My fifth week at Stauch and Partners Architects

The fifth week (20-24 February) of working at Stauch and Partners Architects began very slowly and chilled. I made a photocopy of all the shortcuts one has to know for Archicad, which made my life alot easier on the program. :-) I was still busy designing my ideas and playing around on Archicad. I found out how to construct a 'wave'-like roof on Archicad. It was quite complicated. Further, a colleague introduced me and showed me interesting new and 'old', well-known, Architects on the internet, of which I knew most of them or at least seen the buildings already.( As far as I can remember from last year) I started drawing up my CTD, timber structures project on Archicad. I nearly finished it. I was surprised that there was no range of bolts or screws on Archicad's library. One has to draw everything themselves, which is not that bad I suppose, but it takes longer.

My fourth week at Stauch and Partners Architects

My fourth week (13-17 February) at Stauch and Partners Architects was very interesting. Monday I got to work and finished rendering. IT professionals came to the firm and installed Archicad on my computer, because I only had rendering programes on mine. I had to redraw the townhouses, that I rendered, on Archicad and pretty much got used to the program. On Tuesday I got a surprise at the firm. While working, I got flowers personally delivered to my workplace. Yes, Valentines day! Now, I only have men sitting around me, so the surprise did not only hit me. My colleagues felt a bit intimidated and started ordering flowers for their wives\ girlfriends as well. Haha! After I finished redrawing the townhouses, I started designing and drawing my own ideas of a modern house.

My third week at Stauch and Partners Architects

I pretty much got into the routine of waking up so early in the morning again. My third week was from the 7 February till the 10 February. My computer that I was sitting at previously was now taken so I had to move to the 'normal' (windows) computer. Yes, we're actually only working on Apple Computers. Fancy shmancy! :-) But they really are great to work on. My job was to render project proposals for townhouses on sketch-up. Very easy to learn I must say and it definitely is fun. I also got to drive to a site where I measured the site boundary wall. It started raining... and yes, believable or not Namibian rain tends to come down strong sometimes.I also got to design an entrance door, which obviously did not get build like I designed it, due to the costs. ( The costs were still about R7000 at the end). I got to know the system better that they are working with. Architecture is a lot about planning. Sometimes I feel like a three-year-old child, with all these questions that I have for my colleagues. Great fun!

My first two weeks at Stauch and Partners Architects

My first two weeks, (16 January till 25 January 2012) at Stauch and Partner Architects were quite interesting but was also getting used to. I got a warm welcome at the firm and an introduction was made by the firm owner (Andy Chase), of what is going to happen this year. Basically I had about two weeks of playing around on the programs that they use to draw on. I went through the tutorials on Archicad, but I suppose one only really learns something as soon as the first project has to be fully drawn by yourself.
The people at my firm are really quite entertaining. We're 10 architects (of which three are Zimbabweans and two South Africans), with me its 11 architects (to be) :-)  And two secretaries. So it's all in all a big Architectural company.