Now that the new year is in full swing, we’ve been in contact with Fausto Reyes, and we have had several meetings with him. We were directed to him through Ruben Valencia, the councilman for the site in Ontario. Fausto sits on the planning commission and knows the people above the director of planning, which we think would help. He’s been massaging the project a little bit, and we’ve made several changes to the layout of the shade structure. He also advised to add that we will be grading and filling an area offsite currently used as a parking lot for both the garden as well as the adjacent park. His advice is to fill the area with decomposed granite to improve it as a parking lot. He is due to set up meetings with the department of parks and maintenance to position the project appropriately with the departments. It’s been hard to get a hold of him lately but this is so far the strategy, and he’s the champion of the project at this stage within planning. We have a meeting scheduled with him this week. He also spoke with Scott, the director of planning. Scott said that he would like to see the project done in phases, with permitting and approval for the amphitheater and shade structure done before the two main structures. The fact that the Scott, the director of planning, is talking about the project in terms of phases versus only being interested in the first two structures being built is already an improvement from our perspective.

Besides that, we’ve been focused on producing more presentation drawings as well as adding detail to the elevations, specifying finishes, and choosing window assemblies to be in the best shape possible once we finally do go to the meeting with planning.

Here is a link to the stereoscopic interior rendering of the library that we’ve been working on: http://kirillvolchinskiy.com/huerta_del_valle/_documents/stereo_renderings/library3/

 

 

On a side note, after 5 years and one quarter, I (Kirill) am done with my architecture degree and minor in Regenerative Studies. A lot of people have a diploma, but this one is mine. The last three months of my education were paired with holding a full-time design job and a long commute. Only after those three months I came to understand how difficult it was for my classmates who held jobs with rigid schedules while going to school.