design caffeinated

There’s a story I wanted to share for a while now. It happened a few years out of college, while working at my first REAL job in architecture.  

It was around this time of year, maybe a few weeks earlier. There was still snow on the ground, but everything was starting to melt. I worked in a small practice, mainly myself and my boss. We were a little slow in the office, but pretty normal for that time of year. My boss took on a project from a real estate friend to measure an existing building. 

The building was an old warehouse in a far northern suburb of  Chicago. I believe they built boats back in the day. So, it was a big open warehouse and an attached office. 

What was odd about this measuring project was what you didn’t see from the outside.  The office building was gone, sorta. The first and second floors were demolished, but the basement and sub-basement were left intact. A feable attempt at sealing the basement ceiling from the elements led to the lower levels being flooded. There was a small hallway that was left to access the levels underground from the warehouse. 

Our job was to measure those basements. Dark. Cold. Wet. Did I mention dark?

If you’re a fan of Resident Evil, you’ll know where I’m going with this one. I’ve never been scared to measure a building, but as we climbed down the concrete stairway and through the vault door. Oh yes, did I say the basements were used as vaults?? And down the next set of stairs, down and down until we got to the lowest level. Alone. Just a flashlight, that sucked. We made our way through this maze of concrete measuring what we could see and feel. 

Realizing that there were electric generators sitting in water, that we were standing in, a few feet away, made me realize how stupid I was. Thankfully, they weren’t on. 

Driving back to the office, I came to grips with that I was most scared of, was so cool.  I love old creepy buildings.

Have any similar memoirs to share?