The above picture has nothign to do with this post, but it is wicked sweet.

We had another Lunch and Learn today, my last one of the summer, where we talked about noise control in high end condos. The best thign that I got out of the presentation was that designers need to think about where noise is coming from during the conceptual stages of design and not wait unti people have moved in and start complaining and calling their lawyers. So if you are interestd in noise control building products go to www.kineticnoise.com for more information.

New Post Monday,

How far will you go to get a proposal out to client by six o' clock? That was the question facing us on Friday as we frantically printed, hole-punched, and sorted six proposals for a project. We were just to the part where we needed to laminate the covers when we discovered that the room that houses the laminater was locked. Oh, no! So, quickly we ran to the front of the office and asked the administrative assistant were the key was. She didn't have it. Then we called the building manager and he came to the office. He didn't have it either. Then the security guy came, the one with pepper spray and a tazer, I think it might just be a squirt gun but I didn't want to find out. He did not have a key to the room either. Holy botched locking job Batman! My colleague, Mark then took matters into his own hands. There was a vent on the front of the door and Mark grabbed a pair of pliers and wrenched the vent open. We got to the laminater finished our proposals and go out the door happy as clams. So, remember when things have to get to done they have to get done in the name of quality and professionalism. Also, change your desktop background, it will boost your creativity.

LunchandLearn landscape forms

Time for another Lunch and Learn update that I think will be beneficial to all. Have you ever opened the ASLA magazine to find a sepia toned fashion model sitting on a bench in a cocktail dress and thought, Well that looks cool. I wonder if this ad was supposed to be in Martha Stewart”. Well, I am willing to bet that the ad was for Landscape Forms. They are a pretty neat company and their rep came and gave us a great presentation. First and foremost was her explanation that Landscape Forms makes a quality product and that means it is more expensive. They also make a sustainable product using recycled aluminum and sustainably harvested woods and that means a more expensive product. Therefore they cost a lot of mullah. The upside is that they are beautiful, beautiful products, which last a long time. Also, get this… They have a SketchUp library full of their products, which means you can plop them down into your models. I wish I would have known this last year. They also have CAD files and specs right on their website. Take a few minutes and check it out. http://www.landscapeforms.com/en-us/pages/default.aspx Also, they have a custom shop that will walk with you from concept to finished product if there is any custom work you want done. http://www.landscapeforms.com/en-US/products/pages/custom431.aspx The rep here was more than helpful and I would definitely talk to them the next time I need to specify some seats.

An exercise in futility

That is what my boss called the project that I have been working on for the past couple of weeks.

So, at the moment I don't really want to do any work at all right now. I am debating wither I should go and start a new research project, go downstairs and just goof off for the next 3 hours or maybe I should finish my project anyways and then prove to them all how useful it can be. Dunno. I am going to get a coke. Peace out.

Soccer Game

Last Thursday we had an office party, so IBI paid for me and my family to go to a soccer game! Hooray it was fantastic fun. The game itself was a dirty ugly game with little ball control and only a few shinning moments, but the crowd was so into it. They fed us to, Famous Dave's, it was good. The game ended in a tie but I just might be a Real fan and I think that when I get back to Manhattan I would like to take myself and any others interested to a KC Wizards game. I was honestly worried that the game may go to long and my sons would be ready to leave but since soccer only lasts two 45 minute halves they were not balling at the end. get the pun? Anyways after the show they had a fireworks display in honour of Independence Day. God Bless America. My baby boys both loved the fire works, whenever I ask my oldest what he thought of the game he just mentions the fireworks. The next day we drove down to Provo to attend a big wonderful parade. It had big balloons, and WWII Veterans, a whole bunch of guys dressed up in Star Wars outfits, Tongans doing the Hakka, marching bands, politicians, and a tank. Yup, that's right a real functioning WWII Hellcat tank. That was my oldest son's favourite, I am glad he didn't say the cheerleaders because he is turning into a 3 year old flirt. Oh, well. I guess I am going to have to have "the talk" soon. I mean the talk about tying his own shoes, right now he has Velcro ones but someday he will be wearing laces. The last thing I wanted to mention in this entry was we also visited a pioneer village over the weekend. Everyone dresses up in pioneer clothes and they have old buildings and a train to ride on, and horse rides. A step back in time. Anyways, the 2 coolest things were, ringing the anvil and the candy cannon. The ringing of the anvil means they take one anvil and put it on the ground. Then they put a pound of black powder on the anvil. Then they put a second anvil on top of the powder. Then they light it, and THEN the second anvil shoots 30 ft into the air! Super cool. The Candy cannon was a little cannon that they filled with salt water taffy, add a little black powder, mix in a crowd of sugar crazed kids and you have a recipe for success. Anyways, I hope to go out and visit a New Urbanist development called Daybreak this weekend. http://www.daybreakutah.com/ http://www.calthorpe.com/ I am also going to the Real game tomorrow, I'll tell you how it was.

Brown Bag Concert

This whole week the Salt Lake City Brown Bag Concert Series has been playing in our buildings plaza. Everyone from the adjoining area was invited to this free concert series which moves to a different public space each week, bringing music to the masses. The music ranged from Illinois Swamp Music to 80's wannabe Pop. Most of the time the bands were too loud for background music and but not today. This lunchtime we were treated to a trio playing Parisian esque accordion, bass, and jazz guitar riffs. It was nice , the melodies set a romantic mood for downtown SLC. I really think that the french have the right idea about lunches; sit around for two hours listening to light music and eating your lunch in peace while enjoying the parade of passer byes. All in all I think that the Concert series is a great example of programing, so kudos to the Salt Lake City Arts Council. Go Accordion Players! Makes me want to learn how to play.

Mid-Internship Review

The middle of my internship is rapidly approaching. So today I did something that I have not done for a long time. I did something that only Dwight would do. I asked to have a performance review, and my boss said that I am doing fine. That was it. Then I asked if I could attend one of the boring meetings that he is always going to. He said that they are all boring. Still persistent to be all that I can be I asked if I could go to one of the city commission meetings so I could see how Landscape Architects deal with City Councils not located in Manhattan. Finally he conceded to some misery and I get to go to a meeting on the 17th of July. Whoo hoo!

The other part of my performance review was given by my immediate supervisor man and he actually had some good things to say. Things like, you are filling our gap well. We needed someone with CAD and Photoshoping skills. Then he told me that the workplace is a great place to see how the real world works. School can only prepare you so much and then bam! your working for real and you have to deal with people's egos. And in the real world you need to know how to deal with projects being put on hold and any number of frustrating things.

But I have learned a little, the first is that the sandwich shop, The Robins Nest is wicked sweet. Second of all I have learned where the nice bathroom is in the building, it does not have gold toilets but the stall dividers are marble. I also learned that Landscape Architects don't like pushy Architects, Architects don't like Landscape Architects telling them how to use CAD. Although seriously this one architect was making a building that was larger than the building lot because he didn't put it in CAD correctly. And nobody likes Engineers. The Landscape Architects in the office do not like the ASLA Magazine, they do like Urban Land and Topos, and that PPS does not like Landscape Architects. Who is the PPS you ask. Well, it stands for People for Public Spaces, and it is a organization of designers and other professionals who are out to make good public spaces. You can visit their website here: http://www.pps.org/

I have been looking into the design of Plazas and Squares and I stumbled upon the PPS from a book called "How to Turn a Place Around." It is an interesting publication that talks about successful public spaces and even gives a rubric for assessing public spaces. A much better book in my opinion is "City Comforts: how to build an urban village", but that is besides the point. I then Googled "PPS and Landscape Architects" and found a number of articles that talked about the feud that LAs have with PPS. I will not delve into it much but if your office has a copy of Landscape Architecture Magazine, March 2007, Volume 97, number 3 you should turn to page 36 and read the article. As for me I like everybody! Well, almost everybody there was this one lady in France.... Anyways, I think that the PPS has a lot of good suggestions for Public Spaces and I think that LAs have a lot of good ideas for public spaces so take the good and block the bad. Sorry, this post has been a ramble. Happy Belated Canada Day!

OK it is time for a little guerilla blogging. I have two projects that I am supposed to be working on but its Friday and I still have not found that magical bathroom in the building. I should post a picture of my building. Ok here it is.

http://www.hamiltonpartners.com/location_overview.php?region=UT&type=office&id=68

Now that you have seen where I work, I can talk about what I really want to talk about and that is our site visit last Wednesday. We were able to visit the LDS Conference Center’s Rooftop Garden. We were also graced by the presence of Eldon the Head Gardener and Steve the Head Maintenance guy who both offered wonderful onsite insight to the really cool gardens. I tell you, the garden was so cool that I was giddy during the whole 2 hour tour.
To start off Eldon told us that National Geographic recently photographed the garden for an rooftop garden article that will published sometime next year. National Geographic will visit many of the world’s best rooftop gardens so keep your eyes peeled. Then Eldon explained that while the rooftop garden was the focus of the tour he wanted to stress that the entire site is technically a rooftop garden. The ground floor plaza is actually built on top of a parking complex, therefore all the street level planters and trees had to be built on a roof. Eldon then told us that the planters are filled with expanded shale which is light weight but structural strong enough to support trees. This expanded shale has organic matter mixed in but due to the deadline of the project many trees were planted without any organic material. These trees are easily noticed because they are all yellowy, chlorotic? Steve then pointed out a couple of trees that were also suffering because the architect had selected trees not suitable to Utah’s basic soils. After that we went up to the top of the Conference Center and got to visit the gardens.
Wow, I have to admit that when I think of greenroofs I often think of a tundra landscape. Mosses and low growing grasses dotted with red and brown lichen. This roof top garden has 30+ foot trees growing on it. The overall design of the garden is a representation of when the Mormon Pioneers arrived in the Salt Lake Valley. The northeast corner is planted with pine trees, broadleaf evergreens, aspens, elderberries, and an impressive range of forest flowers, representing the Rocky Mountains. The southwest is planted with a mixture of grasses, flowers, bristlecone pines, and shrubs to make it look like the valley did when the pioneers came down from the mountains. Also to the east is a fountain which symbolizes the mountain streams. This waters source turns into a series of rivulets that lead to the very edge of the building and pour down a multitier waterfall to the street level below.
At this time I need to thank KSU for teaching me to appreciate a prairie ecosystem, because the meadow part of the roof was beautiful. Utah has ahad a wet cold spring and so the normally mustard yellow summer meadow was alive with purples, and blues, pinks and yellow and all sorts of urban birds flying around and eating stuff. It looked really cool. Yet, iot took a lot of hard work to maintain. Steve said that the meadow was especially difficult to maintain because it needed frequent weeding. Invasive and noxious weeds are regularly deposited due to birds, and wind. The birds pose another problem too. Around the perimeter of the rooftop there is a planter known as the eyebrow. Think of the hanging gardens. The planter hangs out from the wall and forms a ledge where the cascading plants grow. During the springtime this planter is full of juniper berries and other avian delicacies, so what happens when birds eat? They poop, all over the sidewalks below. I guess every design has some flaws and offers us something to think about.
The last treat of the tour was that we got to go inside and see some paintings that were done by one of our LA’s father. They were three beautiful portraits of the Apostles. All in all, the site visit was wonderful and today I learned that there is a rooftop garden of note on top of the new city Library. I guess I have to go visit that too. Now, I did not take a working camera and so I do not have a lot of images.

Green Rating, not Green Washing

At my internship I get to do a whole lot of stuff, most of the time. Some days there just isn’t anything for an intern to do: everyone is too busy, there are lots of boring meetings to go to, projects get put on hold, etc… Whenever I am not doing work I get to do research. Yippee! I have already read seven books on company time. The two areas of research that I am delving into are: Green Neighborhoods and plazas here in Salt Lake City. Plazas as a whole are very difficult nut to crack. There are over a bixzzilion variables and reasons why a plaza succeeds or fails. But enough about plazas, today I want to talk a little about green communities. The first thing of interest is the City Creek Center Project here in Salt Lake City, It recently received praises from the Salt Lake City Tribune as a “model for green design”. http://www.sltrib.com/ci_9654826?IADID=Search-www.sltrib.com-www.sltrib.com
In the news article it also noted that the City Creek Center is participating in a new Pilot LEED program for Neighborhood Development. Well, I have spent the last couple of weeks reading that Pilot program and trying to understand and summarize it for the office. It is a very interesting rating system, and there are a number of developments across the U.S. that are participating, so if there is one close to you, investigate and tell me all about it. For a list of the projects go here: http://www.usgbc.org/ShowFile.aspx?DocumentID=3546
To view the LEED Rating System go here: http://www.usgbc.org/DisplayPage.aspx?CMSPageID=148
But the USGBC is not the only one attempting to come up with a rating system. In fact the Sustainable Sites Initiative is an organization backed by the ASLA, the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center, the United State Botanic Garden, and others. They are also in the process of creating a rating system for landscapes. For details and a very interesting amount of information visit: http://www.sustainablesites.org/ I would write more but the office actually has some work for me to do this afternoon. Peace out!

LunchandLearn

Here at IBI they have a wonderful program called Lunch and Learn. Each Thursday a product manufacturer comes to the office, buys us lunch and then educates us on whatever product they happen to be peddling. To date I have attended three such events. The first was bout cultured stone, very fascinating. The gentleman had a number of examples of what happens to stone veneers when water gets behind them. You can see their products here, http://www.coronado.com. The second was on modular walls from a company called DIRTT, which stands for Do It Right This Time. I think that the company spends the same amount of time thinking up cool names for their product s as then do designing them. In essence a very interesting company that has a computer software package that makes land/fx look like a Comodore PET. You can view their gallery here, http://www.dirtt.net/home/index.php. Today’s Lunch was all about waterproofing and airproofing your home. The presentation was very Architect oriented and the chocolate chip cookies had these huge milk chocolate morsels that really were not all that good. Oh well, for all of your waterproofing needs go to, http://www.henry.com/Home.9.0.html. This company actually makes a waterproof sealer that is used in green-roofs so check ‘em out. I will continue to post on the content of our lunch and learn program as well as links to the products we learn about. Hope you all are having fun out there.

Details, beautiful details.

Last week at the ‘ol internship I had a singular experience,
Guy: Hey Intern can you use CAD?
Me: Yes,
Guy: Have you ever done details before?
Me: Yes
Guy: Good put all of these hand drawn details into CAD.

So what details did I draw you ask? A paving pattern, an asphalt walkway, a wooden structure, and a retaining wall. Sounds kinda like a construction assignment not so long ago…. The best thing was that I finished the details in six hours, they were red lined the next day, and I didn’t even have to worry about when progress was due. Hooray!

Market Station Party

In my previous blog I mentioned that I went to a party with Skateboarders and Supermodels. I was not lying. We have been working on a mixed use development in South Salt Lake City called Market Station, http://www.marketstationliving.com/.
Well, it turns out that the main investor in the project has a daughter who was discovered by Elite Models last year, http://www.elitemodel.com/. This investor was so happy that his daughter was joining a modeling agency that he decided to build a development with Elite Models as one of its anchors. With such a posh company involved there was bound to be a great groundbreaking party. I was excited to see a finished space and to see how it performed during a large event I was excited to see landscape architecture at work!
I attended the event with: my sister and four of her friends. When we got to the location I was disappointed to see the plaza space I was imagining was really a street hemmed in by one finished apartment building and a chain link fence. So nothing was finished, nothing no buildings to define space just some port-o-potties. Anyways the event was hilarious they had a fashion show, and then the city council got out and dug up some dirt with shovels that were spray painted gold. Then they had a half pipe with some skateboarders, and then they picked the fashion show winner and then all the cool people with VIP bracelets got to go inside. Being but a humble intern I did not get a VIP bracelet. Oh well.
During the fashion show all of the models were wearing these wrist thingies, and so after the show we approached one of the ladies holding a bunch of these wrist thingies and we started talking to her. It turns out that she makes them herself and sells them at http://dtut-cuffs.blogspot.com/. Now these are not my kind of power bands but cool nonetheless. Maybe I will get some for the fall, or the winter when it is absolutely freaking cold in Seaton Court. All in all it was a fun evening, mostly due to my sister’s presence. I am just crossing y fingers and hoping that all the ground breaking I attend will have super models.

The second first entry.

The most difficult thing about starting a new blog is finding the time to write. First of all I do not have a computer at home and am therefore limited to the computer I use for work. I tired coming in early, but I don’t have a key and the landscape architecture crew comes in around 7:30. The Engineers come in around 8:00 and the Architects mosey in around 9:30. Anyways, I tried staying late and the boss doesn’t leave until after 5:30 and I have to get home. I have bread to bake. All in all it has been a wonderful 3 weeks here at IBI Group in Salt Lake City. The first week I was given the task of translating a conceptual master plan sketch to AutoCAD. So, I drew in road center lines and then they had me build out sidewalks and Right of Ways and building setbacks. Me they trusted me to do that. The crazy thing is that a week later they have not changed my street layout. I must have been really good at hiding my mistakes. Let’s just say that I don’t want to be in the office when the Civil Engineers get a hold of my street layout.
Aside form being an intern I have been exploring the local culinary scene and I am not disappointed. There is a wonderful array of foods and sweets to sample here in SLC. I also went to a groundbreaking ceremony with skateboarders and supermodels. My kind of people. Narf! But that is another story for another time.
Ciao!