URBAN OPERATIONS PROJECT BLOG

Parkman Triangle Park is one year old!

2011-06-13T12:26:00.001-07:00

Obviously, some time has passed since we updated the last post, so with the Parkman Triangle Park hitting its one year anniversary this month, we thought we’d show off some photos of how the park turned out. Overall, the entire construction process went smoothly and we were able to complete things on time and on budget. The project attracted volunteers from all over the city and in ten weeks we were able to collectively transform a slab of asphalt in the city, one associated with blight and short-sighted urban planning, into another green space that everyone could enjoy.
This project could not have been possible without the generous support of the City of Los Angeles, Councilman Eric Garcetti’s CDC13 Office, the LA Bureau of Engineering, the Silver Lake Neighborhood Council, and all of the volunteers who made the construction a breeze. Vendors who donated their labor or provided materials at a discounted rate are: Bob’s Rooter and Plumbing, Sepulveda Building Materials, C&S Nursery, and Café Tropical. For more background on the park, please visit the main Urban Operations Website: www.urban-ops.net

08_03_PAR: Parkman Triangle Park

2009-01-20T08:35:00.000-08:00

2009 brings us a lot of change, both politically and economically as well. The architecture scene here in Los Angeles has been especially bleak with many firms laying off staff and some even being brought to the edge of bankruptcy. Architects will have a lot to think about over the next few years and a reassessment of the profession is certainly in order.

Despite all of the gloom and doom there are some events that still warrant optimism.

We at Urban Operations are proud to announce that the City of Los Angeles has accepted our proposal for a small "pocket park" to be built at the intersection of Parkman and Silver Lake Blvd. We have been working on this project with the local community for the past six months and were not expecting the project to be approved due to city budget cuts. When we learned from the City of Los Angeles on Friday that our project was one of forty to be funded (not that many for a city of 3.5 million), we were elated.

Now for the hard part- Getting the park built. So far we've avoided the normal pitfalls that normally grip this kind of project and hope that the journey continues to be a smooth one.

It is the nature for public projects such as this one to get bogged down by the kind of democratic populism that generally leans towards mediocrity rather than a lasting and useful public space. This project has been anything but that up to this point. The Parkman Triangle committee is a small one, and the voices in the group have been united by a shared desire to get the park built. The design process was simple. I went to a meeting with the committee, listened to what people wanted, and then produced a scheme in the office that not only sought to contemporize the notion of what a park could be, but attempted to create something that was not about style, but instead a spatial reading of the neighborhood and the city as a whole.

It is our hope that the park, once built, will give the community a place to rest, a place to meet new neighbors, a place to fall in love, a place to share ideas, and a place that instills in the community a sense of pride and trust in the City of Los Angeles.

Stay tuned for updates as we begin the permitting phase of the project and enter the realm of civic architecture. We hope that this blog will continue it's mission to educate people about the processes taking a project from concept to execution. For this project in particular it's going to be quite a journey.

2636 Corralitas Wrap Up

2009-01-13T23:09:00.000-08:00

I felt that I’d left people hanging with the project so I thought I’d provide a wrap-up with some accompanying images which I’ll be posting over the next few days on our company site. You can visit this project for a closer look at 2636 Corralitas Drive, Los Angeles CA 90026. It is currently being leased and we request that you not disturb the occupants. The project is still for sale, though it is currently “off the market”. We will entertain any reasonable offer at or within the margin of the original sale price.

Urban Operations is currently in the pre-development phase of a duplex for a client in Silver Lake and in the site selection process of R-2 lots in the Silver Lake/Echo Park area. We are interested in design collaborations with larger firms and are currently taking on commissions from private clients. As you can see from our site on Corralitas Drive we are willing to look at just about any site proposal. For more information you can contact our office by emailing us at:

info (at sign) urban-ops (dot) net

Happy 2009!

Post-Project: Marketing

2008-06-27T19:57:00.000-07:00

Now that the project is complete. A whole new bevy of work begins. This Friday I spent my day with Eric Staudenmaier, an architectural photographer, staging and documenting the project. He managed to get some amazing shots and the next meeting is with my Realtors on the project to discuss the actual sale. I should have some time to post some images of the project over the next few weeks so stay tuned.

Final Inspection Passed!

2008-05-07T18:08:00.000-07:00

So I understand that this may seem a bit disjunctive considering that on the last post I was talking about stucco, but we passed our final inspection yesterday. After about one year of construction with almost no work stoppages (save for the month I was in Berlin and at Christmas), the project is complete and ready for the market. I will be leaving for China next week to teach design studio on behalf of Woodbury University for the next month and when I return the posts will be all about getting a new project ready for the market. There is still a lot to be done though and I'm trying to keep this in mind as I relax after what was arguably the toughest final push I've ever experienced. I have documented the progress of the project and should be posting pictures over the next few days.

WK ?: Catching up continued

2008-01-21T20:45:00.000-08:00

A quickie for you. This is why it’s important to "flag" (hanging a strip of red tape from your exterior vent penetrations) your vents prior to stucco installation. The guys got it right on the scratch coat of stucco, but managed to cover up the vent to the lower bathroom, which is conveniently hidden under a cantilevered soffit. The nick you see is from me spending a morning “tappa-tap-tapping” on the brown coat to locate the vent. Luckily, I had photos to narrow it down, and with a couple of knocks with a hammer the vent was exposed for the stucco crew to come back and re-finish.

Week: ? Catching Up

2008-01-21T20:15:00.000-08:00

Catching Up:

I kind of dropped the ball over the holidays and took a break from updating the blog. This doesn’t of course mean that we stopped work. In fact, we worked right through the holiday. I took a week off to visit family in Florida, but as Lemmy from Motorhead says “the train kept a rollin all night long” on site.

Over the past six weeks we’ve finished our drywall, put on two coats of stucco, and started to line up our finishes. Floors go in this Wednesday (ahead of schedule), and tile goes in next week.

After we passed rough I had an insulation crew from Broken Drum come in to insulate the building. Shortly after this we had the insulation inspected and were given the “O.K.” to cover it up. Next, our dry-waller came in and spent the week installing drywall. Then, just before the holiday we shot our first coat of stucco, which is called the scratch coat. Since the footage was so high the sub chose to spray the stucco, and for two days it was raining cement all around the site. Our sub had installed a spray net and installed protection coursing all around the windows, doors, vents, and other protrusions in order to keep them from being covered. The house sat over the holiday and got it’s brown-coat the day after Christmas. It promptly rained for the next four days and that gave this second coat of stucco plenty of moisture, which aids in the curing process. Normally, if rain is not expected, then one would have to spray the entire building with water to keep the plaster moisturized.

I also installed the Polygal window in the garage. Polygal is somewhat of a cliché material these days due to it’s ubiquity, but I love the stuff since it allows you to illuminate a room with indirect light for a fraction of the cost that a frosted glass window of the same size would run you. Everyone has their particular method of detailing Polygal, and I take a pretty simple approach. Since we don’t get too much rain here in Southern California, it’s easy to field glaze the seams with clear caulking and mastic screws keep any water from penetrating the holes left by the fasteners. Also, I put a piece of L-metal at the base to serve as a drip-edge. This then gets caulked where it meets the stucco. It’s a simple, yet elegant way to waterproof the window.

WK33: Rough Inspection Passed

2007-11-29T21:40:00.000-08:00

A milestone. This week we made it through rough inspection. There are still some outstanding issues to resolve before we drywall, but as far a the City of LA is concerned, things are ready to be covered.

Before our inspection we did have to do a bit of prep work. The site had become overrun with trash and after watching some guys almost kill themselves trying to get to the toilet, I called in the trash hauler. The site looked like this:

And now it looks like this:

WK33: Coordination Blues

2007-11-28T14:08:00.000-08:00

This week wraps up our "rough" phase of construction. Tomorrow I have a meeting with the city inspector to inspect and approve all of the framing, plumbing, electrical, and mechanical work on the project. Starting on Friday we'll begin to cover the building with building wrap and lath for our stucco.
For our decks we're using Elastodeck 5000. It is a triple-layered system which starts with a base of diamond mesh and concrete to achieve the desired slope.

Once this is dry, a second layer of sealer is put on the concrete to keep it watertight. This will eventually get a third layer comprised of a fiber mesh and the traction material. This doesn't come till the end, because other subs have a tendency to damage it. The above coating will at least keep the rain out till we get our final coats on.

We still have a couple of outstanding issues, one of which is the fireplace. I'll get to that story in the next post. Yesterday, I got a call from the mechanical sub from Spring Heating and air. They were complaining that the plumber had put a pipe right smack in the middle of their mechanical chase. A site inspection this morning revealed that the situation was not as dire as they had made out, and we were able to fix things quickly. The plumber is usually in first and the mechanical sub follows, but our plumbing crew had been lagging behind the other trades, which is what gave rise to the situation. It was an easy fix, but could have been serious if not for the cooperative attitude from our crews.

WK32: More progress.

2007-11-15T23:27:00.000-08:00

So this week we more or less finished our rough framing and got our windows in. Over the following weeks we'll get our roof on and be water-tight.

I love Milgard windows. They're cheap, look great, and only took two weeks to manufacture!
I've used them in several projects and been completely happy with the product. You can find out more at www.milgard.com.

This goes to show you that there is never enough room for AC ducts. No matter how much you design into the project, your AC sub will always want more.

WK31- Time flys when you're having???

2007-11-10T23:15:00.000-08:00

So I've been absent for awhile. This is mainly due to the bevy of work happening on site. Were almost done with rough and are about to install our building wrap. The roof is on. The electrical, plumbing, and mechanical are almost done. Another important milestone- the windows are in and installed. As of next week we should be almost %100 sealed up. Rather than bore you with narrative, I'll let the images speak for themselves. The "Driveway Part 2" images are bellow.

WK28: A difficult spot.

2007-10-30T09:48:00.001-07:00

So this week I finally had to deal with a condition that had been staring me in the face for the past couple of months. The sill plate below the garage is potential rot/water hazard and I couldn't find a detail to resolve the issue. In the end I worked out the following solution. We'll see if it works this rainy season.

Step1: Using Melroll- a liquid applied waterproofing membrane, I coated the wooden plate with three 40 ml. layers. "Rainbuster" mastic was then applied in several applications to any gaps in the surface. Finally, a layer of Subseal- a stickybacked mastic sheet, was applied over the other layers to keep the wood from having any contact with moisture.
Step 2: I had my sheet metal fabricator make this piece of "j-channel" to cap the whole assembly. The j-channel will catch any moisture that seeps down the cold joint in the concrete.

Step 3: By using a Greenstreak expansion joint, water should be diverted away from the cold joint, and down the slope of the driveway.

Stay tuned for the rest once our driveway goes in on Friday.

WK27: Framing wrapup

2007-10-26T09:00:00.000-07:00

So we're in our final week of framing. Next week the scaffolding will go up and we'll stat sheeting the building. It's been a long process, but it's exciting to see the building form take shape.

We've hit the top!

2007-10-10T21:42:00.000-07:00

The front of the project.

This week marks week 24 of construction (minus about 6 weeks of "down time" while I was away in Berlin), and we're 85% complete with the rough framing phase of the project. Angel and the crew topped out this week and began laying the roof joists in today. The building is a dizzying 40' about lowest adjacent grade, giving up 5' to spare for our zoning envelope. There's still a lot of work to be done and I've spent the week with some borrowed labor from the Heyday Partnership compacting the fill around the retaining walls in order to get ready for the scaffolding which will show up in a few weeks. The rear, "flip-flop" facade.

The site is beginning to look less like a big mess since we had it cleaned and are now filling in the trenches behind the retaining walls. The impressive thing though is how far set back the building is from the other houses. It's akin to a basket ball player standing in-between two sumo wrestlers. The wonderful thing about reaching this phase in the framing is that the building form is completely realized and everything looks as it should. We're fussing around with the plans a bit to facilitate some changes on the interior, but overall everything is coming out per the original design.

WK 23: One more time.

2007-10-01T20:41:00.000-07:00

The view was spectacular last week, the weather however, was not. I thought I'd kick off the week by showing off the view from the Master Bedroom.

This week we'll be finishing up the 3rd floor framing as well as putting in our window orders, and confirming some other site-related issues. Stay tuned!

WK22: Great Views!

2007-09-29T16:37:00.000-07:00

The view from the upstairs balcony. On a clear day you'll be able to see all the way to Mt. Baldy- over 60 miles away!
Me, confirming some dimensions with Angel from York Construction.

One more for the weekend.

2007-09-21T18:10:00.000-07:00

I took this image this morning. The "flip-flop" facade is taking shape. More next week.

W21C: Where we are

2007-09-21T11:25:00.000-07:00

This week finished out the first floor phase of framing. We are now going to start on what is technically our third floor and should be done by October. Have a great weekend!

WK18C-20C Framing Continues

2007-09-18T11:40:00.000-07:00

Things have been moving very fast over a the site and we're in the process of shealthing the last deck today (stay tuned for pics by the weekend). I haven't had time to update the blog much since I've been either on site or in the classroom teaching. However, the framing work on site has been professionally handled by the guys at York Construction who have been working at a blistering pace.
I'll let the photos speak for themselves.

That's about we're we left off on Friday. You can see that the 2nd floor floor joists are in and the building form is beginning to take shape.

A view from the lower floor bedroom. The window is designed to maximize the view to the east while clipping out the Freeway below.Angel, the foreman from York Construction laying out the first floor decking.

Since theres not much room to work on the Hillside the framers access the outside edge of the building using outriggers. If you look you can see the first angled cantalever taking shape.

Each week starts with a lumber drop. As you can see, it's pretty self-explanatory. The "boom" it makes sounds like a bomb going off.

WK18C: Waterproofing and Framing

2007-08-24T19:16:00.000-07:00

So this week began with the framing phase of the project. While the first level of the project is below grade, the upper two floors are all out of wood and require a different team to complete. We are using York Construction. I’ve used them before on my house and love Angel and his crew. The owner, Nathan York is a pretty easy-going guy and always has good ideas about how to save time and money. The crew showed up on Tuesday for the “lumber drop” and loaded all of their wood onto the site. This included several heavy beams and required most of the first day to get everything stored on the hillside and in the lower floor area.

We expect the framing to take about 8 weeks and should be ready for our roof coverings in late October- Just when the weather will start to change.

The deep beams shown in this picture are what’s known as “drag struts”. Drag struts are structural beams that reduce the lateral drag on the building due to retained earth and wind loads. Our building is quite tall and thus requires a bit of extra help to reduce the tipping effect of the wind and any lateral forces created by earthquakes.

I went by the site tonight and they framers had put up all of their drag struts and next week will being on the joists that will sit between the struts. The project is starting to look like a building now, and it’s exciting to see how much progress we’ve made, despite the 1 month stoppage.

The site is quite dangerous right now due to the deep trenches that have been excavated for the waterproofing. The waterproofing began on Wednesday and involves three coats (or 90 mls) of a mastic waterproofing system. This is then covered by a drain board, and then supplemented by perforated pipe and gravel (stay tuned for this). The water proofers come by in the morning to put on a coat of the material, and then come back the next day to repeat. They do several walls in one day, and have a pretty tough gig, considering the vapors released by the waterproofing chemicals.

Having spread waterproofing before, I don’t envy them a bit. Prior to all of this though the walls and the footing have to be cleaned. I spent Monday in the trenches with a laborer sweeping and vacuuming the footing to prep it for the waterproofers. I had expected our masonry sub, Garcia Masonry, to take care of it, but after a couple of angry phone calls back and forth, we couldn’t come to an agreement and thus it was left to the Urban Operations to complete the task. Cleaning the footing is critical because the waterproofing wraps down the wall and over the footing, creating a leak proof (we hope!) covering. Water doesn’t like to go uphill, so it’s doubtful that there will be much chance of leakage.

WK17C: Concrete Phase Complete

2007-08-17T17:44:00.001-07:00

This was a crazy but satisfying week. We began by pouring our final masonry lift, and finished up the week with a shiny new structural slab. I went by the site this afternoon and was happy to see that there are no visible signs of cracking. The clean-up crew that was on site today sprayed the slab with water before they left to ensure that as the concrete cures it has enough extra moisture. The water you see here was sprayed on at around 3pm. It will all be gone by the 6pm tonight- either through evaporation, or by being sucked into the concrete.

WK17C: Lower Floor Slab.

2007-08-17T17:36:00.001-07:00

We began the week by laying out the rebar grid for our lower floor slab. Since the earth beneath the slab was not tested to certify it’s density, we are required to build a structural slab. In our case the structural slab consists of #5 rebar, 8 inches on center. This is an incredibly strong layout and the deck is entirely self-supporting, and also acts as a rigid diaphragm for the lower masonry walls and foundation.

You can see that that the slab is supported on concrete bricks called “dobies” pronounced “dough-bee”. These will support the rebar grid before the pour, and ensure a separation between the rebar and the sand.

Our slab is 6” deep and will have an “architectural” finish, in case we want to leave it exposed. I haven’t decided on that one yet, and plan to wait until we get to our finishes to see if the budget can afford another material or not.

The pour happened early in the morning on Thursday. Since the concrete is 3000 PSI and we’re in the middle of summer, the cooler hours of the morning are critical to the success of the pour.

As concrete increases in strength it’s heat-buildup also increases, and thus it cures faster. We have a full crew on site for the pour that includes finishers to make the concrete look it’s best at the end of the cure.
The pour was a success! We’re on to waterproofing and framing next week, and things are going to get a little crazy with so many different teams on site. We’re more or less still on schedule and should be done with the project by early April- 1 year from the time we started.

WK16C: Masonry Wall, 2nd lift & Plumbing

2007-08-14T14:00:00.000-07:00

Back from Berlin, and back on the job, we proceeded to crank up production again in order to finish the concrete phase of the project. It’s been a long hot summer and after shutting the job down for a month I’m itching to get things moving again. We still have two weeks left of our concrete work and then it’s on to waterproofing and framing.

Our Plumber also put in his under-slab pipes, that will connect all of the plumbing to the sewer at the lower street. The tall pipe you see in the photo is to pressure test the system. This pipe is filled with water and the resulting pressure is left overnight. When the inspector comes the next day, he taps the pipe to see if any water drained out, which would indicate a leak.

After the plumbing lines were tested we then covered the pipes to protect them and then spread 2” of clean sand over the area in preparation for the slab. Next , 10mls of plastic sheeting called “visqueen” is laid over the sand to provide a moisture barrier. Finally, another 2” of sand is laid on top to serve as a leveling bed for the concrete. After that the rebar grid is laid out and the slab is almost ready to be poured.

The second “lift” of masonry as it’s known usually requires the most coordination. Anchor bolts for the sill-plate must be coordinated with the plans and any hardware specific anchor bolts must be triple-checked with the plans to ensure that nothing is in the wrong place.

In the last two feet of the wall you have what is known as the “bond beam”. The bond beam essentially holds the entire structure together by forming a super-tight joint at the top of the wall. It is also designed to absorb some of the compressive forces when the wall has to support the framing above. Our bond beam calls for 2 #5 horizontal bars top and bottom, with #5 verticals every 8 inches on center.

Week 11c-15c: Goodbye LA Hello Berlin!

2007-07-01T04:03:00.000-07:00

The Woodbury Studios are on the upper left of the photo in the "Sharp" building, known to locals as 5 Alexanderplatz, and to former citizens of the GDR as the Ministry of Tourism. Ensconced on the 10th Floor, we have a birds eye view of the construction site below, which we are told is going to be some kind of hotel or something. This image was taken from the Fernsehturm, the ominous TV tower of the former East Germany.

I am taking the month of July to work in Berlin on behalf of Woodbury University. I will be spending 4 weeks teaching Urban Theory and Design Studio to students from LA. Once I return we'll start work again at the job.

Stay Tuned…

WK 10C: Final Foundations

2007-06-28T16:42:00.000-07:00

Yes, that's a cement truck, a city garbage truck , AND a concrete pumping rig all elbowing for the same space.
So I’ve left a lot out over the past couple of posts so it’s probably surprising to see the progress. Over the past three weeks we’ve poured grade beams for the upper foundations, built the lower masonry walls, installed pipe and gravel for drainage around the lower foundations, backfilled the lower walls, and begun construction on the upper masonry walls of the first level of the house. So to use the parlance of the trades, we’re “out of the ground”. It took a lot of effort to get here and there is still a lot to be done before the end of the foundation phase.

I’m going to be shutting the job down for a month while I go to Berlin to teach Design Studio on behalf of Woodbury University here in L.A. Upon my return in August, we’ll crank things up again and start the final phase of the masonry/foundations.

This is the state of the work as of the 3^rd of June. You can see that only the cages for the grade beams or the foundation of the building are in place.

This photo was taken on the 27^th of June. Our foundations are all poured, and the first “lift” of the wall is built. The slab area for the first level is backfilled and ready to go, and the building is starting to take shape.

Week 8C: Concrete 101 pt.2

2007-06-08T23:59:00.000-07:00

Before “grout filling” the wall HD (hold-down) hardware must be inserted at particular locations in order to provide resistance against stresses exerted on the building by earthquakes and wind. The hold-down literally holds the building to the foundation and in quake-prone SoCal the hardware required can sometimes be very large. At the lowest level of the project, we have HD25’s which are about 1.25” inches in diameter. The positioning of these HD’s is critical as one has to account for the correct spacing off the face of the building and the thickness of the column the HD will be bolted to.
The whole process is made even more difficult by the fact that the wall these HD’s are going into is 9’-0” tall and the HD’s must be positioned at the base and inside of the wall. In order to mark the HD locations careful measurements must be made to account for the precise locations and then the threaded rod which is one part of the HD’s is inserted into the cell. As you can see from the image, it has a 1/4 steel plate on the base which grips the concrete and prevents the rod from being ripped out of the cell.
Later, during the framing phase the rod is connected to a steel angle which bolts directly to a column. More on this later.

Week 8C: Concrete 101

2007-06-08T23:53:00.000-07:00

This week we poured and built the lower retaining wall of the house. Since the project sits on a hillside, we needed to create a pad for the lowest floor. Things are moving along now and we’re on schedule for finishing up the foundations prior to my departure to Berlin. The photo above illustrates how difficult it is to stage work on the site. Garcia Masonry has built a deck for their supplies in order to make staging easier.

The grout must be tested to ensure that the concrete in the masonry walls is of the appropriate strength (2500 psi). It’s rare that the concrete would come in under it’s required strength, but occasionally site conditions, too much moisture, and fluctuations in temperature cause the concrete to cure unevenly. During the pour, Shorty, our concrete pump operator fills the test cans and boxes for the deputy so that we have accurate samples coming straight out of the truck.
Because the concrete for the grade beams is 3000 psi we are required to have it tested to ensure it reaches it’s maximum strength. Test cylinders are cast and then allowed to cure for the maximum 28 days. They are then taken to a lab and put through a pressure test to see if the concrete holds up.

Week 7C-8C: Grade beams phase 1

2007-06-05T11:04:00.000-07:00

We’ve had several coordination issues on the job because of the hillside. The one we’re dealing with this week has to do with the downward slope retaining wall which was originally designed to retain 6’-0” of dirt. Unfortunately, the hillside forms a bowl in the middle which caused our retained height to skyrocket up to 9’-0”. A revision called a structural bulletin was issued and stamped by the engineer. This is basically a field revision that one gives to the city inspector to show that the engineer has examined the condition and has revised the original structural drawings to incorporate the change. This change is also noted on the structural observation form that the engineer signs when they inspect the work prior to the pouring of concrete.

Last week we had some slow-downs due to the availability of rebar but the week ended with the crews up to their armpits in steel and dirt. We’re on a tight schedule now since I’m leaving for Berlin at the end of the month to teach, so there is no room for error or delays. The week started out with some frantic calls to our plumber. A kink in the schedule had placed him towards the middle of this week, then by Saturday Garcia Masonry made it clear that their work was going to be ahead of schedule and we’d be ready for inspection on Tuesday. Always looking to make up time I lined up our inspections with the hope that everything would fall into place at the last minute.

Several phone calls later I finally managed to get the plumber (who was tied up on a job in the Palisades, an area with notoriously bad phone reception) on the line. Armen Sargsian, of AS Plumbing got his guys out to the job just in the nick of time, and at the time of this missive it assumed that all of our work is ready for inspection by the Deputy Inspector, and Christian Williamson of CTW Engineers.

Guess how big the steel is? The easy way to figure it out is multiply 1/8” (# of the steel). We are using #10 rebar for our grade beams which means that the rebar in this picture is 1-1/4”- about the size of a closet clothes bar.

Week5-6C: Foundations

2007-05-25T14:15:00.000-07:00

We've got "mud in the hole"!!!!

Yesterday we poured 21 cubic yards of concrete (that’s two full trucks and 1 yard from a third) and marked the end of the pile phase of our foundations. From start to finish it took us 1 week of prep, inspections, and hard work. Next we’ll be working on the grade beams which will support the retaining walls of the house.

You can see the steel pipe sticking out of the fresh concrete. This is supporting the entire weight of the cage as the concrete cures. It will be removed after the pour is complete.

On Wednesday we had our inspection of the cages with our building inspector. The process of pouring a concrete foundation involves several inspections from three different entities other than the contractor. They are:

1) The soils engineer approves the bottoms of the borings and prepares a field report that shows the depths.

2) A LA City licensed deputy inspector continuously checks the rebar ties and cages during their fabrication to insure they are correct size and configuration.

3) The Structural engineer checks the cages when they are out of the ground to insure they are correct size and configuration.

4) The building inspector checks the cages in the ground to make sure that the steel is not touching the soils and that the other three entities have signed off on the work.

5) Pour concrete and collect samples to be tested by the deputy inspector.

We flew through all of our inspections thanks to the hard work of Garcia Masonry. They’re work is exemplary and it got us off on the right foot with the city inspector.

A rebar cage being lifted into position.
Prepping the rebar cage for installation.

I showed up on Monday morning to find a crane in the middle of the street. Since the piles are so large, we had to arrange for a crane service to lower them in. The operator from Garcia Crane Service (no relation to Garcia Masonry) nimbly maneuvered his boom in between the temporary power pole line and the main high-voltage line above the street, clearing the latter by a hair. The whole operation took about 2 hours with a crew of 4 on the ground to guide the pile cages into place. Since the borings are not perfectly straight the cages have to be pushed and pulled in order to get them into position. Before the crane releases the pile a 3’ length of 4” steel pipe is tucked into the area where the cage “daylights”. This is in order to hang the cage. Normally you would use 3” blocks of concrete called “dobies” that keep the steel off of the dirt. However, because of the extreme weight we had to hang them instead.

A team of workers ties the rebar on a stand at the top of the hill.

The cages are then rolled down the hill into position.

Week 4C: Pile Excavation

2007-05-11T17:50:00.000-07:00

This week concluded our grading operations for the time being. We’re still on schedule and actually finished our piles early!

The rig operators from Roy Brothers were wonderful to work with. As with any job having an experienced crew makes things go smoother. These guys brought in a “tight-access” hillside rig in order to get down our 5’-0” road.

5’-0” sounds like a lot, but it’s not when the rig is 4’-0” wide and needs a huge turnaround area.

During the drilling operations the engineer from Technosoils, our Soils Engineering firm on the project, came out to do routine inspections of our depths. Due to depth of bedrock we had some piles that were 10’-0” over what we expected, thus increasing the cost. According to the pile schedule (see attached) our deepest pile is 28’-0” into the ground with a minimum of 18’-0” of embedment into solid bedrock! It’s the kind of hole that gives you the creeps just looking at it.

The rig operators have a routine for each hole. First they set up the rig with a 24” auger bit and start drilling. Every few feet they pull the auger out and throw a piece of plywood over the hole to keep the spoils from going back in and then spin the auger as one guy pulls the dirt off with a shovel. It’s backbreaking work and it is amazing at how efficient the workers are at keeping things moving quickly-especially in such tight quarters. After they hit bedrock the operators have to attach a rock coring bit to the rig in order to break through the solid bedrock. This takes a long time and they have to switch over to the auger every so often to clean out the hole.

After the pile is done, the engineer checks and approves the depth based on the start of bedrock and then the rig is moved to the next hole. To give you an idea of the timetable this is how we did.

Day 1: 3 piles dug with an average depth of 24’-0”.

Day 2: 2 piles dug with an average depth of 20’-0” . We hit a boulder field on the 5^th boring and it took all day to finish it. The machine was pulling out chunks of boulders the size of beach balls.

Day 3: 3 piles dug with an average depth of 20’-0”. Things went pretty quick and we wrapped up at 2pm- still ahead of schedule.

Mark, the grading operator, had to keep redoing the road in order to allow the drill rig room to move. It was a good thing we had him there because the time we saved was worth the extra cost. If you have access to machines, there is no point in having guys hand dig things- it takes forever and can be dangerous.

Finally after the last pile was done we moved the rig off the site and Mark moved some more dirt around to set things up for the concrete sub and we called it quits for the day. Things are going smoothly and were going to spend the next week bending rebar and prepping our pile cages for inspection and insertion late next week.

Week 3C-4C: Grading

2007-05-11T17:30:00.000-07:00

It’s hard to tell in the photos but he is carving a giant “Z” down the hillside. If the road is too steep then the drill rig could slide down and fall over the debris barrier and into the street below.

Mark made the whole thing look flawless, and after hearing some of his stories this job is one of the less dangerous ones he’s worked on. He used to be a logger in Montana and worked the sides of Mountains. Most of his stories contain the phrase “…one mistake and you’re over the side of a 100’-0” cliff…”. It was great to have him on the job. His experience made the severity of the hillside seem much less dangerous than it is. We couldn’t have done it without him.

Week 2C-3C: Grading

2007-05-11T17:28:00.000-07:00

If you’ve been wondering why there have been no updates as of late it’s because we’ve been moving at a breakneck pace over at the jobsite.

Since the last entry almost a month ago the dirt has been flying and we’ve managed to smoothly excavate the hillside in order to provide the pad for the house. We had some small delays in the beginning, but we’re still ahead of schedule and are now into the foundation phase of the project.

The first week began with a delay because our grading inspector wanted an OSHA (Occupational Safety and Health Administration) permit for the job since our excavations were over 5’-0” in height and our grading sub found out that you can no longer pull job-specific excavation permits so he had file for his annual permit. OSHA regulates excavations like the one on our job in order to insure worker safety. While safety is most certainly a critical part of any project CAL OSHA is notoriously slow (glacial to be exact) in issuing permits and they are equally notorious for being indecisive at what is required for a specific job. It’s true bureaucracy in action and it’s probably why so many projects ignore the permit requirement. Our delays with OSHA killed about a week, but our inspector came back and we happily handed him the annual permit. Moral of the story: If your project has excavations over 5’-0” or the permit requirement comes up in plan check, my advice is to make sure your grading sub has the annual permit in place to avoid delays.

The debris barrier is constructed of 3” dia. ½” steel pipe driven into the bedrock. The cribbing as it’s known is just sheets of ¾” plywood. As you’ll see we managed to make this temporary shoring work for us and it supported our spoils from grading with no problems.

Week 1C: Pre-Construction

2007-04-12T16:51:00.000-07:00

Wondering how things have been? Well, over the past few months we've been bidding the job out to various subs and have been crunching numbers in order to see how the budget is holding up. So far so good, but the foundations and grading are way over budget due to the complexity of building on the hill.

We finally decided to "pull the trigger" this week and I ordered the toilet, power pole, and protection fencing. M&M Surveyors are going to be staking the site next week in preparation for the grading. The site has been "grubbed" and all vegetation has been removed.

Prior to beginning construction there are 3 important things to take care of: 1) Site Services and pre-construction preparations. 2) Meet and greet the neighbors and let them know that you are going to be making a lot of noise over the coming months. And 3) Call your inspectors to introduce yourself and let them know what is going on. We are scheduled to officially start moving dirt on Wednesday, April 18th, first thing in the morning. The initial grading should take about 5 days as we have to cut a road down the hill in order to get the drill rig in place. Once that is done we'll be drilling for 5 days and then the grader will remove the road and we'll be set to erect our rebar cages and pour the piles.

After that, it's anyones guess as to how long it will take to finish grading operations, but we are looking to start our main foundations in May.

I'll be updating the site with our sub-contractor list so check back soon.

Week 32: We have a permit!!

2007-01-18T17:25:00.000-08:00

Today I secured a building permit at the Dept. of Building and Safety in Downtown LA. My plan checker, Spencer Brunetto was great to work with and very helpful. We spent a couple of months leading up to this appointment communicating by email and it worked very well, because he had time to think about my questions/suggestions rather than refusing during the meeting because of pressure. The office will be closed while I check out some architecture in Paris, France next week. After that, the construction phase will begin and we will start assembling the bidding drawings. Despite teaching 4 days a week this term, I hope to be able to update the Blog with important information leading up to the permit. After the ordeal that resulted from the Highway Dedication waiver process I hope to educate more people on this process, because it will set the plan check schedule back about 8 weeks. After the bids come in we will choose our construction team and then put the project into construction in April.

Week 30: Highway Dedication Cleared!

2007-01-02T17:18:00.000-08:00

Victory!
Today, after an irate phone call, which was followed by an irate e-mail, the City came through with our Highway Dedication waiver.
We now are now cleared to continue the process of plan check.
For our next meeting we will be completing our signoffs and making our final appointment with our plan check engineer to verify that we are ready to pull our permit.

Week 27: OSHA Permit

2006-12-01T09:46:00.000-08:00

While we wait for the High Dedication declaration we have been getting the other necessary sign-offs from other affiliated departments at Building and Safety. This Monday I went down to CAL OSHA's (California Occupational Safety & Health Administration) offices in Downtown to pull a temporary OSHA permit for construction. Bascially, this only amounts to tagging the project so that OSHA can monitor it for safety violations in case the sub-contractors do not pull the necessary OSHA permits during construction. It is really unfair because it pins most of the responsibility on the contractor or owner-building of the project, rather than the sub-contractor where the responsibility truly belongs. However, because the contractor is responsible for his/her subs then the burden falls on them to monitor compliance. In any case, the temporary permit is easy to aquire, though why it can't be folded into the building permit is beyond me.

Week 25: Stuck!

2006-11-20T10:55:00.000-08:00

We are still awaiting a decision from the Bureau of Engineering regarding our highway dedication waiver.
I recieved a call this morning from the engineer I spoke with on Friday and she said that the project was 20th in line for review. She was not clear on the length of duration for review, but said that it was going to take some time...a lot of time.

Stay Tuned.

Week 24: Plan Check Continues.

2006-11-14T11:16:00.000-08:00

It’s been a busy Fall and so I haven’t had time to update the Blog as of late. My teaching responsibilities at Woodbury University have been dominating my schedule and so not much has happened with Corralitas since I last updated things.

Well, that’s not exactly true. Normally, when plan check corrections come back, the procedure is to try to get them corrected and back to the building department as soon as possible. In this case, because of my busy schedule the project has been more-or-less in slow motion. Another rather unsettling issue also came to light during the sign-off portion of the project: Highway dedication!

When a project is in plan check it requires the applicant to get several sign-offs from the various bureaus involved with the day-to-day operations of the city. Most of these sign-offs are easy to get cleared, but require some time at the building department. Unfortunately, because our project is on a steep slope and fronts onto a narrow street, it involves a lot of extra clearances and close inspection by the engineers at the city. We found that the city has a blanket policy in place requiring all hillside streets that do not meet current city requirements to be improved. In order to do this they need to allocate or in my words “steal” land from homeowners. I use the word “steal” because, not only are they not paying you to give up part of your property, you must pay for the entire process. By my calculations this would cost the client about $6,000.00 in revised design, engineering, and civil documents, not to mention the city fees, and lost time. We are currently waiting for the head of Public Works to decide our case.

Why didn’t we know about this issue prior to plan check? We did. Every project requires careful research on the part of the designer, and we were told in our research phase that the highway dedication requirement was not a big deal and only required a sign-off at the counter. We were not told that it required a base fee of upwards of $2000.00 and would involved possibly deeding part of the property to the City of Los Angeles. We have submitted our case to the head of Public Works in order to obtain a waiver. This process is expected to take up to several weeks and has set our plan check re-submittal for late December-early January.

Stay tuned for more updates!

Week 18: First round of plan check corrections issued!

2006-10-04T10:02:00.000-07:00

So it’s October 5^th. After 8 weeks of waiting (they said 12 weeks, so “cheers” to the Building Dept.) the drawing set is finally back. We have a few minor corrections and omissions as well as a few major ones that may directly affect the project. The latter is as follows:

1) The height of the building (43’-6”) is in question. This is due to several overlaps in the codes that govern buildings in hillside areas. First, there is the Hillside Ordinance which has specific stipulations that limit the overall height of a structure to 36’-0”. However, for R-2 zoning this does not apply. Secondly, there is Hillside Grading which refers to a different set of criteria, ones that allow for a 45’-0” overall height. Planning and Zoning is trying to make up their minds on this one, since they told us during our research phase that 45’-0” was O.K. we have a pretty solid case. However, with the Building Department everything is “Duck and Cover” so who knows how it’s going to end up.

2) A building over 3 stories requires an additional stair from the second story if the second story is over 500 SF (which ours is). We knew this part of the code, but are trying to argue that since the bottom of the stairs from the second floor end at a floor that is at street level, we should be exempt. It’s a case of project-specific determinations, so we’ll see what they say.

Obviously these two items could drastically change the way the project looks and is designed. We are waiting on word from our plan checker for more information.

Stay tuned!

Time Out!

2006-09-29T11:06:00.000-07:00

Part of the reason that there hasn't been much activity on the blog this month is because I've been getting ready to showcase the Urban Operations studio to the general public as part of the "Silver Lake Modernism: Then and Now" tour. For those folks who are dropping by the office, make sure to check out the drawing set for the Corralitas project.

Things should return to normal here at the office after the tour and the first round of permit corrections should be coming back next week. So stay tuned!

Soils Report Approved!

2006-09-21T17:15:00.000-07:00

We got the soils and geology approval letter from the LA Grading Dept. Basically, it outlines the requirements that the Grading Department is prescribing for us in order to complete the project. It does not necessarily guarantee anything, as our plan-check corrections have not come back yet. Four more weeks and we should know.

Week12: Posting

2006-08-31T15:04:00.000-07:00

So for those of you have been wondering. Nothing has been going on with the project. Last week the LA Building Dept. decided to go on strike so the plans for our project are probably still sitting in someones "in-box". The City did post the permit on the property and as usual my cell started ringing with calls from the neighbors. Too bad I was in New York at the time and on vacation. I met with my new neighbor, David, when I got back and he is on board. Most of the time there is never a problem with the neighbors till AFTER you start construction and they are being bombarded by noise, dirt, and the subs turn the street into a parking lot. However, in my experience it's best to chat with everyone as early as possible. The last thing you want on a project is some angry crank of a neighbor trying to block your project because they feel put out. It's happened before so we try to maintain an air of diplomacy towards the neighborhood we are building in.

The semester has begun and I am teaching full time at Woodbury Universities Architecture Department. I am teaching a "Housing" studio this year in addition to my Theory class, so it all seems very appropriate. For those people who have called the office, I have your information and will get back to you by Thursday of the week you have called.

Since the project is in Plan Check we are going to start on the construction documents next week and will be posting some material choices, as well as some changes to the design.

Permit Submitted!

2006-08-04T09:52:00.000-07:00

The Tower of doom...

This morning I left for the Building Dept. at around 8:30 AM and walked out with a Plan Check tracking number at about 9:00 AM. It was quiet at the building dept. and the plan check engineers were in a good mood. I'd downloaded my forms already so there was very little paperwork involved. I bantered with the plan checker, paid my fee, and was back at the studio in record time. If you aren't familiar with the LADBS site, it's a must to bookmark in your browser. They have an extensive database of information and are very organized. Their new forms dowload section has everything you need.
This marks a major milestone to the project. Now we wait. According to the sign at the counter, it's going to be about a 15 week wait. In the meantime, we'll be working on the construction documents and researching some of the appliances and other accessories to the house. The office will be closed for the next two weeks for a Summer break. Stay tuned for updates after the 14th.

One day left till permit submittal

2006-08-03T12:08:00.000-07:00

The studio is filled with the whir of the plotter today as we're pumping out our permit sets here at the office. I recieved confirmation from CTW Engineers to tell me that the structural drawings are at the printers and will be ready for pick-up this afternoon. The morning was filled with last minute corrections as I reviewed the CAD files to make certain we had as much information coordinated as possible. We will have corrections, everybody does, but it's better to try and do damage control up front. Tomorrow at 7:30 AM I'll be heading to Downtown L.A. to turn everything in. After that, the wait begins.

Title 24 Calculations

2006-07-25T17:07:00.000-07:00

I submitted the project to the Title-24 Engineer today for review. In California it is a requirement to have energy loads computed for the project in order to minimize it’s impact on regional resources. We use Khalifeh Associates in West L.A. for our projects. Soody and her office are charming to work with and timely in providing us with information about our projects. Soody also is one of the more helpful consultants we’ve worked with and is always happy to explain the outcomes of her calcs. Title-24 Engineers are one of the many consultants that have to be on board for a project in California. When it’s all said and done, getting even the smallest house built requires a team of dedicated professionals to ensure that it complies with current building practices, and codes. For more information on the Title-24 requirements go here.

Soils and Geology Submitted!

2006-07-18T15:45:00.000-07:00

Yes, you are seeing it correctly. By 10:31 AM the L.A. Building Department has already seen 600 people before me. By the time I actually got to the counter, six more people had signed up behind me...and that's just for the Grading Division.

Today marks a milestone in the project. This morning I dropped the Soils and Geology report off with the L.A. Grading Department. The current estimated time for reviewing the report is estimated to be...8 weeks. However, the employee at the counter told me that it would probably be much shorter due to a drop off in submittals. We are on schedule to submit the project for plan check on August 1st and should be getting our corrections back in September. We're keeping our fingers crossed that there are no big surprises, but with the Building Department, anything is possible. The Grading Department engineers will review the report and issue "Recommendations". These are actually more like requirements for construction and, despite the title, anything but optional. When we submit our plans for plan check, we will have to submit a set of grading drawings for review that must comply with the recommendations. The whole process is expected to take 8- 10 weeks once we submit all of our drawings for plan check. In the meantime we are finalizing the design development drawings and engineering in preparation for our August 1st deadline.

Progress.

2006-07-13T10:48:00.000-07:00

The lull in the project schedule has allowed us to take a breather from the design development drawings and focus on finalizing some of the images and schematic documents. I managed to put together some renderings which show the exterior of the building and discuss the facade relationships on the two primary sides that face Corralitas and the Freeway. The result of the design has been a bit of a paradox in that the majority of openings are on the Freeway-facing side of the project. This was to capture the most views, and take advantage of the morning sun. In order to alleviate the sound issues associated with the freeway, all of the windows of the "quiet" spaces have been reduced in height and begin at shoulder level. This is to allow for privacy without having to add curtains, as well as allow for the addition of built-in storage which should dampen the sound by using the mass of the storage cabinets. The surreal quality of the renderings was inspired by the current David Hockney exhibition showing here in L.A. at LACMA. To see them, click here.

Design Development Begins!

2006-07-06T15:18:00.000-07:00

Over the past couple of weeks we've been tweaking the final floor plan so that it could be sent off to the engineer. They are beginning their calculations this week and should be done and ready for our submittal date of August 1st. Technosoils is finalizing their report and we will be submitting it to the Grading Department next week. Once they have approved the report we will then file for a grading permit. Normally, most offices submit their package all at once, but knowing how long the Grading Department usually takes, we are trying to speed things up. There is very little chance they will reject the report, and so it makes sense to get a jump on things.

With the schematic design phase wrapped up and the project in engineering, we are starting the design development set of documents. It is here that material systems get selected and any "kinks" in the design get worked out. I spent last week researching on fixtures and mechanical equipment for the house in order to make sure they would fit into the spaces provided in the design. Over the next couple of weeks we'll be showing off different aspects of the design as they get developed and bring the project closer to the next phase: Construction documents.

Check out the final design here.

Design Continues

2006-06-16T15:02:00.000-07:00

Left to Right: Partial upper floor plan showing HVAC shaft in upper right corner. Revised design on the right shows duct in center, adjacent to stairwell.

Well, things are still on schedule, but we ran into a bit of a problem this week. The design that I was going to post came back from the engineer with a minor coordination issue. I had provided a shaft for the mechanical ductwork from the start of the schematic and somehow it had gotten squeezed to the point where it no longer lined up. Olivier, the draftsman at CTW Engineers picked it up during the drafting phase and forwarded it to our office for review. It took a couple of days of re-design, but now we have a “final” schematic design that’s ready to go back to the engineer. I’ll post the design next week. While it is in engineering, we’ll be working on the kitchen design, which right now needs some work, as well as the master bathroom. The engineers are hoping to have the rough structural plan ready for review by the middle of next week. Once we review and resolve any major coordination problems, they will begin their calculations and start the process of finalizing the building structure.

Final Design and Coordination

2006-06-12T11:15:00.000-07:00

So this week started out with some calls to the original surveyor on the project. The property came with a survey and a soils report (a savings of about $5,000), but verifying these documents is critical. Since I know the soils engineer, I confirmed with him that the project was buildable and then authorized an addendum to the report. The survey company, after some harassment, is sending a "wet stamped" copy of the project. This is necessary in case the building department asks for it. Usually they don't, but with hillside projects it comes up from time to time. It is important when you are starting a new project to at least be aware of the lot perameters. You can do this by going to the local tax accessors web site or office and asking for a "tract map". Having your lot information (tax id, address, etc...) is also helpful.

In any case here we are after about 8-10 weeks of schematic design and we have a building design! For a diagram showing the way the design developed formally, check here.

In other news I spoke with the structural engineers office this morning and they are in the beginning phases of engineering. There is still no word on when the drawings will be ready, but we are hoping to submit for permit in late July.

During the rest of the week, we'll be working on tweaking the details, such as the kitchen layout, bathrooms, etc... Once we have a set of preliminary structural drawings back from the engineer, we'll begin to finalize the Design Development package. I'll post more images of the finished design during the week.

2006-06-07T15:39:00.000-07:00

So Rewind back to the Fall of 2005. I was looking for another lot to build on and my Realitor, Joseph Treves of Sothebys sent me a group of listings in the Echo Park area. While most of the lots in Echo Park are either built out, un-buildable, or over-priced. I managed to find an 8,300 square foot lot that had a gorgeous view of the Lincoln Heights neighborhood and on clear days views of the San Gabriel Mountains. As a bonus the lot was on a Cul-de-Sac, thus giving a feeling of exclusivity.

After a failed negotiation, we finally managed to secure the lot in November of 2006 (about two years to the day I bought my own lot in Silver lake). After doing a weeks worth of “due-diligence” with the City I felt comfortable enough to reason that the lot was buildable, despite it’s being perched on a hillside.

The property, while commanding sweeping views and being in a quiet neighborhood has two major problems.

1) It’s on about a 45 degree slope. This means that building on it will require extensive engineering and friction piles (deep holes bored in the ground with an auger and then filled with concrete and rebar (steel)). Luckily, as part of the research prior to escrow I was able to find an existing soils report from an engineer I know and respect. Getting a soils report and a survey prior to close of escrow on a hillside lot is critical. Without them, you are playing Russian roulette. However, even with them the Los Angeles Dept. of Grading has to approve the report. If you buy a lot with an approved report, you are almost “golden”. These however, are rare, and usually mean that the previous owner ran out of money on the project or encountered some unforeseen difficulties in construction.

2) The top of the lot is about 85 vertical feet and 300 horizontal feet from the Glendale (or the 2) Freeway. This element poses a huge problem with regards to both the acoustical and aesthetic properties of the project. No one wants to live next to a Freeway. On the brighter side, the Freeway is below the lot, so if you are looking at the view, you never know it’s there.

From the close of escrow to last week I’ve been hammering out various designs here in the studio that range from a square doughnut (by far everyone’s favorite, but the most expensive) to the current scheme which balances the forces of economics with the desire beauty (or to quote Vitruvius “Commodity, firmness, and delight”). The trick now is to see how it fairs in engineering. I met with the engineering firm CTW Engineers abut the project in the Spring. Christian Williamson who is the principal, and I have been working together since 2002 when we were both getting our companies started. I like Christian because he and his employees are young, knowledgeable, and willing to listen to your arguments. I also have gotten a pretty good structural education from them and have become well-versed at knowing the limitations of Type V (wood) construction. The problem with a lot of architects is that they try to design wood structures as they would a steel one. This poses a huge number of problems- especially here in Southern California where we have these little events known as “earthquakes”.

We are currently wrapping up the renderings for the schematic design package this week and I should be posting the scheme online next week through our website.

Blog Launch

2006-06-01T16:11:00.000-07:00

So today marks the launch of the Urban Operations Project Blog. The purpose of this blog is to document the a residential project I am currently working on in Los Angeles from start to completion. After working with Taalman Koch Architecture on their iT House Blog, I thought it might be interesting to carry on the experiment, albeit from an even earlier perspective. While the iT House Blog focuses on the construction of the first iT House, this blog is an attempt to give transparency to the process from design to the occupancy of a project. It is my hope that by reading the entries, visitors will better understand the sometimes cloudy processes that are involved in the design and erection of a piece of residential architecture.

To kick off the first entry, I am listening to the plotter in my studio whir away at the first check set for the project. We are due to submit the final schematic package to CTW Engineers- the structural engineers on the project. It is their estimate that the package should be ready for plan-check sometime in late July. Technosoils, the Geological consultant on the project is revising their report (commissioned by the previous owner) and we should be submitting it to the Los Angeles Department of Grading for review in a couple of weeks.

Do you feel like you've missed a step?

Well, to confess the blog is not exactly starting at the VERY beginning. To explain more, I bought a piece of land last November in the LA neighborhood of Echo Park. The lot is about 8500 square feet with a slope of about 1/1 (45 degrees). Lots like this one are not uncommon in the hilly areas of Los Angeles, and looking at land like this gives most people the jitters when they think about building on them (myself included). Having had some design-build experience before with my own house, as well as the iT House with TK, I opted to try to do it again. The project is the first one for my studio Urban Operations which is my solo-practice I started after the closing of my partnership with LEVEL design studio. I've gone through several schemes over the past 10 weeks (not including late night sketches last Winter on cocktail napkins at the neighborhood bar). While working without a client may seem attractive,I've found it poses a major problem: A lack of design guidelines.

Certainly, since this project is "Spec development" it would seem easy enough, right? Make a box, then sell aforementioned box to a consumer, and bathe in the cash from the sale. However, with so much visual junk already in the LA architectural landscape, I thought it might be nice to try and make a positive contribution. It's also an attempt to "kick-start" my new office and try and attract clients who are interested in contemporary design, as well as a chance to let architecture change their lives. It's also an opportunity to continue some of the design ideas I initiated in my own house.

In any case, stay tuned over the next couple of days for a review of what's been going on with the design of the project, and what will be coming up over the next few months. For those interested in contacting the office, our Website is still in the production phase but should be up and running in July.