The Studio 12: Chaaaaarge!

Tim Alatorre — Sat, 20 Mar 2010 01:12:42 +0000

Teagan Andres MIT ’08, joins us for a passionate chat about the California Architects Board, the California Supplemental Exam, and we throw in a little green stuff for flavor. Also, what’s the licensing process if you don’t have an accredited degree?

Don’t forget to tell your friends about us, join our Facebook Group, leave reviews on iTunes and vote for us on Podcast Alley!

Show Notes

We break from tradition this week to talk with Haley’s roommate Teagan.
- Teagan graduated in 2008, with a four year unaccredited undergrad.
- She is originally from Connecticut and went to school in Boston.
- After graduation she headed to Fresno to work for Darden Architects.
She is also currently enrolled in Boston Architectural College (BAC), in the distance masters program. The program is designed for people like her that don’t have an accredited degree and are currently employed. She started in Jan. 2010 and should be done in Jan. 2012.
- The program has a strong online component, most of the assignments and discussions take place online.
- Teagan flew out to California to interview at Darden Architects and Haley was one of the people from the firm that she met with and gave her a tour of Fresno.
She is currently in the middle of reporting her IDP hours but is holding off on taking her AREs. When she is done with her masters program she plans to start her AREs.
- Her goal is to be licensed by the time she is 28, seeing that there are no hang ups.

News / Discussion

Fires!
- Theta Chi House on Upham at about 12:40, Mon Morning
  - http://920kvec.com/Fraternity-House-Fire-in-SLO-An-Accident/6578414
- Piedmont Lumber Yard, Walnut Creek, Sat Morning

Home Construction down from last month but up slightly from last year
- http://money.cnn.com/2010/03/16/news/economy/housing_starts/

Off Topic, best Craigslist Ad ever! (language may not be appropriate for your kids)
- http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/02/19/the-most-amazing-craigsli_n_468664.html

Tim’s CSE Experience – Okay so I could seriously rant about this for an hour
- More CAB maddness. Changed testing center from Walnut Creek to Burlingame, South of the SF airport.
  - Testing letter sent on Feb 12th had the hotel address as 250. When I Googled for directions it showed the hotel was on a bridge, thats when I knew something was up. The CAB website had the correct address of 150.
  - The website had BART directions pointing to the former testing site in Walnut Creek!
- Not all complaints, staff was very nice
- Met Chuck Crotser (He says “Hi” Haley) – Haley says “HI” right back!!
- Many Architecture Alumni, Dan ’05 (flew in from Australia), Jakie ’03, Jose? ’92
- Overall the test seemed incredibly random in parts and very repetative in others. Test seems more like luck of what questions you get than anything else.
  - From ARE forums: “3 robots read pre-written questions and the exam taker [tries] to come up [with] an answer that matches that on a standard answer sheet”
- CSE pass rate ~45% or ~50%
  - can’t find a verifiable source for this statistic
- Bar exam pass rate ~70% (for graduates of CA ABA accredited schools)
  - http://www.calbar.ca.gov/calbar/pdfs/admissions/Statistics/JULY2005STATS.pdf
- Do I think I passed? No … Maybe? Yes?
- Should the test be changed to a written format?

More LEED / Green discussion

LEED Support Slips Again in Construction Industry
- http://www.environmentalleader.com/2010/03/12/leed-support-slips-again-in-construction-industry/?graph=full
- More than half of all respondents indicated that a LEED Gold rating increased project costs by four percent or more, while nearly 30 percent of respondents reported the costs of LEED Gold rating at significantly lower than four percent.

Rain, even urine, would help make Bullitt HQ city’s ‘greenest building ever’
- http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/businesstechnology/2011354845_bullitt16.html
- Goal is to create net-zero building for energy and water
- Requires changes to potable water laws
- “Living Buildings”
  - 24-29% cost increase – per the USGBC report also mentioned in the prior article
- Resource Cost of building an entirely new structure vs. upgrading their old un-insulated historic building.

The Studio 6: Live and Uncut

Tim Alatorre — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 15:30:11 +0000

Caela Beene McKeever and Sean McKeever, B’Arch ’06, bring us a Seattle perspective on Cal Poly and give us a glimpse into Chinese and retail architecture. Plus, Tim makes the worst jokes ever!
Don’t forget to tell your friends about us, join our Facebook Group, leave reviews on iTunes and vote for us on Podcast Alley!

News:

Cal Poly Hearst Lecture Series, Friday, Feb 5th:
- Ann Forsyth
- http://www.arch.calpoly.edu/news-events/hearst-lectures.html
- Ann Forsyth’s work focuses on the social aspects of physical planning and urban development. Forsyth’s contributions have been to analyze the success of planned alternatives to sprawl, particularly exploring the tensions between social and ecological values in urban design.

Fly Ash spill in Tennessee, clean up expected to cost more than $1 billion. If deemed as hazardous waste, what will this do to the concrete industry.
- http://www.concreteconstruction.net/industry-news.asp?sectionID=718&articleID=1167997

Can White Roofs Battle Global Warming?
- http://greeninc.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/02/02/can-white-roofs-battle-global-warming/

Industrial Strength Fungis
- http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1957474,00.html

Rapid Fire Questions:

Cal Poly or Berkley? Cal Poly
Autocad or Revit? Microstation
Parallel bar or T-Square? Parallel
Facebook or LinkedIn? Facebook
Arch Record or Arch Digest? Arch Record
Drafting dots or tape? Tape “Sean” Dots “Caela”
Yellow trace or white? White
Ad Markers or Prisma? Ad Markers
Pen or Pencil? Pen
Mac or PC? PC (Sean) MAC (Caela)

Scores
- Caela: Pineapple
- Sean: Sq root of lamp
- Brandon: 5

Interview:

Both of our guests are from Fresno
- they met at Cal Poly (shout out to Greg Wynn)
- decided to move up to Seattle after graduation after falling in love with it during a Thesis Studio tour.
Seattle had a great job market after graduation so they’ve been there ever since.
Caela worked at Darden Architects during High School
- originally in the Interior Design Department
- then after being accepted to Cal Poly
- worked in the Architecture Department before leaving for college.
Happy that she made that decision to stick with Architecture since now she does a little of both.
Caela and Sean work for the same firm and have for 3 1/2 years ever since moving to Seattle
- at Callison Architects in seperate studios. http://www.callison.com/
Sean mainly works on commercial projects
- has worked on large projects for Microsoft and Amazon
- He’s now working on some large mixed use projects in China
  - specifically the office tower component
  - He has traveled to Shanghai for this project and offers some insight on what it’s like to work on a project in China
- Callison is an International firm
  - they have an office in Shanghai as well
- They normally team up with a firm locally, working collaborately with the LDI
  - Callison works on the schematics and into design development, then the local firm will pick up the construction documents.
Caela works for the studio that does all of the Nordstrom stores in the country
- The recession hit their market first
- reduced project numbers and lay offs resulted, but recently the retail market has been the first to return.
She’s traveled domestically often for projects
- currently working on a project in Portland
- Works mainly with remodels, which she has grown to love
- Really enjoys the interiors aspect to the process, and gets to carry the project from design to the contract admin phase.
They are both nearly done with IDP
- haven’t started taking their AREs yet
- when they first moved to WA they couldn’t start taking the exams until done with IDP. But being able to study together and knowing each other’s study habits will help keep them accountable to each other.
Their thoughts on Cal Poly grads out in the industry
- They brought Cal Poly ’06 up to Seattle, many of our classmates are up there
- In CA many firms know Cal Poly and think highly of Cal Poly, but going out of CA looking for a job you loose that advantage, especailly up in WA they are in the minority
- But Washington State has a great program as well.
Felt well prepared coming out of Cal Poly, while you learn so much in a firm, Cal Poly gives you a good foundation to continue learning out in the industry
Required internships would be a great learning experience
- you learn things that you can’t learn in a classroom, the buisness end of architecture, being on a construction site, people skills
- Having that required internship would be a great benefit to students.
Enjoy college as much as you can
- get as much out of it as you can, because once you enter the profession you turn another page in your career and you start to build upon that knowledge.
- Travel!!!
- Push yourself as much as you can.
- Enjoy your Thesis project as much as you can, take full advantage of it.
- Enjoy the climate of San Luis Obipso, it’s one of a kind!
Best memories of Cal Poly
- 2am studio parties
- playing frisbee late at night in the staircourt of the Archtiecture Bldg
- the giant slip and slide on Dexter Lawn

sloArch » Seattle