Vega Portfolio 2024

MICHAEL VEGA

AIA, NCARB, LEED AP, SEED michael.m.vega@gmail.com 281.467.6888 2701 Joseph Street New Orleans, LA, 70115 michaelmvega.com

I N N O VAT I V E

P R OJE C T

A R C H I T E C T

Design Unique Spaces Develop better performing buildings Optimize design process Leverage building science and technology to quickly create quality designs that get built. Integrate new technologies to drive creativity and efficiency, delegate and track team’s tasks, estimate and manage construction costs, estimate and manage design hours and schedule. Solve design problems via collaboration across disciplines and manufacturers. Prioritize client satisfaction and consistently create return customers.

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MICHAEL VEGA

AIA, LEED AP michaelmvega@gmail.com (504)-405-9902 2701 Joseph Street New Orleans, LA, 70115

Building Design, Development, and Documentation Efficient Contract Administration Team management Client management & retention Consultant coordination

T E C H N I C A L S K I L LS Adobe: Photoshop, InDesign Autodesk: Revit, Dynamo, Recap, 3dsmax, AutoCAD, and Architectural Desktop Aviation: FAA Certified Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) Operator, Private Pilot Bluebeam: Revu Digital Fabrication: Makerbot, Vcarve Google/Trimble: Sketchup, and Google Earth Manual: Hand Drafting, Drawing, Modeling, Welding, and Woodworking.

Microsoft: Windows, Office (including Access) Web design: HTML, XHTML, XML, XSLT, CSS, and Javascript P R OF E SS I ON A L

E X P E R I E N C E

Campo Architects New Orleans, Louisiana , 2019- 2023 Project Architect Led teams of 2-10 individuals, sometimes across multiple firms to complete hotel projects, including a 20-story, 343-room, $45M high rise dual-brand mixed use renovation in San Antonio, and a 173-room, $35M new construction hotel in New Orleans.

• Learned a new coding process to rapidly design and document an entry feature submitted for several awards so far, and noted by firm leadership as their favorite submission slide for the year.

• Led 2 of the top 3 most profitable projects through design phase in the office.

• Led 2 of the top 4 most accelerated design schedules in the office, meeting 100% of deadlines through the permit set, and in 48% less time than average.

• Achieved the top 2 fastest average RFI response times in the office, with one owner’s representative stating it was the best he had ever seen.

Michael Vega Design Studio New Orleans, Louisiana , 2019 Sole Proprietor Founded a small architecture firm and provided consulting help to several small architecture firms. Managed billing, maintained client relations, developed best practices and standards to aid clients quickly.

GraceHebert Architects New Orleans, Louisiana , 2008-2018 (Formerly HMS Architects) Architect, Project Manager (Licensed since 2011) Practicing architecture: designing buildings, managing projects, producing SD, DD, and CD documents, and generally observing construction. Leading office-wide Revit implementation. Developing standards, templates, scripts, and families. Designing, coding, and maintaining company website and marketing materials. Flew office drone.

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MICHAEL VEGA

AIA, LEED AP michaelmvega@gmail.com (504)-405-9902 2701 Joseph Street New Orleans, LA, 70115

Used innovative techniques to save the school district $1M on a $7M kindergarten, which avoided a the redesign encountered by concurrent projects, when the market suddenly jumped 25% higher.

Improved search engine optimization on firm website, bringing in a $14M music school project from Wyoming, specifically due to the website and its search placement.

Spearheaded Revit implementation office-wide, starting in 2008, as one of the first offices in the city. Continually refined tools and techniques to save time, reduce errors, and create better buildings.

• This resulted in faster timelines: • 39% reduction in hours spent per sheet, compared to the firms’ average • 30% acceleration of scheduled deadlines, compared to the firms’ average • This also resulted in tighter drawing sets: • Maintained -0.2% change orders on public work.

• Achieved 10% tighter contractor bid groupings than the firm average.

• Improved estimates to be 25% closer than firm average • Improved CA efficiency by reducing time spent per week by 70% over 5 years.

A D D I T I O N A L R E L E VA N T E XP E R I E N C E Open Architecture / New Orleans (formerly Architecture for Humanity) Director, 2010 - Present Directed chapter operations, ran meetings, provided design services, presided over reorganization. Fostered client and inter-chapter relationships.

Ford |Dickinson, AAC, Architectural Intern(Spring 2008) Designed elevations for competitions; produced SD, DD, and CD documents; promotional material; and a project website. Learned new software/OS. SmithGroup, Architectural Intern (Spring 2007) Produced schematic design, design development, promotional material, and construction documents, built models, as well as using Revit for Building Information Modeling (BIM). Learned new software.

DR Horton, Inc, Summer Intern (Summer 2004) Learned small construction tasks; Managed construction of a house in a subdivision.

CADGIS Computer Lab, Lab Monitor (2004-2008) Managed computer labs, maintained equipment. Provided program help.

E D U C AT I O N Bachelor of Architecture, with Honors Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, Louisiana Community Design Minor Architectural History Minor

San Antonio Dual Brand AC Element Hotel San Antonio, Texas Winston Hotels and Concord Hospitality Completed while at Campo Architects

This award-winning project inserted a 343-room dual-brand hotel, meeting spaces, rooftop bar, and 4 floors of office space into an existing 21 story office building, built in 3 phases, with the majority being post-tensioned concrete.

The project was built in two phases, with one hotel completed and operating while the second was under construction, all while the office floors remained occupied continuously throughout construction.

The rooftop bar added a beautiful indoor/outdoor space for congregating, which required a new express elevator and structural reinforcement for the additional loads, all coordinated to be brought through 13 floors of occupied building.

Michael led a fluctuating team of 12 across 3 firms to work with an internal interior design team of 5 to complete the design on an accelerated schedule, with a GMP set issued 8 months ahead of a typical schedule, to aid with the owner’s purchase deadline for the building. From there, after a 3 month VE negotiation with the contractor, the final drawings were broken up and completed in smaller packages to allow for an accelerated construction timetable, making it possible for the contractor to start work months earlier than a typical project

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Michael designed an entry feature for the Element hotel, designed to balance the projecting canopy of the AC Hotel, without projecting from the building.

This feature replaced an expensive, but simple ipe wood slat wall feature with one whose defining characteristic was not materiality but the design itself.

In a weekend, Michael developed a technique to transform a complex feature based on simple rules into a simple table of lengths of straight members to bolt together, using Dynamo and Revit families.

AC Convention Center Hotel New Orleans, Louisiana Wealth Hospitality Completed while at Campo Architects

Campo Architects designed this new construction hotel building on the site of a surface parking lot adjacent to the Convention Center and the Crescent City Connection 173 guestrooms are spread across 4 upper floors, perched above a full 2nd floor of meeting rooms, with a grand stair extending down to the lobby bar and restaurant. The remainder of the first floor is filled with a tenant space and back of house spaces.

Michael led a small team to take the project from a previouslydesigned conceptual design through the design phases, continually refining the design to meet the various practical and regulatory needs.

Michael used innovative design and modeling techniques to a quickly iterate exterior facade options, the best of which [above] met with strong approval both within the firm leadership and from the ownership team.

The final facade was presented to the local HDLC board with a package of high enough quality that it cleared both meetings on the first attempt, for only the second time in their memory.

Using these innovative techniques, we achieved strong metrics: • Top 10% quickest schedules met through permit application • Met 100% of expedited deadlines through permit application • Finished CDs in less than half the hours of the average project • Finished CDs with among the highest profit margins and amounts in firm history.

• Achieved fastest RFI time in office for contractor pricing phase

Mimosa Park Elementary New Kindergarten Wing Paradis, Louisiana St Charles Parish Public Schools

The New Kindergarten Wing at Mimosa Park Elementary adds 22 specialized classrooms to the campus, allowing it to serve the kindergarten needs of the entire west bank of St Charles Parish.

This includes 3 “enrichment” classrooms, specialized for Art, PE, and Music, which would likely be shared with the rest of campus.

It also contains its own cafeteria with warming kitchen, and teacher support spaces.

• $7,277,000 • 41,475 • $177.22 • 75% • 0.2% • 15% • 9% • 7.0% • 3.86%

Final Cost Square Footage Cost per Square Foot Plan Efficiency Change Order total Range of bids Range if uppermost complimentary bid omitted Difference from bid to estimate Difference from final cost to estimate

• $135/Hour Architectural Fee Per Hour Spent • • • •

Top 10 Project rank, better than 80% of projects $103/Hr Break Even Point $102/Hr Firm Average $211/Hr if counting only paid hours, without overtime • 17.12% Profit % of total fee • Top 10 Project rank, better than 80% of projects • -11.32%Firm Average • 23% if counting only paid hours, without overtime • 75% % of work done by myself (2770/3700 Hrs) • Other Team members: • Keith Steger, Architect of Record, reviewed drawings • Glenn Higgins, Attended meetings, guided process • Damien Job, Construction Document Production • Stephanie Norris, Construction Document Production

RENDERING COMPARISONS

Direct sun on Jan. 9th

Indirect Light on May 5th

Daylighting The clerestory and south side windows were placed under carefully calculated overhangs. These overhangs are fixed, and as the sun’s path through the sky shifts throughout the year, the overhangs passively behave differently, allowing the sun to warm the hallways, classrooms, and mechanical rooms in the winter (center), yet shading everything under a bright white roof in the summer (bottom left).

The budget did not allow for dedicated sun control devices, so we used the tools that were available: bright white roofs and soffits, concrete sidewalks, and white tops of cabinets.

User Experience Near the start of design, several teachers from various disciplines were interviewed in their previous spaces to compile specific enduser needs, including the large amount of storage, the easilycleanable surfaces, the often-unusual sizes of the elements to be stored, and even the flexibility required by the distributed “learning center” style of teaching.

In addition, the school districts extensive standards list was followed, and at times was improved via consultation with the owner.

User Experience Special care was taken on the acoustic calculations for the cafeteria, to make sure that the large room with several dozen kindergartners in it would not get too loud.

In addition, an effort was made to foresee and eliminate maintenance issues. For example, rooms with high ceilings were uplit using fixtures within the reach of a ladder.

Value Engineering HMS used innovative design techniques to meet these needs as efficiently as possible.

Building square footage was saved by both using the cafeteria as a corridor and using casework instead of closets.

Wall areas were reduced by both consolidating the mechanical equipment to be able to lower half the roof heights, and deriving equations to compute the most efficient shape for the classrooms themselves.

Results: • 15% Savings per square foot, in relation to a pair of concurrent similar projects.

• $1 Million Total savings estimated due to these efforts

Construction Administration Careful attention to detail during construction allowed several potential problems to be solved at no additional cost.

For example, during the steel erection it was noticed that the two different details, responding to the different structural conditions at the cafeteria roof edge, would misalign where they met at the corner.

After a quick sketchup mockup of potential solutions, supplemental instruction was sent to the roofer before they started work, allowing the final installation to be as sleek as intended.

Ochsner PT and Primary Care Clinic - Bellemeade Gretna, Louisiana Ochsner Health Systems

This former K&B, an existing tilt-up concrete and steel framed building building consists of 18,167 SF of built area, on one floor with a mechanical mezzanine, and contains both a primary care clinic and a separate physical therapy clinic under the same roof.

The physical therapy clinic consists of a 5500 SF gymnasium, full of equipment and therapy tables, as well as five 100 SF treatment rooms. The suite also includes a waiting area, with a custom reception desk that opens to both the waiting room and to the gymnasium, through the glass wall. There is also a pediatrics room to treat children.

The primary care clinic includes an X-ray suite, 23 regular exam rooms, one bariatric exam room, 2 large exam rooms, a shared/Evisit room, a conference room that can double as an exam room, a two-seat blood draw room, a point-of-care testing facility, a medications room, several enclosed offices, and plenty of storage.

• $2,760,194 • 18,167 • $151.93 • 72% • 2.9%

Final Cost Square Footage Cost per Square Foot Plan Efficiency Change Order total

• $123/Hour Architectural Fee Per Hour Spent • • • •

Top 15 Project rank, better than 75% of projects $103/Hr Break Even Point $102/Hr Firm Average $235/Hr if counting only paid hours • 14.56% Profit % of total fee • Top 15 Project rank, better than 75% of projects • -11.32%Firm Average • 36% if counting only paid hours.

• 82% % of work done by myself (1120/1373 Hrs) • Other Team members: • Mike Buisson, guidance at initial design meetings

Crystalline design Each room in this facility has a detailed purpose, extensive equipment list, and its layout affects the user experience greatly.

This was discussed early on with the owners, to allow the sizes and relationships of the granular rooms inform the overall design moves, much like how the relationships between water molecules inform the overall six-sided shape of a snowflake. This is in contrast to the strategy of making an arbitrary design decision, which would inevititably force a compromised design, as practical considerations arise later in design.

This process allowed us to create many layouts quickly, and select an elegant overall solution that met the practical needs without ruining the experience of the space.

University of Kentucky New Band Hall Lexington, Kentucky University of Kentucky

The initial design contains a rehearsal space large enough to fully accommodate their growth to 350 members, as well as the associated ancillary spaces to support that function, including Instrument storage for the marching band, the concert bands, and percussion; an administration suite including a music library; 8 faculty studios with an additional reed-making room; and both 3 large and 10 small practice rooms.

One focus of mine was on reducing the congestion associated with 350 people moving at once. This was achieved by reducing required travel distances through locating related elements as close as possible to one another; by separating unrelated elements; by widening the corridors to allow freer flow through the building; and by providing multiple routes to get from one area to another, allowing the band to move “in parallel.”

• $11,600,000 • 25,000 • $465

Est Cost Square Footage Cost per Square Foot

Another focus was on building in cost efficiency from the beginning.

Our strategies were to use the corridors as lobbies and waiting rooms; to use the required fire stairways as architectural accents; to use the storage rooms as acoustic buffers; and to allow as much circulation as possible to move directly from room to room, reducing the amount of non-programmed space.