engineering, take 2

i have sent off the latest drawings today to our engineer, in preparation for our building license submission. they will come back to us with a final design to make our house stand up...which is handy.

so that means building license is looming. i spent the weekend playing silly buggers with internal elevations and lighting design, which doesn't help get us through building license but is fun...i'm going to go draw a section now...

elevations

i've been getting back into all the fun of building license drawings this week in an attempt to keep my mind of my impending APE3 exam (the final registration exam in australia to become a full-on architect). i've resolved some issues in section and detailed up a couple of tricky little elements of the house, but i've also been distracting myself further by playing with some unnecessary drawings.

the drawings below show the northern facade as a diagram of how much the side of the house opens up (used to convince zac that he would have a very open house after i denied him his bi-fold doors), and a concept drawing of the facade with jo pickup's designs over-layed.

(does anyone know how to get rid of the poor colour on my images?)

i am not sure if we are going to be able to do the pickup facade, but last week i met with jo to start the design process for our internal doors. she has told me we will have a few things to look at in about 3 weeks time, so as soon as she gives us something i will post.

have also been looking for fans for our whole environmentally-friendly/passive cooling jaunt. i've had it in my head for a while that we will mount 2 fans in the 2 rear corners of the house - bedroom and living - to force air to circulate around and back out the louvres on the front of the house. chad's post at 100khouse inspired me to actually get a move on so i've been speaking to heat australia this morning and they have suggested the fan below.

obviously not all of them at once, though that would make for one sweet in-house sou-wester.

so that's where we are today. zac is out trying to pin down the creeper that will form the majority of our deck screening and i am going back to my books.

PLANNING APPROVAL!

it's in, it's done, it's through! as of 10am today we have conditional planning approval for the apartment house!

apart from the standard bits about cross-overs and what-not, the only condition we have had placed upon our project is a matter of screening the roof deck. this isn't so bad. we can tweak the design a bit to accommodate everyone's concerns and still maintain the spirit and usability of the deck.

i am, however, going to approach our neighbours and discuss it with them also, because i think we can come to a better arrangement than what has been described in the approval. let's hope they get into the spirit of mutually-beneficial design!

so it's through and now i can start blogging again. we have just started getting some prices from windows and doors and screens and what-not, so we are working up an idea of the direction we need to proceed in. as soon as possible i will submit building license drawings and then sit down with our builder to figure out what he needs from me. that'll be exciting. i think we may still be on track for a house by Christmas. fingers crossed...

progress

nothing much to report at the moment. the plans (with several modifications and additions) are in planning and should be up for neighbour comments at the moment. hopefully we won't have any issues. and if all goes well we will having approval in a week's time.

need to get a wriggle on and have my drawings ready for tender. we want to get this done sharpish and try to be in by christmas and summer. zac seems to think that it's not a cool idea to put a blow-up kid's pool on the roof for summer lazing...i seem to think it's a fantastic idea and am planning on also adding truckloads of beach sand for additional summer-fun-ness.

1 week more...fingers crossed.

the bathroom

the interior of the apartment house has been designed for a while - bar the details and issues that i come across while drawing up the building license set - but i haven't had a chance to post any of them. following on from a post about a bathroom fixture i thought it was necessary to show where it was going to be fitted.


this sketch is the most recent thing i have for the interior of the bathroom/laundry, viewing from about the point of the laundry cabs (check the plan to see how it works):




concrete floors, tiled and painted walls, opening to roof skylight, in-floor grate for the shower drain, sliding door into the bedroom through the cabinetwork, no shower door, just a little screen to stop the majority of water spilling out...i wonder if i can get blue glass for that screen, to match the tiles and cabs...might be a big blue room...will need to colour-coordinate toilet cakes to match...

planning application: take 2

so-armed with levels and survey information i have just completed my second attempt at drawing up a planning application for the house.

a little annoyed that it has taken this long (mostly at myself for trying to subvert the system, a little at the suveyors that drew up the lot 5 years ago and couldn't manage to track down the drawings 4 weeks ago), but that's now by-the-by. this is going in to council on tuesday and it is going through, dammit!

t minus 3months, 3days and counting...

50khouse / 100khouse

few people know this, but the apartment house started out as the '50k house'. i was and still am damn sure i could build a house for 50 thousand $ - it was small and it was timber but it was only going to cost me 50thou, and it would've been hot. anyway, one thing followed another and all of a sudden the project blew out to the 'apartment house'.

well, a few weeks ago whilst looking for kindred spirits, blog-wise, i stumbled across the 100k house! chad in philadelphia, usa, is building his very own apartment-sized house for 100k (twice as tall, twice as big, twice as costly, and presumably twice as water-proof and comfortable as the old 50k house)...and he is keeping a very up-to-date and detailed blog while he does it. so link on over and take a look. it's a very sexy little building and has some great drawings and images in the albums. and his architects - ISA - are impressive too.

...this blogging thing is fun...