On The Road Collaborative students with Asha and Charles
The Gaines Group has had a long-standing partnership with On The Road Collaborative and we could not be more excited to be a part of it again this year! On the Road Collaborative (OTRC) is an organization that gives middle and high-school students educational and hands-on opportunities outside of school, and their commitment to the youth and community, both in the future and in the here and now, is inspiring.
Throughout the years, we have participated in many opportunities with students, including a class on architecture as a career option to Skyline middle-schoolers that was led by Deborah and Charles in 2016 and a sustainable farm house tour in partnership with Eric Beck with Beck Builders. This year, Deborah is teaching another class about architecture called Design Hive to middle-schoolers from Skyline Middle School.
In this class, they’ll be learning about what architecture is and how it affects our communities and day to day lives. They’ll also learn the process of becoming an architect and what an architect does by going through the design process and understanding the thoughts and decisions that go into designing a building.
This week, we hosted these students at the Depot, our office building. Here Charles gave a tour to talk about the rich history of the building that used to be a railroad station. He showed them the many items, sketches, and photos that we have preserved here, as well as details of structural preservation: sections of floor that are different colors, charred doorframes, and old windows without panes. The students enjoyed interacting with the window especially, as you can see below.
Looking through the old pane-less window. Touring the structure outside.
Deborah is also structuring the class so that in the second half of the session, students will get a taste of what a college architecture studio class might be like. Students will work to create a neighborhood of houses designed by them. This neighborhood project is based on a similar project that her studio worked on during her time at Virginia Tech. They’ll draw out plans of their houses and then make cardboard models to see the neighborhood in 3D. We can’t wait to see what they create!
Design is everywhere, and whether or not each participating student decides to go into an architectural or design field, we hope that the experience enriches their understanding of how design impacts their daily lives. Awareness of this can be applicable to any field, and we’re grateful to OTRC for giving us this opportunity to meet these bright students from the community and pass on some of this knowledge. Check out their website to see how you can get more involved with OTRC!
Kicking off a new dream home project has some very special milestones. The first site visit after developing a concept sketch is hugely important to realize a custom home that’s just right for you, and it’s tremendously exciting. You can stand on an open piece of land and say, here is your front door, here are the views from your recliner, you will get a beautiful sunrise while making your morning coffee from here. It is a needed part of the design process for our clients to start to get a feel for their new home, but also to discover any special elements of the site that can enhance the design. It’s hard for most people to visualize a house that is not there yet, but our architects are able to verbally describe what is coming in a way that help clients to feel their design taking shape.
On this recent visit, a wet day for sure, we were able to get a sense of the slope of the land, talk about driveway location and routing, discuss how to manage the cows on the site, and get a sense of the scale of the home. While we could not see the views due to the cloud cover (we will go back to shoot grades on a slightly dryer day) we could see enough to know that our first sketch worked. We even identified a basement workshop that we didn’t know the slope of the site would allow.
“You can stand on an open piece of land and say, here is your front door, here are the views from your recliner, you will get a beautiful sunrise while making your morning coffee from here.”
Having a trained eye walk the site with you is critical to get the placement of your new home just right. The exact location may move a little throughout the design process or even just before
A rising tide raises all ships is an interesting concept, but what does it have to do with our local economy? Look to Shenandoah Valley Partnership (SVP).
The economic health of a community is a complicated thing to fully understand. There are many moving parts to a local economy and it is constantly changing. Do you have a thriving business community? Is it growing or shrinking? Are there available workers with the right skills? Are there potential sites for future expansion or relocations? Are the local businesses supported in a way to allow them to thrive? Is there training available to ramp up the workers skills as needed? There are so many variables that impact our local economy and this doesn’t even start to consider government regulations, taxes, land cost, construction cost, cost of living.
With so many things that could impact viability for a new business to locate here or for an existing business to expand across multiple jurisdictions – who’s there to help? That’s the role of the Shenandoah Valley Partnership (SVP).
As an organization, SVP has been working across the valley to provide the forum for cooperation and collaboration that encourages businesses to establish operations in the Shenandoah Valley. They do this through capital investment and job creation, serving as an advocate for existing business expansion, and assisting with regional workforce development efforts.
As the current Vice-Chair of the Shenandoah Valley Partnership and a long-time board member, Charles has invested his time and energy in supporting these efforts for the last 7 years. He is now also serving on the Forward 2028 campaign to support the SVP 5 year capital campaign. SVP is focused on three key areas to support local economic vibrancy: talent attraction & retention, business retention expansion & attraction, and sites & infrastructure. If you are invested in seeing a vibrant local economy, please reach out to learn more about how you can invest in the Shenandoah Valley Partnership and support the idea that a rising tide raises all ships.
What do you want to be when you grow up? What a huge question that we ask students to answer at a point in their lives when they are just working on figuring out who they are at that moment.
Hosting high school students in our office has become a regular occurrence over the years. We believe that mentorship is not only a key component to the future of our industry, but simply put is the right thing to do. We want to help students figure out the right path to take before college, to answer the question What do you want to be when you grow up? Or at least what do you not want to be when you grow up. We have had students from a wide variety of high schools around the valley join us with some going on to architectural school and some finding out through their time in our office that architecture was not the right path for them. This year we hosted a student, Ryan, from Eastern Mennonite High School.(past job shadow blogs here, here,here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here)
Here is his story:
The question, ‘what do you plan to do after graduation?’ is really hard for a high school student to grasp as the scope of opportunities and jobs available to them is unknown. So for my junior year, I signed up for an internship at Gaines Group Architects. This is a 12-week internship (job shadow) where for about an hour and a half each day before heading to school I had a chance to be in their architectural office to see, hear, observe, and learn.
While most people would assume an architect’s job would be to design immediately on computers, Charles directed me through the thought process and the restrictions real life can play on a project. We looked online for a plot of land for sale and brainstormed our ‘client’ and their requirements. These things would play into my clients’ budget and restrictions on how I could design the house. For anything I wanted to design, I needed to justify value for the design decision.
I was given the goal of making a 3 bedroom, 2 bathroom, 1300 square foot house. This right off the bat was extremely difficult because a lot of the standard living sizes for several rooms would require more square feet than I was provided. Charles used this to help me realize that sometimes, customers might come in with unrealistic goals and it is our job to find the best compromise for them. This house is for a younger family with 2 kids so it needs to be large enough for the family but also big enough that they could resell it if/when they are ready to upgrade.
I learned several of the basic principles for designing a house from sketching to spending the first couple of weeks just designing and reiterating the house on paper. I learned how to draw different wall thicknesses and how to think reasonably space. By the end of the first month, I had completed a paper sketch of the house for my ‘client’ that was 1614 square ft.
I have always loved designing and creating new things with my hands or on online design programs, and drawing the house on paper was my favorite part of the process. The next step was for me to learn another design software, Trimble Sketchup.
Trimble Sketchup is an online CAD software that allowed me to design the entire home on my Chromebook. This process is what I spent the last 9-10 weeks of the internship working on. I learned, experimented, and then implemented new and different building techniques into the house. I was able to import furniture and utilities to create a complete 3D model of what the house might look like if it was built in real life.
When should I do a site analysis?: A real-world example
We were asked to do some site analysis before our client put in an offer on a beautiful building lot. We often start a project with a client that has already purchased their dream lot, and we are able to sculpt the building site to make their home just right. If the lot is large enough or their home is small enough, it works without any major challenges. However, if you are evaluating multiple lots that seem perfect, have a lot that might have some challenges to fit your dream home, or you are just unsure of what to look for in a perfect lot, we can do site analysis before you buy the land.
Working with Realtors
Many realtors hesitate to bring in another voice into the purchase process, but the ones dedicated to serving their clients the best will always call on other experts to help answer questions. Michael Kalman, REALTOR® with Valley Realty Associates, gave us a call to find out if we had time to assist his clients that wanted to see if the lot they found was the lot for their dream. With Michael’s help, we gathered the survey, evaluated the site virtually, read the neighborhood covenants, and discussed the building goals with our client. From that meeting, we were able to develop a schematic layout for their future build. Next we traveled to the building site to confirm our assumptions – it is important to see the land and spend some time on the land when doing this evaluation.
What happens after the visit?
After this visit we made some changes to the layout, made some calls to learn more about available utilities, and did additional virtual evaluation. From that data collection, we were able to give our client a good idea of the potential of the lot and some preliminary budget costs to do the development. While this can mean time (and money) spent on a site that our client decides not to buy, it also gives peace of mind when negotiating the price they are willing to invest in this land.
