12 Apostle coastline 

Ready with the wow pieces.

Well the structure/basic form of the building is complete. Now come the wow pieces, these elements that set about transforming the building. This is the Murcutt/Lewin touch. Whilst the buildings form is clearly Murcutt inspired, now it will be the roof, the windows, the entry doors, the access to the private courtyard that will externally create the look and feel of the building. These are not trinkets adorning the building but actually considered elements that are then brought together for a specific function. It will be through the combination of these elements that give the house its feel.

What do I mean, well the Murcutt/Lewin aesthetic whilst has been crafted and honed over a career, there is a evolutionary process in understanding how materials can be used. It is clear that these elements if plagiarised would unlikely to be reflective of the original intent. The design process and the evolution of these pieces for the function that they where chosen to perform has been well considered. There is a palette of materials but from my interpretation there is a sureness revolving around material selection, its form and functional use that takes time to evolve. As a client of the process you need to be confident in the work being created, considered in the response or option to introduce reduced thickness of steel plate, application of paint, whilst such action may reduce cost, from my experience this all needs to occur early in the design process, an attempt to maintain a look and feel whilst seeking out saving as the building is underway from a use of material selected is detrimental to the visual look of the building.

Quick, Quick , Quick, Quick….. slow

I have learnt that the pace of construction for a new building varies. Whilst you can plan, co-ordinate and liase with the builder and suppliers for the continued manufacturing of materials off site and supply of product, production bottlenecks can and do occur, even in unlikely locations. Now it is how quickly you anticipate/spot the bottleneck and work to keep your production on track. Over the last month Moonlight has suffered so where was the production bottleneck, well seasonal bouts of the flu, and the recruitment by a major heavy industrial operation in the district at considerable salary premiums of skilled sub-trades in the region drained one of the sub-trades of staff. This second bottle-neck is worth a case study in some many ways from a business perspective.

Moonlight does not have a big team, we are building one special house, but the learning from this project here translate for main event, the hotel, whilst the team would be larger it will be prudent to spend some time at the white board thinking through the what ifs with key advisors on the hotel.

Still this part of the experience is behind us, production rate of material has picked up to the norm and move forward, locking down the last of the sub trades.