Work, Work, Work..

OK, so be jealous of what I do, I think I have the best job ever... Guess what I get to do at my job; I get to draw and color. It is like kindergarten for adults, now if only I could convince my bosses to allow for nap time it would be perfect.

For a couple months now I have been working on the design for a new band and orchestra building at one of the local middle schools here in Las Cruces (Picacho Middle School). The space they currently have is far too small for their needs, and they are missing a lot of the support spaces for these programs so our new building will provide more space and the needed support spaces. We will also be remodeling the existing space to better accommodate their choir and piano programs and we will be remodeling the existing restrooms to bring them up to current accessibility requirements.

A couple of weeks ago we presented the design to Picacho and then to the School Board for design approval, and we got it from both. This is the presentation board I created for the school, look at all the coloring I got to do, I used color pencils and markers to color the drawing for the presentation and I am very pleased with how it came out.

Well now the hard part, earlier this week I met with our structural engineer to discuss how the building is going to stand up...darn engineers and gravity now I have structure that is getting in the way of some of the really cool things I was hoping to do. I am now trying to figure out how to keep the same look to the building and accommodating the structure at the same time. Below is an image of the building before the structure was really considered (it was done in a program called Sketch Up).

Notice the horizontal windows near the top of the two larger areas, these are intended to bring natural light into the orchestra and band rooms, everyone has liked the long expanses of glazing but now we have structural columns that get in the way of the windows so I have been playing with some other ideas for the elevations to maintain the feel of these long narrow elements.

I have been using trace paper and markers to draw the facades and below are two drawings of the north and east elevations, I think I like the idea so it is one of the things we will be considering as we continue to move into the development of construction documents.

I am having so much fun with this project and I know I will be doing a few more of these drawings in the next few days as I continue to work out more of the conflicts with structure and then mechanical.

I have been lucky that my boss has allowed me to basically run with this project and do the design, he has been a great help in working out some of the issues but he is leaving the design decisions up to me. I am looking foreword to seeing this project develop from discussions with the principal and teachers to an actual building that will start construction later this year.

I will keep you informed.