Passive Architect
Views and Vistas
Materials in the Garden
Outdoor Rooms below the canopies of Virginia Spruce or Katsura Trees left for 100 years.
Pathways and Places, Edges and Boundaries
Garden Ornaments
Join the Architecture department at Fairmont State University this Thursday, October 20th to listen about the life and work of Julie Beckman, architect of the 911 Pentagon Memorial.
The reception will begin at 6 in the Engineering Technology building on campus (#20 on this map.) The lecture begins at 7pm.
It was a nice Saturday to enjoy a West Virginia town along the river. Details from many of the buildings caught my eye. Enjoy it for yourself by visiting Fairmont, West Virginia. I suggest stopping by the local Joe N’ Throw for a brew of any kind. The place is filled with a few students and older locals, but I found a free table for my own peace and quiet for a few hours.
A street view by Google offers a lively account of what the corner of High and Pleasant Street already look like in downtown Morgantown, WV. With Tin 202 keeping the corner alive into the night, the hip residents that frequent the Real Juice Bar, Black Bear or the Co-Op by day now have another venue to look forward to. The surrounding area has continued in the last few years to be revitalized and the owners of the popular night spot, Tin 202, have decided to keep on renovating their own block. The owners, alongside of head chef Josh, hope to open a lunch/cafe and wine tasting bar that will offer craft cheeses, meats, and more.
The Mills Group has been asked to help with this renovation, and we’ve started by describing the desired scene in sketch.
Once inside, the two new storefronts will be opened up to one another. The left side will have a craft-food retail area and extend into the new dining room space next door. In the market, a large kitchen will be open throughout the length of the space so that customers shopping for special meats and cheese, may see exactly how their food is being prepared.
Sketches turn into floor plans and details. Then, we begin to assign materials that can be shared with the client to assure them that the space appears and functions the way they need it to. The initial sketches become construction documents with which contractors may begin to be involved in the collaboration. We’ll keep you posted so that you can plan to sit, sip and sketch in the newest space in Morgantown too!
The arch of Constantine, it’s 1700 years old. There is a lump in my throat as my small feet move, my legs stretch to step along the 1′ square stones, marking the ancient Roman road. The stones are glossy after all of the rain. We are in the forum, a place we can walk around.
Most of Rome’s ruins are below the street, to the enjoyment of my companion. She is from Mexico City, and this ancient city reminds her of Aztec ruins, temples and pyramids hidden below the modern city she knows.
The Pantheon doors don’t tell you about what’s about to happen. My soul is taken, uplifted below the moon disk looming, hovering, suspended and heavy am I, just left standing and staring until someone comes along to accidently brush my shoulder. The Pantheon is even older, built 1900 years ago, remaining as a backdrop to the many movements of people, for a new history.
Gloss-lipped sun, over the road that carries morning back to Italy. I love going to a place that’s in my blood. The rays lay down, everyone else moving with me is pale and excited.
Once in the air, we fly along with the barrier islands of the states before heading eastward.
Once in Rome we enter the city through one of the fourteen gates, and bow down before the sunken oval entrance. A mosaic of Jesus greets us, and then we are allowed to sleep.
It isn’t long before we need to draw the Colosseum. The historic mass that takes up the end of a city block. The figure that is recalled so easily in the mind, stands before me in a way that pushes back.
A new building is proposed for downtown Wheeling, WV and it leaves the architect’s desk today.
Read about Mills Group‘s involvement as the architect, and all of the consultants it took to prepare documents in the ground breaking coverage of The Intelligencer.
It’s always difficult to finish. It’s even more difficult to finish a project as large (70,000 sf), out of masonry and through two winters in a little over a year! The Grand Opening party is scheduled for June, but the hotel will open its doors before that. The contractors who have seen that every joint is caulked, ever louver installed, and that each fan is drawing the required air, have been a blessing to the architect. I am thankful that each member of the team cared as much about providing the owners and the Marriott brand with a hotel that is of the utmost quality. Not only were things finished the right way, but they were finished the best way. Thank you, thank you. Come and visit the hotel for yourself soon!
Look at the hotel now! A year ago today the Marriott site looked like this:
The drawings weren’t even complete. They looked like this, without bathrooms in the guest rooms, because we were determining the pod geometry with Oldcastle.
The first week of March 2015 was spent preparing specifications and the Marriott Courtyard prototype drawings for compliance, selecting finishes and fixtures from the options and coordinating those with our MEP trades. Structural coordination and structural detailing went on simultaneously. Mills Group had the fortunate experience of working with great owners, West Place LLC. Throughout the project we coordinated with A LOT of consultants including: the general contractor, Waller Corporation, Oldcastle for bathroom pods, our MEP and Structural consultants at Allegheny Design Services, Cheat Road Engineering for the site, Marriott of course, Mack Industries who provided our precast floor plans, Concrete Fabricators on the stairs and small details surrounding the outside, Fairfield Landscaping, Gilliana Pools, REDI Kitchen Consultants, Mongiovi, Morgantown Security and Fire, and Schindler to name a few. On the sub-contractor side, Elk Electric, Pine Hollow Mechanical, Inc., JMJ who built the cabinetry and Daniel W’s FF&E team who installed it have all worked alongside Waller’s tireless team to be where we are today with a space that is finishing beautifully.
Our architectural firm uses many technologies to complete our work. Revit was used to draft this project during the production drawing phase and during our most recent punch list efforts we’ve used Blue Beam Revu. More on that program to come. For now, enjoy the final few stages of construction and FF&E setup as the Mills Group team sees the progress during the punch list process. Enjoy the images below!
And then, two weeks later, photos by Mariah:
Foundations began less than a year ago for the Morgantown Courtyard by Marriott, and now a few months before opening, the building is standing with a real presence.
Mills Group made it on OldCastle’s blog recently for this project in Morgantown! Check it out here.
December has been unseasonably warm. As of today concrete and asphalt surround the building awaiting the winter opening. Winter sod will be installed soon as the finishing touches from floor five down are complete. At the start of December I walked the building with my colleague and we marveled as we watched sixty drywall finishers, some on stilts, move through level three to mud, sand and paint the drywall. The top two floors look like white boxes awaiting their finishes. Soon the Marriott Sign will arrive, and the building will have a name to the public. The collage of photos below were taken by Waller Construction.
