Red River Field Team

Here is a photo of the people I work with each day here in the field. This is an action photo, not a portrait. I just thought you'd like to see part of the environment I'm working in. The office is just spare room on the military base. We find a place like this at each base where we can recharge our laptops and plug in our printer. Today, being our 8th day here, we spent most of our 10 hours on these darned hard chairs doing CAD and spreadsheet work.

Six of our team are young single people. Most have been out of college just a few years. Their titles range from Civil Engineer, to Environmental Scientist, to CAD Drafter, to Soil & Agregate Technician. They all use Tough Books, which are a type of laptop that is water and shock resistant. The project owns them. The older team members, including me, are married with children and we all have professional registrations and many other credentials. We use our own fragile laptops. There is one other architect like me. The other two are project managers with backgrounds in field inspection work. All these people have quickly become friends. They are not "Clique-ish" in the least. They are all very interesting and good natured.

On a typical day, I take an assistant from among these young people, with our computers, to several warehouses to measure and draw them, take photos and fill out schedules for wall and door types, heights of trusses, roofs and locate curbs and mezzanines. Our first priority is to determine the volumes of storage space available in each building. We collect other information to document the aspects of each building which will help our client manage and maintain their facilities for years to come . Also attached is an aerial of Red River Army Depot. I'm working on the 14 similar looking white roofed buildings on the east side of the depot between 3rd and 8th streets. Probably they are about 50 years old.

The depot stores all kinds of army stuff, but they also rebuild Hummers and tanks. There are lots full of these which are newly painted and reassembled. There are also lots full of those which have been badly damaged. I have seen some tanks which are totally destroyed, having run over mines or IEDs in Iraq or Afghanistan. The inch-thick steel armour plating has been shattered like a clay pot. It is a sobering thought that for each one I see there were also many lives lost in and near them.

On a brighter note, RRAD also has some of the new MRAPs, which stands for Mine Resistant Ambush Protected Vehicle. They have a V-shaped underbelly. After an IED attack, the wheels may be blown off the thing, but the soldiers climb right out with few injuries but bruises. They are a real life-saver. Less a jeep and more like a "short bus" on steroids. I just wonder when SUV dealerships will start selling a glossy chromed version to civilians.

I'll drive home from here on Friday. Eight hours through the Arkansas Ozarks is actually quite refreshing. I'll be back here the first few weeks of April. In May, I believe I'll be in Oklahoma at Tinker AF Base. Well, it's not great to be away from home so much, but it's better than being at home all the time without a job at all... like so many architects. I read in a trade journal that 17,000 US architects have been laid off in the last 5 months! Etc, etc. Tune in next week...