An article recently caught my attention- it has to do with a condominium building built in San Francisco that has started to sink. Of course, this isn’t any small condo building, this is a high rise, with multi-million dollar units and high profile owners. Of course, the building’s reps claim that the building started to sink when a government transit station was started adjacent to the building site. The transit people have countered that the  building’s foundation was designed wrong and that’s why things are moving. The one thing I know absolutely-the building’s homeowners had nothing to do with either thing- yet they are the ones caught in the middle.

Things you don’t see is one place many builders and developers skimp. If they aren’t going to own it later, they often cut the quality of these things or will try a new, riskier technique or material if it saves them money. No one will see it, who will be the wiser? Well, physics exposes all shortcuts! Cheat on flashings, sooner or later water gets in. Cheat on concrete, uh oh! In this case, I would have thought that the review process might have thrown up a flag if the foundation design wasn’t up to the task at hand. On the other hand, that’s something that the developer’s design team should know about. Ultimately, the truth will come out in court-there’s no way this isn’t going to end up there.  Sweating about things you won’t see is much of what I do- that’s where I protect my customers, my employees, my vendors, and, ultimately, my company and my family. Sometimes it frustrates  vendors, designers, or workers, but it isn’t their name on the sign. In San Francisco- regardless of who did what, that building is sinking- 16″ so far, which is massive!- and I’m not sure that there’s anything that can be done to stop it from sinking more. Eventually, it should find an equilibrium, but how far down it will go before that is anyone’s guess. And what that means for people that paid a ton of money to live there and will be stuck in the middle of a fight they couldn’t have know was going to theirs, and they will play a minimal role in solving, is anyone’s guess. Story on Sinking San Francisco Building

This week I had the chance to tour a few of Washington DC’s iconic buildings. What struck me was the fantastic detailing and craftsmanship in buildings built during the country’s infancy. The British burned down the Capitol Building during the war of 1812, and craftsman began immediately to rebuild it. Using strictly human powered hand tools, they built brick arches, groined ceilings and domes and trimmed them out and glazed them with the most meticulous attention to detail. Structures that today would be simply covered in drywall, they covered in hand-made millwork of massive size, carved plaster flowers and plants of intricacy and realism, and handcut glass that was made to fit individual domes and windows. Massive marble and sandstone columns with custom carved capitols and bases reflecting the things of importance to our countrymen from that period add to the gravitas of the structures. Inside the building are sculptures and artwork reflecting master artists from the past and reflect the weight of importance placed on people and events from that time period. Of course, more recent works reflect more recent events and people. Someday, people from a future United States, will marvel at the workmanship and care taken from even these more recent works, and will reflect on those that crafted this crucible of freedom. The permanence of what we build is something I think of often. What will people in the future think about what we’ve built, and what kind of people we were that built what the future will, hopefully, value and embrace. The homes and projects we build are a reflection of ourselves, and the times we live in, and will be a sort of time machine that future generations can look through to see us as if they were looking through a time travel looking glass. I hope they like what we’ve crafted as much as I now admire the work of these long dead and nameless craftsman that painstakingly sweated the details back in 1814-

I often take snippets of bad movies that have made an impact on me, and use those as analogies for things that happen to us every day. One such snippet comes from an obscure Gene Hackman/Keanu Reeves movie called  The Replacements . There’s a scene where Hackman and Reeves are talking about outward calm vs. inner turmoil, and Hackman says that “we’re just ducks on a pond”- above the water, little to no movement, below the water line, where you don’t see anything, little duck feet moving furiously. Often, construction is like that. Seemingly little getting accomplished, and then all of a sudden massive progress. During that quiet time, though, the groundwork for later work is happening. Pipes being laid, ground being prepped,  foundations being readied. Then, BOOM, seemingly all at once a project is close to completion. This summer, we had many “ducks-on-a-pond” times and now, as projects are making great progress, BOOM, we’re getting close to finishing. Seems like all at once. Yet, all of us working know just how furiously our feet were moving all summer and fall to get us to this point-  check out one of these projects- Poolhouse Progress