in plan,

Bronx, NY (certainly not English)

Allen

Andrija,

Fantastic. The design is so pleasant and relaxing. They way you captured the fabric is just wonderful. Please explain how you did it.

Allen

Majid,

I think the way you got the glass pieces is amazingly beautiful and captures the quality of the glass in a wonderful way.

Beautiful man, just beautiful.

Allen

Robert,

Only a million dollar cottage? Life must be good out west. Here in the east, that might get you the gazebo and some lights.

I guess paradise is out west then!

Allen

Tom,

I agree with Tina. I would delete the car entirely and the image would be improved. The bike is not nearly the distraction the car is.

Everyone is a critic.

Allen

Robert,

They are quite beautiful, especially the first one. I'm curious about the project they were created for. Care to share the story behind the components?

Allen

Dave,

I agree with Dave (dtr). I track several projects that I'm responsible for and the method I found that works is this:

1. Write notes somewhere every day about what you did, how many hours you spent on it and every project is given a unique project number and name. Most architects us a 5 digit number with the first two digits being the year and the last three being the sequential number assigned to that project so 08-040 Dave's Lake House, would be the 40th project in 2008 and would be a lake house for Dave.

2. I don't use the looseleaf notebook approach, which has many advantages like being able to add pages or even different types of pages. I use a standard spiral bound notebook with the spirals across the top (so I'm never writing with my hand on the spiral. For me, I can't lose a page, since I'm not the neatest guy in the world. Since some of my projects span years, I can have more than one notebook but I put an Avery lavel on each one and number them.

Key is entering your time somewhere every day. If you wait until the weekend, you're totally guessing and probably forgetting billable time.

Works for me.

Allen

Majid,

Thank you. I did download your skydome and there are three different materials, but when I try to apply them (on my wife's home computer), the sky images disappear and all I'm left with is pure color. Tried to adjust opacity, etc but nothing worked.

I'll try again in the office.

Allen

Majid,

Those are quite beautiful Are they photos or something you created from scratch? They are almost too beautiful to use as mere backgrounds.

Thanks for sharing,

Allen

Fred,

Very interesting and totally cool. You have a vivid imagination seeing architecture in everything around you.

Thanks for sharing your visions with us.

Allen

Koosie,

Just beautiful work. The detail and balance of the composition of buildings is excellent.

Allen

Tom,

No offense taken so no apology needed.

You're way to modest fella. Your color sense is wonderful and so pleasant on the eye. When I try, my wife asks if I've been at the medicine cabinet again.

Anyway, I so enjoy and am inspired by what you and others do.

Much to be thankful for and much to learn by stopping by and looking.

Allen

Happy New Year tto you and your family,

We have a woman in our office from Iran and she brought in sweet cookies with raisens (they were so good), to celebrate the occassion.

With so many cultures and celebrations, its a wonderful way to go through the year - enjoying everyone's holidays and holy days. Not to mention getting to eat so many wonderful and interesting food!

Thanks for sharing,

Allen

Tom,

Truly appreciate your kind workds. I've watched and admired your work for so long (and still wish I could have your sense of color and harmony) that I thought it was my turn to post work I'm doing and how SketchUp has helped me.

The clouds are part of a skydome series I've downloaded from Formfonts that seem to work quite well (when the texture doesn't mysteriously go away.

The project was approved by the Congregation and we will be bringing it to the community board for approval, hopefully starting in April.

Allen

Good morning Tom,

Thank you. The yellow band I think you're referring to is the horizonatal wood siding base. No religious significance. Added to keep the Dryvit off the ground and out of harm's way.

Allen

Thanks Bob. Bids are due tomorrow!

Stay tuned...

Allen

Tom,

Sorry to hear they voted the project down but I have to say that your color palette is the most pleasing thing I've come across. The colors work so well together. I wish you'd publish the palette and rules of which color sets go with which.

Thanks for inspiring us all and we look forward to the next project of yours and the next way you choose to present it.

Allen

Pete,

Thanks for taking my comments as compliments to you and others (like Kwistenbeibel) who have advanced the nature of what we do as architects to produce visual imagaes of our ideas in ways we didn't have 5 short years ago. Whether in the photerealistic arena or (take a bow Susan Sorger) the non-photorealistic modes, we are all far better off.

Wish I had tbese tools years ago but happy to have them now.

So thanks Pete for challenging us all, teaching, cajoling but mostly for sharing. Ever up in north Jersey, drop in and I'll take you to lunch or dinner.

Allen

Pete,

Where do you find the time to explore and develop these things? I hope you have some time to enjoy the simple pleasures like free time to read a book, take your bride to dinner or just sit and stare out the back door and do nothing.

Of course, I love seeing what your mind creates.

Thanks,

Allen

Hi Ecofeco,

Thnaks for the compliments. The sky is a skydome component I d/l from Formfonts.

Allen