Got Lockers?

We have staff who like to run or walk at lunchtime, and we have staff who ride bicycles and row boats to work.  So, at the new building, we’re providing a pair of staff locker rooms, with showers, to make it more attractive and convenient for us to use alternate methods of transportation to and from work.  The cool part of the story is we’ve saved a load of workable lockers from the landfill in the process.  Bremerton School District allowed us access to the former Bremerton Junior High School, scheduled for demolition soon, and for a small fee we were able to pull student lockers from the hallways for reuse at our place. It’s another part to the story of preserving and recycling pieces of community heritage in our project downtown.  (And -- just think what’s been in those lockers?!!!!!!)

Got Stripes?

The nicer weather allowed the contractor to paint the building’s exterior.  We decided our paint scheme should highlight the simple nature of our inherited concrete box.  Finally, there is some exterior expression -- but still it only hints at the incredible amount of work that has taken place inside.  Those watching from City Hall across the street will have to go inside to appreciate the transformation this old retail building has undergone on its way to a new life as a professional office building. 

A Thoughtful Gift, and More Reuse

A Tim Ryan Construction crewmember, Nathan Stuart, built this table as a gift for Steve Rice. The table is made from reclaimed car decking from the old skybridge which used to connect our building to the long since gone Sears department store on 4th Street.

Thank you Nathan!

To see photos of the old skybridge, click here.

The Feature Wall

The crews have framed one of the more prominent pieces in the new office design – what we call The Feature Wall.  It’s a 30 foot long wall that acts as an organizing element, reaching from the front door past reception and into our central forum area.  The wall (unfinished in this photo) will be clad in 1x15 boards that we think are, well, special.  The boards will be sawn from a supply of huge 3x15 beams that now hold up a portion of the old building’s upper floor.  We’re removing some of those beams to make an open section in the upper floor, and this is one of the ways we’re planning to reuse them.  They should be real nice to look at, as they were cut from old growth Douglas Fir back in the 40’s.  The recessed slot in the feature wall will hold a graphic timeline of important events in the firm’s nearly 24-year history.

Spaghetti in the Floor

Our central forum is designed to be a flexible space for use by our firm, by visiting students, and for community events.  We expect to share a lot of information. So, connection points for power, video, and data transmission are spread throughout the forum, requiring plenty of conduit – just take a look at these pictures.  You might ask why the conduit stretches all over the floor, and that’s a good question.  The old floor slab, still visible, sloped in all directions to provide drainage for the days when our building was a Sears Auto Center.  Soon, our contractor will use rigid insulation to level everything out and cover the conduit, and then they’ll pour a new slab on top – this one will be flat!

Warmer and Brighter Everyday

Late last week and early this week, work has been going on that has made a great change in our project.  After months of seeing wood and metal framing inside the building, everything is turning white as a result of the insulation work, and right after it, sheetrock!  Now, the upper floor – to be our design studio – is noticeably warmer and much, much brighter.

This is the second and final step of the wall insulation.  The crews stapled a fiberglass fabric – called a bibb – across all the wall framing, then blew fiberglass wool into the cavities.  Now, combined with the initial layer of sprayed-on, closed-cell polyeurethane foam, the R-30 walls are keeping the building warm – even without a true heat source and with 35 degree temperatures outside.  The super-insulated shell is working already.

Enjoy these pictures of the studio, still retaining much of its warehouse character.  There’s so much great light bouncing around the space now that the sheetrock is going up.  We can’t wait to get up there!

Steven M. Rice, LEED AP®

LEED® Design Submittal on Target

The new office project’s design submittal came back with good news from the US Green Building Council: of the 57 points we submitted, 27 are anticipated without question and – great news! – none were rejected.  We are still tracking on what we hope will be an eventual total of 88 points – far exceeding the 80 required for the goal of a Platinum rating.  Those participating in the project’s LEED® effort are doing a great job – our Administrator Shawn Dinkuhn, assisted by our firm’s LEED® guru Robbie McNamara, Greg Belding, Jeremy Southerland and the site and office staff at Tim Ryan Construction: Adam Vega and Lee Capps, in particular. Of course, we couldn’t do it without the leadership of our mechanical engineer, Shawn Oram at Ecotope in Seattle.

Here’s a photo of the newly-arrived sun screens, installed last week.  These screens play a role in our energy model, keeping unwanted heat gain out of the building in summer months.

Steve Rice, LEED AP®