Follow the above link for more information. Pictures coming soon (hopefully after the rain stops)

This puts me in somewhat of a tight spot as now i feel obligated to finish out the work, even though i have only been partially paid. I had said i would finish out the work so long as i received half of my invoiced amount before proceeding. They sent my just under half. The client has been nothing but trouble from the get go. Disseminating incomplete, bad, and misrepresented information to each other as well as to the contractors. They have raked the contractor over the coals and are trying to hold him accountable for items he never agreed to. They have done the same to me.

I am inclined to walk away from the situation as i do not want to get caught up in their manipulation and usury any longer. They are holding the rest of the money as hostage for items they want me to pay for as well as to get me to finish drawings for the second phase that they want me to do for free even though they had initially agreed to pay me for them.

On the other hand it would likely only take me a couple of hours to finish off the drawings for them. Then i could be done with them for good and not have to worry about the repercussions of just walking away.

I know better than to enter into a working relationship without some sort of written agreement spelling out the terms of the relationship. However, i made the mistake of entering into this particular relationship without said agreement. The client was a non-profit organization operating a summer lunch program and looking to expand into a full fledge soup kitchen. While i am not certain of the exact nature of their affiliation, there clearly was some sort of church involvement with the group. All this, combined with the referral from someone from the church my family and i were attending at the time and the time crunch the client was on led me to the foolish action of not drafting an agreement prior to commencing work. Everything was done on a verbal agreement. Which was subsequently twisted and misrepresented by the client to the point that they were unwilling to pay me for services rendered.

The project was to be executed in two phases: 1] Renovations to the existing building to comply with current building code regulations for the change of use. 2] Renovations to kitchen area to accommodate installation of commercial kitchen equipment. I had given them a price, to which they agreed, to do the first phase as it was the most pressing and they had a potential funding source for it. I proceeded to complete the drawings for that phase and secure them a building permit so they could then approach the funding source with a firm number and a plan. And then things fell apart.

Just days prior to submitting for the permit, they asked me to include the kitchen on the drawings so it would be part of the scope of work for the permit, thus eliminating the need to secure a second permit. Because i did not have all the kitchen information, i just roughed it out knowing there would be several items on the correction letter regarding the kitchen that would need addressed later. In the meantime, the client is seeking prices from contractors to do the work so they have a number to submit for a grant with. It turns out they gave prospective contractors a preliminary set of prints to give a price from. As such, they got a price not reflective of the actual work to be done and secured funding based on that price. They then tried to pin all the overage costs on me, even though a majority of them were covered in the final set of prints.

When i sent them an invoice for the first phase and a price to complete the second phase, things really got ugly. That is when i found out that they were blaming me for all the items the contractor did not include in his price even though they were on the drawings and / or explicitly not included in the proposal the contractor gave them. As such they were holding my payment until: 1] All their conflicts with the contractor were dealt with. 2] Permit for phase 2 was secured (they wanted that included in my price and were not happy that i gave them a price for phase 2 above and beyond that of phase 1). 3] Construction of phase 1 was complete. At this point i realized what a disaster the verbal ‘agreement’ was and sent them a revised invoice for 1/2 my fees with the balance due upon completion of construction and a written agreement for both phases. I have not heard back from them since. That was over a month ago, so i sent them a letter this week officially terminating my services and wishing them the best.

I think i learned my lesson on this one. Regardless of referrals, credentials, and time crunches, take the time to draft a written agreement that clearly spells out the terms of my service.

As coordinator, designer, and major sponsor of the garden, i was approached by the Art Center and necic about including an art piece in the garden as part of an ongoing beautification, public art, and community awareness effort. The piece is going to be an assemblage of found objects from Mansfield, OHio and will be attached to the front of the larger of the two raised beds. There is also plans for a mural to be painted on the sides of the same bed. Pictures of the party can be found at the nLcg facebook page (see above link) and Architizer. There are links from the Architizer page to additional websites with pictures and an article by Holly Fackler for the News Journal.

I believe the mural is supposed to be started next week and i am not sure when the sculpture is going to be installed, but i will post pictures to Architizer and Facebook when i have them.

To this end, i gave them some very basic information about forces, loads, and types of bridges. They were then to construct a bridge that would span 12″. It was interesting to see some of the different approaches and encouraging that some of the groups were willing to try some solutions that were somewhat daring. While several groups had some setbacks, several others came up with bridges that looked pretty sound (they were going to be tested the following day by a local engineer). I am not privy as to the test results yet, but am interested to know how they faired.

There were six groups. Of those six, three constructed variations on a truss bridge, one a beam bridge, one started out attempting a suspension bridge, and another an arch. The suspension bridge and arch bridge proved to be a bit too challenging, so they were eventually abandoned.

All in all it was a good experience and i would like to do it again should the opportunity present itself, though truthfully i would rather have the girls build something that explores spatial relations and materiality a bit more than bridges do.

I was hoping to use bamboo as support for the arch, but it turned out to not work out very well. The pieces had to be too long for the bamboo i had available to me and the it kept breaking at the joints when i tried to bend it. As such i have gone to 1/2″ pvc for the supporting structure.

I also had to upgrade the brackets that hold the arms from unistrut to 1/8″ steel angle. The unistrut just could not stand up to the stress of the uplift caused by the wind. I am pretty confident the steel L will be plenty strong and i can avoid tying the arms back to the ground which would be undesirable on several levels.

I will be working on building a page for the RainFLOWr on the website. In the meantime, pictures of the completed RainFLOWr can be seen here.