My twelvth week at Stauch and Partners Architects

In my twelvth week, which was from the 23-27 April, I finished off the signage layout and printed it. I got a new task to start sorting out the building phases of the Oshakati Hospital project, which is a running project of ours since 2004. This I had to do on sketchup. The phases had to be put into certain layers and colours, which I found was sometimes quite difficult to do. But as I practiced it alot, it became easier. The point of sorting the phases out, is to provide a slideshow for my boss, where he can explain the building phases visually to our clients. It's a good overview.
Further than that I also had the time to go on and finish my own project, which had to be handed in on thursday.

My eleventh week at Stauch and Partners Architects

In my eleventh week (16-20 April) I got a new task and that was of providing a fire signage layout for the Scania trucks project. Now, I know little of what the regulations are to that, so checked them up in the building regs and asked my colleages. I put in the signage and arrows for exit routes as I thouth was right. Later they finally gave me the engineers drawings and I saw that I wasn't that far from it. :-) I also worked on my own project and experimented on archicad. All in all, it was not my most productive week of this year.

My tenth week at Stauch and partners Architects

My tenth week (10-13 April) was again a bit shorter, but very pleasant. My drawings of the (Zimmermann) house were finished, so we took them to the municipality to get stamps. We had to drive through Windhoek, because Telecom and Nampower are not in the same area.
I also helped sorting out the drawings (plans) of Bank of Namibia, which are about 16 years old and still drawn by hand. This project took them approximatly two years to finish all the drawings. Nowadays we take about 5 months to finish a project like that. Amazing! They needed the plans for renovation of the roof.
A colleage also came back from Hong Kong,China, and prepared a presentation for us on friday. It was really astonishing, looking at his photos and listening to what he had to say about the city of about 7 million people. Unfortunatlly he says, the style in which they build, is not really of any significance. It's all 'pitch-holes for birds' style and the prices of renting in Hong Kong, are enormous. It starts at R10,000 for a appartment not bigger than 30 square meters. Goodness! And we're moaning about renting costs here.

My ninth week at Stauch and Partners Architects

My ninth week (2nd-5th April) was again a 'shorter' week, with easter weekend lying ahead. Nothing much happened. I finished my council drawings for the house, I was working on previously, just to find that my drawings were not of the idea of the boss. I've been working with a colleague on this project, from whom I obtained the instructions of what the municipality wants to see in their plans. But my boss thought otherwise. Knowing that my colleague has more experience and connections to the council, he convinced my boss that it was indeed the way they wanted to see the plans. Yes... lots of arguments and me in between. :-) But its obviously good to know that there are differences in doing things (such as drawing up plans and their layouts)- especially for council. I did some changes to the plans eventually, but only small ones. I was glad of having a long, relaxing easter weekend lying before of me.

My eighth week at Stauch and Partners Architects

In my eighth week (26th-30th March) at the firm, I mainly went on redrawing the old plans of the house. Little alterations were made to the rooms of the house, so only the plan, section and two elevations of the house were needed. We had an Archicad course for beginners at VCS, on thursday that week. It was very helpful, especially in terms of shortcuts and all the properties of each element. I think I gained a bit more confidence in the program after that course.
I went along to a site, where a bathroom was added to an existing house. The design of the bathroom was of an ad-hoc nature, by the client. I do not think it was the best design to the existing house. But what can an architect say, if the client wants it that way? ;-)

My seventh week at Stauch and Partners Architects

My seventh week (19th and 20th March) went quite well. The brochure I was working on was printed and emailed to the clients. I started re-drawing (tracing) a house on Archicad. The original drawing was still drawn by hand and about 15 years old. I recognized that the precision of which these plans were drawn was great, but not as precise as drawing it on Archicad. I also went along to the municipality to fetch some drawings. The week was very short. We only had Monday and Tuesday working days, because of our Independence day on Wednesday.