It's Tamale Time!

CG&S project manager Danny Scott shares a laugh with some hungry clients!


Eating homemade tamales during the holidays is a time honored tradition around these parts, and this year we're bringing back the CG&S Tamale Dinner to say "Thanks!" to our wonderful clients, business associates, and friends of the company. For years, CG&S threw an early December all-day open house / tamale-fest at our South Austin office. Now, after a six year hiatus, the 2009 version of this tasty and fun event will fire up this Friday, December 4, from 12:00 noon to 8:00 PM.

All of the CG&S designers, architects, estimators, project managers, carpenters, and administrative staff will be on hand to share good food and good company with all of you. I find it's a great way to catch up with past clients, get to know new clients better, and connect to suppliers and subcontractors in a non-work environment.

The weather forecast is calling for a nice mild sunny day, so I hope to see lots of friends on Friday!

Stewart

Austin NARI Awards Night

CG&S project managers [l-r] Danny Scott, Jay Schaefer, and Jon Strain on the red carpet


CG&S senior design architect Gregory Thomas and project manager Jay Schaefer celebrate a win!


CG&S general manager Dolores Davis won the Austin NARI Presidents Volunteer Service Award


Austin NARI held its annual Contractor of the Year awards night last week. CG&S submitted eight projects of varying types, styles, and budgets, and we had the good fortune to win seven times. Also, our own Dolores Davis won the first ever Presidents Award, in recognition of her service to NARI, and her infectious spirit of volunteerism.

Here are some of the winners.


A finely crafted kitchen.


A cool and serene bath.

A dramatic sun-filled living room.


Many thanks go out to all of our family of clients, employees, consultants, vendors, subcontractors, and suppliers that make our projects special. And thanks to Austin NARI for putting on a first class event!

Stewart

Memo to the CG&S Universe

SKUNKWORKS MEMORANDUM

TO: THE CG&S UNIVERSE
FROM: STEWART DAVIS
SUBJECT: CG&S LIGHTING STANDARDS
DATE: 11/4/2009

CG&S LIGHTING STANDARD

I like to think that we do a pretty good job of lighting design. For many years we have held the goal of setting a design studio [The Skunkworks] standard light fixture specification. Our intent is to simplify and standardize the electrical fixtures used in our projects, thus saving design time, increasing efficiency, and reducing callbacks. To date, this goal has proven elusive. One complicating factor is the ever-changing energy code requirements for residential lighting. Clearly, incandescent lighting can no longer serve as our baseline technology. This strikes me as a good time to set our office lighting standards based upon more energy efficient sources.

This shift poses some practical challenges for us, as most of us hold incandescents near and dear to our hearts. To keep our clients happy while meeting new, more stringent energy codes, we need to find efficient sources that act like incandescents. They won’t like higher initial costs, but they will like the energy savings, no more heat lamp effect, and long lamp life.

To that end, here is a wish list. Our new friends, the compact fluorescent lamp [CFL] and light emitting diode lamp [LED] would:

• Be fully dimmable using common dimmer switches;

• Have natural, pleasing color rendition and color temperature;

• Be more or less instant-on, with no long “wake up” period;

• Would fit into small aperture recessed fixtures [3” or 4” diameter] for architectural “crispness”;

• Would be recessed into fixture, or otherwise shielded, to minimize lamp visibility and the resultant unfriendly glare;

• Match brightness of similar size incandescent sources;

• Be reasonably affordable.

Experience has shown that meeting all of these criteria can be difficult, perhaps impossible. But I’m not giving up! Through this Memo, I’m officially asking our architects, our electricians, our lighting reps and suppliers, our design consultants, and our clients, for guidance.

Onward!