I’ve been meaning to let you all in on some bitter sweet news, but have frankly been avoiding it.  I’m not one to tip-toe around so I’ll simply jump right to the chase and tell you the news… I am moving jobs!

What does this mean for Designer Hacks?

• Overall, there won’t be any drastic changes with the content we provide.  You can expect the same quality and occurrence of posts.
• My previous employer was largely focused on designing parking structures.  My new job will focus on residential and commercial work.  It’s likely the tutorials, blocks, and components I create will take on a corresponding nature.
• Because I spent two years in the parking industry, I gained a little bit of knowledge about parking, and I want to share it.  Over the next few months I’ll be focusing in creating an e-book called ‘A Visual Guide To Parking’.  Expect some parking freebies to be sent your way during the meantime.
• My new job does not use the Revit software so unless anyone has specific requests on Revit, only sparse additional content will be created for it.
• Instead of revit, my new employer uses Archicad.  It’s likely you can expect a few Archicad tutorials to trickle in here and there.
• The main focus of the site will remain on Sketchup, AutoCAD, and Photoshop.

Where’s the bitter sweet?

So I’m moving jobs… okay, so what?  What’s the bitter sweet part?

In the beginning of January I was sitting at my desk at work when I saw an email roll in from one of my college friends.  I opened the email and read,

Hey all –

Absolutely would love to contribute in any capacity. Rhi – Thank you so much for taking the initiative. Amber did have an amazing passion for the field and it would only be fitting to remember her in this way…I’ve pulled Tony into this conversation for his consideration. I don’t have Chris or Gelsey’s info… Sadly…

I hope you are all doing well. Miss you guys.

As I read further down the email chain I saw this:

Love and sympathy to all of you mourning the loss of our dear friend and colleague Amber.  I have struggled with hearing about Amber and trying to figure out how to put into words how horrific her death was considering how amazing and caring she is.  It is important in times like this that we understand how important she still is to us and use that energy to act, which is what I hope we can initiate over the next few weeks.

My head started spinning and I jumped to google and typed in the name of one of my college friends, “Amber Long”. The first headline read, ‘Amber Long, 26, Shot Dead In Front of Her Mother During Bag Snatch‘.  I was in a daze, this was surely someone else. I clicked the link and was greeted by full page image of one of my dear friends.

My heart sank.  I was staring this pixelated image of my friend and my eyes started to well up.  Through the tears I read through the article describing the scene and decided to leave work for the day. As I drove home in the snow I let out the kind of deep sobs that only happen when your heart’s been really broken and there’s no way to fix it.  Amber Long was one of the most passionate people about the architecture profession that I had ever come across.  I got home and wrote this in the email back to my friends:

I’m not a very good writer but I want to make sure that Amber is remembered for her passion to Architecture.  There were days we’d talk when I’d feel defeated by the profession.  Every time we talked, she had this steadfast determination of bringing better, more sustainable architecture to a broader range of people.  No matter how low I was feeling and how hard I tried to convince her that the profession was a sinking ship, she never wavered. Her thesis was really a testament to that…