As I have just come to the end of my first week on placement at Anderson Orr Architects, I can happily say I am glad to have received a placement.. the Nespresso coffee definitely beats Lidl's own instant coffee! In all seriousness, this has been such a good week. All of the staff were extremely welcoming and friendly. After being there for a couple of hours, I was put to work right away!
My first job was to research precedents for a country house wedding accommodation in the Cotswold's. They had three areas I needed to look at; the reception area for the guests, communal kitchen area and then the suites (bedrooms). The focus is to keep it a traditional country style to fit that of the rest of the buildings surrounding it, which is also accommodation. Due to the high demand on the venue, and the business booming, there was a requirement for more accommodation for wedding guests.
I used the precedents to make mood boards, which showed different types of furniture and materials which could be used in the rooms. I then went through them with my supervisor and studied them, talking about what could be improved or changed. Next, I was given tracing paper to start sketching over the floor plans to see what would go where. I enjoyed this, as rough sketching is something I really like to do. I will include photos of the work I was doing during the week below.
Lewis (my supervisor) then set me the task of starting to put potential layouts into Revit. Each room plan and section were put onto a sheet. I then started to add detail and furniture.. this is where the Architects Pocket Book came in handy! I am now glad I listened and did the work on Space Standards and Building Regulations (as boring as they were!), as it really helped me understand what needs to go where. The rooms aren't too big, so I had to really concentrate on the measurements of the space.
On Wednesday, I got to go on my first site visit! I was given my own fluorescent jacket, helmet and boots.. it was a look. Right now the barn is basically just a shell, and the reason we went there was to see how fires could be prevented in the building by the wall structure. I took some progress photos of the building, and hopefully I can come back when it has all been finished in the summer! It was very interesting to see the space first hand, rather than just staring at it through a computer screen, and it gave me a good idea of what the rooms would like there. Despite the weather being pretty terrible, it was still an enjoyable outing.
From Thursday to Friday, I continued to put the designs into Revit and annotate them. Once they were nearly completed (going to over with another staff member next week), I moved on to making collages for each room. This is to help give the client a better feel of what the materials and furniture would look like, rather than just showing them a Revit plan. I really enjoyed this part.
Working here is great, as work finishes at 2 on a Friday! I have learnt a lot of valuable things this week, and it has been really interesting to see how a busy architect firm works. I have also come to learn, that no one trusts the newbie to make their special coffee orders... until Friday afternoon I had my first victim - dark nespresso capsule, extra shot of water and tiny splash of milk - no sugar. I will need to make a list of everyones orders, but it doesn't help that I can't remember everyones names! Maybe next week will be better.
And below I leave you with some of the work I have done this week. Until next week!
