There are 154 million orphans in the world today. What could we do to change that?
Today we put a smile on our hands for #WorldAdoptionDay
In this photo, we have Jonathan and Diane from VMA along with Jonathan's daughter, Abby...
On October 16-18, I attended the 22nd Monterey Design Conference. The Monterey Design Conference is held every 2 years at the Asilomar Conference Grounds. I had the privilege to listen to presentations from international architects and designers...
On August 23, 2015, I hosted the 5th annual co-ed volleyball tournament at Ski Beach in Mission Bay. Each year, I try to raise money for a local cause. This year, I hosted it in honor of my friend Nema Hallak. Nema was diagnosed with Stage III Hodgkins Lymphoma on April 1st, 2015. Our goal was to make this a fun event for the people of our community and to raise awareness...
There were so many amazing experiences on the trip that just couldn’t be captured. But fortunately there were a few that I was able to record on video. Here are a couple of video highlights…
I have talked quite a bit in previous blog posts about the design of the orphanage in Kenya. Well here are some highlights from the actual design. We did the design work and most of the modeling in country. Then some interns in the EMI home office did some final renderings and adjustments...
During the presentation, right as we were discussing how to provide drinking water to the site, the winds began to pickup and a rainstorm rolled in. A real Kenyan rainstorm...
The day of the presentation finally came, and we traveled to the school near the site where we last met the children with our PowerPoint presentation in hand...
In architecture we have a dilemma we sometimes face called "scope creep". This is when the scope of the project gradually increases as the client discovers features they would like to add without considering the budget. Well with this project we have a little of what I am calling "passion creep". You see, there is so much that they want to do to help these orphans that they would like to add a secondary...
The first step in the design process was to visit the site. It was a one and a half acre piece of farmland that was donated to the ministry. It has decent street access and friendly neighbors. But it is a little small for what we need to place on it...
Back in June, I was fortunate enough to be a part of a design team with Engineering Ministries International tasked with designing an orphanage for Touched By Love Ministries. And now I have the opportunity to tell a little about the journey via several blog posts...
The VMA Team attended the 27th annual 2015 Navy Gold Coast Conference this year in full force with David Vasquez, Shelley Bennett, Rob Bodenhamer and Jonathan Wetmore attending. We proudly displayed our VMA booth for the first time at this two-day event. Among many guest speakers, highlights included outstanding presentations from the new Director of the Navy Office of Small Business Emily...
Humans have five main senses in which are used to understand themselves and the world around them. The visual sense has dominated over the other senses, especially in architecture. If only one sense is being used, how much is each human experiencing? Humans learn about their environment and about themselves through their senses. If one sense is predominantly used, that experience is limited...
This past May, the organization, NotLY San Diego, was founded by Laura Duhachek of Vasquez Marshall Architects and Katinka Read of Stephen Dalton Architects. NotLY San Diego is attempting to provide A.R.E. candidates in the San Diego area with the same support network Karen Kensek and Douglas Nobel have set up for Los Angeles...
Vasquez Marshall Architects -- A proud supporter and sponsor of the 2015 SAME Camp Pendleton Day.
My wife and I were very fortunate to have the opportunity to make one of those “trips of a lifetime” to visit our daughter-in-law’s family in China. Our son and his wife guided us around, which was crucial, since my Chinese is limited to “hello, thank you and cold beer”. It was a great trip getting to know her family a little better, meeting incredibly welcoming people and seeing some unbelievable sights in Beijing, along the Yangtze River, the Terra Cotta Warriors in Xian...