcony five stories up "the porch." After a sunburn incurred while traipsing around northern Denver's nurseries and a quick stop at the Starbucks in Target for some liquid rejuvenation all of Saturday, and a long late-morning and afternoon spent potting and repotting and arguing with plastic pots, here's the final result on Sunday early evening. From left to right: McKay's White; Earthbox with two tomato plants; old TV stand from college holding two Kung Pao pepper plants, basil plant, oregano plant, cilantro plant, and two trays of wooly thyme; and boxwood. Planters for McKay's White and boxwood by Target and the Earthbox, oddly enough, were the most expensive things I bought all weekend. Plants were way less expensive than the containers.Along the building edge of my east porch I located my existing to remain (ETR) plants. In the foreground are a couple of pothos plants, an English ivy, a nondescript houseplant, and my Gardenia That Refuses To Die. Midground between the two Adirondack chairs are two Chinese evergreens that used to be one until Guy helped me hacksaw it in half. That's not a joke: the root ball on a Chinese evergreen is so knotted and obstinate that you do indeed have to saw it in half. What's not totally apparent in this photo is how messy and dirt-scattered the balcony/porch is. I stil need to buy a broom so I can clean the place a bit so I can stand to sit out there.

Not so easy to see here are my herbs--ETR parsley and rosemary along with new chocolate mint on a little rack near the kitchen sliding door are hiding behind the wood chair in the photo. Yet another pothos hangs from the underside of the balcony above. I daresay my balcony is becoming downright nice to be on. More planting to come....

Pencils down

First of all, thanks everyone for playing. We had a fair amount of right and almost right answers:

1. The churches are D, Trinity Church in Boston (by H. H. Richardson) and F, Notre Dame du Ronchamps (by Le Corbusier) in France.
2. The government building is E, the Massachusetts State House in Boston. (I don't know the architect, and frankly, I'm surprised commentor LP didn't know, if he is who I think he is and I went to grad school with his sorry Tom-Green-lookin' ass.)
3. The train station is B, King's Cross Station by L. Cubitt, in London, England. I've taken a train in and out of it back in 1998, and it's a great space inside.
4. The residence is A, which is a Shingle Style house in Maine. I don't know the architect, but it is late 1800s-early 1900s, so technically it's late Victorian. Shingle Style is a Victorian architectural style with American roots, which is kinda rare for Victorian.
5. The business/office building is C, the Johnson-Wax Building in Racine, Wisconsin, by Frank Lloyd Wright. If you buy Pledge and a bazillion other products, your money goes to this building. Your instincts were correct, St. Blogwen--you still have some of your archimojo left! Also, some more props go out to LP for correctly abbreviating Frank Lloyd Wright's name. Wright wrote his initials with a double "L", as there was no single "L" in his family's native Welsh language.
6. As a few of you got right or partially right, B and E were built pre-Civil War. King's Cross in 1852 (good job Faded!) and the MA State House (17something, I want to say 1750s, good catch LP!). Mom, that would explain the nice rendering of King's Cross--it's the only way they could represent it in color at the time.

If you got a question wrong, don't sweat it. Instead, think about what led you to believe that a certain building was pre-Civil War/a church/a government building/some dumbass' idea of a church (good one, Mom!). Is it because you think of anything with columns and domes is old? Or stands for a government building? Or, as Mom commented, only old buildings have style? Or Richardsonian Romanesque (that's the style of D) or Gothic buildings are really old?

My goal for the students I lectured to as well as for my WAD peeps is to get you thinking about how you know what you know about buildings, about the built world. Think about what a building is trying to tell you by how it looks. Is it trying to tell you that it's safe? That it's noble? It's classy? It has history (even if it doesn't)? It looks like a 1950s French nun's hat (Corbusier's goal for F)? When you look at buildings, just take a second to think.

And last but not least, a tip of the hat to Xtine for catching that the pictures were all labeled already, and hovering your mouse over them would tell you the names. Not intended, by the way, and good for me to know when I do this again, but good catch.

Quiz Time: Guess the Building

It occurs to me that it might be interesting to try a little quiz on you that I gave the students in the lecture I gave in May. Here's the deal: if you wanna play, just for funsies, post your answers as a comment. I'll hold off on posting all the comments for a day or so in order to give all my peeps some time before "pencils down." Whatchu do is write the letter of the following pictures for your guess of the answer. Bear in mind that some of these questions have more than one answer. So, have a look and give it a shot. And yes, I know that I have some architects in the my readership. You can play, too, my peoples.

The questions:

1. Which of these do you think is a church?
2. Which do you think is a government building?
3. Which do you think is a train station?
4. Which is a residence?
5. Which is a business or office building?
6. Which of these do you think was built before the Civil War (which was 1861-1865, for those that got a D in History)?

Building A:

Building B:

Building C:
Building D:

Building E:

Building F:

Good luck, and may Philip Johnson be with you!