#ArchiTalks 14: "My First Project"

“My First Project”

Kindof sounds like “My First Word”, “My First Step”,  “My First Halloween” (I was born on October 27, so that was “My First Holiday”)

For all intent and purposes, “My First Project” will be a project that was commissioned by someone other than my parents, who thankfully during that time after college, and after that job you get after college, take you in (when you cannot afford a place on the Westside of Los Angeles without living with some really creepy people, and the UCLA family student housing apartment that you are illegally subletting from the architect whose wife is a grad student are getting back from their six weeks in Europe and the architect you are working for wants you to take a break until they get some more work) and have you do their house addition and their company’s new office tenant improvement and pay you when you start getting those notices to repay your student loan.  

Of course this was before I went back to that same firm and as my mother said, “went to architecture school to be a dog walker”, but that would be under a future blog titled, “Things that i didn’t know I would be doing in an architecture firm after i went to six years of architecture school.”. or “Why I don’t have anyone working for me now because I can’t really afford to have an employee and treat them right”.

And that would be the Sherer Residence.  I was working for an architect but was approached by a contractor and asked if I would like to do a project for a couple who couldn’t afford the fees of the architect that I was working for.  I said “yes” because one, I wanted the experience of having my own clients and project and two, I wanted the money.  I met with the clients who already had a house in the same neighborhood but they were going through the process of purchasing another house facing a park in Culver City.  It was a historically significant because it was the city’s first mayor’s house, built in 1928, but was not on a historic preservation list and so I was not under any “rules” to save the house but I felt that it was a very quaint little one bedroom house with nice beamed ceilings in the living room and a nice scale so I went with adding on to the house in the existing style it was because of the unique character and in keeping with that style, it would also keep the construction within the budget by salvaging the existing structure and craftsmanship.

It was about 700 square feet and the husband and wife dreamed of filling the house with children, maybe two.  So, I met with them and then did a little sketch of what I felt the house should look like. And they liked it (and it always helps to put their car in the rendering if they are car people).

And then they thought about it some more and we met and they said, “We were thinking that we want to add more space and maybe his mother will come to live with us and we want a two car attached garage with a shop behind it for his hobby of restoring old motorcycles and bicycles and she wants a buddha room so that she can meditate.  ok, so it won’t be small anymore…

“Oh, and I don’t want any wood trim on the house because we want it to be “low maintenance””.

My favorite oxymoron!!!

So, we kept the living room, the dining room, and the kitchen and the existing one bedroom and bath became the family room and I added the bedrooms, the buddha room, a children's playroom in the attic, the mother-in-law suite on the first floor, and the attached two car garage and the cycle shop.  and it all fit on the lot with room to spare!  I was meeting with a structural engineer who did some work in the office and he was a “Calc and Sketch” guy so I was going to have to draft the structural drawings and details myself or have a friend of mine draft them and to tell you the truth, even though I later worked at a structural engineering firm, I cannot remember whether I did those drawings, and I cannot find the original construction documents, just these presentation drawings of the project that I did from that set. However, I did not change the wood details that I had on my drawings to the “styrofoam eave and molding low maintenance ones” out of principle.

And those presentation drawings cost a lot of money because way back in 1992, you had to take the pencil drawings that I had done on vellum and have a reduction and a negative made from the original in order to end up with an 8x10 photograph to put in your portfolio.  So yes, even though most things are more expensive,, these reprographic techniques are now less expensive because you can just make a copy from a big copy machine and reduce it down in seconds and pay about $2 or you can just send a scan via the internet to a place who will print out a copy from you digital file.  And maybe I will be proficient on one of these computer programs someday and that will change the way I live and I will never pick up a pencil or sketch by hand again.

Anyways, I submitted the construction document set bluelines to the building department or maybe the contractor did, again, I can’t remember and I can’t remember having any plan check corrections but I am sure I probably did.  And as they were being reviewed, a studio location scout who had previously contacted my clients about possibly filming a TV movie at the house followed through and basically painted the house a mint green (like everything was mint green because in TV and film, you can’t really see the quality of the work, so the porch light which was this really nice little significant metal lantern, which my clients gave to me, because it was painted mint green and they had no need for it. Because, they were going to buy one at a certain construction supply store that has ORANGE in their big sign that they were going to be happier with.)  The absolutely best thing that can happen in Los Angeles is that you have a studio film in your house because then your mortgage is basically paid for several if not more months.  My clients were very happy with that!!!  Of course it was not as good a deal as when one of the architects I knew had a couple episodes of “Californication” filmed at their house...

Well, back to my first project  

We did reuse the existing wood door and I wanted them to use wood windows but that didn’t work with the “low maintenance” approach, but there was a casement compromise and I was happy with that. The original chimney was brick and that was rebuilt and the cast concrete cherub medallion on that was given to me too.   I guess with the 1994 Northridge Quake, the rebuilt chimney held up better than the brick one would have.  I would visit the job site every once in a while, I wasn’t being paid for construction observation but I knew the contractor and he would call with questions that he had.  In fact, I cannot even remember how much I charged them for the entire job, but it was probably the same amount that people tell me that another “architect” has said that they would do it for when I tell them what my fees are today.  I was not licensed at the time that I did “My First Project”.  The title block said, “Michele Grace Hottel, Design” and I was in the process of getting licensed, and passed the California Supplemental Exam one week after the Northridge Quake.

I think that the project was a pretty big first project but of course as an architect, we are our own worst critics.  It was not “high design” like any modern project that was going to make a statement or win an award, and it wasn’t high end custom residential like the work that I did for other architecture firms.  In fact, one day an archimom and I were driving through the neighborhood on our way to play group at another architect’s house and I said, “Oh, I did a project in this neighborhood right off of the park” and she said, “Oh my god, it’s not that one is it?” Of course, that was exactly the one and I said, “yes, that is it.”  I am still friends with her because we are architects and that is the weird relationship that we have with those of our kind.  I am still friends with you even though you hate something that I did, but I respect your architect’s opinion.

Some of the things that I learned working on “My First Project” is that I could interview for the job and get it, meet with the clients and design a house with them, produce a set of construction documents and get a permit and that the house could be built and still stand.  I think the most important thing was that the clients really liked it and still like it today.   

I kept the lantern and it is in the garage somewhere and the concrete cherub I left in the courtyard of the vacation bungalow in Venice Beach that we lived in, it was too fragile to move and I felt like it really belonged there and I like seeing it when I go back to visit.  It is one of those strange things that we do when we create architecture or design buildings, we change the environment, one project at a time.

If you liked my take on "My First Project", go to other links below and see what other architects have to say about it.

Enoch Sears - Business of Architecture (@businessofarch)

Bob Borson - Life of An Architect (@bobborson) My First Project: The Best Project Ever Designed That Wasn't

Matthew Stanfield - FiELD9: architecture (@FiELD9arch)

Marica McKeel - Studio MM (@ArchitectMM) My "First Project"

Jeff Echols - Architect Of The Internet (@Jeff_Echols) My First Project - Again

Lee Calisti, AIA - Think Architect (@LeeCalisti) first project first process

Mark R. LePage - Entrepreneur Architect (@EntreArchitect) Our First Architecture Project [#ArchiTalks]

Evan Troxel - Archispeak Podcast / TRXL (@etroxel)

Lora Teagarden - L² Design, LLC (@L2DesignLLC) #ArchiTalks: My first project

Collier Ward - Thousand Story Studio (@collier1960)

Cormac Phalen - Cormac Phalen (@archy_type) I GOT A ROCK

Nicholas Renard - dig Architecture (@dig-arch)

Andrew Hawkins, AIA - Hawkins Architecture, Inc. (@hawkinsarch)

Jeremiah Russell, AIA - ROGUE Architecture (@rogue_architect) my first project: #architalks

Jes Stafford - Modus Operandi Design (@modarchitect) Life Happens - We Are Professional

Cindy Black - Rick & Cindy Black Architects (*)

Eric T. Faulkner - Rock Talk (@wishingrockhome) The First One -- A Tale of Two Projects

Rosa Sheng - Equity by Design (@EquityxDesign) Why every project is my "First"

Michele Grace Hottel - Michele Grace Hottel, Architect (@mghottel) "My First Project"

Meghana Joshi - IRA Consultants, LLC (@MeghanaIRA)

Amy Kalar - ArchiMom (@AmyKalar)

Michael Riscica - Young Architect (@YoungArchitxPDX) The Early Years of My Architecture Career - My Role

Stephen Ramos - BUILDINGS ARE COOL (@sramos_BAC)

brady ernst - Soapbox Architect (@bradyernstAIA) I Hate Decks

Brian Paletz - The Emerging Architect (@bpaletz)

Tara Imani - Tara Imani Designs, LLC (@Parthenon1)

Jonathan Brown - Proto-Architecture (@mondo_tiki_man)

Eric Wittman - intern[life] (@rico_w) [first] project [worst] crit

Sharon George - Architecture By George (@sharonraigeorge) My First Project - The First Solar Decathlon #Architalks

Brinn Miracle - Architangent (@simplybrinn)

David Molinaro - Relax2dmax (@relax2dmax)

Emily Grandstaff-Rice - Emily Grandstaff-Rice AIA (@egraia) Project Me

Daniel Beck - The Architect's Checklist (@archchecklist) Fake it 'til you make it

Jarod Hall - di'velept (@divelept) Define First

Anthony Richardson - That Architecture Student (@thatarchstudent) my first project

Lindsey Rhoden - SPARC Design (@sparcdesignpc)

Drew Paul Bell - Drew Paul Bell (@DrewPaulBell) My First Project

Greg Croft - Sage Leaf Group (@croft_gregory)

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Courtney Casburn Brett - Casburn Brett (@CasburnBrett)

Jeffrey A Pelletier - Board & Vellum (@boardandvellum) Top ten tips when faced with a challenging Architectural project

Aaron Bowman - Product & Process (@PP_Podcast) Community 101

Samantha Raburn - The Aspiring Architect (@TheAspiringArch) 6 Major Differences between my 1st School Project & my 1st Real Project

Kyu Young Kim - Palo Alto Design Studio (@sokokyu) My First Project – The Contemporary Cottage

Nisha Kandiah - TCDS (@SKRIBBLES_INC) The Question of Beginning

Karen E. Williams - (@karenewilliams)

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MGHarchitect: Michele Grace Hottel, Architect