Last few days to Donate!!!

Hey!
For those of you who went to open house you most likely meet Jared Sheehan.  Jared is a soon-to-be Miami grad who will be biking across the US to support affordable housing.  Please support him!

From Jared:
First, you can connect with my trip on facebook "cruising from coast to coast." https://www.facebook.com/#!/home.php?sk=group_166016273443130

Second, if you want to follow my blog it is here:

http://www.travellerspoint.com/member_profile.cfm?user=jsheehan11

If anyone wants to donate, here is the B&B link. TWO IMPORTANT THINGS: 1) they have to put my name in the rider donation box and 2) I have to have the donations in by the 12th (Only 9 more days!!!!!).

http://www.bikeandbuild.org/cms/component/option,com_wrapper/Itemid,118/


Thank you for all who came to the open house...the project is still up in the Center so check it out this summer if you didnt get a chance!

The End is in Sight...

Just as January, February, and March have seemed to flash in front of our eyes, so too has April… but this time faster if that can even be possible!

This month, the Atelier has really dug deep into our plans for the Over-the-Rhine Senior Living facility proposed for the vacant lot at the corner of 15^th and Race Streets.  We have discussed, deciphered, debated, and decided on many things these past few weeks: structure, HVAC systems, elevations, details, façade materials, reflected ceiling plans, window schedules, floor heights, stairs, and the list goes on and on.  We have collectively refined our AutoCAD skills and learned some new tricks along the way.  We have (we think…) successfully conquered our computer failures, DropBox furies, and XRef frenzies.  While working through all of this, we have even conjured up a drawing set for our proposal, with a little help here and there from our friends at CR architecture + design and Steven Schaefer Associates.  A special thanks to Doug Steimle for answering all of our many structural questions and clarifying our confusions.  As we are told, even architects with 30+ years experience don’t understand it all and sometimes need a little explanation. :)

This past week has been a constant refinement and adjustment of our drawing set, as we have printed a few drafts and attacked them with red lines.  As goes the end of every project, the workdays have been very quiet, so says our neighbor David Ross, as we have been diligently AutoCADing away.  We can now even dream in AutoCAD.

These last few days of our 2011 Atelier experience will be a final push to create a completed drawing set for our Over-the-Rhine Senior Living proposal, as well as bringing all of our work together for a showcase at our Open House this Friday, April 29^th.  As our days living here in Over-the-Rhine and working downtown at CR architecture + design come to a close, we want to thank everyone who has contributed their time, talents, and thoughts to our project and our Atelier experience.  We have all learned so much from you all and could never thank you enough!  It has truly been a meaningful learning experience.

-The 2011 Atelier Team

Atelier Open House!

We would like to invite you all to...

We hope to see you there!

How is it April already??

Busy.  Busy.  Busy.  That has been the story of the Atelier for the past few weeks and somehow April happened! 

As senior housing has filled our minds and unseasonably cold weather has filled the air, we have been continually developing and refining our plans for the North Site—what we have started to call “Over-the-Rhine Senior Living.”  We have reconfigured unit plans and placements, shifted elevator shafts, raised and lowered parking, tweaked the entrance, and fiddled with ramps and stairs.  After all of these fine-tuned adjustments, we have decided on a fairly thought-out design for now (that is, of course, until something else changes… J).



Currently, our Over-the-Rhine Senior Living designs consist of a campus of 2 separate, but connected buildings.  On Race Street sits the East facility which is made-up of 47 HUD-202, 1-bedroom units.  This facility is raised from the sidewalk about 3 ½ feet with tuck-under parking that accommodates 27 parking spaces below.  This facility is also physically connected at all levels to the existing historic building located on Race Street.  At the street level, a ramp and several stairs make-up the difference in elevation of the existing building’s first floor level and that of our proposed East facility’s.  The main entrance of the campus is at the west-end of the green space at the corner of 15^th and Races Streets.  On the corner of 15^th and Pleasant Streets sit the West facility which, alternatively, consists of 34 Low Income Tax Credit, 1-bedroom units as well as a 2-bedroom manager’s unit. This facility provides street access to the manager’s unit on the ground level and a physical connection to the East facility on the upper levels.  In all, our designs encompass 81 affordable units.

With all of this in mind, we met with an Otis elevator consultant to discuss details about the number, type, and size of the elevator(s) to place in our designs for our project.  This was a very informative discussion, as we learned about two different types of elevators and how they each physically operate and the requirements that pertain to each.  We collectively decide on a G2S elevator which consists of a traction car with gearless drive motors and cables.

We also pulled out the hardhats and took a trip to one of CR’s current developments in Mariemont for a site visit of Emery Park.  This gave us a good taste of the type of construction that our own project would encompass—concrete structure and parking below grade with wood-framed construction of dwelling units above.  It was good to get out of the office and see first-hand the type of construction we are actually dealing with.



On Friday, none other than April Fool’s Day, was jb’s birthday, so of course we had to celebrate!!  We baked up a cake and decorated our little corner of the office.  Birthday hats were included!  I think we pulled off a pleasant birthday surprise.  Later on we took a tour of Over-the-Rhine’s St. Francis Seraph.  We explored many features of the church and even crawled up into the attic space to see the giant trusses and bell towers.  Check out the pictures!

Amidst all this excitement and commotion we even changed desks at the office along with everyone else in CR’s official “Office Refresh.”  We now have new neighbors and a new view out our windows.  And oddly enough, they put us close to the coffee J







Good News for the North Site!

Sorry for the delay! I know it’s been a while since we filled you in on our development of the North Site. We have been busy developing our idea for Senior housing in Over-the-Rhine, and we almost forgot to share our progress with everyone. Let me fill you in on what we have come up with so far:

After much discussion, we determined that in order to make this project viable, we must come up with a simple solution. We knew we wanted to include HUD 202 and Low Income Tax Credit units into the design, so we split the facility into two buildings. The East building would house the HUD202 units while the West building would house the Low Income Tax Credit units. Where both buildings met near the corner of 15^th and Race Streets would become the main entrance into the facility that incorporates a vehicular drop-off area as well.

Parking was designed to accommodate 28 parking spots tucked under the East building. This required us to create a vehicular entrance that ramps down a full level from 15^th Street. Prior to ramping down, the vehicular entrance doubles as the drop off for the facility.

Keeping to our established goals, we made sure our design maintained the existing 2 buildings on the site. Of those existing buildings, the building on Pleasant Street will be left vacant, while the one on Race Street will absorb many of the community functions for the East building. We also wanted to leave the empty lot on the corner of 15^th and Race Streets open so that it could turn into a primary green space for the residents of the facility. To preserve the scale of Race and Pleasant streets, our new buildings would be limited to 3-4 stories.

Earlier in the week, we assembled schematic plans for the facility. As of now, our design accommodates 46 HUD202 Units and another 30 Low income Tax Credit Units. This puts us right in the established “sweet” spot for assisted living facilities of 75 to 100 units. We urge you to take a look at our plans below. We are looking for community partners who want to make our vision a reality.

Parking Garage Site Plan

Ground Level Site Plan

West Facility Ground Level Plan

West Facility Upper Levels Plan

East Facility Ground Level Plan

East Facility Upper Levels Plan

Both Facilities Upper Levels Plan

Potential Green Space on Upper Level

How do you draw a building you cannot measure?

One of the biggest struggle with working in the church is measurements and understanding what is happening inside the building.  We are not allowed in the church, as currently there are two massive cranes taking new pieces of the church each day.  The condition of the church is not structurally secure, therefore we do not want to risk going inside.  So how do you make drawings?  We counted a lot of bricks... well we did measured what we could and then we used images to fill in the rest. 

We did basic floorplans and elevation AutoCAD drawings, but more interesting was we worked on a SketchUp model.  The space is a huge volume to help us understand that we decided to model it.  Below are some pictures of model of the condition before the cranes started.  Let us know what you think.

We will be posting new construction pictures in a few days so check back!

Hello there, old friend(s)!

We can’t believe we’re almost halfway thru March!! Where, oh where, does the time go?

The past week or so has been very busy for us.  Between spring break (yes, you read that correctly, we had spring break) and helping out at our favorite place, Peaslee, it feels like its still, well… February.

Peaslee has asked us to help out with their new Safety City set up.  It is important for Peaslee to make Safety City long lasting yet effective in teaching the kids the magnitude of safety.  So, channeling our inner child, we came up with a road map template (see image below) that Peaslee will be able to use over and over again. The road map also serves as a drawing template base plan that the little ones can use for coloring or describing what they have learned. 

We also traveled up north to Dayton to meet up with Miami Professor Mary Rogero and visit Urban Krag. Did you know Urban Krag is an old church in the Oregon District that was converted into a Climbing Wall Facility? It is actually the tallest Climbing Wall in the state!! Although the church is about half the size of our church, they could fit a max of twenty-four people on the wall, and needless to say we were inspired to pursue our urban retreat facility in our church. Thanks so much to Urban Krag for giving us the behind the scenes tour, we really appreciate it and had a blast! 

Okay okay, here are some pictures of Urban Krag! You're Welcome!!

Speaking of churches, have you seen what has been happening on ours? The top clock tower of the church is now gone, and the steeple is boarded up.  We aren’t quite sure about the new roofing trusses, they are a bit hard for us to understand.  However, they are bricking back up the sides, so it is nice to see more revitalization efforts instead of old, broken roof trusses being cut down.

Again, thanks for stopping by.  Have a great week!