Miscellaneous

When buying a condominium or renting an apartment, amenity spaces have become an important aspect of resident’s comfort and lifestyle. In newer developments, as the size of the apartment is shrinking, it is the amenity spaces that become the home and outlet for activities. Traditionally, a residential building has a club room, weight room and an outdoor pool, which still serves well for many communities. However, in today’s market, buyers have many new interests and requirements. In general, the trend has been leaning towards spaces that suggest specific activity areas. Here is a list of growing trends in amenity spaces that has grabbed our attention.

1. A Play Room for kids is a place for kids to go, without going anywhere (outside the building). It provides a place for kids (as well as parents) to have fun, play and interact with their community. Rooms are specially designed to provide kid’s furniture and colorful room finishes.
2. A Fitness Center that is more than just a weight room. It includes a cardio room, machine room, free weights area, yoga/ Pilates studio and a massage room. We have seen many of these rooms located on ground floor with large windows to allow plenty of sunlight and fresh air.
3. Entertainment and Sports Lounge for the sports enthusiasts. Watching a game with friends and having a pizza is a great American tradition. This room provides a comfortable family room environment to kick back and enjoy a game with friends and family.
4. Rooftop Sundeck-Pool and an Outdoor Kitchen have become essential for residents to escape their daily lives and enjoy the outdoors on their rooftop. Many buildings offer special catered events to celebrate 4^th of July and have a great meal.
5. Dog Wash Room is a very practical amenity for pet lovers. Dog hair can easily clog your bath tub and taking your pet to grooming shop get tiresome during freezing months. Why not have a dog wash and grooming room that takes care of your pet inside your building.
6. A Vegetable Garden is an amazing addition to your backyard, so why not to your building. Growing vegetables provides a healthy choice for food and exercise for the residents. Although it requires maintenance plans and agreements between management and residents, it is worth the effort.

1.  Most importantly is your safety. Be sure to wear appropriate protection such as a hard hat, construction boots, yellow safety vest and safety glasses.
2. Make an appointment with the contractor/management and be familiar with the overall layout, prior to your visit. Upon arrival check in with the construction site supervisor.
3. Take photographs of the construction site and make field notes of your observations. Don’t forget to document date, time, project name and whom you met.
4. Take along a 25-foot tape measure for field dimensions and a flash light for enclosed rooms that may not have electricity.
5. The general contractor has authority and responsibility for the job site, therefore don’t direct workers, get in a debate or offer advice. It is best to state the purpose of your visit, make observations and be courteous

Advances in imagining and sonic technology have long been embraced by engineers and are being used every day to help evaluate buildings and building systems.  These gadgets can allow for an in-depth, minimally invasive, and cost-effective inspection with rapid results.  Plus, it is fun to pull out a toy that you might see in an action movie to help figure out a problem.  The following are found in most local consultant’s arsenals.

• Thermal Camera – Police, military, and ghost hunters use them and so do engineers.   Infrared thermography allows us to “see” hot and cold areas and can allow for a rapid scan of a room, roof, electrical panel, radiator, or a building façade for thermal anomalies.  These normally are found to be air and water leaks and help pinpoint locations that should be inspected more thoroughly.  Blue areas are cold and red are hot.
• Drones – Unmanned flying aircraft now are easier to maneuver and can take high resolution digital video and photos, which allows for the inspection of a roof or building exterior when access is extremely difficult or limited.  Government regulations are still in a state of flux related to this equipment, but the rules are getting clearer as time goes on.
• Ground Penetrating Radar – The same technology that allows police to scan a field for objects buried underground is used by engineers to emulate Superman and see what is in concrete.  The 3-D version can generate an image of what is embedded in a concrete slab.
  Impact-Echo – This device uses a special hammer and sound waves to measure the thickness of concrete and find buried defects that are not visible to the human eye by simply tapping the surface.
  Moisture Meter – Used to measure the moisture content of wood, drywall, and other building materials to help narrow down if a water leak is active and where it may be coming from.
• Boroscope – Spy movies show the hero inserting a fiber optic cable under a door or through an air vent to look into a room.  Engineers use this same technology to look behind walls or under floors by drilling a small hole instead of making a large opening.
  Infrared Thermometer – Allows an inspector to determine the temperature of an object without touching it.  This is especially useful when checking to see if a wall is warm enough to be painted.
• Ultrasonic Thickness Gauge – Measures the wall thickness of pipes or other metal objects using sound waves to help determine if they are corroded/damaged, inside, without having to remove a piece of the material.
  While technology is great, we do not rely exclusively on the digital output.  The best diagnostic tools we use are still those we are born with – eyes, ears, fingers, and brain. When an engineer combines their innate detective skills with modern gadgets, we begin to resemble a human Swiss Army Knife and can arrive at a solution for your building problem

A glass canopy is an attractive and practical way to enhance your building entrance while also providing added curb appeal. Known as overhead glazing, an entrance glass canopy can keep the weather away and bring natural light inside the building. Here are some suggestions, if you are thinking about dressing up your building entrance with a new glass canopy.

1. Keep the design of the glass canopy simple. Integrating with address, signage or building name are excellent ways to provide  brand identity and marketing; but remember less is more when it comes to first impressions.
2. Several factors such as weight, supports, size, wind load and location affect the selection of glass and steel supports. Glass should be high-strength tempered/laminate glass and its thickness should be specified by a professional engineer.
3. Frame-less glass and minimal steel supports are attractive available design options. However, glass canopies are custom design projects.  Always seek consultation services from a professional engineer who will review shop drawings, as well as assist in finding qualified contractors who have the expertise and experience to install a glass canopy.
4. Specify proper slope for water drainage; our recommendation is 15% slope, although every situation should be carefully evaluated. 15% slope provides quick water drainage and glass should not deflect over time.
5. Consider having a patterned glass to avoid having dust and water stains.
6. Plan for gutter and downspouts. Pay close attention to ice and snow build-up and institute a maintenance program which is crucial for longer life expectancy of the canopy.

As engineers, we write allot…I mean….alot….no, I mean A LOT of reports! Check out some of the most commonly confused words. I know my editor will be glad I shared this with everyone. : )

What’s not to like about furry little critters?  Squirrels are impressive, if frantic little athletes and raccoons have a certain mischievous appeal.  If you take the time to observe them, birds are fascinating.  But…when these little charmers invade our homes, they turn into obnoxious, destructive, noisy, fertilizer factories.  They eat our soffits and clog our dryer vents.  They smell bad.  They become vermin that must be ousted or eliminated.  It’s not entirely fair to blame them.  That dryer vent or attic makes a perfect nesting site, sheltered from the elements, inaccessible to most predators with plenty of room for the youngsters to play.

Eviction is tough and extermination is distasteful; so here are some hints to help keep the critters from getting into your home.

• Inspect the building exterior for loose boards, unsealed openings and unprotected holes in the walls, soffits, etc.
• Trim any overhanging trees and remove vines and ivy from walls.  These are highways for small animals like squirrels, rats or even snakes.  (On the plus side, if you have snakes, you probably don’t have squirrels or rats!)
• Where appropriate, install insect and bird/animal screens at vents and openings.  This can be tricky.  Improperly screened dryer vents can result in reduced efficiency or even a fire hazard and screening may be disallowed in some jurisdictions.  It’s also possible to reduce ventilation below acceptable levels in areas like soffit inlet if you install screening that’s too fine.
• If any new mechanical devices are going to be installed, require that they are appropriately protected with screens, guards, etc.
• Survey the building exterior and note ledges and outcroppings that are attractive to birds (look for bird droppings) and install bird repellants or guards.
• Make sure that windowpanes and screens are in good condition.
• Make sure that all ground level doors have an auto-close feature (springs, pneumatic closures, etc.).  Nothing is more inviting to squirrels and raccoons than an open door.

1. Best type of light is natural daylight. Availability of daylight changes across the day. Successful daylight for a building depends on site location, building facade orientation and size of openings.

2. Allowing daylight into interior spaces saves on the electricity bill and daylight provides natural healthy environment for the residents.

3. The head height of a window opening determines how far light will reach inside the building, therefore don’t obstruct existing window heads with decorative shades.

4. Paint ceilings and walls with light colors to maximize daylight reflectance inside the building.

5. Avoid large windows on South and West facades, which gets direct daylight inside the building, It will create unwanted solar heat gain and fades color on interior finishes.

LETS WORK TOGETHER

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Architectural Design

Carpet on Balconies

Preparing Your Building For Hurricane Season

The lobby is the first impression of the building, it’s perceived to reflect the personality of its owners and residents. Renovating a residential building lobby can entail a steep learning curve for first-timers or seasoned managers, depending upon the complexity of the project. We present the following checklist of items to consider before embarking on a lobby renovation project.

A. Building Codes.

1. Critical pre-design efforts would be to determine local code requirements and perform a full code analysis.
2. It’s essential to define the nature of the renovation in order to identify applicable code requirements. Building codes generally differentiate between additions to existing structures and upgrades to existing spaces, which are defined as alterations.
3. Determine ADA accessibility for items such as doors and hardware, railings, ramps, and height of reception desk.

B. Aesthetics of Finishes, Lighting, and Sound.

1. The lobby is a first step into the building and a light color palette is generally preferable for walls. Dark colors tend to evoke more somber feelings.
2. Lobbies experience heavy foot traffic and the introduction of whatever the outdoors has to offer (mud, water, debris, etc.). Floor coverings should be slip-resistant, durable, and easy to maintain. Unyielding flooring materials (ceramic tile, stone, etc.) should incorporate proper control joints to help prevent cracking. Walk-off (entrance) mats should be used to help remove water and solid contaminants from shoes. If selected as an afterthought, an entrance mat can be an eyesore; therefore, they should be incorporated into the design and coordinated with lobby finishes and furnishings.
3. Double-height lobby spaces are attractive and spacious, but can exhibit undesirable sound characteristics. An excess of hard finishes can reflect too much sound and create reverberation. Area rugs and wall hangings will absorb sound and help reduce echoing.
4. Decorative wall and ceiling panels are easy ways to finish a lobby space, but they must be appropriately fire-rated and the substrate must be able to support them.
5. Lighting is essential to lobby design. Incorporating day lighting is a great way to freshen and improve the quality of lobby space; however, windows are thermally inefficient. Energy loss can be substantially reduced if windows incorporate thermal breaks (for metal windows), multi-pane glazing, inert-gas-charged interpane cavities, and low-emissivity (heat reflecting) coatings. Accent lighting on artwork and furnishings should be designed to enhance their visual appeal and optimal lighting can vary from piece to piece. What works well for an oil painting may not be desirable for a sculpture.  Lighting must be ample in areas of foot traffic, but muted lighting can be more desirable in seating areas, depending upon the intended use of the space.
6. Thermal comfort, fresh-air circulation, and humidity control are critical to any renovation project. Major changes to a space can alter thermal properties and air circulation. Heat transfer (load/loss) calculations should be performed to determine heating, ventilation, and air conditioning requirements and HVAC systems should be modified, augmented or replaced as needed.
7. Where present, security/reception desks are key elements of lobbies, which require careful planning and design. It should be welcoming and accessible, particularly with respect to ADA requirements. The countertop should be durable and easy to maintain and clean/disinfect.
8. Furniture and accent pieces should usually reflect the building at-large. Modern glass and chrome furnishings might be jarring in a Victorian-era structure. “Trendy” comes with some risk. What’s in vogue now can be considered dated or tacky in just a few years.
9. Art is entirely subjective and selecting pieces for public display can be tricky. It should be “tasteful” and devoid of subject matter that can offend (nudity, violence, religious themes, etc.).
10. Amenities such as WIFI or charging stations can be nice additions, but your lobby could become a lounge if you make it too entertaining and comfortable.