24
Apr
2020

I (very) recently started at N.K. BHANDARI, Architecture & Engineering, P.C. as a Senior Interior Designer. I was just getting acclimated to my new company, my new colleagues and my new routine when the COVID-19 pandemic swiftly and drastically changed the way we work.

Within 14 days, 336 hours, 20,160 minutes, I went from working in an open, collaborative and creative work environment in Downtown Syracuse, to working alone at home.

Emily’s Work Space at NKB’s Downtown Syracuse Office

Starting a new job is always a somewhat stressful experience and due to the quick, unexpected shift to working remotely (and alone) from home, I was worried that I would be disconnected from my colleagues, my orientation to NKB would be stalled, and I would somehow be lost in the shuffle.


I very quickly found myself a part of the telecommuting population and began to wonder if I would feel isolated and disconnected from my new coworkers since I had only been working with them for 14 days.

Emily’s Home Office

Here are a few key items that I feel have been extremely important in maintaining a sense of community and family:

Establish regular daily communication.

It’s important that it is not just stagnant information and engages your teammates and is something they can count on receiving every day at approximately the same time.

Get feedback from team members – share the results – it’s fun to see how others have responded.

Reach out to a coworker and ask how their weekend or day has been going.

It sounds like a no brainer, but it’s so easy to get wrapped up in your own life to forget to hit pause and check in with one another.

Have a phone conversation / video chat!

Before COVID-19 became an active part of our lives, I never would have realized how important a quick chat, Microsoft Teams social hour, or a daily fun email capsule from NKB’s President would be or that I’d learn such interesting things about my new work family!

-Emily is a Senior Interior Designer at NKB

29
Mar
2019

In order to call your self an Architect, you need to take the Architecture Registration Exams (ARE), but the process starts much earlier than that. It starts with your education.

Education

Picking a college to start your formal education is no easy process. When your choosing an architecture major there are many things to consider.

TIME: How long do you want to go to school for? 

LOCATION: Does the state you want to get licensed in require a certain degree?

DEGREE: Do you want an associate degree, bachelor’s degree or a master’s degree?

ACADEMIC PROGRAMS: What courses are in the school’s program? Is the program NAAB Accredited?

Experience

Once your education requirement is started or complete there are experience requirements that must be done in order to apply or sit for the exams.

TIME: When do you want to start documenting your experience?

JOB: Does your firm work on a broad range of project?

LOCATION: Does the state you’re in require a certain length of experience in the field?

SUPPORT: Does your place of work support your process to become licensed? Do they provide you with a wide-range of experience?

Exam

Once your experience is underway or completed you could be ready to start the exams!

KNOWLEDGE: Does your experience align with the exam you want to take?

SOURCES: Do you have the right study materials?

APPLICATION: Did you fill out the correct paperwork and pay the required fees?

  

When choosing a school for your education its important to think about the location. Some states require a certain college degrees or attendance at an accredited school in order to take the exams. For example, New York requires

Experience

  • AIA
  • State
  • NCARB
  • AXP

Exam

  • NCARB
  • State
  • Applications

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Brittany is a Senior Designer at NKB

19
Nov
2018

By Rob Gray | Senior Technical Architect

Designing a green roof is a new experience for many like myself.  Here is the story of my first green roof design.


The first step with something new is to collect information from the web and from people who have done it before.  It is best to learn from other’s mistakes because you will not live long enough to make all possible mistakes yourself.

A green roof has two parts: a green garden and a roof that can survive with a green garden on top of it.

The first gardening choice is what type of plants. Trees are possible, but they are the most difficult. They are heavy and need three foot deep soil, so forget trees unless you have a huge strong roof and a huge budget.  Flower gardens and vegetable gardens are possible, but they require a lot of on-going work and water.  Flowers and vegetables need to be planted seasonally, weeded, watered and harvested, there can be bug problems, and deeper soil is needed.  Flowers and vegetables are best for smaller raised planters on an accessible terrace.  A large area of flowers and vegetables is called a farm, which is wonderful if you want a full-time farming job.  A meadow of grasses and wildflowers would be beautiful.  They need less work and watering, but still a significant amount of work.  They need deeper soils because they have deeper roots.

Another issue to consider is fire. When plants dry out or die in the fall, they become a fire hazard.  A GREEN roof is much safer.

What is the practical plant choice that ends up on most roofs?  Little high desert plants called Sedums are the lowest maintenance plants that need the least water and soil.  They come in a variety of colors and leaf shapes.  They are mostly short, about 6 inches tall, and they have puffy waxy leaves to store water.  They can create a colorful roof carpet.  High desert means harsh dry conditions, large temperature swings, lots of wind, and poor rocky soils low in organic nutrients and water.  It takes a tough little plant to survive.  The environment on a roof has a lot in common with the high desert.

Sedums are not totally low maintenance, they need to be watered during long droughts.  During the first two years a lot of gardening work needs to be done to establish a thriving Sedum garden.

The next problem is how to design and build the soil planting bed and the drainage.  This is not a Do It Yourself residential project.  It is a 2,000 square foot flat roof on a government building.  The solution is to find the best manufacturers and contractors and design the project based on their systems.  For the green garden and planting bed I got helpful information from the Landscape Architects at Furbish Company in Baltimore, MD.  They have done a lot of experimenting (and mistakes) and have developed a successful proprietary soil mix and drainage system.  The soil sits on top of bonded mineral wool insulation boards, which sit on plastic waffle drainage boards.  Mineral wool is a dense and fire proof material like a heavy duty version of fiberglass.  Mineral wool is the common insulation in Europe.  The plastic waffle drainage boards are used to drain foundation walls.  The planting beds are surrounded by 6 inch high metal or concrete curbs and paved walkways.  This all applies to flat roofs with a slope of 1 inch in 12 inches.

If the roof is steeper than 2 inches in 12 inches, everything slides downhill fast.  For steep green roofs up to vertical green walls, a structure is needed to hold pockets or trays of soil.  This is a research project for another day.

The second problem is designing a roof to survive a green garden.  Gardens are heavy, constantly wet, and those roots grow down into everything including rock.  What do you think turns mountains into sand? Why, roots and freezing water.  Of course, the roof has to hold the weight of the green roof, and that is what structural engineers are for.  But what type of roof covering can last with a green roof in it? The answer is a hot applied rubber roof with polyester felt reinforcement.  This is a modern version of the first natural tar roofs built 10,000 years ago.  Hot rubber roofs are seamless, and they heal themselves around cracks and cuts when above 70 degrees.  They can be permanently hold pools of water.

But hot rubber/ polyester felt roofs have weaknesses.  Ultraviolet light and sunlight can damage them in six years, so they have to be covered with gravel or concrete and/or pavers.  A top sheet of stone granule coated asphalt saturated felt can protect the rubber.  Roots can grow into the rubber, so a heavy plastic root barrier is needed.  Also, hot rubber roofs are only for flat roofs up to 1 inch in 12 inch slope, or the hot rubber will run downhill.

Over many years, the stretching from summer heat and shrinking from winter cold can pull a rubber roof apart.

This problem was solved in 1947 by Dow Chemical when they invented Styrofoam (Dow Trademark).  This is also called XPS foam or extruded polystyrene foam.  This XPS foam is waterproof and can be left out in the weather.  The common “styrofoam” coffee cup is not made of Styrofoam (Dow Trademark).  Coffee cups and food coolers are made of beadboard, which is expanded polystyrene foam beads pressed together while hot, also known as EPS foam.

A normal flat roof has a structural deck covered by insulation boards that are not waterproof, and a roof membrane over the top to keep the insulation dry.  The 1947 invention of XPS foam, Styrofoam, by Dow Chemical allowed this normal roof to be turned upside down.  The waterproof, weather proof XPS foam could be put on top of the roof membrane to protect it from temperature changes, from stretching and shrinking.  The rubber roof membrane stays the same temperature as the inside of the building, even in Alaska in the winter.  At first this was called an IRMA roof for Inverted Roof Membrane Assembly.  Now it goes by the shorter name PMR for Protected Membrane Roof. Because it is protected from temperature changes and ultraviolet light, it can last a very long time.  The first 60 year old PRM roofs are as good as new.  The XPS foam also needs to be protected from ultraviolet light, so it needs to be covered by concrete, pavers, gravel or a green roof garden.

This PMR XPS foam and rubber membrane roof is the first choice for a roof system when designing a flat green garden roof.  Several hot fluid applied rubber roof manufacturers offer a package that includes the green garden, the XPS foam and other parts like pavers and curbs.

Now I have to wait for my first green roof design to be bid and contracted and for construction to start in the Spring.

 

 

 

18
Oct
2018

Often times we don’t stop to think about how shifts in societal norms can affect the architecture of the buildings we live, work and play in.  A great example of this is a design challenge recently posed to us by an educational client to create the first multi-occupant, unisex restroom on their campus.  As seen in the accompanying rendering, the design features unisex hand washing facilities paired with individual, fully enclosed toilet compartments for privacy. The design and concept is similar to facilities commonly found in Europe.  The over-arching theme is to optimize efficiency by both increasing the number of fixtures and eliminating the segregation that can limit efficiency.  How do you feel about this shift?  Do you see this becoming the new normal?

 

Allison Towles, Senior Interior Designer

 

 

 

27
Sep
2018

Last week, NKB Interior Designers Allison Towles and Lauren Zacher had the opportunity to engage in continuing education and industry connection at the American Society of Interior Designers – New York Upstate / Canada East (@ASIDNYUCE ) event Fall Into Design.  This year’s event was held in Syracuse’s Armory Square and the CEU topics included the importance of engaging in and leading the design process, the future of educational design and understanding the effects of safety and sustainability when specifying contract fabric.  Presentations were given by industry leading professionals from Herman Miller and Teknion and the keynote speaker was ArcCom’s Vice President of Design Amanda Eaton.

Collaboration and interactive learning are the way of the future and a great way to get out of the office and get the creative juices flowing!  Below the designers are shown pushing the boundaries of design with their “school of the future” design.

 

 

 

24
Jul
2018

There are not many buildings designed for obsolescence; but there is one building type where change is actually expected – research laboratories.  Change is the one constant with highly technical research facilities.

You may be wondering why is change the only constant for research facilities? Why can’t the design be adequate for every need without causing a change down the road?  The reason is – the research work being performed in the building is constantly evolving.  Primary Investigators are continually tweaking the research process to achieve the desired results – outside constraints may cause a change in the process.  The life cycle of research processes can be relatively short, ranging from as little as a few months to a year or two.  When these changes in the process occur, it can have a ripple effect on types of equipment, equipment configuration, services required for the equipment, environmental conditions within the laboratory or support facilities required for the laboratory.

With that in mind, when designing for a research facility, providing extra capacity and the ability to adjust just about every component of the facility needs to be taken into account.  The key is, making a change to any of the above process requirements should not cause an inordinate re-work of the building infrastructure.  Certain levels of spare capacity, or redundancy should be taken into account so as to allow future change to occur without causing re-work of the core elements of the building backbone including architectural, structural, mechanical, electrical, plumbing, life safety, communications and security.

The measure of truly good research laboratory design can be seen not when the facility is first constructed, but rather when a change in a laboratory process causes one or more of the core elements of the building backbone to adjust.  If that laboratory re-work can occur without impacting the other core elements of the building backbone and keep the mission critical research work up and running without interruption – that is a good research facility design.

Who ever thought architectural and engineering design could be so much fun!

 

31
Aug
2017

Have you ever tightened a bolt?  How tight is tight enough?  Is it possible to tighten it too much?  Whereas these questions might not matter as much when you assemble an IKEA side table for your living room, they sure do matter when you are tightening bolts in a member connection for a steel building. One convention is to follow the “snug-tight” method where bolts are tightened until first sign of resistance and then given another quarter turn.

Another convention is to use direct tension indicators.  Direct tension indicators are washers that have small protrusions on them.  When the bolt is tightened, the gap between the unturned element and the washer decreases.  The size of the gap is then measured and when it reaches the desired size, the bolt is pronounced tightened.  It is often required to have all the connections in a building inspected to ensure tightened adequacy.  But to go and climb up to every connection and hand check each bolt is both extremely time consuming and still subject to human error, especially when there are a lot of connections and thus a lot of bolts to inspect.

 

Then a special machine is used to tighten the nut without turning the bolt.  But here is where the ingenious part of the design comes in.  When it has been tightened to the required torque, the small spline pops off!  So that is when you know that the bolt is tightened just right and, as an added bonus, it makes for a very quick, easy, and thus efficient connection inspection, you just have to look for all the bolts to have their splines popped off.

Snug-tight conditions and direct tension indicators are still widely used today, so tension control bolts are just another option to use in construction, but a pretty innovative option!

 

 

 

9
Nov
2016

So you have something valuable in your building that you want to protect, like children at a daycare or the entrance to a federal building, yet you want to be able to enjoy the beautiful sunshine and views of the outdoors, what do you do? Thankfully, there are decades of research and many manufactures out there that are able to provide you with products that can provide you a security solution for such a case.

Figure 1: 3M put money inside a bus stop partition in Vancouver, Canada to prove their security glass could withstand nearly any attack by an unarmed person. If anyone could break the glass, they got the money. No one broke the glass.

To tackle this problem, the first real question you have to ask is “what am I protecting against?” Are you trying to protect against a guy with a hammer breaking through your window, an active shooter, falling ice. The gamut is nearly limitless but needs to be defined early on in the decisions making process. Until you narrow that down, the options, and cost, are boundless. If you are trying to stop a burglar, that can be accomplished without too much trouble. If you are trying to stop an active shooter, or are looking for “blast protection”, things get complicated quickly.

The chart below lays out the major categories of protected glazing and potential materials that will accomplish that:Now if that table with all of those options looks confusing, it is. The worst part is that depending on manufacturer, one might make a glass-clad polycarbonate that is UL 752 level 3 rated that is ½” thick, where another might make the same apparent product that is ¾” thick. So how do you choose? It all comes down to what you are trying to protect against, and how important the aesthetic is. Even though many products pass the specific UL or ASTM testing requirements, they often vary in thickness, color, and physical make up and thus may not be suitable depending on the application.

Once a decision is made on what level of security you want and what type of material you want, you then have to struggle with how to secure this very expensive, but very dependable piece of glazing into place. Depending on the material and the manufacturer, you can use a captured system like a storefront or curtainwall system, you can use a custom designed steel framing system with glazing channels, or you might even be able to use mechanical fasteners to anchor through the material depending on its composition. The real factor in choosing the right framing system is the frame’s ability to withstand the kinetic energy distributed to it by the burglar / bullet / blast. Selecting the right frame typically requires engineering calculations and/or consulting a specific manufacturer to select a pre-engineered system.

If all of this sounds rather complicated, it’s because it is. NKB has done multiple projects where the design necessitated that some form of transparent security be provided, and each time we go through answering all of these questions in order to choose the right solution. Transparent security is a building component that requires special attention to detail and to ensure the right outcome. Do not just pick a product off the shelf when dealing with such complex problems, consult a design professional; broken glass in this case is a lot more dangerous than just a sharp edge.

15
Jan
2016

The word design can be defined in many ways, but I like one of the Merriam-Webster’s definitions best where design is described as “the arrangement of elements or details in a product or
work of art.” So in other words, it is both how the colors in a painting make you feel, but also how the frame around that painting is constructed and holds that piece of art to the wall. But when it relates to architecture and the space around you where you live and work, what does design really mean?

Design in architecture can mean things like “the spatial relations of the void and the solid space,” “a harmonic juxtaposition of materiality,” or it can be as simple as “the bathrooms are centrally located for the convenience of everyone.” Making spaces and places that are
beautiful and artistic are an important part of architectural design, but the seemingly simply details of where the restrooms are located, and how many cabinets you have can sometimes be even more important. When it comes to making sure the space around you helps your life and work function better, having a design team beside you that asks the right questions, and considers the easily overlookable functional tasks is how you create a space that works for you.

That’s right, your space work for you. You did know that the role of the building around you is to make your life better and easier right? That is what design means to me; design is functionality that also happens to be attractive. The process of design is listening to you to find out what it is that you need to be successful, and then transforming that into a physical space that helps you be successful. This can be as simple as making sure your new office furniture is arranged correctly, or it can mean making sure your new building is tall enough to accept that new very expensive piece of equipment you just bought. Either way the design of how it WORKS matters just as much (or more) than how it looks. Don’t you want your space designed to work for you AND look the way you want it to?