Dakota Ridge Village house, construction progress

MT framing 01

Framing has begun in earnest on a new house we designed for the Dakota Ridge neighborhood in north Boulder.  Weeks of excavation and foundations do not lend much to the physical presence of the building, but in few short days, a flurry of framing happens and the building begins to take shape.

The pace of construction is not apparently consistent.  The largest single physical change happens during framing when the building takes its initial shape and the scale and size of the elements can be clearly seen.  This all happens rather quickly - a few weeks - compared with the overall one year building schedule.  What follows next is the time-consuming effort to put into place all the basic plumbing and electrical and mechanical systems.  This rough-in period often far exceeds the framing and seems painfully slow by comparison.  Weeks go by with very little changes - a pipe here or there, some electrical wires - and the pace seems glacial when set next to the dramatic physical transformation that takes place during framing.

MT white plan

Framing certainly is the most heroic part of the construction phase, when mere lines on paper are transformed into the very solid stuff of beams and rafters, joists and studs.  It is the most exciting for me as an architect as I get to see the first real glimpses of the building on the landscape, the scale and proportion of rooms and the presence of the building.  It comes as a great disappointment to most homeowners that the end for framing is only about one third or less of the project's completion.  It is a marathon, not a sprint.

Dakota Ridge Village house, construction progress

Construction is well under way on a single family house we designed for a site in north Boulder.  The lot is on the edge of the city's open space facing west to a series of rolling foothills.  As a corner lot, the house's views are primarily directed toward this westward view with some smaller, more discrete views to the south and east.

As far as the construction progress is concerned, this project started like many with an accurate layout of the house on the property.  Obviously we have figured this all out in the design stages many months ago, but it is always instructive to see the placement stakes on the land itself.  Those simple little stakes lead the way for some heavy-duty work:

Excavation can be a tricky business.  We have a soils report that we rely on to tell us the profile of the subsurface conditions including bedrock and water table issues.  However, only when equipment is actually rolling do we get to see the actual conditions and often have to make revisions on the fly to accommodate conditions or take advantage of opportunities that arise.  In the case of this house, the soil conditions for supporting the house were deeper than originally anticipated so we had to dig a bit further and create taller foundation walls.  Our contractor realized immediately that this deeper foundation could result in more full-depth basement space and less crawlspace.  So after a quick conference with contractor, owner and architect ...

Well, we're still working on it.  The proposed change looks like it makes sense and the cost is not too formidable.  So, while the concrete foundation walls are being poured and slowly coming up to full strength, a lot of phone calls are made, calculators worn down and potential changes are weighed and reconsidered.

It is simple to say that we should just make a really complete and thorough set of drawings and turn them over to a contractor to execute.  In my twenty or so years of experience there is no substitute for being fully involved in the construction process as a reliable partner to the contractor and owner in helping solve issues that inevitably bubble up.  Architects, if you think your drawings alone will get you a good building made, I am afraid you are solely mistaken.  It is the relationships you develop on the jobsite, with your client and with the inspectors, reviewers and every single tradesperson that will result in a building you can truly be proud of.

So the best marker of construction progress is not so much a series of photos or payout requests, but the growing trust and belief in the team itself to execute not just a set of drawings, but a shared vision of a project, a building and a home.

up Sunshine Canyon, construction progress, The Home Stretch

SZ lr01

Over the last several months I  have posted images of the construction progress for a house we designed up on Sunshine Canyon, just west of Boulder.  The original house at this location was lost to the Fourmile Fire in September 2010 along with 170 other houses.

We are in the last 4-6 weeks of construction, with all the finishes coming into place - painting, tile, carpet, hanging electrical fixtures, etc.  This is usually the most anxious time for homeowners as the final design comes significantly closer each day with every new tile, cabinet and countertop.  However, though it may look like move-in can occur any day now, it still takes some 4 weeks or so to complete these final tasks.  From this point on, almost every thing on the project is absolutely sequential.  Each trade, from painters to cabinet installers, needs complete unhindered access to each room and they must complete their work before the next trade can come in.  This can be very frustrating for homeowners as they are so anxious to finally get done with the construction but there are not that many folks on the jobsite.

SZ stone 01

The final task, the Punch List, is my job and hopefully takes place without the owner's boxes filling up the rooms.

The Punch List is an exhaustive, room-by-room review of everything on the project.  I review every wall for defects, the ceilings, floors, trim, doors, etc. until we can get a complete picture of all of the final touch-ups that need to be completed.  Every sink is turned on and off, windows opened and closed, all systems run on and off.  In the end this results in a multi-page document that is the Punch List that the general contractor will have to complete.  For a good contractor this document can be short, running 4-5 items per room.  A contractor rushing to finish a project can easily make a Punch List expand to 20-25 items per room.  It usually takes me a full day to complete a Punch List and to keep us focused on every detail I typically request a day when no work is being done, no movers, no tradespeople, on owners.

SZ lr02

I'll post again when we get to the Punch List and talk a bit about expectations of completing that list in a timely fashion.

the long house

by right envelope with demo

We have been working on a project in Boulder that holds a number of challenges, not the least of which is a long narrow lot with severe building restrictions.  My client's property is 50' wide by 188' long, but because of its corner location, both street-facing sides of the lot require a 25' wide setback from the street.  That setback along with additional side and rear yard setbacks makes the building envelope 20' wide by 128' long, a 6 1/2 : 1 length to width ratio.  A potential upper level is even more restricted by a solar shadow ordinance making the available building envelope up there an amazing 9' wide by 128' long or 14 : 1 ratio.

I have developed some long, narrow projects in the past.

The Cornhouse project was a speculative effort for a long, narrow house nestled within the parallel, seemingly endless rows of corn that one sees in the upper midwest.  Driving between where I lived, Chicago, and where I grew up, Kentucky, I would pass through hundreds of miles of Indiana corn fields, their arrow-straight rows creating a pulsing rhythm looking down their long furrows.  Fundamental to the design of this house project was its position among the corn and the changing relationship to the horizon that occurred as seasonal corn grew from the damp ground to its late summer height well over the heads of the inhabitants.  Equally present in the scheme was also the narrow layout of the house based on the typical 22" module of corn furrows.

Cornhouse 01

Cornhouse 02

That long narrow Cornhouse has its urban twin in a competition design executed a few years later.  Where the cornhouse was long and narrow in an expansive landscape, the layout of the city house was dictated by the long, narrow property lot boundaries of Chicago's Lawndale neighborhood.  Designed for a tough, urban setting and for universally accessible use, this long house was internally focused, centering around a courtyard space and incorporating two units, distributed over the building's three levels.

Chicago competition

I have written in the past about the unconventional massing of these kind of long and narrow buildings and the jokingly absurd Hyper-Attenuated Building Syndrome. A brief study of the work of Pritzker-prize winning architect Glen Murcutt reveals more than a few quite extraordinary long and narrow building designs.  These works, especially the houses, seem to slowly reel themselves out, room after room unfolding as you progress through the house.

Murcutt 01

Our current project's history is marked by our initial attempt to make a smaller more compact house that substituted height for length.  After an anguished meeting with neighbors stridently objecting to the potential loss of views because of the proposed height, we may be shifting back to the long house.  I'm not sure if this kind of elongated house will be more or less opposed by the neighbors, but given the strictures imposed by the setbacks, we have only two ways to go - tall and more compact or the stretched out massing of the long house.

new construction in Dakota Ridge, north Boulder

MT colored west elevation

We are just getting ready to start construction on a new house in the Dakota Ridge Village neighborhood of north Boulder.  The project is a design/build collaboration with Cottonwood Custom Builders with whom we have executed a number of past projects.

The house consists of an extensive main level which houses all the primary functions of the house as well as the master bedroom for a barrier-free design.  This necessary horizontal datum of the floor is offset by a series of interrelated vertical spaces linking the main level to the other floors of the house.  These vertical spaces generated a tall, narrow proportion that is reflected on the exterior of the building, creating dormers and projections that articulate the building while still adhering to the homeowners association's guidelines.

site plan

The property is an unusual corner situation with the corner spanning approximately 135 degrees instead of the usual right angle relationship.  This flaring of the site luckily corresponds with the view opening up from the rear of the property's densely populated alley condition to the west edge facing the rolling undulations of the Boulder foothills.  This span across the site from alley to street also has a fairly consistent slope, rising 10 feet from back to front.

MT model figure ground

Pending the receipt of our building permit, we are finalizing budgets and finishes and are looking forward to executing another project with the folks over at Cottonwood Custom Builders.  Designing buildings is fun and inspirational, but pales in comparison to the real event - making a building.

MT interior revised 04