Bike to Work Day was started by the League of American Bicyclists in 1956.  People bike to work for many reasons; to save money or time, for exercise, to preserve the environment.  In Washington, DC, bike commuting has increased 315% in the past two decades.  The League ranks “bicycle friendly communities” with Portland, OR winning first place.  D.C. comes in at 5th and Dallas is 62nd out of 375 cities.

WDG-DC biked a combined total of more than 50 miles just to get to work.  Then there will be the trip home tonight.  As you can see by the blue shirts, many registered to officially participate.

WDG employees who participated in Bike to Work Day: Kathryn Little, Jim McDougal, Jeff Nees, Sandra Eremic, Carl Skooglund, Vivek Sarma, Nastaran Zandian, Tom Zych. Eva Lynch, Sarah Rinehart and Bence Szaloki (not pictured Esther Ryskamp and Brian DeFord)

Several people borrowed a bike by taking advantage of Capital Bike Share, which has 200+ stations across Washington, D.C., Arlington, VA, and Alexandria, VA and the first 30 minutes are free.   

Some people who normally take Metro, decided instead to bike today.  Others were able to combine Metro or a commuter train with biking to make the commute easier.

Tom Zych, who bikes almost every day to work, noted that Bike to Work Day “tends to double the number of bikes on the roads, so it’s a fun day. Lots of convoys and people having a good time, safely.”  Sandra Eremic’s typical morning starts by riding with her daughter to school and then continuing on to WDG.

Jeff Nees, WDG’s CFO, wins the prize for the longest ride, totaling more than 20 miles starting in Mount Vernon, VA.  He stopped at one of the designated “pit stops” in Old Town Alexandria before crossing the bridge to D.C.  Along the way, he saw two more WDGers, Bence Szaloki and Nastaran Zandian.

Jeff Nees, Winner of the Longest Commute

Several people at WDG also ride to raise money for charities.  Alex Taylor, WDG-DC, has participated in the Face of America, which brings together riders with disabilities and riders who are able-bodied to ride from the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia to the historic battlefields of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.  Vince Hunter, WDG-Dallas, is member of the Texas Irish Cycling Team that formed the Texas Irish Foundation, which is a 501c-3 non-profit that raises money for a variety of charities.

Click here for more information about National Bike to Work Day.

There are many more agencies that can be involved in the zoning process than I previously thought. We learned about agencies such as the Office of Planning, BZA, CFA, NCPC, HPRB and about the application process whether it be a Matter of Right project, BZA or a PUD. The discussion about each agency and their focus was enlightening. It helped me to realize that the zoning and entitlement process involves a lot of back and forth between all involved parties and often involves multiple agencies in order to get a project approved.

It was interesting to hear how the different presenters have successfully received approval from the agencies, as well as what they did when the project was first denied. We touched on topics of the presentation, what the client wants to see, tips and tricks for when you are submitting drawings and/or need to change previously submitted drawings, and cultivating relationships with the agency’s reviewing members. We discussed the role of the architect in this process. Part of the architect’s responsibility is to visually and succinctly make the strongest case possible for the project and to convince those at the meetings that the community will be benefit from the project.

WDG recently had a hard hat tour led by Nicole Maya and Tom Pignatelli with Clark Construction.  It was a great opportunity for some of our younger staff to visit a job site and become familiar with issues related to high rise and dwelling unit construction. We started in one of the completed units and made our way up the 14 stories of the building.  Each floor was at a varying level of completeness.

The model unit was completed and furnished early in the construction process, so that it could be used as a tool for coordination issues and to verify the unit works as intended. The client had the opportunity to see the finishes, appliances, and paint selection to make sure it would meet their brand standard.

The higher up the building we went, the less finished the floors were. Some levels had hallways, and unit layouts, others just had studs. Nicole and Tom explained the sequence of the trades, and how each one has their own requirements. For example, huge heaters are used on floors where drywall is being installed and mudded. After that level is finished, the heaters are removed to make room for the other trades to do their work. Later on however, once the wood working, cabinets, and molding are installed, the heaters need to be brought back. Nicole stressed that once the finishes are up, swings in temperature or humidity can warp and wreck the wood.

Construction is a logistical jigsaw puzzle. Clark is constantly moving employees, supplies and equipment up and down the building to keep everything on schedule.

WDG has a very diverse staff. This is represented in the languages spoken by our employees. Web site says 25, but we actually are up to 29.

1. American Sign Language (ASL)

2. Amharic

3. Arabic

4. Armenian

5. Bengali

6. Cantonese

7. Croatian

8. English

9. Farsi

10. French

11. Gaelic (Scots)

12. German

13. Hebrew

14. Hindi

15. Hungarian

16. Italian

17. Japanese

18. Korean

19. Malay

20. Mandarin

21. Polish

22. Portuguese

23. Sanskrit

24. Serbian

25. Spanish

26. Tagalog

27. Turkish

28. Urdu

29. Vietnamese

Guests in the New Lobby

A myriad of guests contributed to the holiday spirit trading memorable stories from the prior year. Guests included clients, consultants, vendors, and even a few Principals from WDG DC.

Mari Henry and Sterling Little

The highlight of the party for the employees was the white elephant gift exchange, an office tradition. Vincent Hunter orchestrated the gifting ceremony and surreptitiously hid behind each person as they opened their gifts. The highly coveted gifts were a Chimay beer gift set and a Blu-ray player with Will Ferrell’s movie, The Elf. The least coveted were the “toilet tattoo” and the “choose your nose” cups!

Vince Hunter Overseeing the White Elephant Gift Exchange

Many laughs were shared over the course of the evening. They are already looking forward to next year’s party. 

Washington, DC was Huan’s fifth stop in the United States: Cincinnati for 2 months’ school work, Chicago for the first internship for 2 months, 2 months back at Cincinnati, Norfolk for a summer scholar program, and then WDG in Washington DC.  

Huan wrote this poem for her portfolio.

Beer Tasting

Tom pouring more beer

 Not wanting to waste a chance to insert an architectural slant to this sudsy gathering, those who stuck around were treated to a documentary on urbanism. Touching on issues of the changing urban environment and how norms of the past are being challenged in the present of the planet’s cities, the documentary provided an interesting backdrop to the DIY atmosphere. Popcorn was shared, discourse was raised and in the end WDG Brew and View Night was a rousing success.

Watching a Documentary

The ACE (Architecture, Construction, Engineering) Mentoring Program was founded in 1994 and is a nationwide program. The program’s main objective is to mentor high school students and inspire them to pursue careers in design and construction. By working with design/industry professionals in real work environments, ACE students receive an invaluable hands-on education; they learn to understand the day-to-day workings of a business by living and experiencing it, and not by just reading about it.

ACE Mentoring is now the construction industry’s fastest-growing high school mentoring program, reaching over 8,000 students annually.

THE MIDDLE:

I have been fortunate to be a part of ACE as a Lead Mentor for the past six years which started during my first tour here at WDG Architecture. I have been the Lead Mentor at three Maryland area high schools and to have had the opportunity to start the inaugural programs at two of these schools. Currently I am at Charles H. Flowers High School, but have also been involved with Eleanor Roosevelt and Crossland High School. I was encouraged by one of WDG’s Mentors to get more involved in the architecture community and to reach back in an effort that would further my personal development, and ultimately help the architectural community as a whole. Playing my part and helping to expose the next wave of potential design and construction professionals has been challenging time-wise, but it has been an extremely rewarding endeavor and I have not looked back since the journey began.

Each participating school consists of a group of mentors from different design/construction fields and the students. These teams generally meet every other week after school and more frequently the last month before the student project presentations are done at the end of the year. The intent is for each of the schools to present their projects to the other schools in the region to show other students, parents, teachers and anyone who is interested what they have been learning and working on for the year. Presentations vary in nature and amount of detail, and may consist of power-point presentations, presentation boards, models, AutoCAD, Revit, Vector Works, Sketch Up or whatever media they want to present in – just like in architecture school. The program is fun, but it can also be intense. While all of the schools may complete the year they may not present at the end of the year, as some may feel overwhelmed by the process or are just overcome with fear at the thought of public speaking. In the final analysis, though, they all seem to have learned, conquered and grown.

Four of the students that I have mentored have won scholarships. Below is a picture of two of my mentees who were awarded scholarship at this year’s Scholarship Awards Breakfast, held at The Willard Hotel.

ACE Scholarship Breakfast 2012: Two Students from Charles H. Flowers High School received scholarships.

THE END:

Actually there is no end. Pay it forward, Each-One-Teach-One. I have found that we as mentors have learned as much, if not more from the students, as they have learned from us.

http://www.acementor.org/

I studied in Seville (Spain) and Paris (France), and since I graduated, I have worked and lived in Mexico City, New York and now, in Washington, DC. For that reason, I have been told to write about my non-US architectural practice and how it compares/contrasts with practice in the US. Due to the fact that I consider Architecture a way of life and not just a profession, my answer is going to be somewhere between my professional and my personal international experience.

 In Spain and France, I learned to confront a project with time and perspective. I learned that simple architecture is complex and complex architecture is made in a very simplistic manner. After thorough analysis of context, most of the time in very compact urban surroundings, the project always tried to become a continuous story. Dialogue with the existing context, creative possibilities inherent in the tradition and a holistic view of the creative process were part of the design process. The possibility of studying and working in Europe, allowed me to be exposed to a wide range of cultures and points of views, opening my eyes, from school, to a whole world of new ideas and ways of understanding and living Architecture.

Mexico became a door towards experimentation. My experience in PRODUCTORA, a young firm based on Mexico City, opened my eyes to a new way of understanding Architecture: open and without prejudices. We worked on a Cultural Center in Cuernavaca (Mexico), a Public Library in Rosario (Argentina) and a Center for the Sciences in Belgrade (Serbia). Solutions came up from long work hours, developing physical and virtual models, discussing references from other projects in other places with similar problems and researching in a detailed and abstract way on the program and the needs of the building. The work pace, although intense and continuous, was always slow enough not to get fast conclusions to the problems. We built and destroyed ideas and we recuperated, recycled and reinterpreted them afterwards. I learned there that Architecture is an intensive activity, a way of life, as I said at the beginning. The country and its people became a rich source of inspiration as well. Mexico is a land full of history and stories. Because there are still many things to be done, it is a dynamic place for experimenting with new ideas. Consequently, almost everything is possible and the architecture community is extremely active and engaged.

After one and a half year in Mexico, I arrived to New York with an intellectually agitated state of mind. And New York went beyond my expectations… Working at Rafael Vinoly’s office, I learned to “listen to the master”. I worked there for seven months on a regional airport in Abha (Saudi Arabia). It was a challenge from the very beginning. In contrast to the Mexican experimental experience, the creative process at Vinoly’s was focused on production. We had to produce fast and a lot. A short period of time for a very ambitious project, the experience of working close to a great designer having to become his hands and his feet… Architecture understood as a big gesture, a structural challenge and a powerful landmark capable of changing a place. And after all that, I arrive to WDG with the objective to keep learning. Quoting Alvaro Siza, “getting to a new place means making a deeper exploration of construction methods, technology, ways of using buildings… always acquiring new knowledge”. Always being Spanish, but always trying to be connected to the universal architecture scheme, my goal is to keep focusing my career on a continuous exploration of new cultures and new ways of designing and inhabiting spaces. I am sure that this new stage will bring new discoveries and challenges. 

Today we are launching with five catagories to organize posts. As you browse you might notice each section has a small description in the sidebar. I wanted to include a bit more about each of these catagories as we defined them.

Keeping Pace

Short essays here concentrate on challenges facing architects today, contemporary debates, or in depth commentary on the profession and world at large. You might notice this post is listed under keeping pace. As part of a big step for WDG into the world of social media this blog reflects a cautious interest in the continuing evolution of culture and society, and in particular WDG’s place in that continuum.

Sustainable Thinking

You might find an article on LEED, an image of a green wall, an article about a new piece of technology, or commentary about a project or experience related to sustainability. WDG has adopted sustainable practice throughout our process and this section captures both the impact of sustainable thinking within and outside the walls of the office.

Behind the Project

A behind the scenes view of what it is like to be an architect and manage the process of a project. Here you will find commentary, site photos, and detail drawings. This section captures the essence of what we all work towards, the realization of concept into reality.

Designer’s Notebook

Back of the napkin sketches, design inspiration, articles and commentary, photographs, or independant design studies. What inspires design? What is design? Why design? This is a fun yet serious catagory meant to reveal a bit of the passion and inspiration behind the design of a project.

In Person

Last, but very much not the least, In Person captures a cross section of life here at WDG. Employee bios and interviews, recaps from events in the life of the office and its denizens, informal photographs, and various other posts highlight the culture and people that make WDG what it is!