October 1, 2015

Lateral Design in a Single Family Residence, What is it and Why do You Need it?

While lateral load requirements have been a part of the International Residential Code since it’s inception, until recently, an actual lateral or shear wall design was not required in a set of construction documents for a single family residence in most jurisdictions. At that time, it was just handled with a general framing note citing […]

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Innovative New Modules Bring LED’s Closer to Widespread Use

The recent LIGHTFair International (LFI) in Las Vegas, the world’s largest architectural and commercial lighting trade show, reported record breaking attendance of over 20,000 industry professionals. Many attendees are watching the industry closely to see innovative product solutions, particularly LED’s. This year did not disappoint.  While many manufacturers have shown LED luminaires and lamp (bulb) replacements

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OSMODE System Variable in AutoCAD – How to Reset Your OSNAP Settings With a Number

There will come a time when Autodesk’s AutoCAD will forget your object snap settings. Sometimes a poorly written lisp routine will reset them and occasionally they just change for no apparent reason. Thankfully there is a very easy way to get them back without going through the menus to change the check boxes. AutoCAD uses

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Solatube – Daylighting Alternative

Our office recently participated in a lunch and learn featuring Solatube Tubular Daylighting Devices hosted by Scott Beckman of SolarGreen. Solatube is a device that collects light, similar to a skylight, then reflects the light through highly reflective tubing to the intended destination. The collector is typically mounted on the roof of the building and

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The Design-Build Project Delivery Process – Architect Led

Whenever possible, we encourage our clients to strongly consider the Design / Build process for project delivery.  In our office, the Design / Build process has consistently proven to deliver projects in the shortest amount of time while providing the owner with the most “bang for the buck” in project design.  The key to successful

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How to Avoid Master Plans that Collect Dust – Public Participation

Too often, written documents, or master plans tend to accumulate dust without being implemented.  This can be a very frustrating process for the both the governing entity who commissions the master plan process and for the consultant who writes the master plan.  I have noted a few effective ways to avoid this problem.  The first

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Passive Solar Window Package – A Case Study

Recently, one of our single family home clients asked me to review two window quotes they received, one from Windsor and the other from a Pella supplier. The scope of my review included a general cursory review for quantity and size verification and also to verify that our design intent was being followed with respect

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Links from EVstudio.info to Your Website

With the increasing number of link requests that we get from Consultants, Clients, Engineers, Contractors and Builders, I thought it would be useful to explain how to get EVstudio.info to link to your website. First, an important distinction, generally speaking our evstudio.us domain does not provide links unless we have an interest in the company.

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Give Your Architect Too Much Information

When I meet with new clients about their projects, about half the time they apologize because they feel they are giving me too much information. I tell them “don’t apologize, I’d rather have way too much information than not enough information”. So, if in doubt, pile on the information that you’ve collected. Bring your notebook,

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Check of Existing Roof to Support New Mechanical Load

EVstudio was asked to help a new client determine if the existing structure can support a new heavier mechanical unit load.   Within a day of the client’s first contact, we had visited the site, reviewed the loading conditions and provided a letter of recommendations with a detail for additional support as needed. For many of

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