In February 2003 I found myself working for a sole architect,
Neurosystems Architecture. It was a full on design based practice, with
most projects dominated by townhouse developments in the inner suburbs of
Melbourne. Countless proposals to clients, moving on to town planning
submissions for most projects and plenty model making exercises. It was a
short-lived position.
I joined Philip Templeton Architects in August 2003. A small practice
with a focus on aged care facilities within Victoria, I made my foray into
the documentation side of things. Documentation may probably sound mundane
to many but it is an important component of Architecture, as I learnt
through the many things that we didn’t fully document. As the projects
went on to construction stage, things can get pretty busy. The day could
start with 10 pages of Request For Information (RFI), an ongoing
unresolved roof, engineers’ meeting at 11am, stacks of structural steel
shop drawings to review and last week’s RFIs.
There are also other tasks to do like redesigning the spatial layouts
of many residential dwellings, organizing quotations from consultants,
resolving more residential town planning designs due to neighbours’
objections, doing countless site measure ups, and specifying
materials/fittings (which is pretty fun). Sometimes, a break comes along
and we get to do some feasibility studies and masterplanning. Sometimes,
we act as consultants as well. We were engaged by a local town council to
review all its twenty Childcare centres for compliance to the new
Children’s Services Regulations. I would start the day doing site measures
at one of those centres, draft it up in computer, review and certify its
compliance to regulations and make adequate proposals where there are
non-compliances. Of course, this also involved heaps of reading, numerous
long chats with the local Children’s Services Advisors and making many
five year old mates!
I have now since moved on to Prior + Cheney Architects and have been
here for the last 6 weeks. Currently working with a team on a major
extension of an aged care facility in design development stage and it has
been fun so far.
