LEED Exam

Hey I passed! The actual test was nothing like all the practice ones I took. I can't say it was easier or harder, just different. Anyway, no more testing for awhile...

Today is the Day

Today is the day of the big LEED test. I think I am ready, I have been studying and cramming for the last two weeks, and my head is full.

Frustrations with Licensing

Most of you probably know that Colorado finally passes a licensure law this year for Landscape Architects. Colorado was one of only two states in the nation that did not license Landscape Architects. Anyway, the law was passed this year in June, and it state that everyone had to be licensed by January 1 in order to call themselves Landscape Architects. Problem is, the licensure applications wern't made available until late October. At first I didn't think much about it, but when they became available I thought it would be fun to get license #1, or at lest in the top 10. So I hauled butt, got my application together, got my references, got my transcripts, paid the fee, fedexed it to the state, and had it back into them in 4 days.

Then nothing....for over 6 weeks.

I saw online that several other professionals had become licensed, but nothing on mine.
So this week I started calling people. First I called the phone number on the web page. Of course, that doesn't allow you to talk to a real person. Then I called the director of the whole thing, since I had his card. He had someone else call me back, and who left a message. She gave me the email address of the person to contact. So I emailed her Wednesday morning...and never heard back. Finally, yesterday I was able to get hold of the program director directly, explained everything. I could tell he was not pleased. 5 minutes later I finally get a call back from the person who was handling my application. Since mine was the first one she had gotten, she had questions on it (more from the general process), so she set it aside...then forgot about it.

So it was only because I raised a fuss, that my application is being approved at all. Fortunately, there are no issues with my application, and it will be approved, but why did I bother to rush to get it in, only to be penalized for it. Arrggghhhh.

LEED Exam

I have been spending all of my spare time the last couple of weeks studying to take the exam to become a LEED accredited professional. For those of you who don't know, LEED stands for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design. Currently, this is all the rage for public and commercial buildings. In very simplified terms, it is a way to design buildings, and the site around them more sustainibly that traditional practices. All kinds of things are looked at such as energy consumption, daylighting, off-gassing, material selections, landscaping etc. Projects have to earn a certain number of points to achieve various certification levels. Of course, the higher the certification level, the more "green" the building is. This all has positive merits of course, and is the way things should just be done. It should be the standard, rather than an option.

Anyway, this is no easy test to study for. This is a complicated program, and the test itself is not open book. I don't think I have studied so hard since I took my licensing exam way back when. The test is this Friday, so I will let you know how I do. Fortunately, you do get the results right away.

Rendevouz

I thought I would take a few minutes to update everyone on the progress of my development project. My partner and I have have been spending a lot of time over the course of the last few days looking at layout options, sorting out how much property we are actually purchasing, and looking at performas. The idea we are shooting for is to do something a little different than the norm. We don't want to plop a street through the middle of the property, and place lots lots on both sides, instead we want to create a community. We want to have the homes face outdoor spaces that are created by the homes themselves. We want the garages accessed by alleys, with the fronts of the homes facing greenbelts. Our inspriation are the projects created by The Cottage Company. I have included a picture here from one of their projects.

Last week, before Thanksgiving we had a meeting with the county. This will be an interesting project, as it will be entitled in the county, but since it is within the growth management area, we have to follow city rules. We are also under the guidance of the northwest sub-area plan. In general, I think the county is supportive of our idea, but it will take some variances as the county hasn't seen a project quite like this. I have taken there comments in mind and have continued refining our concept plan to keep the spirit of what we want to do, but make it a little easier to entitle. The biggest comment we had was for the need for a public street access for the project. I wasn't totally surprised by this, but was hoping we could get away without a public street.

I will keep you all informed of the progress.

It just occurred to me, that I have never shown the final product for the Rigden Farm townhomes. To the left are several pictures taken at the dedication last spring. The landscape was not finished yet, but the units were a hit with everyone in attendance. The carriage units also sold fairly quickly. Next spring or summer I will take pictures of the final product with the landscaping all green!

Award Time!

On Friday night, at an awards ceremony at the local Marriot Hotel, Fort Collins Habitat for Humanity received two awards for its entry in the parade of homes this past fall. They received Best Floor Plan and Best Exterior Design and Landscaping in the under $300k category. This is a home that was designed by myself at Vignette Studios. This home has 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, a living and dining great room and open kitchen all packed into 1,250 square feet. This home was designed with a 2 car garage, which was required by the nighborhood covenants (pretty common here), as well as stone wainscotting. Because this particular home was on a corner lot, and was in the parade of homes, we did splurge on a wrap around porch, though we do include front porches on all habitat homes.


This is another plan in a long line of homes I have designed for Habitat where I have strived to show that affordable homes don't have to skimp on design or style. Below is a picture of another home I have designed for them, a 1,500 square foot 4 bedroom 2-story home. Since Habitat Homes don't come with Air Conditioning, sometimes homeowners install window sized coolers.

New Project

Some of you know that my business partner and myself have trying to find a piece of property to develop for the past year. We took a run at a great piece of property earlier this spring that would have been a very ambitious project. Ultimately we didn't get the property, which was probably a good thing. Shortly afterwards, we found a great 5 acre piece of ground in North Fort Collins. It is located within the northwest subarea plan of both the county and the City of Fort Collins.

By zoning, we can only get 9-10 units on this property, including the existing home. I am excited about this project as it will allow us to do some experimentation with a development style this town has not yet seen. We also want to be as green as possible with this development, while still being fiscally responsible. Some of our ideas are a community wide geothermal system, or photoveltic system. We shall see. I will keep the readers abreast of the process as well as some of our ideas.

Public Approval Process

I have always found the public approval process to be an interesting process. You spend months working with various staff members, other consultants, neighbors, and anyone else involved in a development project. During this time most if not all issues are worked out, clients spend large sums of money, and usually you get staff to support your project, working through the issues, etc. Then you go to a public hearing. Since these public hearings are usually quasi-judicial, the applicant is not allowed to speak or work with either a planning commission member, city council member, or what have you.

You get to the public hearing, and you get 15-30 minutes to make your case after months of hard work and negotiations. There is also public input, some discourse among the ruling body, then they make a decision. In some jurisdictions, this goes totally against the grain of the direction you have gotten from staff, and you get denied. Sometimes it goes the other way, and staff gets overruled.

I have been thinking lately, that this process is a little unfair. Why spend all the time, trouble, and money to work through all the issues for months, only to get derailed in a short hour or two public hearing. Why can't you work with the ruling body throughout the process so they are involved, and truly understand what is going on. This does happen with public projects. There are always workshops with staff and city council (or other body), meetings, etc. But with private developers, there is no such options.

Seems to me this process needs to change.

Campgrounds - September fuglies!

This past weekend we went camping for our last trip of the season. We happen to have a tent trailer, which we love for camping. I don't know how many of you go camping, but those of you that do know that all campgrounds have one way loops in them. That is fine, but in the vast majority of the sites we camp in, we have to back the trailer into them. Not a big deal, but invariably, the back in spaces are designed in the opposite direction of the one way loop...so you have to go around the loop in the wrong direction to have a prayers chance of getting into the camp site. I find this idiotic, but have resigned myself to it. Now this particular camping site took the cake...it was actually pretty easy to get into it, but after I backed in, I realized the whole campsite was totally backwards! RV's are universally designed to have the doors on the right side (when you are facing to the front of the trailer) with hookups and such on the left side. This campsite was backwards. The picnic table area was on the left side of the trailer, with the hookups on the right! This was the first time I had run into this. Of course, I had to borrow an extension cord to hookup. Walking around the campground, I notice a considerable number of campsites that were backwards. I am ashamed to admit that it is largely people in my profession that design campgrounds...and obviously, the ones who design them, don't camp! Guess I need to figure out how to get some of these projects.

Biking into work

Week of July 23rd. Man was it hot this week! I only made it in once, but made that one count. With meetings and such, made it about 15 miles that day.

Biking into work

A quick update on my trips into work.

Week of June 25th: (bike to work week) I managed to ride in twice that week.
Week of July 1: None, a lot of meetings and the holiday
Week of July 9: Made it in two days in a row! Course, that was all she wrote that week, though I did squeeze in a 15 mile ride up in Aspen.
Weed of July 16th: I made it twice this week.

Bike to Work week

My friend Amy and I have been having a friendly discussion going about commuters who ride there bike. Currently, she is carless, lives in Boulder, and works from home, so she has an advantage. Myself, my commute is not that long by most people, about 5 miles each way. However, with my job I do end up driving quite a bit to meetings and such. For the past few years, I have riden my bike to work probably a dozen times or so over the course of the summer. A week ago, I finally broke down and bought a new bike. I wanted something that was an around town bike, but I do traverse hills. I ended up getting a Giant Cypress bike that is a combination cruiser style bike and mountain bike. It is great because you ride upright, and it has 21 gears for hill climbing. My challenge from Amy is to keep track of how many times I commute on my bike. For the week of June 18th I rode to work 1 time. This is bike to work week, so I will shoot for more times! For the record though, so far this season I have bike commuted about a dozen times already.

Fuglies June 2007

I found this "lovely" home in a new community today...and I couldn't believe it! What builder, in there right mind, would build a home where the street front was all garage door and driveway! Could you imagine coming home to this...with this being the first thing you saw? What amazes me even more...this home is already sold! It must be spetacular inside! Nahhh...

Spring Break 2007 Part 7

Friday started out pretty warm, but again I didn’t get started until about 9. Mom, Lalie and the kids decided to go shopping for Hannah’s birthday, which left me to my own devices for awhile. Today was strictly assembly day. The next fence section had to have rails cut to length for it, but I decided to skip that one for now, as it provided convenient access. So I worked on a few other sections. Finally, it came to the point where I had to re-dig a post hole, moving it a couple of feet. I also worked on removing one of the existing posts. After that was done, I had no choice, but to start cutting rails I worked on that for a bit, then headed off to Lowe’s, partly for a break, and partly to get more bags of concrete. I got back around 2, and finished cutting the rails that I had to cut. After that, assembly went pretty quick. I wrapped up the garden area about 4. Since we still had supplies and posts, I worked on a few sections along the driveway, leaving out the sections right around the gates. We are going to have one of the fence companies build and install the gates for us. I wrapped this up about 6:30, and was very tired and sore. I also had to get ready for company coming over for an early birthday party for Hannah.

Saturday was scheduled for some mopping up, attaching the wire to the fence, and then heading home. All in all, it was a fun trip, with a lot of hard work. My muscles are sore!

Spring Break 2007 Part 6

Thursday started out a little chilly from the mini-storm that went through the night before, so I didn’t get started until around 9 a.m. I decided to just start drilling post holes and get as many done as we could before we had to return the machine. Of course this wasn’t all that easy, since I had to work around the grape vines and other obstacles. Lalie and Mom worked hard at tearing out as much of the existing fence as they could. The digging was surprisingly easy, hitting mostly sand. I was expecting a lot more in the way of rocks. The hardest part was actually getting the post digger into position which for being a one man post hole digger, it wasn’t all that maneuverable. All in all, it went faster than I was expecting. We stopped for lunch around 1:30. I only had to do a couple more holes around the garden, which was my goal to get finished. But since we still had time on the meter, I dug as many I could along the side of the back driveway. Finally at about 3, I was finished. We hitched it back up to the car, and returned it. Of course we were all pretty sore and tired by then. Mom and I picked up some KFC for dinner. After we got back, I worked on assembling the first few sections of fence, and cementing in the first posts.

Spring Break 2007 Part 5

The day started out a little cooler, with a bit of an overcast sky. This was our last morning at the condo. Mid morning, the kids and I went to a bakery downtown for some coffee and breakfast, and I could get some decent internet. Nice relaxing morning. Afterwards, we rode the bike trail again to the park, letting Ben play for a bit. Finally, we returned, and dropped off the bike trailer at the rental shop, before heading back to the condo. We packed up, and left around 1 pm. We came back the same way we went, stopping at the Castle Creek Winery to pick up some pretty good wine. We arrived back in Grand Junction around 3 pm. On the way back, we listened to another tape of our Desperation book. It is getting weirder and weirder.

After we got back to moms, we unloaded the Durango, then mom and I headed out to get supplies. First we went to Lowe’s to pick up some concrete and other misc. stuff. Then we headed to the opposite side of town to pick up the post hole digger. Finally we went back to Lowe’s to pick up the wire mesh for the fence that we forgot the first time around. We finally got back around 4:30, and we set to work. By 7:30, we had torn out the first section of fence, and had drilled the first 4 holes. I was pleasantly surprised at how easy the digging was. I figured we would be hitting all kinds of rocks remembering the days I helped landscape this yard in the first place.

I was a little sore in the evening, having used my arm muscles that I haven’t really had to use for awhile. Lalie cooked a wonderful stir fry for us, and then we played Farkel. Finally, we passed out, and I actually slept through the night! The first time in several days.

Spring Break 2007 Part 4

Today started off as another gorgeous day. I didn’t sleep that well during the night, little Ben came in the middle of the night and pretty much snored away…or it could have been the Tequila keeping me up. Lalie, Robert, and his boys went for there hike at the Fiery Fireplace, leaving about 9, and not planning to be back till around 2. The kids and I hung around the condo for awhile, with me finding one of the internet spots and going through all my email. Finally we decided to go into town for some bike riding. Hannah fixed us a picnic lunch. Of course, I decided to tour around, and skipped taking the highway into town, electing for the back roads.

On this back road, we found a small park, and stopped there for a bit so the kids could play. It was pretty cool, and had a music park where there were some drum type things, and lots of bells the kids could bang on. They had a blast! After this we went downtown, and found a place to rent a bike trailer for Ben, then we hopped on the river trail, and followed it till we got back to the park. Ben played again, and then we all had our picnic lunch. Afterwards we found that the park was actually the end of the trail, and then we headed back. We found a little ice cream store that makes there own, and I even broke down and had an ice cream. We met up with Lalie and the gang there, before heading back to the condo. At the condo, I went for another bike ride up the road from the condo till I hit the end. It wasn’t all that long, maybe ½ mile, but the climb, OMG. Went up about 1,000 feet. There was a 4 wheel drive trail/ bike trail at the end, but it was too sandy to go far.

Later, Lalie and I went for a drive. We wound up getting on some road that took us up to the LaSalle Mountains in short order. Very pretty and still snow up there. When we got back, Robert and the kids were repelling down the rocks behind the condo. Hannah had a blast with that.

For dinner we all went to a little Mexican restaurant in town. Of course, I had another marg. The food was good; I ventured out some and had a steak fajita. Not much excitement for the evening, other than I got back into the hot tub after everyone went to bed so I could soothe my muscles.

Spring Break 2007 Part 3

The wireless internet we are supposed to have at this place is really sporadic. There are only 3 good places we can get wireless, in the upstairs front bedroom – by the window, in the upstairs bathroom, or on the front porch – but only if there are no cars in the driveway!

Today we started off kind of slow, not getting out of the house till about 11:30 am. But before that, Hannah and I went for a bike ride around the surrounding neighborhoods. That felt good, but I can tell I have lost some conditioning over the winter. Our first stop (and only one of the day) was the Arches National Park. I have only been there in my early days, and don’t remember it worth squat. First we stopped at the visitor center so we could register for one of the hikes to the Fiery Fireplace area. The only available hikes were for the next morning, and not recommended for kids under 5. I elect to stay with Ben and Hannah, so that we could go on a bike ride.

After this, we went into the park, which is an immediate 1,000, some odd foot vertical climb. This part itself was breathtaking, and then we motored through the park for a bit before our first stop. The scenery was amazing, and I was able to get several good photographs while cruising along, including some arches in the distance, and some in the formation stages. Our first stop was at the balanced rock. This in itself was gorgeous, with the rock formations, and the vegetation. Ben and Hannah were quite the troopers just hiking along and enjoying the scenery. After this, we went on a 4-wheel drive road back to a remote arch that we had to hike and climb to for a bit. This was about a 2 mile round trip hike and little Ben made it the entire way, climbing up rocks and everything. We stopped here for our picnic lunch. After this, we went to the Delicate Arch overlook, with another 1.5 mile hike, that also climbed quite a bit. Some more spectacular scenery, with Ben and Hannah making it the entire way!

Finally, we went to the end of the road, and hiked to the Landscape Arch, which is the world’s longest arch. This was the longest of the hikes at a little over 2 miles, with quite a bit of vertical change. The coolest part was at the beginning where the trail went between two huge vertical slabs of rock, each rising several hundred feet. Ben was getting tired by this point, so we started him out in the stroller, but he still walked over half the distance. Of course, wherever there was sand, he stopped to play in the dirt. The Landscape Arch itself was spectacular, gracefully arching through the sky. At its narrowest point, it is only about 6 feet thick. They used to let people under it, and to climb on it, but about 10 years ago, several tons of rock sheared off the bottom of the arch (which happened to be photographed by someone from Fort Collins). Since then they have had it closed off, in case more falls off, or the entire arch collapses. After this, we were pretty tired, so we came back to the condo and chilled out for a bit. We had Pizza for dinner.

In the later evening, Lalie, Robert, and I hung out in the hot tub, drinking margaritas and tequila shots, and just staring at the starts. Here in the dark night desert sky, the stars are absolutely amazing…billions of them. How I wish you could have been there to see those. The hot tub was so relaxing, at around 100 degrees. Finally, we all went to bed to get ready for the next day.

Spring Break 2007 Part 2

The day started off beautiful! Sun is out, and it is nice and warm. Robert and his boys planned to meet us around noon or so, for the trip to Moab. During the morning, we spent some time outside. Ben played with mom in the garden dirt with his tractor and dump truck. I worked on measuring out the fence, and trying to figure out how to build it. The hardest part will be in the garden area, working around the grapevines, garden steps, irrigation lines etc. That will be phase 1. The second phase will be around the rest of the yard, which will be pretty easy.

The view from mom’s yard is always gorgeous. She looks at the Colorado Monument, which is always gorgeous.

Robert was a little late, calling us at 12:30 to say he had entered the valley. We then left mom’s to meet up with Robert at the McDonalds in Fruita. We also stopped at the car wash so we could both wash our cars and bikes. Everything got a little dirty in all the snow the day before. We finally got on the road around 2 pm. Instead of taking the direct route, we decided to take route 128, which follows the Colorado River, and is the scenic route. Scenic hardly described it! It was absolutely gorgeous! All the red cliffs were amazing. Not unlike the Glenwood Canyon, but the reds in the rocks were out of this world.

We arrived in Moab around 4, and went straight to the condo. The condo itself is very nice, set into red rocks, to create a very private condo. There is a hot tub just off the master bedroom, which is sure to get some good use. From the condo, we can see red rock cliffs that line the valley, with the snow covered LaSalle Peaks in the background.

For dinner we went to the Moab Brewpub. Service was slow, but the beers and food were very good. I had a Chili Verde Pork Burrito. A little spicy, but very good. Puts the Green Chile Burrito to shame. The rest of the evening was uneventful, where we looked forward to touring the next day.

Spring Break 2007 Part 1

We left the house 1t 9:55 am, 5 min ahead of schedule, a minor miracle for us. We had to make a few stops on the way out of town, the bank – with donuts for the kids, and a coffee shop to get Lalie and me a skinny Latte. So it was about 10:30 before we actually got on the highway.

The trip itself was pretty uneventful. The kids either listened to Hannah’s I pod, or watched a movie on the DVD player. After we got into the mountains, and were out of radio range, Lalie and I listened to a book on tape. This particular one was title Desparation by Stephen King. We got through the first two tapes before we hit Grand Junction. So far, it is about several people who are traveling through the middle of Nowhere in Nevada, and get pulled over by a psycho cop. So far, he has killed two people, but jailed the rest. The cop also seems to have control of the Coyotes, and the Buzzards, calling them at will.

The weather was cloudy, but fairly warm when we left Fort Collins, in the upper 40’s. It stayed that way until we were going up Eisenhower pass, where it began to snow but not heavy enough to cause any major issues. Pretty much the same going up the eastern side of Vail pass, but coming down the western side was a different story. It became blizzard like in a few locations, and I was really thankful we decided to not bring the trailer…for the likelihood of hitting snow in the passes. The uphill side was in worse shape with several jackknifed semis. We found out later that they actually closed the highway shortly thereafter, so we made it through in the nick of time.

We stopped for lunch at the Wendy’s in Edwards, which is pretty much the halfway point. From there, we made it through to GJ with few problems, other than some rain. Once we got there, we sat on the back porch with mom drinking Ice Tea. The weather was partly cloudy, and eventually rained. Mom made a delicious Pork Roast for dinner. Afterwards, we took the kids to Cold Stone for Ice Cream.

All in all a pretty good trip. We did the whole thing in about 5 hours, with only 1 stop. Pretty amazing for us.

Spring has Sprung!

It seems like a short time between winter and spring this year. Not much more than a week ago we were still having frigid temperatures. The last of the snow finally melted in our yard this week, with most of it gone a week ago.

Now this week, we have tulip bulbs coming up, and crocuses too! Won't be long before I am at it, cutting everything down and getting the yard ready for another showcase summer. Hopefully we will be on more of a normal moisture cycle this year. The past seven years we have been in this house have certainly been eratic from a weather and moisture standpoint. Not much to build or landscape in the garden this year, which is good, cuase this spring we are painting the exterior of the house. That will be a project.

I am also looking for large 20 inch or so hanging baskets for our porch. If anyone knows were to get some, please let me know!

My Current Thoughts and Musings

It has been awhile since I blogged. I apologize to everyone, but to be honest I havn't really been inspired for awhile, or perhaps I just had a serious case of writers block.

This has been a strange winter around here. The last postings I did were of our pre-Christmas blizzard. Oddly enough, a week after that storm, we had another pretty big one, and it seems a weekly storm of some sort. And it has been VERY COLD this winter! Usually we get an arctic blast for a week or so in the winter, then it is over. And we always have some very warm days during the winter when we can get out and enjoy life, go for a walk, play a round of golf, ride bikes, or even clean up the yard a little bit.

Not this year...we are in week 7 of cold snowy weather. The snow from the blizzard is STILL on the ground! and we have hardly had any days above 40, with most of them in the 20's and 30's, or colder. I am getting cabin fever big time. I have a burning desire to build something, but it is way too cold in the garage to fire up the woodshop. Even though the garage is fully insulated, it would cost a fortune to crank up the space heaters to get the temperature into the mid 40's so I could work without gloves. Fortunately, I did figure out how to completely drain the trailer this year, so hopefully no broken pipes this time! I need a break from this weather...Calgon take me away!

On the bright side, business has picked up dramatically in the last couple of weeks! If this keeps up, it looks like this will be a good year, and my inspiration is starting to make a comeback!

Jan. Fugglies

OK, so I am a couple of days late posting, but I found this one in January! This wonderful project is a perfect example of what not to do for project planning and streetscape design! This particular apartment project is in Castle Rock, Colorado, next door to one of my projects. They both were designed and approved roughly at the same time, but what a difference in concepts and execution!

The apartment home site was originally a beautifully sloping site vegetated with scrub oak and other native plants. The developers of the apartment homes probably had a standard building plan they wanted to use (usually on flat sites), so in order to get that product to work on this site, they had to construct some incredible retaining walls to pull this off. The picture shows the result of what happened along the public street adjacent to the site. Not only are the walls incredibly tall (around 40 feet at one point), they were designed without any anesthetics in mind. There is no variation in color, no pattern, nothing. Just a huge homogeneous wall. Then, they didn't even bother to screen it plant material, trees, or shrubs. Just a few trees scattered here and there. Ugly.

Watch for my other post of our project coming up shortly.