This video is made possible
by Pacific Arc and FaulknerBrowns architects.
It's another magnificent morning
in beautiful Vancouver.
I fill my lungs
with the air of the city, the textures, the sound, the smell.
They all inspire me.
I breathe
in the aura of the mountains, the ocean.
As I start my day full of inspiration
and creativity
these days, most of my time is spent on construction
for a library renovation here in B.C..
Our team worked really hard with the library and the city
to come up with a design that we're all super excited about.
And I just can't wait for the thing that we designed
finally get built.
Oh 54 Emails.
Oh shoot.
Can't core to the slab due to existing electrical conduits.
Please answer ASAP.
This whole process is
called CA construction contract administration.
This is the phase after the design phase,
after you've created all the construction drawings and written all your specs.
After you've selected your contractor.
And now you're getting ready to build your design.
Typically, the architect is responsible for administering
the contract between the client and the contractor.
You have to make sure that the proper products are ordered
and if there's any questions, they get answered quickly.
And basically making sure that the design is being built to your design intent.
We do everything from reviewing
shop drawings or answering questions from the contractors.
We do site reviews.
We certify payments, and if the contractor claims for any extras,
we administer that to make sure that it's fair and warranted for this project.
Is a renovation of an existing building.
So a lot of things did come up that we didn't really expect.
For example, we're demolishing these existing washrooms
to turn them into universal, gender neutral washrooms.
But when these scandals slide, to start caring for the toilets,
they found electrical conduits in the slab that weren't on the original drawings.
Now, a really big part of an architect's job is coordinating between all the
different parties involved in construction and with your consultants.
So first all go to our electrical consultant
and I'll ask him, is it okay if we core into this?
And in this case, he was like, Yeah, it's potentially an important conduit,
but it will be impossible to know what it leads to
unless we actually trace the conduit in the slab back to the source.
And of course, in a perfect world,
with an infinite amount of time and money, we would probably do that.
co the library, they need to open at a certain time
so that they can serve the public.
So then you have a chat with the contractor.
Is this feasible?
Realistically, how long do you think this is going to take?
And so after talking to them, you might be like, okay, maybe a better
solution is just to go with walking toilets instead of floor mounted.
But if we do that, we're going to need a much bigger plumbing wall here.
And now it's an architectural issue.
These stalls are getting really, really tight.
So you could move this wall out
a little bit, which is going to eat into the whole atrium.
And so you go and ask the library, what do you think about this?
And in this case, the answer was no,
because they would be losing an entire bookshelf.
And so now you go to your last resort, which is to move this small six
inches down.
So you're not going to get your five foot turning radius here.
But, you know, by code, that's actually okay
because this over here is the only accessible stall.
So anyways, your job as an architect
is to talk to all of the parties involved with the building code
and accessibility in mind and try to come up
with the best possible solution after everything's been considered.
When you're in construction.
Everything is going to seem super, super, super urgent.
But a part of being an architect and doing C is learning
to separate the really urgent ones from the ones that can kind of wait.
Ari, let's talk about something a little bit more exciting.
Materials, these are the options for the concrete finish.
This is going to go in throughout the building.
And so what we're doing is we're specifying two different
aggregate sizes that are going to go side by side
and there's going to be aluminum reveal in between them.
So they're going to have the exact same color,
but they're going to have different aggregate sizes.
The other thing to note here is we have existing concrete columns in the building,
and so we have to make sure that this concrete overlay meant
that we're putting in here matches or at least works
with the existing concrete columns,
which are slightly on the brown side.
So I'm kind of leaning away from these cooler tones right now.
Option one has a 1.2 to 2 mm.
Aggregate and the spacing between the aggregates are tighter.
I think this is probably the best
for hiding imperfections or scratches between two houses.
There's going to be a lot of other like four. Mm.
Option three has a zero point to one, 3 to 1 point
or two much better than the other aggregate size.
I decided to make a quick visit to psych
because I couldn't decide
I need to go see it in the existing space
against the existing columns.
Hi. I love coming here.
The library is the heart of this community.
A true urban courtyard,
food.
Yeah,
yeah, yeah.
This is the project
that I've been working on for the past year and a half.
And it's a renovation.
We are taking some of the existing space
that's used for books and sorting and after doing a pretty thorough
analysis, we realize they don't really use the library for that stuff anymore.
And so we're turning a lot of those spaces into public space.
We're creating a digital media lab.
We're renovating the atrium so that it becomes a communal gathering space.
It's been really, really, really awesome working with the librarians.
Like, they're super passionate.
They're very, very knowledgeable.
And they are able to gather information and compile them
in a very organized manner.
So they're kind of like the best possible client.
So yeah, it's been really fun and it's really cool to finally
see this thing come to life.
So the decision was actually
pretty obvious when I put it side to side with the existing column.
Sometimes you just have to make the trip
to site to make these kind of big decisions.
Can you guess which one we picked
at the end of the day?
I like to draw, but ever since my project has gone into construction,
I rarely have time to express my creativity.
I've been using this drafting board buy Pacific arc, the smooth melamine surface,
the parallel bar with the aluminum trim, the seamless movement
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I actually really love their products, and I pretty much use them
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So I've partnered with Pacific Arc to give you guys 50% off
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Whether you're in school
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My best drawing companion to help me get my ideas down
or to help me wind down at the end of the day.