Tea Time April 16

Daphne was responsible for Tea Time last Friday. She brought Greek yogurt with honey and chocolate salami. It was delicious! Thanks Daphne!

Sol (Field Trip)

Last Friday, the first part of the class was spent visiting Sol, a new sustainable development in East Austin. Chris Krager was kind enough to show us around and let us walk through some of the units. Everyone agreed that while walking through the completed units was fun, the really interesting part was walking through the unit that was still open to the framing. Thanks Chris for meeting with us!




Just to be clear. Everyone reported straight back to studio. Nobody stopped at El Chilito and no one stopped at Sonic.

Meeting with Mark

Last Wednesday, the Guadalupe groups met with Mark from GNDC. It went well. He had a lot of insight into what the board members would and wouldn't like. He stressed that the resident was likely to be elderly, so we should be careful to not give them "too much house." All in all, he seemed to genuinely appreciate all of the designs. Thanks to Mark for fitting us into his busy schedule!

Review 3

This past Monday we had our first review with our community partners. Our first two hours were spent at ACDDC going over the Guadalupe projects. We were unable to get a reviewer from GNDC, so Michael from ACDDC served as his proxy. It went really well and we got tons of great feedback. Shiloh, who is helping us with cost estimating, was also able to join us to give us his perspective.

The first team to present: The Justins

Everett talking through his design with Michael and Sarah.

The final team to present here was Daphne and Nishiel.

Everyone around the table.

Next we went to Clarksville to present our ideas to them and hear their opinions for a few hours. It was a lot of fun and a great conversation. Here's a group picture (Special thanks to Patrick Bresnan for getting this for us.)

Consultations

Last week was a busy week preparing for our first review with our community partners. Various studio visitors met with us as our consultants regarding HVAC, accessibility and other issues. Dason, another UT professor, met with teams on Friday to discuss energy modeling in ecotect and solar strategies.

Tea Time April 2

Lauren brought these delicious cupcakes for tea time last week. Thanks! In her own words, "I'm from the suburbs we make cupcakes from a box."

Blue Carpet Stories and a Special Guest

Last Wednesday we learned that blue carpet is rarely a good idea. What started with one person commenting that they didn't like blue carpet, led several to contribute their scariest blue carpet story. Please share yours with us below.

Also on Wednesday we had a surprise visit from architect, Marlon Blackwell, who lectured that evening. For anyone who doesn't know his work, check it out; it's outstanding. Below is Marlon talking with us about our site models.