I have finished up the sketch plans that I was asked to draw up. The design is mostly the clients, I have basically put his ideas/wishes to paper and made it work. I am taking a drive this afternoon to present the drawings to him, and show him a sketch up model. Hopefully progress has been made, if all is approved i will move on to council submissions and working drawings.

Weekly Update

This week the design work was put aside and I worked on the garage addition. After completion I printed it out to show the client but he was busy at work so I emailed the drawings to him. A short while later I got a call from him and he was very impressed and happy with the drawings. He said he would print them later that afternoon to get quotes to do the work. That concludes my second successful private job this year.

First week of private work

This week I was approached to design, draught and do tender drawings for a new second dwelling. I spent about three hours with the client, discussing ideas, likes, dislikes, wants and needs for the house, and by the end of it all a rough sketch plan had been produced. I also had to draught a garage addition with a louvered roof. And to top it off I had to do layout drawings for our new kitchen so that we could get quotes for the cupboards. It was a very, very busy week indeed. I feel that a 9-5 job is much easier than working from home, although when working from home traveling isn't an issue.

I also got to visit an amazing house on Simons Town's mountainside.

1st week back, and last week at work

On returning to the office on Monday, we found out that our architect's health was not so well, but nonetheless the week started, and I was given the task of doing a rider plan for a carport submission, as the architect involved in that project had passed on. Re-drawing the existing plans was quick, but in reality the building was slightly different as some of the work on the plans had not yet been completed. Google maps' street view helped sort this out quickly, and the drawing was completed with shadows to help show the different planes on the facade.
On Thursday we went to Kirstenbosch gardens as a site visit and took time to analyze Untamed, and the sculptures around the garden.
Today we went to the office to give our boss a parting gift; a book called "Living Buildings". I spent the week looking for a suitable book for our architect, and he seemed to love it. He was very thankful for us, and we thanked him for the invaluable experience that he gave us in our second year. And with that, my 10 month practical is complete, and I will spend the rest of the year doing private work, and preparing for 3rd year.

                      

Weekly Update

This week our architect got us sketching and draughting again. I was assigned to do sketch plans for his daughter's house in Kommetjie, and come up with a design which did not make the new first floor look like an obvious add on. Desmond Jackson also finally visited our firm, and spent a long time talking to our architect, all seemed well.
I also had a meeting with the manager of Pennypinchers in Claremont, with regards to sponsorship for the MIP. He was very keen on the idea and agreed to give us the materials we required at cost price, but after seeing the list of materials, they unfortunately had no stock of the items we needed. If the list was given to me a bit earlier, they could have ordered what we needed for us. After this, he kindly gave me the details of their suppliers, who would be able to give us what we needed in the few days before our delivery truck leaves for St. Michaels, he also let me fax from their office.
I made a million phone calls to organise quotes and the like for the materials we needed, and finally got them all to the higher ups. I also was in contact with Baltic Timbers, The Pole Yard, and Michael Sedgewick for the better half of two days, organising the delivery and procedures.

And now it is time to prepare for block 3, all submissions and paperwork to be updated, exams to study for, and a design-build to accomplish.

Weekly Update

After being sick since Saturday after the MIP discussion at Thomas Patullo and then still playing paintball on Sunday, I was horribly ill on Monday and didn't go to work. On Tuesday I went to the doctor, he put me off for a full week. However, I could not rest at home, and ended up going back to work on Wednesday. Work in the office was slow, there wasn't a lot to do as our architect had important issues to attend to and all of the required draughting work was complete. I spent time doing a shelving assembly drawing for the MIP, and asked Rukiya to do the coat hanger drawings.

Open publication - Free publishing - More invervention

CTPL 3-man tournament

This Sunday I competed in the Cape Town Paintball League 3-man tournament. The previous night I had a high fever and was terribly ill, but felt slightly better on Sunday morning and left home at 6am.
The tournament was very exciting, with 8 professional teams and one team from JHB entered, and a massive 30x45m field to play on. The layout was very open, and with lanes everywhere it was easy to get shot out if you weren't fast enough. In total each team played 14 games, and the day ended with a short and sweet prize giving with many prizes handed out to all the teams. I only arrived home at 8pm, and by then was once again feeling very ill and went straight to sleep.
 

MIP discussion, Saturday 4-8pm 08/10/2011

It was requested that I be at a meeting/discussion for our MIP design-build on Saturday, so I gave up the time I had to complete my essay in order to attend.
The discussion turned out to be very fruitful, and I am happy with what the intended design for the school. I still require drawings to send to various sponsors, but the feelers have been put out and hopefully we will be able to receive some material for the build.
After the long trek home I had a high fever and felt terribly ill, and attempted to sleep it off, but only overheated and pained all night.
On the positive side I volunteered to do the joinery drawings for the coat hangers and shelving for St. Michaels, which I will have out later this week.

Weekly Update

This week I tweaked the 19 & 21 Princes road drawings, I had to correct the site dimensions as per the SG diagrams, and resolve the roof plan for the two dormer windows as they took away part of the structure for the A-frame type trusses. During the week we got taken to the first Prices road site, where they where making holes for the 7m long piles required as earlier in the year they had excavated too deep and into unstable earth. I also worked on a garage addition at home.

Weekly Update

This week involved minor tweaks to all of the projects which we had been working on recently. Time was spent tweaking the 19 & 21 Princess Road, and adding shadows to the sections and elevations of the Bantry Bay drawings. During this time I had the opportunity to save all of my work to pdf format, ready to add to my PSS portfolio.
This weekend we will be training for a speedball tournament thats happening on 9th October, so I will also be working on the MIP academic paper to have it ready before then.

Intasure Spring Regatta

I took Friday off to sail in the South African Sailing Flamenca class Nationals. Our team was determined to win, as winning this would give us our colors for sailing. The southerly wind was strong, and the sailing was close but we managed to win 1st place, by about half a meter.
Saturdays sailing was not great, I got seasick during the long waiting period between races, and we got three 3rd places, which removed all hope of winning the regatta due to total points - but we were tied with another boat for 2nd place, and we had to beat them.
Sunday was great, we got two 2nd places, which secured 2nd overall for our team. We almost had a 1st place, but I tripped a set of cleats and both sails came down while we were winning. My bad.
All in all it was a good regatta, and we went home with our silver medals and a Garmin GPS navigation system.

Weekly Update

This week I completed the 19 & 21 Princess Road council submission. The new lightweight first floor structure was much easier to draw this time around, as I am now familiar with it thanks to the Wesley Road job.
I added all the the council notes and specifications, as well as the additional notes council requested as ammendments for Wesley Road. All that is left now is for our Architect to check my work, and hopefully the plans will go through council without objection.

Weekly Update

This week started with the client for the Tokai job coming to see developement on the sketch plans, he has taken them to his mother and we are waiting for his approval before we go ahead with council submissions.

The rest of the week has been slow. Our architect has been in and out of the hospital this week, so we have been in the office doing as we see fit, and cathcing up on university work. I have completed all of my PSS, but, when attempting to access the folder on my flash, it gave a 'read error: file cannot be accessed.' which means its either corrupted or not there. I ran a disk check to fix errors on the volume, and it deleted several of my folders... no backups. Start over next week. At least I have my draughts in rough on paper. My MIP milestone 1 have been uploaded. I will continue tweaking it, but the submission is there. Proud of Part B.

Weekly Update

This week, the tracing paper fills the office as we explore layouts for the proposed sketch designs. It proved to be a difficult task, with the odd shape of the house not allowing for much communal space, posing the chance of classifying the addition/alteration as being a second dwelling.

We also took a drive by site visit of Princess Road. They had excavated too deep leaving no stable ground whatsoever for the basement, and a diggerloader stuck in the mulsh had to be lifted out using a crane. They had not yet started with the piles, as using piles is the only way to go ahead with the project at this stage.

The 2nd Avenue scheme had been revised, considering that not having heard from heritage western cape for several weeks, demolition of the existing structure may not be possible. So a scheme was planned around it, and we propose new layouts to the 15 units on the site so that the QS can cost the development and then a call can be made as to whether the project is viable or not. The layouts make good progress, alot of tracing paper being used once again to explore the layouts and to not get stuck to a screen.

Weekly Update

Again we tackled the Miller Road tender drawings for units 3 & 4, this occupied us until friday, when we started a new project - an addition/alteration to an existing house to accomodate for a client's mother, so that they could live in the same dwelling but be reletively seperate.

The first step was to draw the existing dwelling, of which we had a copy of a set of plans, drawn on linen, which never went to council.

Weekly Update

Miller Road tender drawings are progression slowly. The 1:50 drawing are to have the same information as the previous tender for unit 2, complete in every aspect in order for a builder to know exactly what to do, and for a tender to be able to give a complete pricing.

Our architect is very busy, so we are doing the best we can without asking too many questions. Otherwise progress is good, as we have the previous tender drawings to refer to, this is an accomplishable task.

Weekly Update

This week we worked on council submission drawings for the remaining units of the Miller Road site. While working on that, it was required for us to make alterations/revisions to the Constantia site as the client wanted a big change made - remove a large portion of the proposed alteration, to allow more space for parking and a more simplified basement structure. In the clients eyes, a quick change, but for us it involves 13 individual drawings and a very complex roof structure with various slopes which our architect must resolve.

After we hit a dead end with Constantia as we had done everything possible and only the roof was left to be resolved, we began with the tender drawings for unit 3 and 4 of Miller Road.

Weekly Update

This week I worked extensively on completing the Wesley Road council submissions.

The pressure is on. 4 days to complete everything. Our architect had to purchase the new NBS documents at an insane cost of R2400, to ensure that the timber frame structure's specification met the new council requirements.
This being done, the new first floor structure and staircase could be drawn up accurately with no guess work involved. And so after completely resolving the plans and sections, there was one day left before the client came to sign, and I managed to draw up all of the elevations, roof structure plan, site plan, notes, legends and annotations all in the few hours left before signing. "Looking good," was the comment I recieved. No tweaks, no adjustments, a job well done. I am very happy.

All was left to do after signing was coloring, and that didn't take too long. The weekend is a more than welcome reward after this busy week.

Gaul regatta results

We achieved an overall result of 2nd place in the regatta, and 1st in our division - so we have won provincial championships for this class.

Our great performance has earned us silver and gold medals, as well as a spot on board for national championships in September.

Now all that awaits a long week of work and studies.

Weekly Update & Gaul regatta

This week started off with Wesley Road's council submission. That beig said, the week is also ending short for me due to the public holiday and sailing regatta being held from then to the weekend. Racing starts tomorrow in the cold and wet, and my crew and I have to finish in 1st place of 35. Wish us luck.

Weekly Update

This week I continued with drawing up the existing building on the Wesley Road site, but even though we took accurate measurements the party wall which is theoretically on the boundary does not fall on it. Another shrot site visit would fix that. I proceeded with sketch plans which were presented to the client and immediately after that meeting we were heading in the right direction. The client is pressing on this project and wants to see more developed plans with proper construction, roof and layouts by this morining, so our architect has taken the project into his hands, giving us some time to prepare our submissions for the 10th June. Hence I am still awake fighting with my PDF creator on my new 2nd hand pc, which insists to create only .MDI files and not .PDF's, and Issuu which is taking hours to render my publications after upoading them. I may have to convert and upload upon arriving at work in the morning.

Weekly Update

The moment we all dread. All of Princess Road's drawings need to be re-tweaked. The Engineer's plans had to be abided by to the millimeter. This included drawing his upstand beams in the sections and the narrowly spaced columns. The developers asked for the staircase to come back by several steps to accomodate for Bobcrete's panels, looks fine on plan, but in section the headroom is half that of regulations and the roof could not be raised as we were already at the height restriction. The staircase had to remain as it was and the engineer would have to tend to the first floor, cantilevered walkway and basement layout.

Weekly Update

After avoiding/neglecting Princess Road's drawings due to lack of communication and impossible demands from the developers, it was time for the pressure to be on with Princess Road. Firstly, the corrected grid lines were imported and the adjustments were made to every drawing thereafter, a week long process.

Weekly Update

On Monday, Miller Road's tender drawing got printed and I got assigned to do some concept drawings for a new project. This was really difficult, I am not a big fan of concept drawings... After much trying, our architect introduced me to the art of simple, yet exremely effective concept sketches. He sketched his ideas in 3D and that opened my eyes to the real world, breaking away from the 2D screen I had been working on.

Weekly Update

This week the crunch continues as the pressure is on for Miller Road. The Patio braai had to be redesigned and after a short site visit we found that the boundary wall was on the wrong side of the boundary line and a 200mm reduction had to be made to all of the drawings. After tweaking every single related drawing (all), we had some time to color up Kenridge's council printouts and did some tweaks to Princess Road's basement and site plan.
Friday the 13th! And its my best friend's birthday, time to give him his birthday present from my hard worked wages.

Weekly Update

After the long much needed break, we are all back at work with great enthusiasm. The workload had caught up to us during our time off and we have tackled it head on. With Miller Road's tender deadline only two weeks away, they needed to be tweaked to perfection as for the builder's to give accurate quotations. No mistakes can be left on the drawings and nothing can be left out.

Weekly Update, Western Cape Sailing Championships

After competing in the South African Sailing Westren Cape Provincial Championships in Saldanha Bay, I have come down with pneumonia and bronchitis accompanied by returning asthma. The doctor has put me off for a full week. I am barely strong enough to sit at my desk but, Duty Calls. Mostly I am confined to reading in bed,

This week we worked extensively on completing Miller Road's drawings. 1:10 detail drawings of the sections were required to correctly show the correct desired construction methods and technology/materials to be used. The roof detail also required ammendments as the specification of the roof had changed from tiles to sheeting and a specification had to be added to the legend to clarify the drawings.

Weekly Update

Miller Road tender drawings and documentation: complete. From monday to thursday this was our biggest task.
Thursday's online skype crit was brilliant, just discussing a problem cleared up all of the questions I had about the hub without even having to ask them.
Friday involved Princess Road again, with the Structural Engineer's drawings we could continue using correct grid lines and dimensions. All of the units were to be made exactly the same to the millimeter and the plans were to be ready for presentation on Sunday. Kenridge is now complete and the drawings have been colored up for council submission.

Form, Space and Order: F. Ching

Architecture

Hub submission 08.04.2011

Community hub interim submission 3: http://issuu.com/yusufsampson/docs/hub_08042011

NB: submission time -  10:45am

Regards,

Yusuf

Open publication - Free publishing - More design

Weekly Update

This week started off with work on Princess road as a new sketch was recieved from the client, wanting new staircase and attic layouts. After a paintball tournament on the weekend, I was extremely tired and needed a few days to recover. I also made revisions to Duckitt Avenue, a small misunderstanding fused two phases, so I had to seperate the drawing into two phases again to show the client what they are currently paying for and the extra that they are asking for.

Then I got taught the essence of concept drawing. Our architect stressed that every tech student wants to be too technical in the beginning, and thereafter taught me concept drawing. An invaluable lesson learned that I will use in my present projects and for the rest of my life. I then produced a set of concept drawings for 2nd Avenue.


The structural engineer sent a drawing for Princess Road: it lacked information and it lacked a section so without wasting large amounts of time deciphering his empty looking drawing we contacted him for a more detailed set of drawings. And our current rider plans for princess road must be adjusted to meet the engineer's specifications once the new drawings are recieved.

PSS submission 04.04.2011

PSS interim submission 1: http://issuu.com/YusufSampson/docs/pss_submission_1

NB: submission time - 7:15pm


Comments: could not submit at work and submitted upon arriving home.

Open publication - Free publishing - More portfolio

Regards,

Yusuf

Weekly Update

This week I was faced with new tasks involving making changes to the first floor layout of a 9 unit set of apartments on Princess Road in Claremont. Each unit consisted of a: ground floor, first floor, and an attic.
I was also given the task of designing a new layout for another new block of apartments, in 2nd Ave Claremont, and sketches upon sketches on various pages of tracing paper left no conclusion but many ideas. This I worked on in between the more pressing jobs like revisions to Duckitt Ave's plans and roof plan and Princess Road's layouts.
I also started answering the phone this week and took important messages from clients for our architect.

Weekly Update

This week I concluded the schedules for Miller Road, and thereafter our Architect had picked out and tweaked one of my five sketch layouts for Duckitt Avenue.
The selected layout kept the linear kitchen but made the laundry/scullery and utility room more workable with plenty of storage, circulation and access to outside. It also moved the wine cellar away from the external wall, providing a cooler environment. The domestic workers room became larger but the bathroom smaller as a shower would be used rather than a bath.
So my layouts were good, the only things that were tweaked were the positions of shelves and the like. I added the applicable drainage to the plan and ammended the roof plan to correspond with the extended entrance hall.
All in all a good week at work.

Weekly Update

This week I produced schedules for Miller Road. window, door, and finishing schedules as well as a handrail detail. After that I assisted in designing a very linear area which needed many rooms (kitchen/scullery/utility/wine cellar/maids room/bathroom/wc) for Lincoln Road.

Hub submission 18.03.2011

Community hub interim submission 2: http://issuu.com/yusufsampson/docs/hub_18032011

NB: submission time - 11:49am

Regards,

Yusuf

Open publication - Free publishing - More design

Weekly Update

I have now worked for Noel A. Botha Architect for one month. This is my fifth week. The work I do seems to lighten the load on our architect ever so slightly and the office seems more lively.
I am still draughting drawing for Miller Road, this will be on going until the council submission is passed and construction can commence which is when the drawings will be required, until then its adding details and tweaking drawings.
For the past two days we've had a short break from office work and have been allowed to view past projects and work on our university work. I have been doing many rough sketches for the hub submission for the 18th, drawing inspiration from paintball and sailing and picking up ideas for details from past projects and precedent.

Weekly Update

In my fourth week at work I spent the entire week working on Miller Road's tender documentation. It is required for me to construct the drawings so that the builder knows exactly what to do. This is suprisingly difficult because the design, ideas and specifications are in the architects mind and I have to attempt to apply them to the drawings when I have no clue as to which finishes are desired etc. So I studied previous projects and sketch plans to get a clearer idea.
The Kenridge sketch plans are with the client, should recieve feedback in several days and the Constantia project is currently clearing the site for the excavation for the foundations.

Hub submission 04.03.2011

Community hub submission can be viewed below or at http://issuu.com/yusufsampson/docs/yusuf_sampson_design_exercise_1_community_hub 


NB: submission time - 10:26am

Regards,

Yusuf

Open publication - Free publishing - More precedent

Third week at work

This week I started on the working drawings for the Miller Road project. The site is in Claremont and has been broken up into four seperate erven in order to build a series of four town houses. The council plans have been submitted and now the tender drawings are to be drawn up in detail at 1:50 for the builder.
After several pages of drawings, I was given the short task of drawing up a foundation layout plan for a project in Claremont. This was used by the builder on the same afternoon that I had started and finished it. My Kenridge project drawings have also been sent to and eager client who we will hear from on Monday. I then continued on the Miller Road project and finished several drawings, namely the ground and first floor plan, roof and ceiling plan, foundation and drainage plan and the drainage section and boundary wall sections. To be continued next week.

My Second Week At Work

This week I continued working on the Kenridge project. The proposed new carport was to be drawn up on the existing layout. The existing plans were not accurate to what was actually present on site, so I had to draw up sections of the existing house to get proper measurements and hence all of my previous drawings needed to be adjusted. After fixing all of the drawings, I produced a street view and arranged a good layout, displaying step by step what was to be done on site. After this I produced several legends, giving proper procedures which had to be carried out on site in specific order for the job to be completed correctly, safely and efficiently. The final step will be to see the client and ensure that they are happy with the design and then submit to council, after which 1:50 and detail drawings will be drawn up for the client.

My First Week at Work

I have just began working at Noel A. Botha Architect in Claremont. On my first day, the trains were heavily delayed so I rushed through with my car to make it on time. I arrived early for work after informing my employer that I would be late. This was a good start. I spent my first day 'in training', becoming accustomed to a new architectural drawing program.
I spent my second day training as well and had produced my home on MicroGDS in plan, section and elevation.
On my third day I began a council submission drawing for alterations to be made to an existing house on a steeply sloped site in Kenridge, Durbanville.
The site is in a very built up area with many trees and many dwellings all built right up onto the boundary lines. It was required of me to design and draught a new carport over an existing, open driveway. It was also required that I redesign the kitchen space and install a new window and door to create more circulation.
I began with looking at the architects concept, exploring and gathering ideas from precedent and then developing concept sketches with the architect after which the draughting began.
I have now got the carport and alterations to the kitchen in plan, section and elevation. This was a big achievement to me as I had to work with very few given variables and still draughted accurate drawing which my employer is very satisfied with.

2nd Year @ CPUT - PROJECT 1:

2nd Year @ CPUT - PROJECT 1:

"This is me"

My name is Yusuf Sampson.

By reading this you are reading a part of 'me'.

To understand who I am you must know me entirely, not just what you see.

I am myself,

And I believe that nothing is impossible.

Currently, I am a student of architecture in my second year of study at Cape Peninsula University of Technology. I am doing this course as a follow up to the architectural draughting course I completed in 2009.

Apart from being a student, I am a student of life. I learn something new everyday and constantly strive to be better than I was a year ago, a month ago, a week ago, yesterday and better than I was a moment ago.

I am strong-willed, determined, disciplined, patient and a perfectionist. I will overcome any challenge that I am faced with.

I am active and have many hobbies, they consume most of my time. A list of them would be:

Sailing, paintball, ninjustsu, skateboarding, hiking, drawing and many more.

My greatest achievements are competing in the 2007 youth world championships for sailing, recieving a trophy for first youth team in the lipton 2009 challenge cup, playing in the navy SWAT competition and more.

My favorite passtime would be to sleep on soft, green grass in the shade of a tree under a clear blue sky with a light breeze brushing over me.

 

I enjoy making things, and working with my hands, I spend much time drawing and making or modifying things in my garage. I am skilled with metal and wood work, and enjoy making things out of carbon.

Projects I have completed so far are that I have made my own sword, made a carbon fibre, and a seperate aluminum body kit for my paintball marker and have reconditioned my boat and car.

My favorite quote: I am a Ninja.  My next favorite quote: I live to eat, and without food I shall perish.

 For now, this is me. More will be told as this blog goes on.

Regards,

Yusuf Sampson

The start of 2011

Its Friday and I am on the second day of my 1st block. In the 3rd floor computer lab at CPUT and found a way to access the net and thus successfully creating my own blog.