The final push to permitting

The final weeks of the term are here! And so is the final push for finishing all the details on the construction documents. We have made some good contacts (finally!) at the city and some leads on engineers thanks to Andrew Brose. We hope to have the final construction set to the city by the end of next week. Come by the studio to see the latest iteration. Shane Rhodes made a great display of our posters to get feedback on the design and get students and parents excited about the project. 

Weekend Update....

The Green Wheel team has been busy building models to represent the beautiful islands of awesomeness that we are proposing. We had a 50% drawing set due today and last week and this weekend have been spent compiling the beginnings of our first set of Construction Drawings.



In studio today we spent a few hours going over the CD's and editing the drawings. They are coming together very nicely and we will be using them in our meetings with the District Architect, 4J and the maintenance crew at Roosevelt.




We took a number of our models and our newest drawings to a meeting we had with University Fellowship this Sunday. UF who meets in the Roosevelt MS gym has been very helpful in gathering professionals in the congregation to meet with us. We gave a brief explanation of the project and showed some pictures and then asked for advice from the group. We had some great feedback from a number of contractors, welders, and architects who were attending the meeting and we had a number of volunteers willling to donate time and materials. Some of our best offers were for roofing materials, enough lumber to complete the whole first phase, and professional expertise in excevation and welding.



Take a look at the images and feel free to offer any insight!

Construction Narrative

We put a construction narrative together as part of starting construction drawings. The narrative describes phase 1.             

The project will begin with an assessment of the site for safety and security. Because school will be in session during construction a fence will be rented to secure the construction area. A space inside the adjacent utility room will be set aside for storing tools that will be left on site. A dumpster will be delivered for construction waste. An as yet to be determined number of existing bike racks will be donated for recycling or refabrication in order to clear the construction site.

            Next, the site will be surveyed and the footings located and marked. An asphalt saw will be rented and the asphalt cut for the five column footings and planter areas. Each excavated area will be 18” x 18” x 30” deep. 6” of gravel will be placed at the bottom of each footing.  A truck will deliver 3-4 yards of concrete. After having poured and screed the concrete the j-bolts will be placed. Once the concrete has cured the leveling nuts are placed and 4” diameter steel columns with shop-welded base plates are placed, bolted, and plumbed. Grout is poured around the connection after leveling.

            The columns will be marked in order to place the steel collars for proper roof pitch. Shop-welded steel collars with 1/4” thick blade plates are bolted through the columns.  Two 2x10 douglas fir members are bolted, on either side of the plate, to form each girder. Four girder assemblies are necessary for the 3-module system. Five 2 x 6 douglas fir purlins will be fastened, 24” o.c., using Simpson hangers, to the girders of each module.

            18-gauge corrugated steel roofing will be cut to size on site. The roofing will be attached to the purlins on the outer two modules. The center module, that is higher, will be attached next. Roof flashing and detailing will be put in place. Gutters will be connected to the outer purlin directly or by using spacers. The gutters from all three modules will drain to a single planter box/swale.

            The planter boxes will be built next – of dry stacked “seconds” from Willamette Greystone. The box will be built to approximately 24” above grade. The excavation will go below grade 24” and be filled with 6” of gravel covered by sandy loam.

            Steel loop bike rakes will be bolted directly into the asphalt 36” o.c. Five racks will be anchored under each module in a configuration to meet code requirements. Benches, artistic bike part details, fascia finishing, and translucent panels are of yet to be determined materials. These will be bolted in place just before the final plantings are done. The Freiker meter will be repositioned if necessary and a target painted on the ground. 

Walking and Biking Summit, Construction Drawings , Shop Training . . . Phew!

Well things have been busy in the studio this week!

Last Saturday the team attended the Eugene Walk and Bike Summit at South Eugene High. Thanks to April, Jen, Tim, Andrew B., Lawrence, Poppy, Eric and Sylvan for coming to represent our project and dB to the community (sorry if I missed anyone). Big thank you's to the studio team for this event. Everyone rallied to produce a great poster and Tim printed these sweet project post cards. We looked like rock stars. Here's a few shots from the event.

Tomorrow, we'll be bringing our poster and project brochure to Roosevelt for the admin there. Hopefully we'll get a chance to meet with them soon and hear what they have to say. If you haven't already seen Brose's project brochure, come and take a look; it's hot.

We are really trying to button things down now in the project with the beginning of construction documents. It is an exciting and stressful time but the team is meeting the challenge with grace and aplomb.

Safety training is tomorrow too. This is so cool! I can't believe how far dB has come in less than a year. It seems crazy. Just goes to show what can happen when alot of passionate people get together for a meaningful project. Anyways, the shop is ready, the tools are in our new tool cage, Juli has the curriculum set, everything is go speed racer.

Guess I've droned on long enough. Look for lots of cool new model shots coming soon.

Cheers,

A

P.S. We had to nail down our approach to phase I, and we all agreed on an 'Island of Awesomeness' (-Brose), that would be located on the south-east end of the parking area. The 'Island of Awesomeness' will include all the aspects of our master plan - shelter, new racks, seating and plants.

Lots of Presentations!

On Monday, we had a scheduled presentation for the principal, janitorial staff, Shane, & Claire at Roosevelt. However, only Shane & Claire were able to make it because there was a small fire earlier that day in the boy's bathroom. Nonetheless, we got a lot of good feedback from the meeting. We presented both schemes and told them that we were leaning toward starting with an island scheme and "growing" it together in stages to a connecting-module scheme (what we've been calling the organic scheme). 

They helped us think about the strong possibility of kids climbing on the structures, and ways to prevent this. (Wide overhangs? Tall roofs?) They overturned our assumption about avoiding blocking light from the east wall of the site: it gets harsh sunlight in the afternoon, and shading would be welcome. They liked the idea of decorative panels, but emphasized that they should be easily seen through. 

On Wednesday, we gave the same presentation to Tom & Brett from the University Fellowship (www.university-fellowship.org), who had offered to help us find contractors (if not also help pay for materials and construction)! At the same time, we presented to the rest of our studio so we could get feedback from them. 

Tom & Brett were excited about the design. They invited us to their service the Sunday after next so that if they ask their congregation for donations, they'll have some smiling faces to associate their lighter wallets with. Actually, the way Tom put it, they'd like to give back to their school in exchange for letting them have their Sunday services there. They're going to arrange to have us talk with some contractors from their church afterwards.

When we met up with our studiomates afterwards, they gave us great advice on both schematic design and design development. They suggested we try some larger-sized modules to make 

the columns less dense. We talked about widening the courtyard, or maybe making two courtyards. Along those lines, we also talked about having two entrances, or a separate entrance and exit. 

For those of you not in dB studio, we printed out some 1/8 site plans so you can play with some layouts. Come by the studio anytime to pick one up, they will be sitting on my desk (the one with the bike wheel). An easy way to make triangles/diamonds is to make an 8.5" x 11" rectangle in Sketchup, then draw the triangle sizes you want converted to 1/8" scale. When exporting as an EPS file, click "options." Under "Image scale", enter 1"  for both 'In Image' and 'In Model." You should now be able to print it from Illustrator without having to scale it. (Sorry for boring all you Sketchup whizzes out there...)

Of course, if it's easier for you to just make your triangles/diamonds on graph paper or something, that's a good way to do it too. 

Continuing with design development feedback in studio, our classmates suggested we could use material other than chain link, such as hogwire. We also talked about how we were going to simplify construction by making a "kit of parts:" repeatable footings, columns, collar connections, and roof forms. They suggested we look into playground construction, which sounds like it would be really helpful.

In all of our meetings, we got lots of compliments on our site model. Good job everybody! 

--April

Site Survey

On Sunday, Sylvan, April and Andrew C. did another site survey in preparation for more detailed design development. The results are being compiled into CAD and tomorrow we will use the laser cutter to print pieces for a new 1/4" site model.

While we were taking measurements at Roosevelt, a very friendly gentleman approached us to inquire about our activities. It turns out that he is the associate pastor for a local congregation that meets at Roosevelt. If I remember correctly his name is Tim. His excitement about our project, and eagerness to offer any help he could, gave us a healthy boost of enthusiasm. We're hoping to have him come visit the dB studio space this Friday so he can get a better sense of what we're all about, and how he and his congregation can help us.

This evening we had a brief meeting to discuss our latest schematic ideas, and work out any kinks with the site survey and model. Jennifer showed us a beautiful 1/2" scale module that combines many of the ideas we looked at last Wednesday. I'm going to post pictures ASAP. She also brought in some photos of creative ways to improve a chain link fence - again photos pending.
April had a provocative site plan that also combined many of the ideas from last Wednesday. It's a south facing U shape, with curved roof forms and staggered overlapping modules. I think we were all very pleased with how our concepts are melding into a more cohesive design.

At tomorrow's general team meeting (5pm, db office) we will have a repeat of last weeks design crit. - a chance to look at some models and drawings and offer feedback. Snacks will be provided to keep our wheels turning.

Revisiting the Site

Today we made a group visit to Roosevelt while school was getting out. It was our first group observation of how the area was used. We also had a chance to chat with Shane. Melinda had mentioned that the schemes were not acknowledging the site in the design - as we moved to a module design, due to budget, we lost sight of this specific project. We took this opportunity to remind ourselves of the specific needs at Roosevelt. 

We noticed that the entry was an area where the kids liked to hang out. They liked using the half-pipe despite it's location. The area was chaotic because of the non-existent circulation. Shane seemed to like the idea of removing the fence and having an open bike area despite losing some of the security. Many of the ideas we have discussed such as plantings, a sense of entry, and benches were reconfirmed. We are looking at how to organize the site and how to best use the budget to create a module or modules that work well now but can grow efficiently.

Sylvan brought his truck to take one of the wheel bender racks back to the shop. It was a lot bigger than we remembered! But the 20' rack made it back here and everyone survived!  The rack will be torn apart and the rebar and pipe experimented with for reuse.

Then we assembled our latest models and drawings for the group meeting review.