The Cost of Design / December 1, 2020 by S. Joshua Brincko

What does an architect charge to design stuff? The short answer is: for a typical house project, most architects charge a design fee above $20,000, and over $100,000 is also not uncommon for a decent sized project. The fee is usually billed by the hour, and it is proportional to the size and complexity of the project. According to the American Institute of Architects, design fees for remodels are generally around 15% of whatever the construction cost ends up being and around 10% of the construction cost for designing projects from the ground up (new construction). For the thousands of hours a team of architects puts into designing a building, this 10% fee is not much higher than the 6% fee real estate agents will get when they sell the building. (Do the real estate agents collectively work thousands of hours for that fee?)

This may seem like a lot of dough for someone to draw some pictures of a building, so let’s discuss what clients get for this investment (and what the architect earns) since the architect does so much more than just the drawings:

The drawings. These are the most tangible deliverable. They show the building department the info needed to get a permit, and they explain to builders how to build the building. You may think, “I took a CAD class in high school, so I can draw up some plans.” It’s not so much about knowing how to draw. It’s more about knowing WHAT to draw (which brings us to the next topic - and why the drawings are less valuable than the mere access to the architect to get you through the whole design and construction process).
Experience. The drawings communicate a ton of contractual information that takes a lifetime of focused learning to successfully convey to building departments, engineers, builders, material suppliers, and clients. Architects figure out the best way a building can satisfy their clients’ needs, and they also have figured out how to most appropriately get the building built, so it will be in line with the clients’ expectations, budget, schedule, building codes, zoning codes, builders’ capabilities, material limitations, and so many more factors. All of these factors are distilled into technical drawings and documents to communicate the requirements to the appropriate parties. Much of the benefit of “experience” is not through drawings, but rather through verbal communications and visual inspections with the architect where quick, focused feedback saves thousands on the cost of construction as builders run into issues. This leads to the next benefit…
Time. With any project, there are many critical moments before and during construction when your architect MUST be available. There are deadlines with building departments, builders needing a clarification on a construction technique NOW, a client having a freak-out meltdown over a builder’s bid, an inspector “requiring” something (expensive) that’s not actually required, or a moment when a client has a sleepless night over the biggest investment of their life (their new building), and they just need the leader of the whole process to help them make a crucial decision. I have had countless times where I have had to leave a soccer game, work all night/weekend, cancel fun plans, miss other obligations, and even lose out on time with my family because my clients’ projects require something that cannot wait. I think of it as “renting my brain.” Architects are also available when clients don’t need them. Sometimes the timing doesn’t work out as we are waiting for an approval from a building department or an engineer to finish their work, and architects must still be available and keep their business running with the lights on ready to go when there is crucial work to be done much like the surgeon is waiting in the ER just in case help is needed.
Creativity. People may know when they like or dislike something they see, but usually they do not know WHY. Your architect does. Your architect knows what you want even when you don’t (and even when you think you do know what you want but actually don’t - your architect can see into your soul). It is sort of like those frustrating times as a teenager when you were about to do something dangerous, your parents told you not to, but you did it anyway and got hurt. They knew what would happen before it happened much like a good architect has good insight on your project. When a client starts talking about what they want to do, an architect already knows what they will say next, what parts of that request won’t actually come to fruition, and how to guide you toward the solution that you are really trying to describe. Your architect gives you options that you would have never imagined on your own. Your architect shows you why the best solution is the best - even if it’s something you initially wouldn’t consider. Your architect wants you to be inspired by the space that you will build. The creativity doesn’t stop with the design of the building though. The creativity carries through in less obvious ways like: thinking of ways to get permits for things the building department says “can’t be done,” or thinking of ways to convince a builder to build something in an innovative way that will save you money, or helping you figure out the best real estate value for different ways you could build your project, or even finding cost saving methodologies on how you could sequence your project. Your architect is there for you to find solutions to all sorts of problems.
Assurance. When you hire an architect, you are getting the assurance that your building will perform appropriately. It won’t leak. It will meet your needs. It will be comfortable. It will be safe. As long as the architect is retained through the whole project and during construction, your building will perform very well. If you only commission the architect to do part of the job, it’s like making the beginning part of a sandwich: just the bread - it won’t be very good. The architect needs to do the whole process for it to really work.
Coordination. Your architect will coordinate all the different people that make your building become a reality. Architects understand all the technical information from builders, product suppliers, building departments, and engineers, and they combine all of that information into a cohesive set of documents that your project team needs to build the project. The architect coordinates the work of surveyors, structural engineers, mechanical engineers, electrical engineers, plumbing engineers, geotechnical engineers, civil engineers, builders, building departments, inspectors, arborists, ecologists, biologists, landscape architects, lighting designers, smart home technology providers, real estate agents, archaeologists, historians, neighborhood groups, and/or many different material suppliers.
Concierge. In addition to coordinating all the parties above, the architect is your concierge throughout the process. If a time-sensitive document needs taken from the building department, to a notary, and to the county recorder office before they close for flag day or whatever other holiday governments take, your architect does that. If you need to see samples of different tiles, your architect arranges that and brings them to you for approval. If you want to see what different stains on different woods look like, your architect makes that happen. If you have a disagreement over your builder’s bill, your architect has the technical expertise to mediate that. If you want to see an example of a certain type of product that was installed in a different building before you decide to buy it, your architect sets up an appointment to visit someone else’s home or business to see it. Your architect is there to get you through the entire process and to make it as easy as possible. Things that may seem difficult for you are easy, everyday tasks for your architect.

So with all the service an architect dedicates to a project, what does the architect do with their design fee? It is common for 1/3 of it to be paid to the staff member that did the task, and 2/3 of it goes toward overhead expenses of operating the firm. Any leftover from overhead is profit for the firm. If your architect charges $150/hr, it is likely that the architect does billable work about half the time (at most). In a typical 2080 hour work year, that’s about 1000 billable hours in a year or often much less. Of that $150,000 billed, that would be $50,000 for the architect’s salary and $100,000 for the overhead for things like professional liability insurance, general liability insurance, computers with VERY expensive software, rent, and an operation budget (to name a few). When the office is slow, when we mess up a tile order, or when a client doesn’t pay a bill on time, there better be something leftover in that overhead expense to keep the firm running. Does that sound lucrative? Do you want to be an architect? We do it because it is rewarding work (not necessarily in the financial sense).

Here are some additional resources that substantiate the figures above:

State of Washington Guide

Washington Post

Architectural Fees Website

Royal Architectural Institute of Canada (Published by American Institute of Architects - see page 11 TIER 7, and page 30 which defines custom residential as being in the most complex tier.)

Curbed.com

Home Advisor (scroll down to "How Much Do Architects Charge as a Percentage of a Project?")

If you’d like to learn more about our design process, visit www.josharch.com/process, and if you’d like to get us started on your project with a feasibility report, please visit www.josharch.com/help

The Architects Band / November 2, 2020 by S. Joshua Brincko

There’s a dude named Josh in a heavy death metal band called The Architects that looks something like me. No, it’s not me. Yea, he’s an “architect,” also named Josh, the same age, physique, hair, and very handsome, successful, and talented, but no, it’s not me. Ok, yes, it actually is me. Most of you didn’t know I was in a death metal band. Just kidding. It’s really not me. Or is it? Google “josh architect” and decide for yourself.

Either way, if you’d like to learn more about our design process, visit www.josharch.com/process, and if you’d like to get us started on your project with a feasibility report, please visit www.josharch.com/help

That’s all folks.

Occupancy (don’t read…too boring) / October 1, 2020 by S. Joshua Brincko

This is the most boring post I have ever written, but if I asked you to read it, please do. Thank you:)

As an architect, above all else, I need to do the right thing when it comes to designing buildings to ensure they perform well and are safe. The buildings architects design have a huge effect on how people live, work, and experience the world around them.

The building code is really a collection of different ambiguous books that govern the design and construction of fire safety systems, electrical, plumbing, structure, mechanical, energy conservation, and more.

If you read the codes, you will rarely find any language that exactly pertains to your situation, so the architect must propose a plan that the building department must review. The interpretation of the building department and architect do not always align. An architect could read a code and interpret it in the complete opposite way of the building department. This is partially because the building department takes a conservative approach to make things as safe as possible. This is easy for the building department since they don’t have to pay for safety features like fire sprinklers, fire-rated walls, fire detection systems, multiple exit routes, backup power supplies for exit lighting, etc. These are all expenses that most building owners do not want to incur. Sure, building owners and architects both want their buildings to be safe, but there is a certain level of common sense that should be applied.

An architect is very good at recommending, interpreting, and negotiating the way codes get implemented. One major code issue stems from the number of people, known as occupants, that are allowed in a space or an entire building. Codes vary from place to place depending on many circumstances, but generally speaking, an office space may allocate 1 occupant per 100sf, but a waiting area may allocate 1 occupant per 5sf. Therefore the waiting area can fit a lot more people than an office, but this is not necessarily a good thing. If a 100sf waiting area fits 20 people (100/5=20), and a 100sf office fits 1 person (100/100=1), the total number of occupants allowed is already up to 21. Once you add up the occupants allowed in other rooms, the number gets even higher. In many cases, if the occupant load (number of people) exceeds 49, then you may need to add another exit door or potentially fire sprinklers depending on a few factors. That may not be possible financially or technically from a space layout point of view. Not only does the number of occupants affect the number of exits and sprinklers, but it also dictates the number of toilets, sinks, drinking fountains, parking spaces, hallway widths, and many other factors. In light of this, there is incentive to keep the occupant total lower. This results in strategically designating spaces, so the math for occupant load works in the client’s favor. By calling a space the wrong thing, it could trigger some very expensive construction requirements that could become project stoppers.

As an architect, I can be a very helpful guide to ensure you get a safe, functional building within reasonable limits.

How to Build Stairs / September 9, 2020 by S. Joshua Brincko

Stairs can be a great, sculptural focal point for a home, deck, or business, and they certainly provide a useful function too: to get you up and down safely. Stairs are complicated. They are tricky to design, tough to build, and there’s a whole myriad of codes that must be complied with. As an experienced architect and craftsman, I have learned a few tricks over the years for building stairs. There’s some seasoned veterans out there that can do it well too, but I have created some unique tricks that have helped many builders.

On most projects, I’ll get a call from the builder about how to frame the stair. As an architect, framing is not in my purview, but I get it… being out there on a hot, cold, windy, or rainy jobsite perched high up on a ladder is not the best place to figure out how to fit one of the trickiest things you can build into a project. With a couple measurements, I can usually help the builder figure this out rather quickly. All I really need is the exact change in vertical height from one floor to the other and the exact horizontal length from one landing to the next. Depending on the design, there’s a few other bits of info I may need, but I can advise on those when applicable.

Once I have those critical measurements, I can draw the stair stringer (or stair carriage) in autocad. This enables me to create an exact diagram of all the parts and pieces needed for a stair. After I’ve drawn it, I can send the builder all the measurements needed to confirm it works. I can also send full sized printed templates to the job site, so builders can simply “trace” them with a saw. This takes all the guesswork out of it. In some applications, I could even cut the stair stringer on a CNC milling machine to send the finished product to the job site ready to install. Imagine the entire day you spend planning and measuring (and re-measuring) for a stair being unnecessary because a perfectly cut stringer magically shows up on the job site for you.

Feel free to reach out if you need help with a stair you are planning. This will save you time and money.

Also for reference, there’s a lot of codes that relate to stairs, and some of the more common ones for residential applications are (check your codes in your area to verify and consult with a professional to confirm):

treads must be a minimum of 10”
risers have a maximum of 7.75”
treads must be a minimum of 36” wide
handrails may project up to 4.5” over the treads on each side
handrails must be 34”-38” high
guardrails must be 36” high with a maximum spacing of 4” (6” ok at the triangular area of tread/riser) and must withstand 200 pounds of force in all directions
landings must be the same width as the stair and at least 36” long
there are also additional codes to comply with

Hand Drawing is Still a Thing! / September 1, 2020 by Josh Brincko

Architects draw most things on a computer with AutoCAD. It makes sense for most stages of the process. I have discovered a hack for designing and drawing construction details though. Construction details are “zoomed-in” drawings that focus on the connection between different materials. They help to communicate to the builder the real goal with how things get put together. These are typically drafted in black and white in AutoCAD, but we have found that they are tough to understand, time consuming, and builders rarely actually reference them in a set of plans.

With the use of my iPad and it’s Apple Pencil, I have discovered a magical app (by recommendation of Andres Villaveces at Metrica) that allows me to draw “by hand” but still digitally. The Apple Pencil actually feels and operates like a real pencil, but it works even better… and you can undo mistakes, you don’t get lead all over your arm/shirt, and I can draw while sitting on the couch or virtually anywhere (a drafting table is no longer needed).

Builders love the drawings because they actually understand them, and it saves me (and my clients) time in drawing them. The app I use, called Morpholio Trace, actually featured my work in its recent top 10 list: https://medium.com/@morpholio/top-10-trace-sketches-of-the-month-290fb2c8e1b3. It has been such a great technological advancement in my industry that has increased my productivity. I can also use it to review my coworker’s drawings for quality control. The days of printing, redlining, scanning, and emailing are over for the simple task of checking drawings. I can now just “redline” (review) progress work directly from my ipad and easily email it.

Radiant Floor Heating / August 3, 2020 by S. Joshua Brincko

Radiant floor heating…It’s awesome! Does it make sense in your situation?

In the USA, the most common type of heating is a furnace, called “forced air,” that blows air around your house in metal duct work. When the house gets cold, the furnace kicks on, and you feel warm air blowing out of the vents. Then the air in the room cools down again, and the process continues. This is a sort of instant gratification. It is very American, actually.

Let me illustrate this with an analogy. Your body is 98.6 degrees, right? When you exhale, your breath is about 98 degrees or something less. If our hands are cold, we can blow air out of our mouth to warm up our hands. Do your hands stay warm after one breath of air, or do you need to keep blowing air? Imagine trying to warm up a cup of coffee with your breath. It could probably be done, but it would take a constant flow of heat from your breath to accomplish this. You will probably pass out before the coffee heats up. THE SAME THING HAPPENS WITH A FURNACE. When hot air blows out of your vents, it warms up the air, but it does not warm up the floors, the walls, the tables, the chairs, and all the other solid items in your house. Do you remember learning about conduction in science class? More heat can be stored in a solid or liquid than a gas. Air is a gas, and furnaces try to heat you (a solid) and your house (a solid) by storing heat in air that blows on you. It does not have a lasting effect, and therefor it is not efficient. (It also blows a lot of dust, mites, and other allergens around that are not good for your respiratory health).

Radiant heating works by transferring the heat from a liquid to solids. In other words, water in pipes is heated up, and those water pipes touch your floors and transfer the heat to your floors. The heat in your solid floors conducts to the other solid items in your home, and the heat is more efficiently stored. It also feels more cozy because it is a long-lasting, continuous heat that warms you to the core instead of just blowing air over your skin.

Staple-up in-floor heating pipes with metal fins to disperse heat

Notice all the STUFF in the ceiling of an existing home. This must all be removed and replaced before installing in-floor radiant heating pipes.

So how do you get radiant floors in your home? Water pipes (usually plastic called PEX) need to be attached to your floors. This is easiest to do when your house is under construction. If you are pouring concrete floors, the PEX is laid our before the concrete is poured, and they get permanently cast into the concrete. If your floors are framed with wood, the PEX is usually stapled up to the underside of the floors. This is pretty easy to do in new construction since there’s not too much stuff in the way (like lights, wires, insulation, and plumbing). In a remodeling situation, it is a bit more challenging since you first need to remove the ceiling and everything inside of it before you can staple up the PEX. You even need to grind away any nails or staples that may be poking through the floor, so they don’t accidentally puncture the PEX water pipes. This demolition work can get very expensive (likely more costly than the price of the radiant heating system itself). This gets even more challenging in a crawlspace where workers would need to work on their backs to staple PEX to the underside of a floor. Nothing is impossible, but having a clean slate helps to keep the cost feasible. New construction and new additions are pretty easy to integrate radiant floor heating.

Project foreman inspecting in-floor heating in existing slab. (Notice the wood shelves in the background… a worker set those there, and they punctured the water pipes. Extreme caution is necessary).

Water pipes laid in concrete slab before it is poured. Notice the insulation board below the pipes.

If you want to install the PEX into an existing concrete slab, you would either need to break up the slab and pour a new one, or you could cut out grooves to put the pipes into. Then you would cover those grooves with another layer of concrete and possibly another floor material. We have used radiant floor heating with success in all different floor materials - including hardwoods. Hardwoods do tend to shrink and swell with changes in temperature, so “engineered hardwoods” are a better choice when using radiant floor heating although we have never actually seen a problem with real hardwoods (only heard of them…knock on wood…literally).

There is a possibility of using electric radiant floor heating. This is not very efficient though. The cost of electricity to create the heat is not justifiable at this time. Most radiant heating is powered with natural gas or propane which is a lot cheaper than the electric counterpart. Electric radiant floor heating can be a viable option for small areas like bathrooms though. Small wires are laid on the floor (like a heated blanket), and they are covered with mortar and tile. A thermostat on the bathroom wall controls the system, and a thermostat with a timer can help keep the operation cost reasonable.

Manifold panel that sends heated water from a boiler to various parts of a home through PEX water pipes

Gas powered radiant floor systems work with a boiler. A boiler is a box about the size of a shoe box for cowboy boots, and it has a series of water pipes that pass over a flame. The flame heats the pipes, and the water in the pipes gets hot. It is pretty simple. Once the water pipes leave the boiler, they separate out (in the manifold) into different pipes for each area of your home. Each of those areas can have their own thermostat, so you could individually control the heat. These pipes travel back to the boiler to keep reheating the water in the pipes. There is a complicated panel of pipes called a manifold that needs to be located near the boiler. This is where the water pipes separate out to travel to the different areas - and later return from those areas before being sent back into the boiler for reheating. This manifold is the “brain” of the system which has sensors that link back to the thermostats in each room and also link back to the boiler to tell it when to heat up some more water.

Besides their small size and efficiency, another good part about boilers is that they can also be a substitute for your hot water tank for your shower, tub, and sinks. This saves even more space. The boiler and manifold just need to be located in an area where you can run a vent pipe to the outside (since burning flames indoors requires oxygen to burn and also requires exhausting of the gasses to the outdoors).

If you are considering adding in-floor heating in an addition, you must also consider what you will do with your existing heating system. It is my opinion that two separate systems is too complicated. Also, once you have the boiler and manifold panel, it is a shame to not use that infrastructure to its maximum potential to heat the whole house - instead of just the new part of the house. You could remove the existing heating system and expand the in-floor heating to the existing house, or you could consider not doing radiant and just extend your current system to the new addition. Sometimes your existing heating system is not big enough to heat up additional square footage though. Your builder and architect can help you evaluate that. Sometimes we advise people to just make their current system work 150% to heat the addition and existing spaces until it breaks. Then they replace the existing system when/if that happens.

In summary, it is easy to incorporate in-floor heating in new construction and additions, but retrofitting it into an existing condition must be a labor of love since paying someone to do it for you would be a major expense.

A Message to Garcia (and Josh’s Commentary On It) / July 1, 2020 by S. Joshua Brincko

I’ve been told the US Navy makes its sailors read this witty story written by Elbert Hubbard in 1899 to teach them how to think big and focus on getting the job done. I’ve always liked the underlying message in most of the essay, which is basically: quit making excuses, and just flipping start doing the thing that you’re supposed to be doing. Since the writing is outdated, I pasted the original with my commentary in italics, so you can see what it means (to me) in today’s context:

A Message to Garcia, by Elbert Hubbard (1899)

In all this Cuban business there is one man stands out on the horizon of my memory like Mars at perihelion.

He is basically saying he can only think of one guy that acts appropriately since it is such a rarity for people to actually “do as they are told.”

When war broke out between Spain and the United States, it was very necessary to communicate quickly with the leader of the Insurgents. Garcia was somewhere in the mountain fastnesses of Cuba - no one knew where. No mail or telegraph could reach him. The President must secure his cooperation, and quickly.

There’s a guy named Garcia hiding in Cuba somewhere that the President of the USA must deliver an urgent letter to, and nobody knows exactly where Garcia is.

What to do!

Someone said to the President, “There’s a fellow by the name of Rowan will find Garcia for you, if anybody can.”

Rowan is the guy who can simply deliver a letter without F-ing it up. Rowan is who we all should strive to be since he can simply “do what he is told.”

Rowan was sent for and given a letter to be delivered to Garcia. How “the fellow by name of Rowan” took the letter, sealed it up in an oil-skin pouch, strapped it over his heart, in four days landed by night off the coast of Cuba from an open boat, disappeared into the jungle, and in three weeks came out on the other side of the island, having traversed a hostile country on foot, and having delivered his letter to Garcia, are things I have no special desire now to tell in detail. The point I wish to make is this: McKinley gave Rowan a letter to be delivered to Garcia; Rowan took the letter and did not ask, “Where is he at?”

Rowan just simply did it. He didn’t ask anyone how to do it. He didn’t ask where to take it. He never asked why. He simply figured it out himself and got the job done. He didn’t make anyone wish they had just done it themselves. He made the delivery of a letter into his own problem and nobody else’s. When the President asked him to do it, he just did it. The President did not need to wonder if it would get done or if it would be done successfully. The President knew that if he told Rowan to do it, then the task was as good as being done, and the President could assume as much. No further followup from the President is required. The President has 100% faith in Rowan.

By the Eternal! There is a man whose form should be cast in deathless bronze and the statue placed in every college in the land. It is not book-learning young men need, nor instruction about this or that, but a stiffening of the vertebrae which will cause them to be loyal to a trust, to act promptly, concentrate their energies; do the thing - “carry a message to Garcia!”

Rowan is the perfect teammate, and a statue of Rowan should be erected to remind the rest of us to be just like Rowan.

General Garcia is dead now, but there are other Garcias. No man, who has endeavored to carry out an enterprise where many hands were needed, but has been well-nigh appalled at times by the imbecility of the average man - the inability or unwillingness to concentrate on a thing and do it.

Although this letter is already delivered, there will always be future tasks that still need to be accomplished, and when those tasks are assigned, the person completing the task should remember the diligence of Rowan and not defer to become the average sort of person who is too lazy to be resourceful and simply figure out on their own how to do the task assigned to them.

Slipshod assistance, foolish inattention, dowdy indifference, and half-hearted work seem the rule; and no man succeeds, unless by hook or crook, or threat, he forces or bribes other men to assist him; or mayhap, God in His goodness performs a miracle, and sends him an Angel of Light for an assistant.

Most people are not like Rowan. They pawn their tasks back to the person who ask them to do it, and the assigner regrets ever assigning it to the assignee. It would have been much easier for the assigner to just do the task themselves instead of thinking someone else could do it instead. We have all heard the phrase, “if you want it done right, do it yourself.” There’s some truth to this unfortunately. We have grown too accustomed to bad service, and we have lost faith in others since there’s no accountability. The thing we need to realize is this: WE LEARN BY STRETCHING OURSELVES TO DO NEW THINGS. We need to push our boundaries to become a better person.

You, reader, put this matter to a test: You are sitting now in your office—six clerks are within your call. Summon any one and make this request: “Please look in the encyclopedia and make a brief memorandum for me concerning the life of Corregio.”

Try testing the theory. Go ask someone this simple question: “I need to know if Florida or Ohio is further west.” Chances are nobody will just find the answer without first asking: why do you need to know, or I think it’s Ohio (without actually looking up the facts).

Will the clerk quietly say, “Yes, sir,” and go do the task?

Haha. Good luck finding someone so cooperative in this era. The next few statements are still relevant today (120 years after the writing), except that we don’t use encyclopedias anymore…enjoy:

On your life, he will not. He will look at you out of a fishy eye, and ask one or more of the following questions:

Who was he?

Which encyclopedia?

Where is the encyclopedia?

Was I hired for that?

Don’t you mean Bismarck?

What’s the matter with Charlie doing it?

Is he dead?

Is there any hurry?

Shan’t I bring you the book and let you look it up yourself? What do you want to know for?

And I will lay you ten to one that after you have answered the questions, and explained how to find the information, and why you want it, the clerk will go off and get one of the other clerks to help him find Garcia - and then come back and tell you there is no such man. Of course I may lose my bet, but according to the Law of Average, I will not.

Now if you are wise you will not bother to explain to your “assistant” that Corregio is indexed under the C’s, not in the K’s, but you will smile sweetly and say, “Never mind,” and go look it up yourself. And this incapacity for independent action, this moral stupidity, this infirmity of the will, this unwillingness to cheerfully catch hold and lift, are the things that put pure socialism so far into the future. If men will not act for themselves, what will they do when the benefit of their effort is for all?

Acting for yourself is good, but acting for the greater good is truly noble.

A first mate with knotted club seems necessary; and the dread of getting “the bounce” Saturday night holds many a worker in his place.

Advertise for a stenographer, and nine times out of ten who apply can neither spell nor punctuate - and do not think it necessary to.

Can such a one write a letter to Garcia?

“You see that bookkeeper,” said the foreman to me in a large factory.

“Yes, what about him?”

“Well, he’s a fine accountant, but if I’d send him to town on an errand, he might accomplish the errand all right, and, on the other hand, might stop at four saloons on the way, and when he got to Main Street, would forget what he had been sent for.”

With Facebook…nothing really gets done. The rest of the essay is more satirical, and I will not comment further, but here it is for your reference. As you go on for the rest of your day (and life), remember to be Rowan and find your own Garcias :)

Can such a man be entrusted to carry a message to Garcia?

We have recently been hearing much maudlin sympathy expressed for the “down-trodden denizen of the sweat shop” and the “homeless wanderer searching for honest employment,” and with it all often go many hard words for the men in power.

Nothing is said about the employer who grows old before his time in a vain attempt to get frowsy ne’er-do-wells to do intelligent work; and his long patient striving with “help” that does nothing but loaf when his back is turned. In every store and factory there is a constant weeding-out process going on. The employer is constantly sending away “help” that have shown their incapacity to further the interests of the business, and others are being taken on. No matter how good times are, this sorting continues, only if times are hard and work is scarce, this sorting is done finer - but out and forever out, the incompetent and unworthy go. It is the survival of the fittest. self-interest prompts every employer to keep the best-those who can carry a message to Garcia.

I know one man of really brilliant parts who has not the ability to manage a business of his own, and yet who is absolutely worthless to anyone else, because he carries with him constantly the insane suspicion that his employer is oppressing, or intending to oppress, him. He can not give orders, and he will not receive them. Should a message be given him to take to Garcia, his answer would probably be, “Take it yourself.”

Tonight this man walks the streets looking for work, the wind whistling through his threadbare coat. No one who knows him dare employ him, for he is a regular firebrand of discontent. He is impervious to reason, and the only thing that can impress him is the toe of a thick-soled No. 9 boot.

Of course I know that one so morally deformed is no less to be pitied than a physical cripple; but in your pitying, let us drop a tear, too, for the men who are striving to carry on a great enterprise, whose working hours are not limited by the whistle, and whose hair is fast turning white through the struggle to hold the line in dowdy indifference, slipshod imbecility, and the heartless ingratitude which, but for their enterprise, would be both hungry and homeless.

Have I put the matter too strongly? Possibly I have; but when all the world has gone a-slumming I wish to speak a word of sympathy for the man who succeeds - the man who, against great odds, has directed the efforts of others, and, having succeeded, finds there’s nothing in it: nothing but bare board and clothes. I have carried a dinner-pail and worked for a day’s wages, and I have also been an employer of labor, and I know there is something to be said on both sides. There is no excellence, per se, in poverty; rags are no recommendation; and all employers are not rapacious and high-handed, any more than all poor men are virtuous.

My heart goes out to the man who does his work when the “boss” is away, as well as when he is home. And the man who, when given a letter for Garcia, quietly takes the missive, without asking any idiotic questions, and with no lurking intention of chucking it into the nearest sewer, or of doing aught else but deliver it, never gets “laid off,” nor has to go on strike for higher wages. Civilization is one long anxious search for just such individuals. Anything such a man asks will be granted; his kind is so rare that no employer can afford to let him go. He is wanted in every city, town, and village - in every office, shop, store and factory. The world cries out for such; he is needed, and needed badly—the man who can

Carry a message to Garcia.

Small Lots Equal Cool Houses / June 23, 2020 by S. Joshua Brincko

The typical lot in many cities is a rectangle with 5’ side yard setbacks and 20’ or so front/rear yard setbacks. This is space on a property where you’re not allowed to build the house with the purpose to leave open space. This results in a buildable area that is exactly the same for every lot in a neighborhood, and this results in a lack of variety.

Occasionally you have that odd-ball lot in a city with a weird shape or size which is really common in West Seattle where I live and work. A quirky corner lot, or leftover space from previous subdivisions, a tiny or narrow parcel, or something on a steep slope that is tricky for construction creates a unique design opportunity. These differences in lot configurations require architects to think creatively to envision design solutions that conform to the tricky constraints of the unique lots. Similar to how sloped ceilings in attics can create charming interior spaces, small lots can result in unique and inspiring homes that positively challenge the norm of the boring, repetitious, cookie-cutter neighborhoods we see all to much. As an architect who is an expert in designing innovative homes, I excel and am passionate about the creative challenges that come with designing homes on small lots.

Here’s some cool homes we have seen by some talented architects that have been the result of unique and small lots that we commonly reference when we design unique homes: