Bar Architects Journal

INTRODUCTION

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In the Fall of 2006 I attended the San Francisco Urban Design Internship program in San Francisco, CA. For the first five weeks our class worked on an Affordable Housing project in the Tenderloin District of San Francisco. After those five weeks our internship program began and continued for six weeks. For my internship I was assigned to the firm of BAR Architects. They are located at 543 Howard St in downtown San Francisco, in between First and Second St. There office at 543 Howard is a new location for them, and they also had the great opportunity to design their space inside the first three floors of the building. They did an absolutely beautiful job of designing the space and it reflects the style of architecture that BAR is known for, a timeless, rich architecture. It was a great honor to work at such a reputable firm in the city of San Francisco for six weeks. The following is a daily record of my time at BAR Architects.

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B A R HISTORY & EVOLUTION

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“BAR Architects began as Backen, Arrigoni and Ross in 1966. Since its inception, the firm’s work has been guided by an intellectual rigor, a capacity for critical though and a spirit of inclusiveness that embraces the process of architectural design within the context of both academic disciplines and popular culture. Throughout our history we have been known for work that can be characterized as contrarian, contextual, avant-garde, traditional, respectful and even a bit irreverent. An 80-person architectural, interior design and planning firm, we excel in the design and planning of mixed-use, arts and entertainment venues, wineries, hospitality, educational facilities, restaurants/retail centers and housing of all types. Similar to many firms that trace their origins to San Francisco, BAR’s work began in multifamily housing. Over the course of four decades, our practice has expanded in terms of both project types and geographic focus. To this day, BAR’s work remains firmly grounded in housing. Beginning in early 1975 – only nine years after our founding – the firm’s work began to expand to include university, winery, hospitality, historic renovation and adaptive re-use projects, as well as snow country work in Colorado and Utah. More complex programs soon followed, including George Lucas’ Skywalker Ranch, Robert Redford’s Sundance Institute and the Delancey Street Foundation in San Francisco, The Aspen Institute, Sharon Heights Golf and Country Club and the restoration and re-use of the entire small town of Borlasca, Italy. All the while, the housing work continues, notably including both merchant-built and market-driven housing, as well as both multi-family and custom homes, and estate properties. But it is not so much the diversity of the body of work that is exceptional, but rather our firm’s ability to execute it within a discipline of critical thought divorced from a preconception of style per se. The founding principals of the firm, Bob Arrigoni, Howard Backen and Bruce Ross, were instrumental in creating a design approach that continues today; a process where the issues of respecting context versus establishing a new one, of innovation and market-driven work, and of placemaking are influential in guiding the design of each project. As a result of this process, BAR has received over 170 design awards, including a Presidential Citation, and recognition by the American Institute of Architects California Council (AIACC) as Firm of the year 2000, one of the highest honors that can be bestowed upon an architecture firm. Environmental sensitivity has always been a hallmark of our design work, and never more than today. Currently more than 50 percent of our architects are LEED accredited and we recently relocated our own offices to the first renovated green office building in San Francisco. Our commitment to personalized service is similarly strong, but most importantly we believe that our clients should enjoy the design process as much as the result.”

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BAR’S OFFICE

KOBE TOWERS

GREENWOOD RESIDENCE

-BAR ARCHITECTS

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I woke up at 6:30am and got ready for the day. I made it down Fillmore St. to Chestnut and hopped on the 30x by 7:30am. It was a bit of a shock and great surprise to see the whole bus was filled with business professionals heading downtown. It really made me feel like I was in a big bustling city, I loved it. I made it to 1st and Market St. by 7:45am then walked down 1st to Howard. When I attempted to enter 543 Howard it was still locked and I knew I was too early. Thankfully Susan McComb arrived a little early and let me into the office. After about ten minutes Susan Melvin arrived and said we would start the introduction to the office. First we walked to where I would be sitting and I was very excited to see I had my own desk, computer, phone, sketchpads and pens all laid out. On top of that it was against a window facing the back. It was so nice to see how prepared they were for me and how thrilled the office was to have me. Especially Russell who supposedly begged to let me work for him the first 7 days. After I toured the 1st floor, then the library area, and the 3rd floor I got my employee code, e-mail setup and other miscellaneous introduction items. At around 10:30am I sat down and met Russell, Neil, and Jennifer who were all part of the White House Black Market project. They explained they were in need of someone to build a massing model for the client and that I fit the position perfectly. We went through plans, elevations and perspectives so I could begin to understand the scope of the project. Also, I found out that I would be working on the Howard St. side of the office against the window in the big conference area. I was even more excited now that I got to work at a prime location with a beautiful view and huge open space for the first week. Soon after we talked I began to look at the plans by myself and decipher how I would go about building this model. I drew axonometric drawings of display cases and started dimensioning pieces of the plan. At 12:30 I got invited to lunch with Jeremy and several others to Ristorante Umbria. Had some great food and got to talk to the younger people at the office. It was good to have a relaxed conversation outside of the office and get to know people and how they like their work. I really appreciated that especially on my first day. When I got back from lunch I was ready to start constructing the model so I let Jennifer know what materials I needed and where I could find them in the office. Once again I was shocked since I am not use to a larger office atmosphere, but Jennifer called the facilities manager, Enrique, and had him order all the supplies and let me know it would be at the office in an hour. I couldn’t believe how efficient the office was running and I had only been there for several hours. I was used to running around town finding this piece of plexi then going here to get chipboard, but all I had to do was let someone know I needed that and it would be delivered ASAP. After Enrique ordered the material I knew I would need some tacky glue so I walked over to Cole’s hardware and picked up some Weld Bond glue. Just walking down to get some glue, or any time I walk out of the office I am in awe of where I’m working because the city is full of architecture and unique people. Every trip is a little adventure and I love it. For the rest of the day I worked on the beginning layout of the model and some display cases. I left the office at 6pm and went to 3rd street and hopped on the 30 back to the Marina. When I got home it was about 7pm and I was pretty tired, but I was really happy that I got placed in a great office, in a great location, and in such a great city. I knew I was doing a great thing.

How many people make up BAR Architects and is the office broken down into smaller studios? “BAR has roughly 85 employees, and yes the office does get broken down into separate teams or studios. We have several different scales of projects going on, and there are teams of people who work on them. We also have consultants that we bring in that assist those teams.” -Susan Melvin

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Tuesday I continued working on the model, I had finished the basic forms. The walls, base, and pencil lines of the floor plan were completed. I spent the day listening to my iPod while measuring and cutting out pieces of the space. I went to Lee’s for my first time to have lunch and was real happy with the low prices.

WHITE HOUSE | BLACK MARKET

November 2006

Project No: 06028

B A R A RC H I T E C T S

Are clients billed when a model is built to help them understand the space? “Yes, usually the client will request one and then we will build them, otherwise we take it upon ourselves to help the client.” -Neil

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Continued working on the model. By this point I was about half way done, and was working with Russell and Neil. Once they had completed a specific part of the plan or elevation I would be ready to construct that in the model. It was interesting to work on a model that was developing while I was still building. I also got taken to lunch to Bistro Burger courtesy of Russell. Somewhat reminded me of Barney’s in the Marina, only a lot quicker service. It was great food and it’s always nice to get out and walk around especially in the big city. By the end of the day I was close to starting the arches, I just had to wait for the interior elevations to begin construction. I was going to start tomorrow.

I noticed the client has sent you a lot of their own ideas and images they would like to implement in their store. How often do clients put this much input into the design? “In retail quite often because they are looking for a specific style or look to sell their product and lifestyle.” -Russell

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In the morning I started working on the arches for the large section, I drew out some sketches to see how I would attack building the arch in the best fashion. It’s nice to have more time to build this model because I can clearly think through each cut and measurement, as opposed to working on final models at school where I’m rushing and trying to pump it out. Richard the principle architect came over and looked at the model and the progress of Russell and Neil’s work. I got several comments from people passing by that it looked nice and that’s always encouraging to hear. Today we also had a lunch presentation from Kultur Flooring. They are a company out of Canada that has somewhat revolutionized floating wood floors. They have created 2-plyl construction instead of the typical 3-ply construction. That allows the floors to contour to the slope of the surface they are laid on. Also, there are no adhesives and they use a unique Uni-Lock system. That enables you to put in and pop out any piece of the floor without disrupting nearby panels. It was a very interesting presentation to learn about how they develop these products, and how they can be used. We were treated to some great pizza and salad, and a great informative presentation.

How often do companies come to BAR and present their new products? “Typically we get about two a month in the office.” -Steve

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Friday I started the morning by finishing out small details on the model, like the sliding screens with the graphic wrought iron print on transparency. This by the way is very successful to have a graphic print on clear transparency to imitate glass. I was inspired by the technique and I’m going to use it on my future projects. The rest of the day was spent cleaning up the model, and constructing the soffet/ceiling plate. After I cut out the voids in the soffet the model read very clear how the design had a gallery with several rooms branching off of that gallery. The asymmetrical design was extremely clear and I think at this point the model was reading perfectly clear. Also at 4pm we had a meeting with the lighting consultant and it was very interesting to see a discussion that had such a high level of detail about fixtures, and lighting square footages. I learned a lot from it.

How do you like the system of 80 hour 9 day work schedules? “I actually like the system. At first it was tough because it was long days, but you get used to it quickly. Then having 3 day weekends is fantastic, you end up having more time for things.” -Steve

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This morning I started the day by figuring out how I was going to package the model. By 4pm the model needed to be boxed, and shipped to the Florida overnight. I had my first real deadline. I cut some flat panels to house the front and top of the model, then used rubber bands and tape to secure it. After I figured out how I would safely ship it, Russell and Neil had some small details they wanted me to add to the model. They also had a review with Richard in the downstairs conference area. I got to sit in on the discussion while they talked about different schemes the client wanted, and how the model and perspectives drawing were going to be successful. Richard noted he would like to see a few more details in the model to help the client understand the space and design intent better. It was great to sit in on this small critique because I got to see how some schematic design process goes on in a firm of this size. It also reminded me of design reviews and critiques I get at school. So it was nice to see those are relevant and how they can be extremely useful in the professional world as well. After the meeting I jotted down a list on what to add to the model. It was small things like sticky back print outs of wrought iron on the cash-wrap (register), the fireplace, and transparencies of the dressing rooms and front signage. I really like that technique to print graphics and will definitely use it on future projects. At 3pm I finished the model to the point where it read very well, and Russell and Neil were pleased with it. I took the model down to the UPS store and had them package it and ship it. I had a great sense of accomplishment for my first real project while interning at BAR. For the rest of the day I helped Jennifer and Russell with trimming poster boards and other organizational stuff for their presentation to the client’s in Florida tomorrow. Then I left the office at 6:10 and sprinted to the mall to see the 6pm show of Borat. Great and ridiculous movie.

Do you typically meet with the principal of the project and get design reviews like you do at school? “Yea actually quite often. Especially when we are all about to meet with the client. The principal wants to get up to speed, and also gives some critiques mid-way through the design process.” -Neil

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This morning I started working with Teresa Ruiz. She started me on a new short-term project for the office. On the mezzanine level of the office is a book shelf area that houses a lot of older publications that have been archived. It is in between the stairs and the bathrooms. Their plan is to take that shelving unit out and move it to the 3rd floor where there is an empty space, and put the new Oce Color Scanner and plotter in the existing area. The idea is to have all the plotters and scanners in one area to streamline the employ’s process. My job called for measuring the area, finding the data port, and then measuring the 3rd floor area to see if the shelving could fit. After I finished those tasks I was asked to check the dimensions and measurements on the AutoCAD files, and do any updates if necessary. I was also supposed to create a new elevation for the 3rd floor open area that would house the shelving. Once all that was to be completed I was asked to send the plans on 8.5”x11” to several contractors to bid on. I took the measurements and recorded them then had to wait for Victor to give me the introductory to BAR’s CAD standards. We were to meet sometime after lunch. At lunch Victor gave a introduction to AutoCAD 2006 presentation for about 15 employees and provided lunch. It was very interesting to see how finely tuned Victor and his associates have made AutoCAD for BAR employees. I liked to see the organization and efficiency that Victor has created. It was a lot to take in, mostly because I am not familiar with all their standards, but it was great to sit in and see how a larger company’s standards are implemented into AutoCAD. At around 3pm Victor came over and gave me the intro. to BAR’s CAD standards. We went over layer management, line weights, xrefs and page layouts. It helped a great deal because I could easily draw the drawings with them already formatted. Again I was so amazed to see how streamlined they have made CAD for the employees, it’s so much different than working at school and creating new drawings where you have to set up everything yourself. I really loved it. The rest of the day I worked on creating the 3rd floor shelving elevation and tweaking the Mezzanine level shelving elevation.

Did BAR completely design the new office? “Yes. We moved from our Bush St. office and got into this space, but before we moved in we redesigned the space to suit our needs. It’s great working in a space you helped design.” -Teresa

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This morning I woke up a little under the weather and didn’t make into the office til’ 8:45am. I started the morning by finishing the elevation for the 3rd floor shelving unit. I also created three schemes that had the shelves in front of the electrical, one with the electrical extended to the side, and another with an additional shelving unit added to the top. I printed them and put them all on a single 11x17 sheet then gave them to Teresa. She said tomorrow we would look at the electrical drawings and figure out exactly what and where the conduits, date ports, etc. were. After I met with Teresa I met with Doug who had a project for me. It was to help them finish their presentation boards for the One Scottsdale Project in Scottsdale, Arizona. On Thursday they were meeting with the clients about the mixed used building. The project is a retail, residential, and parking structure all in one. When I was first being introduced to the project I was very interested because from what I can remember, I have not seen a parking structure in the middle of a housing development. The housing and retail all bordered the parking structure, with a common roof area on top. The residential was a mix of townhouses, flats and penthouses. The client was very interested in a contemporary modern building that had many different elements to it. Doug explained to me some of his initial design intents and models. I was impressed by his quick sketchup models that clearly had a modern language. I was also surprised to think that multi million dollar condos were going up in this style of housing. My task was to photoshop diagrammatic colors into floor plans and sections. I knew exactly how to do that since I had just finished my Urban Design project using the same techniques. The process went very quickly and Doug was staying in pace with me. It was a great workflow, I would finish one drawing sheet, then he’d have the next one ready for me. I worked on that for the rest of the day til I had to leave for my BSA case study meeting at 5pm. It was great to be able to help with a presentation once again because I felt like my work was really being useful. Also, when I was working on photoshop on the floor plans and sections, etc. I was learning at the same time about circulation patterns, unit patterns, and basic spatial layouts. I also got to overhear and watch the other project architects discuss specific parts of the elevations and spaces, and it was refreshing to hear what I practice in school (revisions, critiques) is used all the time by professionals.

How do you get to work on projects, especially ones that entail multi million dollar high end residential work, with a style that you particularly enjoy? “Squeaky wheel gets the grease.’ If you hear of a project coming and you are very interested you need to show that interest to your superiors and really push to work on it.” -Doug

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Got in Thursday morning and was notified that I was needed from several people. Steve introduced me to Gary Shilling on the first floor who is currently working on the Saint Mary’s College project. It is a refurbishing and addition to an older Spanish style building. They want a new museum exhibition space to show the college’s history among other things. My task which was scheduled to start on Monday was to assist Gary in the presentation graphics and schematic design work. My work with Gary is scheduled to last several weeks. I was excited to hear that I was set on a specific project that involved me assisting in the architecture of a project. When I got back upstairs Adam asked if I was busy and if I could help him on a project. At the moment I was not because Teresa had not gotten in yet, so I agreed to help him. The project is a private residence in the Marin Headlands. He wanted me to take several presentation boards and clean them up on photoshop, and add a deck to one of the floors. I scanned the boards into the computer with the new drawing and then cleaned them up on photoshop. After I finished that he asked me if I could first hardline draw the frame of the upstairs floor, then create several schemes for the kitchen and porch area. I was pretty surprised I had the freedom to do some design work, but was very excited as well. I got to work on an empty desk’s drafting table for the rest of the day. First I hardlined the upstairs area, then on trace started creating schemes for the kitchen and porch area. It was a very relaxing day being able to draw, and also knowing that we had the next day off. After work I met up with friends and took the BaRT to the Golden State Warriors basketball game. Good times.

Do you clients typically like hardline drawings or more freehand loose drawings? “Clients actually prefer the freehand drawings because it gives them the sense that we weren’t overly working the project.” -Adam

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Monday morning I met with Gary Shilling and got introduced to my new project that would be off and on for the next few weeks. The project was an addition to an existing building at St. Mary’s College in the East Bay. The addition consisted of a three story complex that housed public lobbies, art galleries, and support spaces for the galleries. It was an attachment to the old Oliver Hall building. Gary walked me through the original part of the project, which was to revamp Oliver Hall, then showed me the proposed addition. We went over floor plans, photos of the existing building, an elevation, and a discussion about the spaces and the architectural style the college is looking to maintain. He then explained my task would be to help with presentation boards (working with InDesign and Adobe Photoshop). I was going to be scanning in drawings on sketch paper, cleaning them up and adding color diagrams in photoshop, then formatting them in InDesign. I told him that would be no problem and got started on scanning the drawings right away. At 11am I was scheduled to go on a site visit to North Park with David Allanby and Teresa Ruiz. David and I left the office at 11am and got down to the site, which is in San Jose, just before 12 noon. The first order of business was to attend the OAC (owner architect contractor) meeting. The owner, The Irvine Company, was represented by two individuals; the contractor, Ross Construction was represented by the C.M. and the Superintendent; and of course the architect, BAR represented by Teresa and David. The meeting went on for about an hour and a half. They began by going over GMP’s (Guaranteed Max Prices) for specific products and materials being used in the project.The architect and contractor would discuss it with the owner and asked what they would prefer. The owner was quite knowledgeable and already had his information on what he wanted in the project. The owner then either approves or disapproves the product, and etc. It was very interesting to see this process going on, since I have never been exposed to it. After the GMP’s there was some little discussion then the superintendent gave a synopsis of his team’s progress in the construction phase. He had a colored diagram of the overall floor plan and showed where he was right now, and how the future phases of construction will follow. The owner then commented about the schedule on the contract and wanted to make sure all the parts were going to finish on time. Again it was interesting to see how the owner is checking every part of the process, and remains very knowledgeable about the whole project. I never knew they were that involved as I saw today. When the meeting ended we left to go to the job site to do a walk through. Of course it had to start raining the second we left the building. First we went to a leak spot in one of the older buildings that has already been constructed. We got to climb up a scaffolding ladder then go on one of the balconies to inspect it. Then we went to the current job site and walked through the units, several lobbies, and up onto the roof to inspect specific things David and Teresa had to check on to make sure everything was being constructed according to the drawings. I loved seeing the units with just the wood framing. It gave a different sense of spatial dimensions when u see what basically can be considered transparent spaces.

How do you deal with quality control on major projects like this (North Park) when you can’t be on the job site everyday inspecting every square inch? “We really can’t because it is too much to inspect in the time we have. We come once a week and check different parts to make sure things are going according to our drawings. Also the contractor and owner instruct us to check specific places. It is based on honesty and trustworthiness through owner and client.” -David Allanby M A T T

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Tuesday morning I was starting at my new desk on the first floor near Ra’s desk. Victor actually set me up with a computer that had Adobe Photoshop and Indesign so I could work right from my computer. Even after being here for two weeks I find myself still being amazed at how efficient BAR operates, and I’m on the intern, and they still have everything set up for you to start working immediately and don’t have to go through any troubles. I am very appreciative of everyone’s hard work. After I settled in to my new desk I went over and met with Gary Shilling. Today was the first day I really started on Gary Shilling’s project at St. Mary’s College in Moraga (east bay). As we discussed I was going to be working on their presentation boards for their next meeting. Today I started on the St. Mary’s Museum of Art addition. I sat down with Gary and we went over the plans and photos of the site, and he explained to me the basic spatial layouts and programming of the building. It was great to see the initial developments in the schematic phase of a project, and to see a process still evolving. He explained that I will be updating color schemes for the diagramming, and adding those colors to the newly drawn plans for SMMOA. Also that I would be taking those plans and setting them up on presentation boards in the computer program InDesign. After our discussion I took his floor plans on sketch paper and went to the Mezannine level and scanned them to file. The large format scanner is great because its quick and easy to operate, whether you want to print something or scan it to file. I scanned the drawings then headed back downstairs and opened the scanned files and put them into a new folder for this phase of the project. I worked on cropping the plans and cleaning up the images, then started adding the colors to the different areas of each floor plan. I referenced with Gary several times on what colors looked the best, and just additional little questions about how the building works, etc. For the rest of the day I worked on the SMMOA project at the Graphics Station #1. I learned several things on Photoshop and InDesign that I hadn’t known how to do before, courtesy of Andrew. It’s always great walking away from work or any situation having learned something.

How do I enable photoshop to work on an Adobe PDF? And how do I reduce the noise for a scanned image in Adobe Photoshop? “To work on the PDF you change the mode first to ‘grayscale’ then again change the mode to ‘RGB’ That way you can use color, etc. To reduce noise, you go to filters—brush strokes—accented edges.” –Andrew

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Again I woke up sick for the 7th day in a row, but pushed past it with some breakfast and orange juice. Made it to work and started downing some green tea and lots of water, along with IBprofin. I started feeling better and finished working on the diagrams of the floor plans for SMMOA. I created the InDesign presentation boards for Gary. The master sheet, which I finally learned how to create and work with, was comprised of BAR’s title bar with the project information for SMMOA. Then I added several pages to the presentation with that same title. There was a total of six boards, which included the floor plans for the new additions, then a section, elevation, and new roof plan. I’m a person who loves clean looks, structure and organization, so I had no problem in creating these boards for Gary. Again I had another learning experience with learning new tools that I did not know before in InDesign. After I finished working on the presentation boards, I reported back to Gary and let him know I finished. I had told Teresa I would finish the drawings and layouts for the casework remodel in the office. Gary said that was perfectly fine because I had actually caught up, and just to meet back with him when I was done helping Teresa. When I met with Teresa she gave me the electrical drawings of the building, and gave me a list of what I needed to do. The list included finding the dimensions of the new scanner, the existing plotter on the 3rd floor, and their electrical and data port connections. Basically nitty and gritty stuff but very important information so we could be accurate on planning this miniproject. For the rest of the day I worked on the new drawings for the 2nd floor plan where the new color scanner and existing plotter were going, also the new plan for the 3rd floor casework remodel, and the elevations that coincided with their floor plans.

Have you or do you want to put the drawings into AutoCAD? “No I haven’t yet. Typically I will work freehand during schematic design so I can quickly design and alter schemes. After the schematic phase I will put them into AutoCAD.” -Gary

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Part of our SF Urban Design Internship includes a case study on a firm in San Francisco. We were broken up into teams, and my teammates are Sean Bailey, Jenny Chang and Derrick Homer. Our case study firm is BSA Architects on Folsom and 1st in the city. The project they chose for us is their newly opened Mountain View Senior Center. So this morning, Thursday, we had to meet the Project Architect, George Janson at the Mountain View Senior Center to do a site visit. We met George outside the senior center building at 10am. We were then introduced to one of the representatives from the contractor company, Turner Construction. After introductions took place we started getting the tour of the building. George showed us the window system, wall construction and truss system at the entrance. We first looked at the physically constructed piece, then would reference the construction documents. It was very interesting to see the drawings come to life right in front of us, and was definitely a good learning experience. Being able to translate the drawings into 3D space is pretty amazing. Once we toured the exterior George took us inside. We walked around the lobby, then down the main hallway. George showed us the three main open spaces in the building which were all in use. It was great to see people using the building the way BSA intended it to be used. Specific spaces, and specific interactions were going on where BSA had hoped. Everyone who was in teh building seemed to be having a good time, whether it was an older couple playing ping pong, or an older man reading the newspaper in peace, the building was functioning quite well. The building was also intended to be an ““additional services building.” Which means in times of crisis or natural disasters, the Senior Center can be a place of refuge. George then showed us how they had to beef up the building by fire corridors and fire rated glass, and other things, but he showed us both in drawing then in physical form. At one point an older lady approached George and told him that I was looking at her like she was crazy, it was a pretty funny moment because we were both caught off guard by her. That gave a little moment of awkwardness but then I thought it was pretty funny. We stayed til about 1pm touring the building and the site, then headed back to the city. I was intending on heading back to work, but we didn’t get back to our house til 230pm and I was still feeling sick so I decided to stay at home and rest up.

Does the fire department dictate a lot of the design of the building and what needs to be in it? “No it is mostly the building department who does that. The fire inspector basically adds to the building and makes minor changes if needed for specific things.” -George Janson (BSA)

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Fridays that BAR does work they start at 830am. There are nice little perks to the 80 hour 9 day program. I am definitely a fan of it. I got in this morning and immediately started working on the project with Gary. Today though I started on redoing the colors for the Oliver Hall portion of the project. It included the different phases of construction for the project, all the way from initial demo work, to the final floor plan of the space. I had to update the color schemes, and clean up the floor plans, and update some of the floor plans on the later phases. Gary had redrawn certain sections of the building, basically updated the design. I took two pieces of updated plans and scanned them into the computer. I then cleaned those images up in Photoshop then pieced them together. After I cleaned them up and put them together so you would think it was one drawing, I added them into the existing drawings and erased the old portion of the floor plan. The drawings fit in almost seamlessly, there was little portions of cutting out and fixing, but overall was fairly easy. For the next several hours of the day I cleaned up all the drawings, added lines here and there, and updated all the colors so that now the presentation boards would all read with one palette of colors that were not as muddy as the previous ones. After I finished on my task from Gary I met with Teresa. She asked that I set up the drawings I made, and to update them according to her redline remarks. I worked on AutoCAD and added notes to the drawings then laid them out with title blocks and sheet numbers. I made them all PDF’s and at the end of the day I finished all the sheets and printed them out for Teresa. She told me that the next step would be to update the first floor plan where they are adding new low shelving. So my next task would be another floor plan and elevation. Before I left I checked with Gary because he notified me that he was going to be out the week of Thanksgiving. We went over what work I would have for the next two days. I made a list and knew that I would have plenty of work while he was gone.

It seems pretty tough to be working on a project where there’s demo, then rebuilding. Is it tough with the coordination and following all the details? “Yes it’s actually pretty difficult as you can see, you just have to double check everything make sure when you are going through the phases everything is correct.” -Gary Shilling

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I had my work set out for me when I came in Monday. I had to finish some work on the St. Mary’s College project with Gary, and then finish some plans and elevations for the casework remodel with Teresa. For St. Mary’s I had to color the roof plan in Adobe Photoshop, according to Gary’s color pencil study. I cleaned up the drawing a bit then started adding color and playing with different shades til I was satisfied with one palette. After the roof plan I had to update the final site plan colors to match the rest of the drawings colors. After I went through each drawing to make sure they were all updated with the correct drawings and color schemes, for both the Oliver Hall and SMMOA projects, I finished the Adobe InDesign presentation boards. What I thought would take me at least one day took me about three hours. I came back downstairs from Graphic Station #2 and started working on the casework remodel for the first floor near Gary’s and David’s desk in the back. In AutoCAD I drafted the elevation and plan for the small shelving unit. I plotted them out with layouts and gave them to Teresa to redline and put notes on. I was way ahead of schedule so I talked to Teresa to see if there was any work that needed to be done. First we had to double check with Chris to make sure no one else needed my time. Teresa and I talked about doing color blocking for elevations on the Northpark site, because the painters needed to know in more detail about trim areas, etc. I agreed to do them, so she wanted to make sure IAC (the client) would want them. They weren’t sure if they wanted to go ahead with the computer rendering so we put that on hold.

Do you typically do color blocking on elevations for clients or do they request them? “We usually won’t just because it’s additional bill time for the client and typically then don’t want that. But a lot of times we’ll do quick ones to help the painters, or to help the client. It’s tough to manage a big project like North park where there are so many details so doing something like color blocking helps everyone all around.” -Teresa Ruiz

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Tuesday morning I had to do a quick elevation study for a corner unit on the Northpark project. Teresa showed me what they were looking for. It had to do with thin pilasters that were on each side of a corner, and whether they should connect to form one major pilaster or two separate ones. I drew them up in AutoCAD as one major pilaster then printed the existing one. When I gave Teresa the drawings she gave me a little information on the Construction Administration (CA) about the Northpark project. She showed me the RFI’s and their Xcel spreadsheet of which they log all RFI’s. She then explained to me the process of how they handle. They take the RFI from the contractor then send it to their consultant, depending on whether its landscape, electrical, structural, etc. Then once their consultant looks at it and sends it back to BAR, they can send it back to the contractor. BAR doesn’t sign the consultants work because then they would be guaranteeing or assuming responsibility for their work. That, like we learned in practice class, would be putting the architect at a major risk. I learned that the Northpark project was a negotiated price project. IAC, the client, has been working with BAR for 20 years and that is how they conduct business. They also created their own contract due to the fact that they consistently do this work, and that they finance their own projects, no lenders. She also explained to me their bill rates at BAR, and how they have been billing the Northpark project. The bill rate for the Northpark project has stayed at 2003 rates because that is when they started the project, but the costs are getting more expensive due to time increase, so they are still increasing profits. It was very interesting to hear the money side of the process. I know I got a rough overview, but I still learned a lot from the little lesson. I’ve actually been very curious about financial matters in Architecture so I really appreciated her lesson. At 10am there was an ULI meeting with Paula Krugmeier. ULI is the Urban Land Institute and they hold major conferences in the Fall. She presented what she had seen at the conference. There were several projects, all pertaining to housing in the Denver, CO area. The first project was a high rise residential complex. It reminded me of the Scottsdale project because there was a parking garage on the inside of the complex. She then went through several other projects that included student housing, office tower apartment restorations and city planning. The models and information were very interesting, and it was great to hear that BAR was recognized more nationally than just locally.

What does the per hour bill rate include? “It includes all overhead costs and direct costs. It pays for our support staff like accounting, finance, then office needs. Then of course it pays for our benefits and salaries. At BAR we have very good health, dental plans, and retirement plans, they treat us very well.” –Teresa Ruiz

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Wow was it cold this morning, low 40’s I believe. I woke up this morning and finally felt like I was at full health. I was glad to be back in the city from Thanksgiving Break. When I got to the office I knew I was going to be starting some fresh work since I had finished all my assignments last Tuesday. I checked my emails and had a reply from DFM about the Casework remodel. They said they would like to do it, so I forwarded the email to Teresa. She ended up being out of the office for the day and she said we would discuss it tomorrow. I met with Gary and he had some work on the Oliver Hall and SMMOA project that needed to be done. My task was to do some aerial analysis, which is basically labeling rooms with their square footages in AutoCAD, then taking all that information and inputting it into an Xcel spreadsheet. We looked over the spaces and he gave me a few tips on how to tackle the project. I began by converting all the colored floor plans into black and white jpegs. After that I talked with Victor on how to properly scale, or should I say roughly scale the image into AutoCAD. Importing images is something I’ve done before but for some reason it was not properly scaling the images when I tried it the traditional way. Victor tried the same way and had no luck. He then taught me how to scale it by referencing points on the drawing to a dimension you already know. It helped tremendously and I was able to continue working on it. Russell met with me later in the day and asked if I was available sometime before I leave. Gary happened to be out of the office starting Wednesday so it worked out perfectly. I was to help Russell by constructing a storefront model for the Whitehouse Blackmarket project on Wednesday thru Friday.

How do you scale an image in AutoCAD if you know the dimensions of a drawing you scanned in? “You type SC in the command box, then select the object, specify your basepoint which is (0,0) then type “r” for reference, then enter the dimension that you know, and the drawing will scale itself to the referenced dimension you entered.” –Victor Chu

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This morning I came in and finished working on the area calculations for the Oliver Hall and SMMOA projects. It didn’t take me that long since I had set up all the drawings to finally the right scale the night before. That had been quite a hassle, because for some reason, AutoCAD likes to resize an image (jpg) if you worked on it in photoshop. When I was bringing in the images it would scale the image to make x=1”. I finally figured that out and would have the scale the image up to whatever x actually was, then scale it up again to match the specific scale of the original drawing. Since I had set that up last night I worked quickly and got the job done. After that I set up my questions for my interview with Chris Haegglund. I had many questions but wanted to keep it short but with enough good questions that I would gain some insight and knowledge. Chris took me out to lunch at Kate O’Brien’s and we had a great lunch at the irish restaurant. My informal interview lasted just about an hour and I learned a lot about Chris’s career and architecture in general. It was very interesting and helpful for me to hear that he had graduated from Cal Poly, (actually he graduated in Norway on the study abroad program) and then went to work for four years at a firm in San Francisco. He said he wanted to take a little break from work again and gain some more architectural design knowledge so he went back to school and got his Graduate Degree in London, UK. Hearing that inspired me even more to make that move once I graduate. I now know I want to work for two years or so, gain some work experience and make some money, then obtain my master’s from a university like Columbia in New York City. I am very thankful to Chris for the lunch and all the great advice. When I got back I took care of some e-mails from Erik at DFM in regards to the casework remodel in the office. Throughout the afternoon I had to coordinate with Erik Moriel and Teresa, who was out of the office, and Erik from DFM. We set Friday at 930am the time for DFM to come take field measurements and then give us a quote. Towards the end of the day Gary came to me with a quick project that needed immediate attention. I had to update the Oliver Hall InDesign presentation with the roof plan, basement plan, then stages 1A, 1B, 2A, 2B and a site section. He needed them printed at full scale color, and also PDF’d at full scale color then added to BAR’s FTP site. My job was to update the colors on the basement plan and the site section, then update the text on the InDesign file, then print and PDF the presentation. I finished it just at 5pm when it was time for me to leave for class.

What do you love most about Architecture? “I love the spaces between buildings. For instance, I was coming back from a dinner down south, and stopped by the Santana Row project. It was great to see people walking around, going in and out of restaurants and shops, and sitting outside cafes. It made me feel very proud.” –Chris Haegglund

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D AY 1 9 WEDNESDAY 11.29.06

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The plans I printed out last night were laying on my desk waiting to be trimmed so they could be sent out to the client, St. Mary’s College. I trimmed the 8 sheets and handed them off to Hal who was going to ship them out. After that I talked with Russell, who let me know that there was going to be a principal meeting about the Whitehouse Blackmarket project, and that would determine how the front elevation will look. So I was supposed to wait for the meeting to being constructing the elevation model. While I was waiting I read a new magazine that Teresa had called Metropolis Metropolis. It is from New York City and deals with cutting edge urban architecture and interior design. On the cover was a retail store in the Meatpacking District by a firm named Asymptote. From the outside the interior seemed to have a vortex leading to the back retail space. It was very futuristic and interesting so I read up about the project and the firm. They are extremely experimental and deep in their work, which until recently has not been built. After reading that for a bit, Teresa approached me and said I had to bail the model project and start immediately on the color blocking for the Northpark Project. The client finally requested that it be done, so now we had to rush to finish it. I started by making the appropriate AutoCAD files into PDF’s. Then once I finished that I searched for an empty graphic station and began scanning the colors and working on the elevations. Lunch time came and I was scheduled to do an interview with Susan McComb. Once again I was kindly taken out to lunch near the office, this time at a place called Saltey’s on Mission St. The restaurant was bustling with business people and had a great old rustic industrial design to it. We sat at a communal bar table and had one of the best lunches I’ve had in the city to date. We talked for awhile about her career, how she arrived at BAR, and her current work in the Middle East. I was very fascinated about the work that is taking place over there and got a much better understanding about the area. I was suprised to hear that the parents of the clients they are working with were simply desert nomads, and now the clients are extremely wealthy and are trying to create a full blown metropolis basically overnight. I learned a lot from Susan today and was very thankful for her insight and advice. Like my interview with Chris yesterday, I gained an even better perspective on what I want to pursue in my life and architecture. When I got back I continued to work on the color blocking, and printed out several stages of it to discuss with Teresa. There were minor improvements and things that needed to be worked on. Towards the end of the day, Russell and Teresa ended up battling over who gets to have me help work on their projects. We talked with Paula, and the verdict was that I needed to do a single color study of a 1/4” elevation that was more detailed, and something the office could use to talk about, and then when that is complete, help Russell and do the model. It was a very busy day but I learned a lot from all the work and discussions I had.

Because BAR does not have a specific style, how do you say BAR works with and selects clients? “BAR does pick and choose their clients. We make sure it is going to be a good project for the client and our firm. We do not have a specific style which I think is great for our clients. We help clients find their identity, then we design the essence of their identity into the project.” -Sandra McComb

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Today I started by finishing the color study for Teresa on one of the Northpark elevations. Paula requested a _” scale elevation with actual colors on it. I worked on the elevation in photoshop, bringing in the exact colors and textures from the color board I got from Teresa. It reminded me of when I worked on our TL Affordable Housing project earlier this quarter, and I was adding textures to sections, plans and elevations in photoshop. I finished that up and plotted it on the big plotter and was happy with how it came out. After finishing that I met with Russell because I was scheduled to build an elevation model for the Whitehouse Blackmarket project. They finally had a real site at a mall in Connecticut, so they had to do some minor tweaks to their plan and elevation that they already created. We talked about the elevation then came to the conclusion that we needed to wait on constructing it, until they knew exactly how the front worked, and whether they could alter certain portions of the façade. The model building was put on hold. I met again with Teresa and she informed me that Paula wanted me to keep working on the color blocking for all the elevations I PDF’d yesterday. I started working again on Graphics Station #2 doing the color blocking. When I got to a point where there were no colored drawings to reference I had to do my own investigating on where colors might go, etc. so it was a bit of a learning process being able to problem solve while reading the drawings. At lunch we had a presentation from Liberty Doors out of Petaluma, CA. It was a great presentation not only because they catered it from Bucca Di Peppo, but the firm had great values and products. It was one of those success stories where you hear about someone starting their business and now its 30 years later and thriving. They manufacture custom wooden doors and have started an entire eco-friendly system through their business. All the wood is reclaimed from old buildings and other sources, and they continue that green process all the way down to their brochures made out of recycled paper.

What do you do once you receive submittals back from consultants? “I take them, process and log them in the computer, show them to Steve and let him make sure they are all correct and in order, then I double check everything, and either re-submit or file them.” –Megan Morris h

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Friday was my last day to help out Teresa so I continued working on the color blocking for the Northpark project. Because I am a very detail oriented person I kept rechecking myself with Teresa to make sure certain areas, including small trims, window outlines, etc. needed to be colored specific colors, or what should not be. I did not want to be responsible for wrong colors being painted. For basically the rest of the day I worked on the color blocking. Towards the end of the day I stopped putting colors on, and took some time to set up the rest of the sheets with the color legend, and PDF format so the next person who works on them, will have no trouble. Teresa was happy with my work and thankful for setting up the sheets I could not finish. Today I also got to see the layout for the Christmas party and how they were going to arrange the tables. It’s pretty cool to be going to a Christmas party where everything is arranged by your company because they are designers. Same as is it to work in an office designed by the people who work in it. At lunchtime our class had office visits of Gensler, then we traveled back to BAR and I gave about 8 kids a tour of the office. Gensler was different than I originally imagined it would be. I thought with 220 people Gensler would be in an corporate office structure. Suprisingly they had a great open office with beautiful models and renderings along the walls. Brian Yang gave a fantastic tour and it was great to see a large scale architecture firm, not to mention their office is on the water next to the bay bridge. After Gensler we hiked it back to BAR and I gave a short but sweet tour of the office. I showed the students the Kobe project, then some of the renderings from the One Scottsdale project. The students were all amazed with the custom space and quite jealous their office’s were not as great. The tours were a great experience and I’m glad people participated in them.

How are project teams set up at Gensler, is it like most other firms? “There will typically be a principal on the project, who has several project architects designing it, then everyone below will assist in design work, CAD work, model work, etc. It’s a large firm but it’s broken down into small studios according to which type of building type.” –Brian Yang

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Big day, today is my 22nd birthday. Okay not really a big day it’s going to be work then class 6-9 then probably sleep. Today I started on the Green Music Center Project at Sonoma State. Gary Shilling introduced me to the materials that will be used for the interior and exterior finishes of the building. There are many different spaces that are using many different materials. The concert hall is mainly wood, while the exteriors are cmu, dryvit (which is an exterior finish that was developed in Europe and has come along way since it’s mold problems over a decade ago) then wood mortar. The day was spent laying out the finishes, researching some cultured stonework, and the dryvit colors. We arranged the materials by space, and had them ready to go for the next few days. There is a deadline on the material boards because Gary has a meeting in Sonoma Thursday morning. My plan for the next morning is to pick wall colors, base resilient pieces, order another sample of dryvit, and find smaller wood flooring samples to present. Just before lunch I was able to sit in on a review of the One Scottsdale project that Chris Haegglund and David Israel are managing. The presentation boards that consisted of floor plans, elevations and many 3D sketchup perspectives were posted on the walls, then the whole team sat down and discussed what the client was currently asking for, and where the project was going. It was great to see this review process, it reminded me of small critiques at school with professor, student and their peers. The client requested the sketchup model be fully complete by December 14th because they are going to build a 1/16” model of the whole area, with all the other 9 blocks of buildings, in a rapid prototyping machine. The model would cost over $100,000 and will be shown to the city. The meeting lasted about an hour and a half and was a great learning process to be able to see the teams interaction.

Will you put a materials board together for each room? “No typically we will do it for general spaces that roughly share the same materials. The concert hall will have its own because that is a major space, but then the classrooms will have one for all of them. Otherwise there would be way too many boards and materials.” –Gary Shilling

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Started the morning by dimensioning the materials for the exterior finishes. My plan was to measure them, then start putting them into autucad to eventually plot to PDF, then work on the board in InDesign. After I completed that small task I looked at paint colors for the wall, the resilient base, and several other small items. I had to look at the paint in the sunlight to achieve the right color spectrum, otherwise artificial lights alter your visual perception. Gary came in around 10am and we discussed all the materials for several hours. It became very clear to me just how tedious and detailed this profession is, even down to material choices. We went through many different colors for walls, alcoves, doors, trims, ceilings, and everything else you could imagine in a lobby and restaurant area. By about 3pm the materials were starting to come together for all the interior spaces. At 5pm I met again with Gary and John Lee and we discussed the plan of attack for Wednesday. They were going to finalize all the materials by tonight, then have them ready to be assembled by the morning. I was going to come in and have my palette of materials ready to dimension then set up on boards. The deadline was tomorrow night because they had their meeting with the clients in Sonoma on Thursday morning at 8am. It’s going to be a busy Wednesday. Jeff Goodwin took me out to lunch today for an informal lunch at Hunan. I tried a new dish that he recommended, which was smoked ham and chicken. It was delicious and I have something new to order at Chinese restaurants. We had a great conversation, he’s from Cal Poly as well, so I got to hear how he started out his career and life once he graduated. He was also very interested in students nowadays and what they are looking for once they graduate. I appreciated the time and the extremely valuable information he gave me. All the advice I have received from the interviews is something I could not get anywhere else. Then after class ended I jammed over to Mezzanine (great live music nightclub) and bought a ticket from some girl off craigslist, and got to see Ratatat and the Faint. It was unbelievable and probably one of my top five live shows.

EXTERIOR FINISHES 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12.

CMU Walls (East, North & South) Color C Calstone 1111 Lite Tan CMU Accent Stripe: Color C Calstone 1111 Lite Tan CMU Grout: Latricrete: 40 Latte ® West Planar Wall CMU: Color B, black, white, grey, brown aggregate West Planar Walls: LaHabra, X-215 Mesa Verde (Base 100) Typical Wall: LaHabra, 1/2X-215 Mesa Verde (Base 100) Accent Wall: Dryvit Systems: Sandpebble DPR (SP 445A/Pearl) Wood Trim: Dlymric Stain 705 Grass Metal Trim: Kawneer, Clear No. 14 and No. 17. Window Frames: Kawneer Champagne No. 18 Metal Awnings and Exterior Trim: Benjamin Moore 2112-20 “brown sugar”

Green Music Center 04040 Materials Board List RESTAURANT: 1. Window Shades: Lutron SheerShade, Tobacco 2. Upholstered Wall Recesses: Yves Gonnet: Leafline, Color 701 Hazel 3. Banquette Upholstery: Designtex, Mohair Plush III, Color: Espresso 4. Window Frames and Decorative Metals: Kawneer Champagne No. 18 5. Wall Finish: Benjamin Moore OC-18 dove wing 6. Stone Tile: Spec Ceramics, Inc. Limestone; Color “Amber Gold” 7. Throw Pillows: Maharam, Messenger 458640, 003 Saffron 8. Quarry Tile QT-1: Daltile, Quarry Textures; Color: 0T01 “Diablo Red” 9. Fireplace Hearth: Lithochomre Chemstain, CS-14 Dark Walnut 10. Firebrick: 11. Carpet CPT-5: Patcraft Commerical Carpet; Perpetual Motion, Color 10036 “Uninterrupted” 12. Wood Flooring WF-2: Cumaru 13. Chair Upholstery: Luna Textiles: Sonic, Gold Dust 14. Fireplace Hood CONCERT HALL: LOBBY AND PUBLIC AREAS 15. Floor Field Color: Spec Ceramics: Amber Gold Honed 16. Floor Accent Color: Spec Ceramics 17. Wall Tile CT-2: Daltile 6565 Matte Almond 18. Walls: Benjamin Moore HC 36 Hepplewhite Ivory 19. Walls Accent Color: Benjamin Moore HC79 Greenbrier Beige 20. Carpet 4: Bölyü , Harringbone, HRB53 “Drywood” 21. Carpet 3: Bölyü, Herringbone, HRB12 “Twine” EDUCATION BUILDING & BACK OF HOUSE 1. Doors & Frames, Benjamin Moore HC-101 2. Wall Accent Color: Benjamin Moore HC96 Richmond-gray 3. Walls: Benjamin Moore OC-17 white dove 4. Acoustical Tile Ceiling: Armstrong Ceiling Systems Ultima, Color: White 5. Acoustical Panel Fabric: Design Tex: Panel Wrapped Panel Brunswick 6307-103 6. Wall Tile CT-2: Daltile Permatones, Color 6565 “Almond” 7. Floor Tile: CT-1: Daltile. Natural Hues. OH16 “Mushroom” 8. Countertop Laminate, Wilsonart Laminate D478-60 Amazon 9. Cabinet Laminate: Wilsonart Laminate, 1503-60 Putty 10. Resilient Tile, RFT-2 : Armstrong, Imperial Texture, Color:51910 “Classic Black” 11. Resilient Base: Johnsonite Recess Wall Base, RWDC-29 “Moon Rock” 12. Resilient Tile, RTF -1 Armstrong, Imperial Texture, Color: 51876 “Mint Cream” 13. Door Hardware 14. Resilient Sheet Floor: RSF-1. 88065 Almond White 15. Accent Carpet: CPT-2 Bolyu. CLS39 Renown 16. Carpet CPT- :Bolyu. KNL54 Earl Gray

Once you graduated from Cal Poly was it pretty easy for you to get a job? “Yes it was fairly easy. Cal Poly has a great reputation for producing students that are ready to work and can be productive. I don’t know how the East Coast views Cal Poly, but on the west coast Cal Poly is very reputable.” –Jeff Goodwin

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D AY 2 4 WEDNESDAY 12.06.06

BARARCHITECTS 5 4 3 H O W A R D S A N F R A N C I S C O ,

S T R E E T C A 9 4 1 0 5

Today was the crunch for completing the three material boards for the Green Music Center at Sonoma State. I started the morning by creating the exterior materials board in InDesign. I played with sheet sizes for a little bit then came up with a good 30”x40” sheet with a black background, and Jeremy’s title block on the bottom. I had already measured the material sizes so I simply inputted them into rectangles in InDesign. I also already created the layout in physical form, so in InDesign I laid out the boxes according to the physical one. For the legend I took a scaled down image of the boxes and numbered them, then added the text that Hal wrote up, and corresponded to the numbers. So overall the sheet looked nice and was ready to be plotted. I plotted it and the graphics came out very crisp and I was pleased with my work. After I printed the first sheet I needed some foam core to actually mount the materials and sheet on. I ran over the local art store on New Montgomery and picked up 3 sheets of _” and 3 sheets of _” foam core. I love getting out for a few minutes from work because I get to experience the city at different times of the day. It’s not bad when you can walk outside and be in such a rich urban context. I got back and had Ra help me spray mount the sheet on the foam core. Once I completed that I started cutting out the boxes and mounted the thinner piece on the thick piece, and started placing the materials. The exterior finishes board came out very nice and I was really happy with what I created. Once I had the template and know-how of making the materials board I was going to try and fast track the rest of the boards. Which was not the case. At lunch Gary Shilling took me to Thirsty Bear just down Howard St. We talked about how he started his career and it was very interesting because it was similar to what I want to do. He started out at Washington college, then made his way to New York and worked for I.M. Pei on the Hong Kong Bank tower. Then he made his way out to SF and has lived here ever since. It was great to hear the success story and inspired me to go after the goals I’ve set forth. Hal had finished labeling all the materials with the proper text. So I had the word documents ready to be inputted on the next two sheets. I did the same process and dimensioned the sheets with boxes that corresponded to the materials, then I set up the legend and text. Time was beginning to not be on our side. By 6pm I printed the first interior sheet. We glued it down and cut it up to fit the materials, only this time some materials had to also be cut to fit the spaces. I printed the last sheet and worked on that one while Gary worked on the other one. It got to be pretty fast since we were both working on them. Then the color plotter needed a paper refill so we needed to load new paper so Maria Clara could plot the colored floor plans. That was a learning process in itself because plotters are very detailed and demanding in their refill process. We ended up finishing the boards at about 8:30pm, which was a great feeling and success because Gary had to be in Sonoma at 8am the next morning for the meeting. We took a cab to the Westin St. Francis where the BAR Christmas party was. It was an absolutely beautiful room with a beautiful view over the city. It was my first work party so I was starting it out in style. They had open bar and big selection of great food. My roommate Sean came and I got to talk to people outside of the work area. I really enjoyed the night and was very thankful for the opportunity.

Do clients typically understand the ideas behind the Architecture of your design, or do they only understand the visual images they see? “For clients they mainly understand what they can see, explaining the architecture or concepts is tough but a lot of clients can see it and understand. When you get clients who really understand what architecture is it is great because then the process goes very smoothly and it enriches the project.” –Gary Shiling

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D AY 2 5

BARARCHITECTS 5 4 3 H O W A R D S A N F R A N C I S C O ,

T H U R S D AY 1 2 . 0 7 . 0 6

Today is my last day at BAR. After sleeping in a little bit, which I was allowed to do courtesy of Teresa, I made it into work and cleaned up the mess we created last night. Then I went through the boards I did and some pictures I took from my phone last night of the boards, and cleaned them up and got them ready for my journal. I also returned stuff from my area so I could be prepared to leave later in the day. At 11am I had an interview with Richard Beard down in the double doors conference room. It was a great talk and I received a lot of inspiration about what I should do in the next several years of my life. Being able to casually talk to one of the partners of the firm was great. I really appreciated that he took some time out of his very busy schedule to give me some advice and knowledge about he profession of architecture. At lunch, Teresa, Neil, Russell, David, and Chris took me out to Yank Sing which is a great Dim Sum restaurant in an alle near market. This was my first time at a dim sum restaurant so I was real excited to try some new food. Russell explained that he used to go to Dim Sum places on Sundays when he grew up in Washington D.C. so he was the pro at ordering the food. He was like a blackjack player sayin either hit me or hold when they came out with the food, it was a funny sight. The dishes came out one after another for 30 seconds straight. It was madness, but of course I loved it because I’m slightly obsessed with food. We had a good time and they thanked me for all my help and I of course told them how much I appreciated everything they’ve done. And of course Russell had a hilarious/ridiculous comment at the end, we’ll keep that for the people who were there. For the rest of the day I continued working on the color blocking for the Northpark project. I met late with Paula to look over the actual materials coloring I did for one of the elevations. Then I met with Chris H. and we looked over my porfolio and talked about my projects. It was great that he took the time to do that for me. Then he actually gave me a ride home because I was too late for the 30x.

S T R E E T C A 9 4 1 0 5

LEGEND 1

2

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6

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9 10 12 11

1. CMU WALLS (EAST, NORTH & SOUTH) COLOR C CALSTONE 1111 LITE TAN 2. CMU ACCENT STRIPE: COLOR C CALSTONE 1111 LITE TAN 3. CMU GROUT: LATRICRETE: 40 LATTE ® 4. WEST PLANAR WALL CMU: COLOR B, BLACK, WHITE, GREY, BROWN AGGREGATE 5. WEST PLANAR WALLS: LAHABRA, X-215 MESA VERDE (BASE 100) 6. TYPICAL WALL: LAHABRA, 1/2X-215 MESA VERDE (BASE 100) 7. ACCENT WALL: DRYVIT SYSTEMS: SANDPEBBLE DPR (SP 445A/PEARL) 8. WOOD TRIM: DLYMRIC STAIN 705 9. GLASS 10. METAL TRIM: KAWNEER, CLEAR NO. 14 AND NO. 17. 11. WINDOW FRAMES: KAWNEER CHAMPAGNE NO. 18 12. METAL AWNINGS AND EXTERIOR TRIM: BENJAMIN MOORE 2112-20 “BROWN SUGAR”

EXTERIOR FINISHES GREEN MUSIC CENTER ARCHITECT: BAR ARCHITECTS LANDSCAPE & SITE DESIGN: QUADRIGA LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE INC. CONCERT HALL DESIGN & MASTER PLAN: WILLIAM RAWN ASSOCIATES ACOUSTICAL DESIGN: KIRKEGAARD ASSOCIATES

LEGEND 1

1. CMU WALLS (EAST, NORTH & SOUTH) COLOR C CALSTONE 1111 LITE TAN 2. CMU ACCENT STRIPE: COLOR C CALSTONE 1111 LITE TAN 3. CMU GROUT: LATRICRETE: 40 LATTE ® 4. WEST PLANAR WALL CMU: COLOR B, BLACK, WHITE, GREY, BROWN AGGREGATE 5. WEST PLANAR WALLS: LAHABRA, X-215 MESA VERDE (BASE 100) 6. TYPICAL WALL: LAHABRA, 1/2X-215 MESA VERDE (BASE 100) 7. ACCENT WALL: DRYVIT SYSTEMS: SANDPEBBLE DPR (SP 445A/ PEARL) 8. WOOD TRIM: DLYMRIC STAIN 705 9. GLASS 10. METAL TRIM: KAWNEER, CLEAR NO. 14 AND NO. 17. 11. WINDOW FRAMES: KAWNEER CHAMPAGNE NO. 18 12. METAL AWNINGS AND EXTERIOR TRIM: BENJAMIN MOORE 2112-20 “BROWN SUGAR”

INTERIOR FINISHES GREEN MUSIC CENTER ARCHITECT: BAR ARCHITECTS LANDSCAPE & SITE DESIGN: QUADRIGA LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE INC. CONCERT HALL DESIGN & MASTER PLAN: WILLIAM RAWN ASSOCIATES ACOUSTICAL DESIGN: KIRKEGAARD ASSOCIATES

“Popped your Dim Sum ______” -anonymous

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EDUCATION BUILDING & BACK OF HOUSE 1. Doors & Frames, Benjamin Moore HC-101 2. Wall Accent Color: Benjamin Moore HC96 Richmond-gray 3. Walls: Benjamin Moore OC-17 white dove 4. Acoustical Tile Ceiling: Armstrong Ceiling Systems Ultima, Color: White 5. Acoustical Panel Fabric: Design Tex: Panel Wrapped Panel Brunswick 6307-103 6. Wall Tile CT-2: Daltile Permatones, Color 6565 “Almond” 7. Floor Tile: CT-1: Daltile. Natural Hues. OH16 “Mushroom” 8. Countertop Laminate, Wilsonart Laminate D478-60 Amazon 9. Cabinet Laminate: Wilsonart Laminate, 1503-60 Putty 10.Resilient Tile, RFT-2 : Armstrong, Imperial Texture, Color:51910 “Classic Black” 11.Resilient Base: Johnsonite Recess Wall Base, RWDC-29 “Moon Rock” 12.Resilient Tile, RTF -1 Armstrong, Imperial Texture, Color: 51876 “Mint Cream” 13.Door Hardware 14.Resilient Sheet Floor: RSF-1. 88065 Almond White 15.Accent Carpet: CPT-2 Bolyu. CLS39 Renown 16.Carpet CPT- :Bolyu. KNL54 Earl Gray SOLOIST DRESSING ROOMS 17.Wall Tile CT-2: Daltile Permatones, Color 6565 “Almond” 18.Countertop Laminate: Wilsonart Laminate, Color: Graphite Nebula 4623-60 19.Floor Tile CT-3: Daltile Permatones, Color 6552 Matte Cypress 20.Carpet CPT-6: Bölyü, Kinsale II, Color: KNL25 “Killian” RECITAL HALL 21.Organ Case: No. 7 Golden on Red Oak 22.Ceiling: Benjamin Moore 2118-20 toucan black 23.Seat Upholstery and Acoustic Curtains: Design Tex, Mohair Plush, Color: Alspice 24.Canvas Acoustical Deflector Panels: Lutron, Sheer Shade, Color: Linen/linen 25.Wood Paneling and Theater Seats: Junckers Beech 26.Stained Concrete Floor: Lithochrome Chemstain, CS-1 Black

INTERIOR FINISHES GREEN MUSIC CENTER ARCHITECT: BAR ARCHITECTS LANDSCAPE & SITE DESIGN: QUADRIGA LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE INC. CONCERT HALL DESIGN & MASTER PLAN: WILLIAM RAWN ASSOCIATES ACOUSTICAL DESIGN: KIRKEGAARD ASSOCIATES

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CHRIS HAEGGLUND PRINCIPAL Kate O’Brien’s Restaurant 11.28.06

BARARCHITECTS 5 4 3 H O W A R D S A N F R A N C I S C O ,

S T R E E T C A 9 4 1 0 5

Chris is originally from the bay area. He graduated from Cal Poly San Luis Obispo in the early 80’s with a Bachelors of Architecture. He went to Norway for the study abroad program which he said made him realize he definitely wants to work in an urban environment like San Francisco. He worked for 4 years at a firm in SF then moved to London where he attended a graduate program for one year and received his Graduate of Architecture Degree. He said it was really great to have worked a few years after college, then take a break and go back to school where he could hone his design skills. When he came back to SF he applied to BAR and interviewed with two office management people. He gave his portfolio to some of the people who were the design captains of the office. Chris described BAR’s Architecture as something that will be timeless, not just something of the moment, or a strict look. Their clients input and site location are major factors in the design, they will input their design strategies and hone the aesthetic, but will not force upon a standard design that BAR has created, like big name architects tend to do. Chris is big on creating spaces, warm spaces where people interact, and use the space. An example he mentioned was the Santana Row project. One night he went by there on his way home from a different client meeting and saw people flowing out of restaurants, sitting at cafes, actually enjoying and using the space as BAR intended it to. He felt very proud to have created what he was seeing unfold in front of him. To be able to create something like that, even if the architecture is not completely realized or noticed, is something to be proud of and is what architects should be doing. They should not just be building pretty buildings that should not have landscape in front of them, or almost become unusable. He explained that school only deals with the first 5 to 10 weeks of a project, that there is so much to a project that people who have not worked before do not understand. Having work experience is one of the best things besides an education because it puts a real life spin on an architecture education. Doing this internship program through BAR will help tremendously because it gives real life experience. Having a master’s degree does not increase your pay like a business degree or companies would do. More work experience increases your pay, and how good your portfolio is. Base pay for firms in SF like BAR for a junior architect a year out of school is in the low $40,000 range. It is not a high paying job, but a very rewarding and respectful job. Chris is mostly interested in mixed-use housing developments with retail. He has never worked on a public project, and BAR typically does not either, even though recently BAR has dove into the university realm with theatre and student housing. BAR began that dive by doing student housing, because they were known for doing big housing projects, so they knew they could get their foot in the door that way. There are problems with that type of work or client because it is typically a fixed fee, and being architects, they end up working past that fee and won’t get paid the extra time. Private companies are usually good clients because you can get directly to the top guy, who will tell you what he wants and then that is who you listen to, rather than hearing five different versions from other people who end up confusing you on a project. His senior project was multi-family housing when he was in Norway. He has stuck with that area of architecture since and is quite successful at it. Currently he is working on high end housing and retail in Scottsdale, Arizona. They are trying to mix traditional and modern architecture in these big blocks of housing, parking and retail. The client wants the area to look like it developed over a long period of time from different stages and styles of architecture, to give it a very eclectic feel. Chris’s advice would be to work another summer, and have that solid amount of work experience, then work once you get out of school, and go to school for graduate school after working a few years, then with all that work experience, and schooling, you will have a great portfolio and resume and be successful. You may not design right off the bat of beginning your real career, but you can move up quickly if you pursue projects, and show INTEREST in what the principals are designing and working on. IF YOU SHOW INTEREST IN A PROJECT AND THE DESIGN, YOU CAN START TO INFLUENCE THE DESIGN AND HELP OUT, IN TURN, YOU ALSO SHOW YOUR DESIGN SKILLS AND SHOW PRINCIPALS THAT YOU CARE AND WANT TO MOVE UP. He said that is one major thing people do not do, they just let the principals design everything and won’t ever put in their opinion. If you don’t ever speak up you’ll stay at one level for a long time. Just show INTEREST INTEREST INTEREST.

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SUSAN McCOMB PRINCIPAL Saltey’s Restaurant 11.29.06

BARARCHITECTS 5 4 3 H O W A R D S A N F R A N C I S C O ,

S T R E E T C A 9 4 1 0 5

Susan is originally from Colorado and she graduated from UT Austin with a Bachelors of Architecture. Originally, she started her college career as a business major, then when she stepped in the 200 person class and realized how boring it was, she switched majors immediately to the most interesting major on campus. She failed her first design projects, but that only made her a stronger student. UT Austin is an interesting school because they have a major balance of theory and practice in their education. Students once graduating can work at a firm immediately and be very productive. She moved to San Francisco after college and interviewed at BAR, but because of a major recession she was denied and ended up working at a smaller firm. She then started a master’s program at UC Berkeley, but soon was over that and left back to Colorado for several years. She came back to San Francisco in 1989 and interviewed again at BAR and was hired. Since then she has moved up in the firm and is now one of 11 principals. Currently she is working on a project in Qatar in the Persian Gulf. It is a theme park mixed use plan, amongst a city that is exploding onto the map. She explained to me that the cities of Dubai, Doha, and Qatar have all these wonderful skyscrapers and outlandish buildings going up high into the sky, but no street life or urban fabric like we do in SF or NY. In her waterfront mixed use project she is trying to capture the identity of the area and make it a space where the scale is brought down to the human level. This idea of capturing the identity of the area or the client, is one of BAR’s major design emphasis. They pride themselves with creating the essence of an area, culture, lifestyle into their projects. Instead of having big buildings that are mainly eye candy, like star architects tend to do, BAR creates spaces and buildings that are great to be in, great to experience everyday. Susan explained that she is struggling a little bit with capturing Qatar’s identity, because it has evolved so quickly over the last twenty years. The clients she is working with, who have more money than most can fathom, their parents were Bedouin wanderers who lived in tents in the desert. That was not that long ago, and now there is this major boom of building cities and new economies and markets in the Middle East, but there is no real history to these areas, the history is evolving right now. But right now it is just becoming one major money driven theme park. With islands in the shape of the world, snow parks in the desert, and skyscrapers from all the famous architects around the world. So capturing an “identity” to the area is somewhat difficult, because they do not have one yet. Another problem is that when she explains how the waterfront area should work with sidewalks, cafes, places where people interact and work with each other at a street level human scale, the clients can not really understand that because there is not a simple system or structure to creating that, unlike a skyscraper. So explaining these concepts is not an easy task, but a very enriching one to Susan. One of the other things the Qatar clients do not understand is the life of a city and how it should work. For example, in San Francisco you are surrounded by office skyscrapers and such, but at the street level, there is just as much work and action going on. With people walking around for lunch, coffee, making deliveries, there is a whole substance to urban life that is a major URBAN FABRIC that is also something that EVOLVES OVER TIME. You can not just plop down a new city and say this is how it is going to work. People make that work over time. We talked about New York and different types of architecture firms. BAR is a more timeless, craftsmen San Francisco type firm; where as companies like Morphosis started out theoretical and has specific styles and philosophies in their building types. She definitely recommended I go to New York and try other firms. Cutting edge, theoretical, modern. Try everything when your young and see what fits you best, then when you develop that sense you will see where and what you want to settle yourself in to. For herself, she liked the philosophies BAR had, and also the location of their office. San Francisco is a lifestyle, and for architect’s, it is not a place where you come to create flashy superstar buildings. It is a place where you come to do great architecture, in a classic fashion, and also have a great lifestyle of being in a famous urban city. She explained New York is also the same way whereas you put yourself into a lifestyle of the area, but there is so much more types of architecture that you can get yourself into. People are comfortable with what they do in SF and that is how they live their lives. They don’t need to be creating gigantic skyscrapers in Denmark and other things of that nature. She is the principal and works on a variety of projects, but still eats, sleeps and dreams architecture. She is a great sketcher and that is something her clients and co-workers love about her. Sketching can show clients concepts and ideas very easily. She also loves being able to throw input to many different projects while they are in the conceptual phase. That is one of her strong points, working in the conceptual phase. Currently she is working on a theme park that is going to develop in Korea, she also has the waterfront mixed use area in Qatar.

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JEFF GOODWIN PRINCIPAL Hunan Restaurant 12.05.06

BARARCHITECTS 5 4 3 H O W A R D S A N F R A N C I S C O ,

S T R E E T C A 9 4 1 0 5

Not only do we share the greatest name in the history of mankind, but we also have Cal Poly San Luis Obispo background. Jeff graduated from Cal Poly in the 80’s with a Bachelors of Architecture. It was amazing to hear some of the same teachers who taught him twenty years ago are still teaching design classes that I’ve even taken. Jeff started at BAR in the late 80’s and has been there since. He too started as a Junior Architect and has now made his way up to Principal. Jeff loves the firm and has worked on clubhouses and lodges through most of his career. He works very hard, usually getting in by 6 or 7am then not leaving til the same tonight in the evening. I asked him if it’s tough managing your professional life with your personal life. He explained to me that is difficult, but you must do it. Family life is the most important thing there is. He said he usually tries to leave early to pick up his children and spend time with them at their games or after school events. Architecture is very consuming but you can not let it consume your whole life. He said it also depends on your personality because you judge how much it can consume you. It was very valuable to hear about Architecture at a personal level. I know life is not all work, and your personal life is just as important. Jeff had several questions for me, which was great. He asked me how BAR might get its name out there to graduating students. BAR wants the best and the strongest students coming out of schools, and he said specifically Cal Poly because he knows first hand about their education. He knows BAR does not have the flashy cutting edge work that per say Morphosis does, but their quality of Architecture is something that can not be beat. I replied that maybe if they came to campus during job fairs, or somehow slipped their name into magazines or the school itself. Basically to show students that BAR is a very respectable, and great firm to work for. I was honest with him and told him I had not heard of BAR til Sandy told me about them. I explained to him that most out of college kids will want to work at the cutting edge flashy architecture firms because that’s mostly what we see in magazines, newsletters, etc. You don’t see multi family housing projects at school. If kids just knew and saw how timeless and great the work BAR does, and the office itself, I know it would open the eyes and minds of college architecture students. We had a great lunch at Hunan’s and I got to try something new. I was very appreciative of his time and his answers to somewhat personal questions about Architecture as a career.

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GARY SHILLING PRINCIPAL Thirsty Bear Restaurant 12.06.06

BARARCHITECTS 5 4 3 H O W A R D S A N F R A N C I S C O ,

S T R E E T C A 9 4 1 0 5

Gary grew up on a farm in Missouri and attended Washing University, where he got his Bachelors of Architecture. After he graduated from Washington he moved to New York City where he worked for I.M. Pei. At Pei’s office he worked on the famous Bank of China at Hong Kong. He also achieved his Master’s of Architecture from Yale University in 1983. After his time on the east coast he came out to San Francisco and began working at BAR in 1990. Since then he has moved up the ranks and become Principal. Gary has always been interested in cities and the urban fabric. New York and San Francisco are big changes from Missouri. He said working at Pei’s office was a great experience, but when he was on such a large project, and not able to see the end product, especially one that he only assisted on, was nowhere near as much of a satisfaction as it is to see projects he completed at BAR. He is very involved and loves his work. Currently Gary is working on the Green Music Center at Sonoma State and the St. Mary’s College addition of Oliver Hall. He told me how there is a major push and pull with clients. It is the same type of stuff I discussed with Chris and Susan He is an extremely busy person and I asked him how tough it is to manage the profession of architecture with his personal life. He said very tough but like others have said, very necessary. Even though lately for Gary profession and personal life have come together quite often. Gary’s church which is located on Franklin St. It was built in 1902 and needed a renovation mandated by the city, to be structurally sound according to code. Gary was not the architect, but as a consultant or project manager to the project. The parish had to raise roughly 500,000 to be able to fix the church. Amazingly it was raised through fundraisers and they were able to do the project. This coming Sunday will be the first day of the completed renovations and Gary is extremely happy for it to be over and will be a major accomplishment for him and his parish. It was so great to hear that he like others can mesh this profession that is not your typical 8-5 job. It was very encouraging. Gary’s advice was to work after school and move to New York. Just to get the experience. Don’t let it become too late where you cannot do something like that. He said the urban context is so rich and great that you should really see the different varieties anywhere from New York to Seattle to right back in San Francisco.

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RICHARD BEARD PARTNER

Double Doors Conference Room 12.07.06

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Richard Beard is one of five partners in the firm. He is originally from Texas and received his Bachelors of Architecture from Rice University. He got into architecture after he worked for his father who was a contractor. Once he graduated college he worked at one of his professor’s practice in Texas. He was there for several years then made his way out to San Francisco. BAR was his first job in the city and he has remained there for over twenty years. He started as a junior architect and has now made his way up to partner. As of about seven years ago Richard started to focus strictly on the residential projects at BAR. We talked about how residential work is at a more personal level and he explained that working with clients on that level is a great experience and feeling. Especially once you see the end product with your clients living and enjoying the space you created. It was great hearing the success and joy in that specific field of architecture because I am starting to lean toward that sector. Being a partner, Richard typically oversees and influences the design on projects he works with. For instance, with the Whitehouse Blackmarket project I assisted with, Richard was the lead designer, and he met with the clients, then Russell and Neil helped him and put forth their own architectural ideas, and the group would converse about the architecture of the space, and what the client wants, then Richard would finalize the decisions. It was with this group that I got to sit in on a critique. We talked about that process and the hierarchy, if you will, of the design team. We talked about costs and fees on projects and where individuals bill rates go, and basically how they’re created. We also discussed the profession as a whole and why the pay is not that significant, as opposed to lets say the financial industry. He explained to me that about twenty years ago the pay was much better, but now with legality issues, liability, and increased amount of service, an Architect’s service is not as expensive as it used to be. The difference between architecture and a financial company or a company that sells products, is that when we sleep we’re not getting paid, but when the owner of a product sleeps, their products are still selling. We sell a personal service, not a product. I learned a lot hearing that from Richard and also helped me clarify many things. Richard gave me some advice about what I should do once I graduate and life’s path. He said one major thing you want to try to do before you get bogged down with a full time career and personal duties, is to travel as much as you can, whether it be around Europe on trains, or the United States, just get out there while your young. He loves to travel, but when business trips include travel, there’s usually not enough time to enjoy the area. He also said if you have a friend that you can travel with; they are going to be your best friend. And that is something very valuable in life.

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BAR MARKETING TECHNIQUES

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Who is responsible for Marketing BAR? YOU. Marketing a firm like BAR Architects is not a single effort by the Marketing Group. Instead, the primary effort depends highly on the firm’s most important marketing resource of all – its employees. You represent the standard of excellence and quality that BAR Architects stands for and the more you know about BAR the better you can market it. So, one of the Marketing Group’s goals is to inform you about the latest projects, industry news and marketing events. You’ll find all of that here at the Marketing Group page. It’s just as important that our clients have a pleasant working relationship with each team member and a positive interaction with any BAR staff--from the Accounting Department, the Front Desk, the Project Coordinator, the junior and project architects, to the senior staff and principal in charge. Approximately 80% of our business comes from repeat and referral clients. That said, our relationships with past and current clients make a difference. What project types does BAR actively market? BAR promotes full architectural services for all types of residential developments (custom homes, apartments, student residences and senior housing), specialty retail stores and shopping centers (tenant improvement and shell and core), restaurants, wineries, commercial and mixed use buildings, film and theater facilities, and clubhouses, resorts and hotels. Who do I speak to about a potential project? Contact Feli Ortega at extension 279 and provide as much information about the client or project as possible--such as the project schedule, size of the project, client background and contact information, budget (if known), scope of the project. Feli will follow up by discussing the opportunity with the principals, or researching the lead further, or sending relevant material and information as requested. How is a decision to pursue a project made? Meetings to discuss potential projects are held weekly. The potential client and/or project are looked at closely to determine whether or not BAR has the resources to undertake the project, whether it complements the firm’s portfolio and if it is appropriate for the current workload. How often does BAR advertise in magazines and newspapers? Because BAR has a unique list of clients, advertising in publications for the general public is not an effective way to market the firm. However, BAR sponsors special programs and events for organizations such as the Junior League of San Francisco, the Sonoma Country Day School, LEAP (Learning through Education-in-the-Arts Program), the Silicon Valley Chapter of IFMA (International Facility Management Association) and Stanford University. In what publications has BAR been published? BAR has been featured in publications ranging from Architectural Digest, to The New York Times Magazine to books such as Great Store Designs and Cafes and Bistros. A complete set of articles in which BAR has been published is available. Contact Feli Ortega for more information. How does a project get published? Typically, a project is publishable and can be pitched to appropriate magazines after the project has been completed and photographed. Authorizations and release for publication are obtained from the client before this process. Not every project is selected for publication nor is it published right away. Sometimes it can take up to a year before the project is featured in a specific magazine or book. What other tools does BAR use to promote itself? The Marketing Group exhibits in four tradeshows a year. Each one targets a specific market. -TAKEN FROM THE MARKETING DEPARTMENT’S WEBSITE

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BAR COMPUTER SOFTWARE

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Microsoft Office XP: The computers in the office run on Microsoft Office XP. Everyone uses Microsoft outlook for e-mail, and Microsoft word for documents. Microfsoft Xcel is used for spreadsheets. AutoCAD 2002: The standard drafting tool in almost every office, BAR uses AutoCAD to create 2D drawings all the way from site plans to the smallest detail drawings. One thing I really was impressed by is how finely tuned and custom to BAR Victor and Jackson have made the program. SketchUp: SketchUp is a 3D modeling program. BAR used it in early development of projects. It is used mostly in the schematic design phas, and sometimes in the design development phase. They would use it in the beginning to do site massing and site diagramming, then later it they used it for more detailed tasks to show building exteriors and interiors. Adobe Photoshop CS2: I worked on this program a lot at BAR. It was used to diagramming floor plans, where there might be residential, retail, service areas in a project. It was also used to do color studies for building elevations or roof plans. Along with color diagramming a lot of people used it in the office to bring in hand drawn scans, or when researching for specific found objects and images. Adobe InDesign CS2: Another frequently used program at BAR. I worked on it quite often to set up presentation boards for several projects. After working on drawings in Adobe Photoshop, I would bring the PDF’s into an InDesign document, and set them up on master sheets with title blocks. In InDesign you can add text and other graphics. ArchiCAD: ArchiCAD is another 3D modeling program, only much more advanced than SketchUp. BAR is currently in a pilot program with the software to see how it can be used in the office. They are using it on the Kobe, Japan high rise project. ArchiCAD is known for creating BIM’s or Building Information Models. That means every piece of the digital model can have information to it, all the way down to specific panels in the wall. The information can tell you the pricing on it, the dimensions, how many there should be, etc. It is a very helpful project and is gaining recognition in the architecture world. BAR is currently working on getting licensing for the office.

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INTERNSHIP EVALUATION

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Waking up Monday thru Friday and hopping on the 30x Marina Express to downtown San Francisco was a bit different than riding my bike down California St. to Cal Poly. The San Francisco Urban Design Internship allowed me to experience what it’s like to not only work in a well known Architecture firm, but to experience the lifestyle of being in an urban environment. I will never forget the cramped yet hilarious bus rides in the morning, or the lunch breaks at Chipotle when I watched eccentric people walk by, or the happy hours after work with friends. But most of all I will not forget the great people and experiences I had while working at BAR Architects. I loved working at BAR because I was able to move around to different projects and experience different stages of different projects. I knew I did not want to be stuck on one project for the entire six weeks, and they made sure of that. I learned how valuable the model making process was for clients and designers trying to understand a space. I realized that critiques not only occur in school but are actually an important part of the design process with project teams. I also learned just how extremely detailed a project, and basically Architecture as a profession truly is. I learned how important presentation skills are, whether it is color diagramming floor plans, sections, elevations, or even constructing material boards. I learned about RFI’s, project phases, billing, fees and other contractual items. I also was able to work on a casework project myself and got to see the professional way of handling even the smallest projects. These are all things I learned and experienced that I know I would never get from being at school. I greatly appreciate BAR Architects for taking their time to teach me about the profession, and also to everyone who gave me advice about what they did with their careers, and what might be good for me. I cannot thank you enough for the opportunity and the experiences. One last thing would be to recommend the San Francisco Urban Design Internship for anyone who wants a taste of the urban life, and one of the greatest experiences you’ll ever have in Architecture and in your life.

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