June 30, 2019

How to be your own architect (if you can get away with it)

After months of dealing with the city' VBML program and getting them off my back finally, it was time to get down to business on working towards rehabbing 201 E Clifton. The Halloween haze had worn off and it was time to sharpen my pencil on my renovation plans now.

Since I wanted more control over the design process than I felt that I got with my last architect (and it cost considerably more than I was ready for too), I had been toying with the idea of doing my own drawings for this smaller project. After all, I had renovated 3 apartment units by hand already with less detail and this whole building was only really 2 units. Over the holidays talking to my brother-in-law (who happens to also be an architect), he asked me why I even needed an architect. I thought there were at least parts that would be complicated enough (like rebuilding stairs between floors 2 & 3) that the city would require an actual architect's stamp to approve, but he pointed out that because I was still in the residential code that a stamp wasn't a requirement (If my unit used a common entry or stairs, or if it were more than 4 units, then I would have been in the commercial code, which required it) due to the way that I intended to lay it out.

So the next question was how was I going to do the drawing designs myself. I had briefly used AutoCAD in high school, so it didn't seem too scary to try, but were there free options? I had also tinkered with SketchUp, but how to tie all those shapes into something that could be used for a building? Again my brother-in-law pointed me in the right direction: a free trial of Revit, which makes drawing a wall as simple as click here, click there, wall drawn and most importantly all of the detail parameters that go along with the wall are baked into it. Needless to say, I'm so glad for the advice because it would have been MUCH  more difficult with out using this program.

Next I had to learn how to use it, and fast before the free trial ran out. Thank god for YouTube and specifically the Balkan Architect channel's short tutorials for each piece of the puzzle. Anyone learning Revit, just binge this while tinkering in your project and you'll become fairly capable, fairly fast.

So it still took a while (nearly 4 months) to get to a comfortable design and get it into a presentable format to submit for permits. It started by drafting basic outline of the layout, then printing it off so that I could write in the dimensions on it while measuring the existing building. I literally took a tape measure and laser measure to the wall and hung from ladders to measure ceiling/floor heights. Then I took those and adjusted my basic outline to a more accurate picture of the exiting building. From there, it was the fun part for someone detail oriented as myself. I used a variety of Design Options to decide on the layout of various parts of each unit (overall unit makeup, kitchen style, bathroom layout, etc.) and make sure that I could lay out the units in a way that was both marketable, functional (water walls of each units stacked), and livable. Once I got it to a place that felt close, I started laying out different sheets for printing the drawings out then annotating/labeling everything. Eventually I got it to a point that I could submit to the city for approval (really just to enter their maze again).

Here are a couple pictures of the drawings that I came up with. Overall I think I'd get a passing grade for my rough semester at tinkering in architecture.








 As a basic description of the final design that I ended up with: it turned out as 2 units and a separate basement. The 1st floor unit is entered from the street of East Clifton (top) into a kitchen/living room with a hallway back to 2 bedrooms and a single bathroom tucked under the back steps (washer/dryer directly under the steps). The second unit is on both the 2nd and 3rd floors and was accessed via the back steps through the back door/steps off of Lang Street. The back steps lead into a large kitchen/sitting area on the 2nd floor with 2 other bedrooms and a bathroom. Continuing up the new steps to the 3rd floor puts you into the living room and a "bonus room" with ensuite bathroom at the far end of the 3rd floor (this is the room that will be an issue with the city in the next blog post). It also reopens many bricked-in windows and restores the cornice to the outside of the building.

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