The Studio 20: Playing With the DSA

by Tim Alatorre

Jaime (Matheron) Van Sickle, LEED AP, Class of ’06, teaches us a thing or two about educational Architecture. We fly through the news again! And Haley springs a leak!

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Show Notes

Site News

  • Lots of new Facebook fans this week!
    • Brent Gibbons
    • Wendy Cheng
    • Justin Ribble
    • Juan Lopez
    • Erik Castro
    • Jeff Miner
    • Hazel Cruz
    • Apologies for skipping, they been our fans for a while:
      • Seth Pare-Mayer
      • Kelli Franz
      • Jaime ‘Matheron’ Van Sickle

Cal Poly News

General News

Rapid Fire Questions

  • Cal Poly or Berkeley? CAL POLY!
  • Autocad or Revit? Revit
  • Parallel bar or T-Square? Parallel
  • Facebook or LinkedIn? Facebook
  • Arch Record, Arch Digest or ARCHITECT? Architectural Record
  • Drafting dots or tape? Dots
  • Yellow trace or white? White
  • Ad Markers or Prisma? Prisma
  • Pen or Pencil? Pen
  • Mac or PC? iPhone and PC
  • What is the meaning of life? uuuhhhhh… Architecture!

SCORE: w%252B

Interview

  • What is Jaime up to?
    • Jamie is still working at the same company she started at right out of school: ATI Architects and Engineers in Danville, CA
    • She went to a Cal Poly job fair and met a rep from the firm, had a great interview with the CEO of the company, whom she didn’t realize was the CEO until afterwards!!! Visited the firm, met everyone there, felt comfortable and thought they put a lot of effort into training and supporting their staff and she liked that!
    • She works on the education side mainly.
  • Jamie talks about the process involved with doing work in the education sector:
    • DSA, it’s a way of life!
    • Plan check and review is a bit different and more lengthy than local jurisdictions
      • her firm has worked to develop PC projects. (Pre-Check)
  • Currently working towards licensure? progress?
    • YES!! she is, she’s working through IDP and learned about CIDP from our podcast (yay for us) so she’s started working through that. But she hasn’t started her exams yet.
    • the biggest thing is TIME!!!
  • Observations of economy, how is she seeing the effects?
    • While Jamie has been at the same firm since graduation, and is still employed, her firm has been affected, however the education side of her firm was a bit safer than the commercial side.
    • There is more competition now compared to the past.
    • Out of school, there were a lot of jobs in the housing sector but that wasn’t the type of work she wanted to do, which has been a great advantage since many housing firms have been affected.
  • Thoughts on Cal Poly grads out in the industry?
    • Our well rounded education can make us the ‘go-to’ people where we work for a multitude of tasks.
  • Thoughts on how the program is changing/improving?
    • She’s not that tuned into what’s been going on currently with the Cal Poly Arch cirriculum
    • But integrated internships would be a really positive improvement for current students.
  • Is there something you wish you had done or known when you were still at Cal Poly?
    • Despite the desire of wanting to push projects and design more, that’s part of the process. Looking back, maybe she’d should have been more risky with some of her designs.
  • What kind of advice can you give to current Cal Poly students?
    • Just enjoy the time you have
  • What goals do you have?
    • Get licenced, gain a better understanding of how buildings go together
    • More experience with different building types
  • How has LEED been accepted in educational design?
    • CHPS, (Collaboration for High Performing Schools) is the school version of LEED. More curriculum based approaches in addition to design and building
    • http://www.chps.net/dev/Drupal/node
    • CHPS can be more affordable and funding may be available
  • Jaime has been making jewelry! You can buy if here:

Featured Local Artist


About the Author


Tim Alatorre