Featured Architect

Dave Kenney
Philadelphia, PA

A Penn State University graduate, Dave Kenney is the head of the Philadelphia VectorWorks Users Group. He started his career as an intern, doing high-end vacation beach houses and bay-front condominium projects, then moved on to a larger Architecture/Construction/Development where he started working on hospitals, a large hotel/conference center, suburban office parks, multifamily residential, an adult continuing-care development, and large industrial projects.

In 1995, now with Design Build Associates, Dave started his largest project, a multi-phase private planned community in North Carolina.

This project was on property owned by the Transcendental Meditation Movement, and they wanted to create a resort community for their membership. In Phase I, they designed and built the core facilities consisting of with 3 main buildings - a 22,000 sf assembly hall, a 30,000 sf dining hall, and 150 one-bedroom guest suites of 1200 sf each, all constructed on a mountaintop in western North Carolina. In 1997 they opened a branch office in North Carolina, and started work on the second phase of the community.

Vedic House, Design Build Associates

Phase II work included numerous custom single family residences. Each residence is in the $150.00/sf to $300.00/sf price range. Each house is designed to follow the principles of Sthapatya Veda Architectural design, which the members of the TM movement believe will facilitate the Meditation process. Sthapatya Veda Architectural design is based in ancient Sanskrit literature involving the place of man in his environment.

Each Vedic House design is specific to an individual owner, while following certain basic Vedic principles of proportion, placement, and finishes. The placement of different functions in the house is set by Vedic design: the Kitchen, representing fire, is always placed in the southeast quadrant of the building. The Puja, or meditation room is always in the northeast quadrant. The prime entry is on the east, and the Brahmastan, or Brahma is placed on the building's North/South and East/West axis intersection. The Brahmastan is the center, and is left unoccupied by any specific function.

The materials selected for the building were, to the greatest extent possible, all natural materials. For instance, they used natural woods and stone, wool carpets, and cotton batt insulation. They also attempt to mitigate the presence of magnetic fields, as they are thought to inhibit the meditative state. To this end they substituted steel reinforcing bars with fiberglass rebar, and minimized electrical circuits in the vicinity of the Puja Room and Master Bedroom.

Vedic House, Design Build Associates

Dave explains how VectorWorks played a role in their designs:

"While working on the NC projects, we found that some of the TM staff assigned to the project had been using MiniCAD. It became fairly easy to exchange files between our clients and our office. We also exchanged files with the Vedic Master Architect's office in Holland. When both the Vedic Master and the Owner were satisfied, we assigned the CDs to either the NC office or the Philadelphia office, where a small group of staff would create the Construction Documents. This process became easier with VW8's workgroup referencing capabilities. Another feature we use quite a bit is VW ARCHITECT's redlining tool. I can redline a drawing file in Philadelphia, email it to the NC office, and staff there would pick up the changes. This saves us time and long-distance phone charges."

Design Build Associates have done Vedic houses all over the country in this manner. They have designed Vedic houses in Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Ohio, Iowa, Oregon, and British Columbia.

Dave added, "Since the Vedic houses tend to employ similar construction techniques, we have used VW's symbol technology to create a library of detail symbols. We have symbols for detail components such as footings, reinforced CMU, built-up headers, eave trims, and the like. We have also composed assemblies of the symbols into details and made symbols of those for foundations, floor systems, walls systems, and roof systems, with complete notes and dimensions."

The project was finished late last year, and this spring Dave started his own office in suburban Philadelphia. He is the sole practitioner concentrating on residential and small commercial architectural services, with some construction management services as projects warrant. Although not a practioner of the Veda philosophy, Dave has shown how an architect can step outside the box to fulfil the requirements of his clients, and bring them exactly what they are looking for in a design.

Trade Shows

Date

Location

JLC Live

Sep 28 - 30

Las Vegas, NV

LDI

Oct 18 - 20

Las Vegas, NV

ASLA

Oct 18 - 22

San Jose, CA

Build Boston

Nov 12 - 14

Boston, MA (Booth #250)

GIE

Nov 14 - 16

Nashville, TN

JLC Live '02

Dec 6 - 7

Portland, OR

Training Seminars

Date

Location

Aug 14 - 15

Columbia, MD

Aug 16

Columbia, MD

Aug 21 - 22

San Francisco, CA

Aug 23

San Francisco, CA

Sept 11 - 12

Columbia, MD

Sept 13

Columbia, MD

AIA Accreditation
NNA is pleased to offer AIA Continuing Education credit for our seminars. Architects can earn 16 learning units by attending the VectorWorks Fundamentals course, and 8 learning units by attending the VectorWorks Hands-on 3D course. For additional information, contact marketing@nemetschek.net