The person we could be missing is a project manager. Who? a project manager a person who overlooks the project, someone who can focus only on the project and put all their time into it. They also keep things cool between owner, builders, and architect when they're conflicts. And hopefully if we get one the project could move faster and smoother. Carly from the builders office taugh us what hardcost and softcost were. Hardcost is the main bolt of money, the money that is going only into the building. which in ower case is about 14million. And softcost is the money that goes to the people who are working on the project. We also learned about stuff that will make us sound smarter when we are going to companyes asking for money, like the block number, lot number,and foot print.
Yesterday I worked at AF&F builders on 118th street. Diana, Norma, Silvan, and I worked with Carly on the specifics of the building plans.
The building itself is on block 377 on Avenue D inbetween 7th and 8th street. The building is going to be on lots 35, 41, 42, 43, 47, and 48. We also learned about the EDC (Economic Developement Corperation.) The EDC are the people who the Girls Club got the land from.
There are four major parties in this building project. The four parties are the Developer (AF&F), the Buyer (the Girls Club), the Architects (CutsoGeorge&Tooman), and the Builders (AF&F). All these parties have to work together to create the Girls Club building. A lot of the time, these four parties won't agree with each other and they will protect themselves from losing money in these disagreements by charging more money than the asking price. This conflicts with a major strategy in building, Value Engineering. Value Engineering is the strategy of trying to make a building for less than the asking price.
For the past two weeks I have been working at the offices of CutsoGeorge& Tooman (the Architects) and AF&F (the Builders.) I've mainly been learning about the process and steps that you have to go through in order to build a building. This past tuesday, Diana, Norma, Silvan, and I went on a walk with Christa from CutsoGeorge & Tooman and we looked at the different ways buildings are designed and made in New York.
We learned about "eyebrows" which are when a concrete floor sticks out in front of a building and supports the outside wall. This is a fairly cheap way of making out side walls, but it's used so common and it's very ugly. We also learned about required set-backs, which are rules set up by the city that say that every certain number of floors, the building must get set-back and each floor has to take up less space.
This made me start to think. It's not simple at all to make a building and it doesn't just involve designing a building and paying a builder to make it, it also involves following certain codes and laws set up by the city. The process also involves raising a great amount of money, which is no simple task. In all the Girls Club building will probably cost about 20 million dollars. For the past few weeks, Diana and Norma have been working with the Girls Club to raise money from the city and from private funders. This part of the process takes just as long, if not longer, than the process of designing and building.
Even after all the money is raised and it's time to design a building, the process is still long and grueling. The building had to be designed with the set-backs in mind, so on the basic blueprints each floor as you go up is smaller than the one below it. Also there are regulations about how high the building can go. In New York City you have to get permits to build above a certain number of floors. The Girls Club building is being built on Avenue D inbetween 7th and 8th street, and this area of New York City is a swamp. Not only do the architects and builders have to worry about building above ground, but they also have to worry about how far down bedrock is and if bedrock is deep down then they have to design something as a structure underground to support the building aboveground. To test for this, the builders hire a Boring Company to bore holes in the land. Boring is when you test how far down bedrock is by using a hollow-stem auger or drill. Using these instruments, a boring company takes a sample of the ground and can tell how far down bedrock really is. The whole Lower East Side is a swamp so bedrock on the Girls Club land could be anywhere from 30 to 100 feet below groung level. If bedrock is too far down it creates another problem for the architects to solve. They not only would have to build a building nine stories high, but the would also have to create an underground structure that supports the building. This structure would be like giant stilts made of steel and concrete that would be designed to hold the weight of the building.
These are the major events and ideas that we went over with the architects from Cutsogeorge & Tooman. Here's a link to the architects web siteCutsogeorge & Tooman, Architects, P.C.
Today we spent about 4 hours at the architects office. Besides the box full of candy we did so cool work.
Today we learned a lot about how buildings have been built wrong. And what things have gone wrong so we know what to look out for. Today we went on a small tour around the block to see some differnt types of buildings and see how they got built. I took some great pics of old buildings new ones and ones that are being fixed. And hopefully we will be getting those up soon. And the coolest thing of all is that Craig let all of us look over the plans and make marks on what could be fixed or added. I think we found a few good things that could be fixed. Some things the team came up with was adding chem. lab because ours look like crap and don't work well at all. Hopefully we will get to do more work like this and learn some more.
Here's a link to a group here in New York that you may want to contact. They are the Earth Pledge Foundation and they have something they call the green roof initiative.
One of the members of the Girls Club Board of Directors knows Ted Kheel, who founded the organization. Let's ask Lyn if we should contact them.
Meanwhile, their site has some interesting material. I know Lyn wants a green roof!
Here is the answer to the first question. The question I answered is:
1. Why is value enginerring so critical for this building project? What is value engineering?
1. Value engineering, is what the Owner/Buyer, Developer, Builder, and Architect decide what the main priority is, and invest in that. When there is not enough money to get everything you want in a building, you just build what is most important. So, the process of value engineering plays such a significant role into this building project because we are on a budget. We don't have all the money we need to construct this building, so we really need to see what we want and can afford, and work on that. I think that our first priority, is getting the Girls Club building/section of building done.
Today, we met Christa in the architects office. Christa began talking about some projects that she was working on. She talked to us about a specific building that she was working on, that had gone throught a long lawsuit process, which was really interesting.
After we went on a field trip around the block, observing buildings. Some that were in the process of being contructing, and some were just there. Something that I thought was interesting, was how a person can tell if the frame of the building was made of steel or concrete. There are two ways, but I am only going to tell you one way of how you can. If the building is six stories high and above, then it is defenitely made of steel. If the building is only five stories high, then the frame is made of concrete. Why? Because five stories is not high enough to have columns or beams. The walls can hold up the weight of the stories, by themselves. There is no need for extra support, because there aren't so many floors to hold. I also found out today that builders are very cheap. The reason why modern buildings sometimes look so square and plain is because adding the beautiful designs that were so famous in the 18 and 1900's on buildings, are expensive. In order to create a work of art like those few that are left in New York City buildings, require artisans, and money. One thing that I thought was kind of cool is how builders make round buildings. The type of bricks that they use are called Radius bricks, which are a different material than regular bricks because you can mold them into round forms and shapes.
Something that I learned today, which I thought was the most interesting thing that I've learned since I began to work on this project, is Spalling. Spalling is common, as Christa explained, is consequence of rain water hitting the faces of buildings. A water penetrates concrete when it rains, it causes the steel embedded in the concrete to rust. And when Steel rusts, it expands; so the steel sort of outgrows the concrete, pushing the concrete outwards. When this happens, the concrete falls off, and can injure any pedestrian who walks under the building. Like so, this happened I believe in 1988, where a piece of concrete fell off a twenty story building, killing the person who was walking on the side walk. So, after you read this, you might be thinking that it can be safer to walk on the street along with the cars, then on the sidewalk.
Here's a great web-site for Green Architecture
This site has good information that is helpful in learning about construction of Green Buildings.
Unfortunetly, I was unable to make the first meeting; where we met the congresswomen, and talk about funding for the building. However, I did meet, Mary who is the Directo of peoples mutual hiring, in the Lower East Side. In the second meeting, we met with Carrie, and Catherine. Who both work for the Community health care network.
In the meeting, we discussed managment issues with Mary. I have some questions, that were not answered in the meeting. 1. Is going to be responsible for the maintenance of the commercial stores, that will be on the ground floor? 2. Will the tenants of the commercial stores have to contribute financially, to the contruction of the building? Will we have to cover the money issues, and have commercial store owners rent the lots? A problem that we recognized is, do we want to have random people walk in and out of the lobby, because of the mini-mall being on the ground floor? Of course we discussed more issues, but those three question caught my attention the most.
In the second meeting, with Carrie and Catherine, we were basically proposing to them, what we need from the Health Clinic. We told them we are looking for a service that can provide family planning, social workers, nutrionists, and maybe a few physical therapists. The feedback that we got from Carrie and Catherine, is that they are not interested working as a community service center. Like a health clinic that is open to the entire neighborhood, and open on weekend, no...they don't want that. They are offering service to the girls club girls, and I.C.E students, but no one else. That is the gist of what we discussed, or at least what really caught my attention.
Today we talked with the architects about the process of making a building. I was surprised to find out that it was such a long and grueling process. The Girls Club building is schedualed to take about two years to build. Within the two years, the building will go from the conceptual idea all the way to the finishing of the construction.
At first I didn't think that there was that much that had to be done. I mean how hard could it be to build a building? All you have to do is design it, raise money, and pay somebody to build it. Wrong!
The process started with the Girls Club spending five years fighting with the city, and other community programs, for the right to buy and build on empty lots in the Lower East Side of Manhattan. A couple of weeks ago the Girls Club finally got 6 empty lots on Ave.D and 8th street. This was the first step in building the Girls Club building.
This is the first part of the process of building this building. I'll post more web-logs later on the other stages of building the Girls Club building
Today when I arrived at the office....
We all met up with each other and got right down to relevant architech discussions. One of the first topics we spoke about was exterior restoration. Christa showed us one of her past projects on exterior restoration. She explained in detail what her exact job was and how the project turned out from beginnin to end. After everyone said there peice on the discussion we went outside to take a tour of the neighborhood/ Field trip.
When we were out there we got a chance to take a look at the new construction sites in the area. We took a look at both newly built buildings and old buildings then we compared differences between the methods used when they were being built. One of the changes we recognized was that the new buildings around this area have built in Air Conditions now because of the past problem of air conditions falling out of the window and harming people.
We seen examples of the cheapest way to build a building and the most expensive way to build one.
We learned about the use of water tanks,cornaces, cavity walls and other objects. We also learned about new laws that were made concerning building policies. One of the laws were that if a building is over 6 stories tall then it had to be inspected every five years. The law is called "Local Law 11." The next inspection will be in the year 2007.
Basically we learned a great deal of information today and the field trip was worth it.
Check out this information onGreen Buildings.
This was an exercise to use bookmarklets.
Today we had a meeting with two amazing women who have helped us get the land by fighting for the girls club to get the land and continue to help us build the building.
The amazing women that we met today were our congress women Nydia Velazquez and the lower east side city council women Margarita Lopez. We sat down and talked about possible funding to build the building. By Nov. 11 we must present our plans to the the board like ground testings and a project manager. But by next week we should have met all the requirements. So we have a great start to the project. We are almost done with phase 1 and phase 2 is getting funds. They were also telling us how we should thank the mayor for his help. And Margarita was very happy to know that we will be giving the projects free internet. Well these are two very strong women that are going to be fighting for us and helping us for as long as they can. I look foward to working with them and learning much from them on how to become a great leader.
Hi Everyone!
I hope you all had a nice weekend. Below I have posted some questions which I would like you to address fully in your entries this week.Thank you, Norma, for your participation (you have already answered some of the questions!). Please, contact me if you have any questions or problems. Remember we are meeting tomorrow, Tuesday, at 10am at the Architects office, 151 W 26th St. Dianna, i look forward to reading your summary of the meeting with the congresswoman and i would appreciate everyone responding to this summary.
thank you.
jennifer
1. Why is value enginerring so critical for this building project? What is value engineering?
2. What is your conception of participant observation and how does this correlate with the four components of the building project?
3. What is the relation between the sources and uses as described by the builder? (aka. are certain funding sources tied to specific uses?)
4.How might value engineering conflict with the architects' aim in designing a "green friendly" building?
5.What are some of the roles and responsabilities of the architect in the process of building the Girls Club?
6. What is the possible problem in allowing the Greenwich Village Youth Council to have space in the Girls' Club building? What is the conflict of interest? and What are the possible benefits?
Here's a great site that lets you learn more about the web and html at your own speed. I'm using the bookmarklet to get the link and make this entry. Let's see how it works.
It's called w3Schools.
I hope you find it helpful.
I am trying out a way to give you tips for your entries. I need to figure out how to put html examples into an entry. I think that the system usually hides html in an entry.
For instance, here I am inserting the code for a link to the Girls Club website:
<a href="http://www.girlsclub.org" >Lower Eastside Girls Club</a>
I got it right this time!
Now you should be able to cut and paste that code into your entry. Obviously, you then replace the URL in quotes with your link, and the Lower Eastside Girls CLub with the words in the entry that are your link. I'll explain more later, okay?
I did some research, and found some interesting websites, that can help you guys to have a better understanding of some things that were discussed on Thursday, in the Architects office. You may need to cut and paste the link if you want to surf the website...I still haven't learned how to insert links into my entries.
*Some basic information on Japanese Architecture. Link to website (where excerpt comes from):
http://www.japan-guide.com/e/e2111.html
"Japanese houses have thin walls because of the mild climate and overlapping, slanted, and slightly curved roofs because of the fact that there is plenty of rain especially during early summer. Timber is the traditional building material for Japanese houses. It makes them airy which is important during the humid summer months. The disadvantages are that the houses can be damaged easily by earthquakes and fires. Nowadays, concrete and steel are, of course, widely used as well.
When Japan opened herself to the rest of the world around the year 1868, Western architecture began to displace traditional Japanese architecture. Nevertheless, some modern Japanese detached houses still have a typically Japanese appearance."
*Green Buildings:
www.epa.gov/greenbuilding/
*Fiber Glass
"It is possible to produce fibers that can be woven or felted like textile fiber by drawing out molten glass to diameters of a few ten-thousandths of an inch. Both long, continuous multifilament yarns and short-staple fibers 25 to 30 cm (10 to 12 in) long may be produced.
Woven into textile fabrics, glass fibers make excellent drapery and upholstery materials because of their chemical stability, strength, and resistance to fire and water. Glass fabrics alone, or in combination with resins, make excellent electrical insulation. By impregnating glass fibers with plastics, a composite fiberglass is formed that combines the strength and inertness of glass with the impact resistance of the plastic."
From www.encarta.com
*For some basic info on Concrete go to:
http://www.ecco.org/cementandconcrete.htm
I'm not done with all the research. So, keep checking my entries for the rest of the information.
We begin using the web log. It's my first time; and it's much more simple to use, than it sounds like. Well, today, we met Christa (soon to be official architect; after she passes her last two tests), Dave (Will's dad; whom also helped us learn how to use the web log), Craig (the architect), some other people, and Annabelle (the dog). We basically, began our day (of tremendous and torturous hard labor) at 10:00am (although we were late). We introduced ourselves to people we hadn't met before, had a tour of the office, went over the floor plans of the building, and discussed whether there should or should not be co-ed afterschool programs in the building. I learned the divisions that an architect makes, before constructing the building. Which are the following:
1. General Data.
2. Site Construction
3. Concrete
4. Masonry
5. Materials
6. Wood and Plastics
7. Thermal and moisture protection
8. Doors and Windows
9. Finishes
10. Specialties
11. Equiptment
12. Furnishings
13. Special Construction
14. Conveying Systems
15. Mechanical
16. Electrical
Some more important stuff:
Three very important things to know (for architect)
1. Physics
2. Statics - conceptual how forces work/ balance
3. Steel and Concrete
Important Consultants (people who work with...)
a. Structural
b. Electrical/Mechanical (deals with Heating and Ventilation)
c. Engineer
d. Lighting
I also learned that every building HAS to be Handicap accessible! This includes... Ramps, door knobs have to be levers, elevator buttons have to be reachable for those who transport themselves in wheelchairs, etc.
Things I want to do some research on for better understanding:
*Japanese Architecture
*Columns in Gymnasiums
*Curtain Walls
*Concrete = Compression
steel = Tension
*Fiber glass
*How the Carbon in New York City, effects the concrete on buildings?
*Green Buildings
Next meetings:
Date Time Place
Monday, June 24 11:00 am Girls Club
Tuesday, June 25 10:00 am Architect's office (151W 26st. bt. 6 & 7 ave.)
Thursday, June 27 10:00 am Builder's office (340E 118st. Pleasant ave.)
You can reach me at editordave@excite.com if you have questions, or call me at work 643 1245.
Today we've learned to use the web-logs and post the days events.
Our blogs are really exciting!!!
hey look at my new entry
I learned how to post an entry!
Today we received our web log names and passwords along with instructions on how to use it.
Today, June 20, 2002, we went to the architects office. We discussed topics, about the building. After school, programs, and co-ed clubs.
Today we went to the architects office to have a meeting about the building plans.
We also began to work with the web log