Primarily interested in railroad preservation? Looking for an architect, architectural student or student of architecture concerning the design of a building to preserve railroad artifacts. Probably gratis, or at least for peanuts. If at all interested, please send PM. Thanks.

Les

I've been cooped up so long I first though--"What kind of dating service is this??" And then, "Is he looking for a writer or a printer & wants a particular font?"
But seriously\;, you have couched this question so vaguely, and likely with good reason, but I don't think folks can tell what you want: Over-all design, structural engineering, or what kind of workspace? "To preserve railroad artifacts" is a wide range, some are very small, some are very large, some require some climate control for longevity, and is this a preservation/restoration structure or a display structure or "just" storage--I used quotes as even proper storage is a complex question. If it is a restoration facility, there are many workspace needs to be considered. If display, there's preservation needs balanced by display & presentation needs.
I ask on behalf of those that might fit your needs--while I have designed and even built some things, I don't have the training, degrees, nor licenses required!

If you can’t afford an architect how are you going to afford to build it?

Why wouldn’t you just build a cheap pre-fab metal building?

Because a cheap pre-fab metal building does not attract visitors and does not highlight the collection. You want your museum to be visually exciting to visitors, to draw them in. AND you want it to present your collection in a dramatic way. We may be in it for the preservation, but to fund the preservation, one has to do marketing. We can't all be an Age of Steam Roundhouse, but look at what that sort of facility does to a person driving by. That's what you want, a visual impact that says, "Come on over, this place is amazing!"
At the same time you also need a place that provides the tools to preserve the artifacts. It is a delicate balance, and I can see Les wanting someone with railroad heritage doing the design work--or at least the concept work to sell it to the museum governance folks.

Years ago, while I was attending meetings of the Society of California Archivists there was a discussion about designing facilities for archival storage/preservation/research. In many ways this is a specialty that few architects have had experience. The suggestion was that, if you cannot find an architect who has done this before, the next best are those that have designed libraries or medical facilities.

A cautionary observation:
I know of one museum that was looking for a member-volunteer or a cheap architect to design an library-archival building. They ended up getting a member-volunteer-architect that had designed houses and was looking to expand his practice/resume. He failed to produce a usable design; and the organization then started over.

Well there are still options. IRM has done a nice job of decorating the barns with historic signs.

Also... you could always plan to build it and add a decorative facade in the future.

I wasn’t trying to argue... just trying to ask more questions and expand ideas :)

Anyone on here should know how tight fundraising can be for a museum. For high-end historic-style/custom detailed structures architectural fees can quickly reach as much as 40% of the project's cost. And that was 20 years ago - it may be more today. Most museums have quite a time raising one or two (or more) million for a state of the art, attractive facility, and adding $400,000 to $800,000 (or more) to the price tag just isn't do-able for most. Volunteerism for museums isn't just about needle guns, paint and sweat. It's life or death for them in every facet of operation.

Even professional architects have problems building libraries. At CSU, Chico the library has large "reading" areas because the engineers forgot to allow for the weight of books on shelving!

Makes me think of a couple of other design stories. Both involving a then new "back room" facility for the Huntington Library in San Marino, Calif. (this was several decades ago)

Every section head was asked to provide a space (square footage) request. No problem, except for the one section head that did not realize this was like a budget request. Everyone else came out okay; but this poor chap, who made an exact request, did not have enough space in the final design.

Another story was that the book binding/re-binding section was shown a proposed layout of his equipment around the sides of the work room. This was returned with a sketch showing all the equipment in the center of the room. Next version came out -- not changes in the layout. Back and forth several times. Can't remember how it ended. But if this was room had another below it, the designers where wanting to place all the heavy pieces of equipment near the floor supports (walls or beams) and not in the center of a floor.

That is an urban legend: Snopes.com - The Sinking Library

That's an entirely different situation. This information came to me from the engineering librarian, who should know about such things, and it isn't "common knowledge" around the campus, at least not while I was attending (1990s, I was a "late" student, being much older than most around me. That helped me a lot; one elective class I signed up for was run by a professor who thought his class was the only one that mattered. I went to the first day of class, listened to his outline of the class and work requirement, and I signed out then and there. I had more than one student of his tell me, "I wished I'd dropped that class too!" There were less strenuous electives to take to fulfill the graduation requirements!). The "mistake" actually led to a really welcoming library with room to work.
Another Architectural "goof" I know about was what was called the "women's gymnasium" at CSU, Humboldt. The designer forgot to allow space for bleachers, so the building could only be used for practices and gatherings (I was in the building for what, back in those days, was the student sign-in for classes & try to beat out all the other students. No home computers back then--and no internet (1975). )

As an aside, the RCT&HS (Reading Company Technical & Historical Society) is finally building a storage building for rail equipment.

It appears that the building was going to be a generic pole building structure, but from what I read in my newsletters, they have encountered severe soil stability problems in the location or locations that they want to erect the building.

I don't know any of the details, except what I read in my newsletters, but apparently it has jacked the price up massively, as they now had to have engineering services contracted, and a design approved for special footings that will support the structure.

It sounds like a bit of a nightmare, as I know they've been trying to get this done in order to finally get some equipment under cover.

When working on the development of the Memphis trolley rebirth (1990), I learned, and saw, the results of installing a new bus garage and parking lot on an old dump. One bus, on a hot summer day, was parked in front of the office and actually sank into the pavement with the heat affecting the asphalt and sub base. The office building itself sank and twisted so that there were doors that could not be shut and other such ailments.

Harry

I can't remember for sure where I saw it, but maybe it was at North Freedom: a car shed built of modern materials that from a few feet away looked like a 19th-century car shop. The metal sheathing was chosen to look like board and batten, and the walls had tall windows with fake muntins that looked like old wooden sash. I'd bet the windows didn't add much to the cost of what was still a pole barn, but it looked good to me.

Aarne Frobom
Owosso, Michigan

A couple of suggestions;

Are you a non-profit?

Look into a local architect that may perform the work gratis. One that is familiar with the local building / zoning codes and the local building inspectors. If you have someone in NJ designing your building in Ohio it is going to be a problem.

Come up with a general design beforehand. In other words, if this is to house lots of paper it should be climate controlled. If it is for static railroad equipment, can you live with a dirt floor, how about asphalt, or do you need concrete? If it is for heavy or working machinery a floor slab may need to be deeper under that specific piece, etc.

Do you need to have ADA access? Plumbing / bathroom? Power consumption? Fire alarms? Security?

How quickly do you need the design?

Could a local college or university architecture program use your need as a semester long project? Perhaps have the students work on several designs and you chose the best to move forward. Second semester could be a final design. Some schools look for this type of work as it fills a community need.