house construction and being local

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In many ways, building or remodeling is about the most local, job-creating activity within the economy.  Unless your construction is from very unconventional materials, they are most likely sourced relatively closely to the place of construction.  "Local" may mean the US, not the preferred 500 mile definition, but very few of the things consumers typically purchase can even say that.  Most of the wood in residential construction comes from the US or Canada (the importing of subsidized Canadian softwoods is a touchy subject for US manufacturers).

Almost all of the building stone and brick used here in Colorado is sourced within 500 miles.  The woods used for cabinetry and trim, unless exotic, are usually US grown, as is the drywall for the most part.  The most common import is probably tile, often from Mexico or Italy, along with countertops and roofing materials.  Each of those have readily available substitutes. ( If you really want to view the relative costs of  imports, take a look at stone importers.  It is less expensive to have stone quarried in China or Brazil and shipped over to the US than to source it locally.  This means that there are thousands of shipping containers carrying around the heaviest stuff imaginable - stone slabs, stacked like saltines, delivered across the US.  Stone is a natural product and much of the wide variety of available colors are due to this global sourcing and we have become so used to the variety I am not sure we could do without it.)(More about the excess of shipping containers in the US in a later post.)

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For residential projects, labor costs represent about half the total hard costs of the entire project.  And of course, the labor of construction is most often local.  For residential projects, rarely do the subcontractors and laborers travel much more than 100 miles to the jobsite.  Of course, most of the soft costs of construction - architects, engineers, surveyors, etc. are also usually local as well.

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So, next time you see someone building a house or an addition, even a gargantuan edifice, remember that what you are seeing is the unconstrained and unforced redistribution of wealth.  From aspiring homeowners to local carpenters, masons, laborers, roofers, runs the stream of money like the braided channels of a river across a delta, from a single source to a thousand rivulets.

after the fire - Sunshine Canyon house completed

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Eighteen months after the devastating Fourmile Fire swept away so many houses in the western foothills of Boulder, we have finally completed construction on a new home for Lynn and John Stasz.  Like all projects it has been an exciting, frustrating and time-consuming task for everyone involved.  This has been especially true for Lynn and John who did not decide they wanted a new house, but rather that decision was forced upon them.

These images are just some recent snapshots I have taken, not the professional photographs that lends so much to the look and feel of the house.  However, the photos do reveal much of the intentions of the project - to make a home again in the mountains that is simultaneously open and protective, light and airy but also firmly rooted to the earth and sheltered under the sky.

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A couple of weeks ago Lynn and John were able to spend their first nights sleeping up at the house, in the landscape that they have called home for 27 years.  We are really pleased to have been a part of making that happen and look forward to sharing a beer with them on the terrace.  Much thanks as well to Cottonwood Custom Builders.  Marc Anderson, Jeff Hindman and all their crew have taken the care and concern to make a nicely detailed, solidly built house and made the work of me, the architect, a little easier along the way.

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Congratulations Lynn and John and welcome home.

Dakota Ridge Village house, construction progress

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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.

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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

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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.

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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.

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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.