Barn Project Part I

A. Existing Barn Structure

As  architects, we don't yet have a consistent strategy for finding architectural projects/work, we both work full time jobs in practice and academia and in the past have basically have applied for some projects and gotten recurring work through some of these past clients, colleagues and acquaintances. This is normal in architecture especially for smaller firms; word of mouth and networking is really the norm but in general we treat every project with care and try to go above and beyond the clients requests so they come back when they need more work or refer us to others. 

B. Verifying measurements

Things slowed down over the winter and due to the economic status but once in a while we'll find a project that seems worth the extra effort and I think this might be one of those. We met with the client who is an artist and talked about how to convert this barn located in Highland NY into an artist space. The project would consist of various studio spaces and gallery space in a picturesque setting, alright so its not Italy but its a nice quiet location in upstate NY.  The project seems interesting enough and could be fun for us because of its size (pretty small) and what it entails. As usual the budget is small, at least for architectural services so we're doing it basically for free..or to be fair it may provide enough to pay for the baby's furniture (crib and dresser). Why would an architect work for free? Good questions..well we basically get the experience and the opportunity to work on something you think you may put a project you think is worth. 

So far we've been paid to survey the entire barn, do a code review (sort of) and produce drawings to describe a renovation of the exterior (clean, paint and restore original wood cladding) and interior (new concrete slab/grade beam, interior partitions, insulate and close walls, 'close' it (so its climate controlled not open to the environments) re-design and re-frame two roofs and add some fenestration. 

The first visit was for a quick meeting and survey so we brought our little one and she had a good time pretending to be an architect. It turned out she was pretty helpful in holding the other end of the tape measure until she lost interest! The worst part of surveying old buildings is the dirt and possible "other inhabitants" in the building, in this case there were some birds nests, cobwebs galore, a possible fox and small bugs but I've been surveyed a building where we walked in and there were squatters living (and relieving themselves) out in the open  in the building along with a host of dead animals etc..luckily this was not that bad. Anyway, when its done I'll post a part deux to show the outcome.