Almost Like Work

Today was another whirlwind: programming meetings, site visits, design charrettes, client reviews, late nights at the office. It's almost like work!

Unlike my typical work day, however, the design team gathered together for worship time and devotionals. Here's a photo of most of the team singing together--with a few off camera (and yours truly behind the camera). It was an awesome way to start the day!

After our morning routine, the architects and team leaders met with the second half of the client group, the seminary. It was a lively four-hour meeting as we trudged through phasing concepts and tried to prioritize and focus the clients' overall vision for campus growth with our scope of what we are providing this week regarding the master plan and detailed design of a dormitory.

After the meeting and lunch, we walked back over to the site to get a better feel for some of the existing features and see a bit more than yesterday. We got caught in the afternoon rainstorm and sat it out for more than an hour in the under-construction (and occasionally leaky) chapel.

Back in our workroom in the afternoon, I started developing some basic ideas for the dormitory design, talked with the structural engineer, and started thinking about how the design of the dorm works within the campus master plan. We met with the client briefly again at the end of the day and described our basic master plan zoning diagram.

More on design stuff later in the week I'm sure. But for now, here are a few more shots from today...

A view of the existing seminary campus where we are staying and working. These are some of the current dormitories.

A view from our site looking east, with an afternoon rainstorm coming up the valley. One really interesting thing we noted today was how green the south faces of the mountains are (to the left of the photo) and how rugged and barren the north faces are (on the right of the photo). Because the sun in the Southern Hemisphere comes from the north, the north face of the mountains must get baked, while the southern face enjoys the wet season and the Sacred Valley's subtropical microclimate.

Step out the seminary and look left down Calle Belen. Turn right at the green door and then left down the alley, and you're at the seminary's new site.

A view up a typical Urubamba street toward the mountains. The little pom-pom looking things on the power lines are air plants.