I know we were all eager and anxious to know what we were going to be doing for the day.  As Trevor wrapped up his 10 plus point safety speech, we finally arrived at the moment we were all waiting for …  The suspense was a killer.  “Today we are going to be installing the insulation” Trevor shared with a bit of a grin.  Ugh … Not the itchiest job of all jobs – Yes, we would be installing the fiberglass batt insulation.  The building inspector was scheduled to show up on site at 2:00 PM for a complete inspection.  There was a lot of work to be done, but with the many volunteers on hand, the task would be completed in short order.

Once we completed the insulation, the next goal was to start hanging the drywall on the ceiling.  Was that right?  We were going to be hanging the ceiling drywall – Also a notoriously arduous task.  We had our work cut out for us. By the end of the day we were certainly going to be itchy and sore between those two tasks.  It took all morning to carefully install the insulation making sure the insulation reached all corners of the framed cavities, and was not packed tight … Insulation works best fluffy with air in the fibers.

After lunch the volunteers worked on the last  portions of the insulation, along with installing the baffles for the attic below the roof in anticipation of the “blown-in” loose fill insulation scheduled for a later day.  The house was going to be well insulated.  I had the opportunity to use the expanding foam insulation to insure all the gaps and cracks around the windows and door frames were completely filled and air tight.  The building inspector showed up at 2:00  as scheduled and gave a thumbs up. We had the official approval to start hanging the drywall.

For the remainder of the afternoon the volunteers divided into three teams and started working on installing the ceiling drywall.  The key with drywall is to take a good measurement, then allow for an 1/8 inch on all sides for wiggle room for the installation.  Drywall is brittle and will snap if you attempt to flex it into position.  Moving the 8 foot x 12 foot sheets into place is something you only want to have to do once.  Strong motivation to make sure you measure twice and cut accurately for a good fit.

All joking aside for a moment, it was incredibly satisfying to see how much our volunteer crew accomplished in the period of a day – Very rewarding!  ArcWest is looking forward to our next “Habit for Humanity” volunteer day.

I thought? This sounds like a great opportunity to give something back to the community although I was a little nervous. There were three separate classes of 25 students that would rotate through my presentation and that of two other professionals; a veterinarian and a banker.

I decided the only way to make this fun for the students and keep their attention was to devise an interactive game. We used the school building as a demonstration architectural project. We made placards for each profession involved with the project.  In addition to the Architect of Record there are other architects, designers, marketers, engineer’s, estimators, contractors etc., 26 participants total.  We discussed each member’s tasks and assigned that task to an interested student until the entire team was assembled.

I had a great time, the 5^th graders were attentive, polite and I think they were genuinely surprised with how many professionals (jobs) it took to complete a project.

My goal for the presentation was to stress the fact that I enjoy my career and the people I get to work with.  None of this would be possible without a college education.

I hope to go back next year.

- Kevin Anderson

Mentoring a high school student as part of his senior experience certainly has no clear association with the business of Commercial Architecture in the Denver area.  Nor does it provide a dash of new income to the company.   This said, it was truly a professionally enriching experience.

When approached to become a Mentor to a student from Westminster High School, a Denver metropolitan school,  it was somewhat unclear what that meant.  Would we just go about our business of Facility Architecture and Planning and allow him to shadow us?  Would we try to educate this senior student in the profession of architecture? Would we tour a selection of Commercial and Residential Architecture projects completed in the Denver Area?  The curriculum provided was unclear and unhelpful.  The direction was to provide experience in the chosen field of study, but left how that was to occur totally up to us … A couple of Architects with little or no experience in the education process.

What we found out is that we had more experience in education than we thought.  We had roughly 20 hours of face time as part of the curriculum.  With in short order of our first hesitant meeting with our young Architect, we started to cover the basics.

We covered the many long sleepless nights ahead for him while working in studio……

We discussed the starving artist nature of our business……

We even covered the bonds that academic hardship would foster and the parties that he might participate in……..

We very quickly moved on to what makes something architecture.  It is not Art.  It is not sculpture.  It is problem solving to create both Art and Sculpture that can be occupied.  Our Mentor grasped this immediately and filled in the rest of the curriculum by asking to be guided through the creation of his first piece of Architecture.  Every architect has contemplated his ideal house.  Few Architects actually design this enigma.  There is never enough money and we can never actually make a final decision on the final product.  By guiding our young Mentee through this process, we were afforded a learning experience ourselves as to what really goes into the design process.  We were not designing for another, we were guiding an uninitiated individual to the design process.

The process is at the core of what an architect is all about.  Some go through the process intuitively, skipping back and forth from phase to phase, without even realizing.  Some step through the process religiously not advancing from one phase to the next without completing the last.  Regardless there is a process and guiding someone through the process, fighting the urge to provide all the answers, illustrated how important the process is.

Exploration and Result of the Design Process

The sketch  above was completed entirely by our student.  It is understandably rough, but was completed after only 7 hours of background discussion 13 hours of numerous iterations.  It represents many of his personal own concepts of the ideal home and was completed using the same planning process used in the architectural profession.

Hopefully our student gained as much from his experience as his Mentor’s did.  In our environment of Commercial Architecture, Residential Design and Facility Planning, along with running the day to day business, sometimes a reminder of the core process is welcome.

- Todd Heirls

ArcWest Architects enjoyed the experience and would like to express our thanks to KaBOOM and the Sunnyside community for helping the vision of a new playground become a reality for the neighborhood.

Excited volunteers and kids in front of New Chaffee Park playground

Click KaBOOM for more information about the non-profit organization.