So, we’re on facebook. Don’t know exactly what to think of that or what to do with that opportunity, but we’ll try to make the most of it.

More on this soon!

UPDATE: What can be said about this facebook phenomenon? There are a lot of things that I don’t like about it, but I’m confident that the good outweighs the bad. For parkco architects, it has been a good thing for sure. This blog, as you can tell from my very sporadic updates, is not especially convenient to maintain. It takes a lot of effort to compose a blog post and publish it. That effort tends to deter me from making quick little updates. I feel that I need to have something really important to share so that it justifies the time and energy to do it. Facebook is easy. I can post photos and quick thoughts effortlessly. I also have direct contact with the people who like our page. It has become the quick blog that I’ve always wanted. The friends that we have following us on facebook don’t have to subscribe to an rss feed to be updated. That’s all automatic in facebook. Check us out. If you find us interesting, click the ‘like’ button. I don’t post junk. I try to make all updates relevant to our practice and interesting to the people keeping an eye on us. If you like us on facebook, I’ll send you a personal thank you message - We sincerely appreciate it.

So, I think, “Yeah, I’ll have a blog and post stuff to it about once a week or maybe once a month. It’ll be fun and somewhat interesting to people who want to keep up with the kids at parkco.” It’s been six months since my last post - shame on me.

We have had lots going on though. The Temple Shalom Project has finished and the grand opening is on December 12. The house on Skyline is complete and its residents are residing there comfortably. Our Nunk Pro Tunk clients are vectoring toward completion and their historical remodel is a knockout. First Baptist of Farmington is done and things are great, lots of fun stuff happening there (need photos!). Our beloved Cabarn project is almost complete - I’ve got to get out to Rush to see it soon.

We have new projects on the boards and they are exciting. We’re working on an animal shelter, a handful of residential projects, and a very exciting project that isn’t 100% in the bag yet...fingers crossed!

I have committed myself to reorganizing the website. I want to have projects by name with descriptions of each project. I also want to categorize these projects by type. It will be an enormous undertaking, but it will allow us to have much easier navigation and a better organized site.

Look for new images soon too. We are once again resolving to have new work documented in the late winter and early spring.

Thanks for staying in touch! I promise more posts soon. I hope you’ll email us so we’ll know you’re out there! We love to hear from people who discover our site.

See you soon,
Bret

We’ve added a new page under the ‘more’ category. Area 51 is a repository for anything that can’t find a home elsewhere. It may be my favorite part of the whole site. Check it out. Email me if you have questions about something you see there.

This is a “Coming Attractions” post. Lately, I’ve been thinking about new blog posts and that has led to new ways to use the blog. I’d sincerely love to hear any of your comments or requests for topics. So if I’ve mentioned anything here that sounds interesting, or if you have an idea for a post, please drop me an email or post a comment.

Project Profiles: Our documentation of our work is nothing to brag about, but we’re trying to do better. It seems that photographing a project always takes more time than we allocate. This, combined with our tendency to prioritize current work over less urgent tasks, has left us with about five years worth of projects to photograph. This spring, we’re going to go on a photo blitz of our work. We’re excited about this effort. Of course, our portfolio galleries will have more projects as a result, but the images are only part of the story. One of the best aspects of our work is the story behind each project. There is always an interesting background that includes design process, construction tales, and terrific people. The before-and-after images of our addition and remodel work are fun to study. All of this would be impossible to sit down and crank out. So look for project profiles, stories about a single project, it’s history, images, and cast of characters. These should be fun to produce about once per month. I’ve thought of categorizing these as our ‘Project-O-The-Month.’ We’ll see…

Contractor selection: I’d like to share some thoughts on selecting a contractor. It is very difficult to get the appropriate fit. I find myself saying the same thing to every client regarding this topic. I’ll put it all in a post and share it here.

Justifications for hiring an architect: Of course, I’m a little biased on this issue, but I’ve spent a lot of time wrestling with whether our participation is a necessity or a luxury. I believe strongly in the value that we bring to any project. I’ll share some thoughts on this.

On the boards: Being a small firm, getting a new project is a lot like adopting a puppy. It’s cute, exciting, fun, and it might take some house training! I’d like to begin writing about our new projects as they arise. It will be fun for our new clients to share our post with their friends and family, and it will begin a process of documentation of our work that will extend through the completion of the project.

Dream Jobs: Frequently, Stacey and I will say to each other, “I wish we could design one of those…”I want to write about that. We’re about to begin a barn and cabin combination for a couple who own land two counties away. We’re very excited about this project. It’s a dream job for sure. I’d be very interested in developing blog topics about projects we'd like to do in the future.

Our 'green ethic' is something that deserves specific attention. We're dedicated to making good choices for our clients and that certainly includes making choices that protect the planet. We've got a lot to say about this one. It will be on ongoing topic for sure.

Client blogs are a lot of fun. There are several resources out there that make blogging very easy. I'd like to do a post describing how to start your own project blog. It's a remarkable undertaking to design and build a project. It is a very challenging, exciting and potentially rewarding experience. I can't express how fascinating all of these stories are. They shouldn't just fade into memory, they should be preserved and shared.

Guest posts: I would love to have friends, assoicates, and clients share their thoughts in this blog. We're not really thrilled with the idea of testimonials. I've never read one that didn't sound canned. Instead, maybe we could have clients simply share their experiences of their projects here. I'd also love to have architect friends from other regions share their thoughts on design and process. This could be interesting and ongoing.

What else? I've got a lot of ideas taking shape. I want to know your ideas too. Please email or leave a comment. I'll consider every request.

The AIA Expo In San Antonio was unbelievably huge. We had allocated about four hours to tour all of the booths. In the first four hours, we had covered about a third of the show. The photo shows one of the three main rooms of the expo. We took brochures from hundreds of exhibitors on materials and equipment. It was a conspicuous overload of information, but very helpful.

One thing that occurred to all three of us was how resource intensive this whole show was. There was an incredible amount of energy and materials invested in transportation, setup, and display. Some of it was noble - we learned a lot about sustainable materials, but some of it was a bunch of the same old stuff.

I'll make posts and references to some of the interesting things we picked up very soon. Each exhibitor swiped our cards for our info. We'll be receiving email and product literature over the next couple of weeks. I'll share as it comes in.

We're back from the convention and exhausted. We're fired-up too.

We were told that there were 24,000 in attendance - I'm sure they weren't all architects, but that's a lot of folks. There was an enormous emphasis on the crisis of global warming throughout the entire convention. The closing speaker of the final General Session was Al Gore. He was great - incredibly funny and inspiring. The news is pretty bad, of course. Lots of melting ice and carbon dioxide. Buildings contribute somewhere around 40% to the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. It's up to architects to find an implement better ways of building. That is an unbelievable challenge. Look for some changes from us in the near future. Also, check out our 'green' page for some ideas that you can implement on a daily basis. We can choose to fail or act to make a difference. Here's the link to the AIA's article about Al Gore's Address.

This page is dedicated to sharing some of our thoughts on architecture, our practice, and anything else of interest to us at the moment. I'll try to make posts regularly. Check back to see if I'm keeping up!

Next week, our entire office is going to the AIA National Convention in San Antonio. If you'd like to see what it's all about follow the link here. Al Gore is the featured speaker along with David Suzuki and others. We're excited. If I'm cool, I'll make a post or two from San Antonio. We'll see...

Bret