Chapter 183: GCCDS + James = True Love
I updated you all a while ago on the progress of all my projects and I feel like I should do so again. When last I spoke, I had a couple projects on the table. To the best of my knowledge they were:
Miss Laura Creel's House: Long Beach, MS
GCCDS Workshop
EBCRRA Front Signage
John Henry Beck Park Master Plan
As of right now, the Creel House drawing set is near completion. There should be a couple of changes I will have to make early next week and then I will be meeting with the Creel's and they can send it off to permit.
Basic Elevations and Sections
Shear Wall Calculations to determine the ability to withstand hurricane force winds ( I made a sweet Excel Workbook that now does this all for us once we plug in the specific windward/leeward variables and our wall section information)
The GCCDS Workshop project has gone through a couple of iterations and I was quite happy with the results. The general plan is to simple extend the primary slab extension that was poured to set the A/C unites in place and use the existing building to enhance the natural aspects of the new work shop
Here is the A/C unit in the back with the primary extended slab...
As it stands we may discontinue the project in favor of an expansion to the existing building itself or a re-organization into adding another building along Division Street somewhere and having the GCCDS move into that. One of the buildings under preliminary consideration is my thesis project building. You can guess that I may be excited about that prospect.
EBCRRA Front Signage has stalled. I really wanted to get it out, but it has taken forever to get answers from up top so we're just kind of twiddling our thumbs right now.
A rough rendering we whipped up a while ago of the front signage
I say we just name the whole kit and kaboodle the GCCDS and be done with it. We already have our stuff together. Speaking of stuff, our business cards finally came in. Sweet.
The John Henry Beck Park Plan rolled out a couple of weeks ago and looks great. I was really happy with the result and in recent weeks there has been an Eagle Scout doing one of the Phase 1 projects by doing plantings along the front gates. They look great and I'll be sure to get a picture of them up next week.
The Park Plan sans budgetary information... shhhh! It's a secret!
There are a number of other projects that we are working on in the studio as well. One is the basic documentation and presentation of the houses that we have done and finding a way to easily insert them in a visual compendium that may be updated as we continue to augment, innovate, and design new and improved solutions to the housing crisis here in East Biloxi. This is one of the first attempts at such a piece that was presented at the AIA Convention...
...finally (for this update at least) we are working on development proposals for different areas of East Biloxi which were wiped out during the hurricane that promote sustainable re-growth. Here's a couple of sites and conditions we are dealing with when re-evaluating zoning, building codes, and community design throughout this process.
