Getting more and more.....

well since I have lost my colleague for 2 weeks I have been given some of her old work to complete. Today I continued with more sketch plans of banana jam

I had to do light and ventilation calculations and put it on the plan as well as do the colouring and a make a few minor changes

The kitchen with caeser stone counters and white gloss wrap finishings

baulestrade detail

looking down at the basement

view from the central courtyard

putting the architraves in

Princess Road is coming along great, I love the feel of these town houses and the amount of space there is... The finishings are going in the first few town houses and I dont think its long till the project will be completed! Here are some pics:

Its been forever!!!

It has been forever that I last blogged which is partly due to the fact that I havent been doing much work in the office that I can show.... More like helping out and being on site. I have been mailny working on 106 Third Avenue, doing multiple schemes of 5 Town houses seperated by a beautiful building that involves heritage. The existing building is in the middle of the site so the only option to make the town house scheme work was to subdivide the property as its zoned single residential....

We  are subdividing the property that one town house will fit on a property closest to the street, 2 town houses will be placed on the next property behind that but will be read as one building. The existing building will be on its own property and two town houses placed on a different property behind that.

I have been really lucky on this project as Noel has really trusted me and put all the work on me. This is how far I am, now we need to confirm with the client.

 

As of today Im back on the Banana Jam project, we are finally trying to get the work out, so today I took the exisitng plans and began with sketchplans for the client. He wants to push the heritage part of the building out by 1.5m as well as go up stairs with a new bar....  My proposal involves a fire escape route too.

Adventurous day :)

Today we went to Stanford to take pictures of a 4 year working progress of a holiday house in Stanford. What a stunning design my boss did, the plot is beautiful, surrounded by mountainous views as well as a river on your back step.... Beautifully done and not a single cent was spared when it came to the finishings quality and costs.

We stopped along the way to enjoy the scenery at a farmstall, couldn't have been better weather either!
After visiting the house we then stopped for toasties, really the opposite to a blue Monday!

The view from one of the 2 main bedrooms into the garden!

The view from the road of the house as you approach

How the hand rail connects to the slab

Beautiful teak soffits

Balouw timber rafters sticking out the building, the labourer is busy filling in the flashing

A bridge between the 2 sections upstairs over looks 4 single paned windows with a gorgeous view 

valley gutter

Hellooo

The past week I have been redoing the window schedule for Plasir du Jardin, it has changed a few times due to the clients wants. The client wants large single pane windows in the section we are adding onto the heritage building. This is not really aceptable as we need to match the heritage area style as well as the current windows it posseses. We are putting shutters that will extend from the bottom of the window to the half way line. The windows are quite high but so that we could get that open feel that the client wanted in order to show case the furiture being showcased inside, the total height to the underside of the lintel is 2380mm.

All the windows will be custom made from aluminium so the measurements are very important. The building is going to be at window cill height in about 3 weeks or so so its very important that we get the ball rolling quickly on this one.

Here is the window schedule:

I have also just started working on a house in Oranjezicht, a vstunning house which Noel has done work on previously. I am busy on the council drawings for the house.

Lucie and I also put together a template for working in colour for council drawings so that we dont have to spend hours colouring in plans for council, we can just print in colour and waaalaaa :)
Heres the little temples ;P

Lucie and I have also been teaching ourselves how to work with the 3D side of Micro GDS, lu has spent more time on it than me but we have worked on projects togther which has been fun.

The "Big Hole"

There has been great procress at Plasur du Jardin the past week or so. We have visitied the site 3 times the past 2 weeks and the basement is finally closed.

Lucie and I were there when Bob-crete were putting the precast concrete slabs on the retaining walls and also watched them putting the precast concrete stairs in position in one site visit! the whole procedure is rather quick.

The compactor

The labourers busy compacting the fill behind the retaining wall with a  compacter... one slip and there is a 4m fall!!! plus that little machine is quite something to hold onto.

The stairs rests on a steel I beam, the landing of the stair rests inside the I beam.

The slabs from Bon crete being placed on the retaining walls of the basement

The stairs going in!

This product mixed with mortar creates a sealant which is placed between the slab and retaining wall to prevent the rain from getting in....

Its taken years for the plan to be approved, months to get the basement done and not even a day to close it up quite crazy actually.

New Colleague :D

Lucie has started working at my office as of a week ago which has really made the work environment a lot more fun and interesting,  we share an office so she has become familiar with Noels projects quickly and I think she is really enjoying the site visits and random missions we go on. The other day we went on a nice drive to Constantia “the big hole” then to Glen Cairn where the plans I drew are being constructed, then to Kommetjie to get an idea of where the drainage is on Lisa’s property.  We drove past camels as well as baboons crossing the road; we also drove into a swarm of bees. Really interesting day, we then stopped in Constantia for coffee after the crazy day.

Kommetjie Sketch plans

Glen Cairn Alterations in progress

Lu lu infront of an extremely steep drive way in glen cairn

For the past few days I have been working on Banana Jam, a restaurant come bar. The owner of Banana Jam wants to put another bar upstairs as well as admin offices.

We have received the Banana Jam old plans from council which I have re drawn on Micro GDS.

Plasir Du Jardin is another project that is really coming on nicely.  We have visited the site a few more times since the last time I blogged so here are some of the progress pictures.

Princess Road is also on the verge of completion. This project has been really great to watch go up as I have seen all the steps, from basement to roofing. The plaster and finishings are going on after a very quick 7 months of labour.

Another project which is coming along is Silwood road where I was asked to study the zoning scheme to see what would apply to the property as they want to add a Maids Quarters and room onto the one side of the house. I was just doing sketch plans on how one could add maid’s quarters as well as a bedroom.