Monday, July 16, 2007 To the extreme By Arch’t. Karl A.E.F. Cabilao, UAP
IMAGINE starting a house design from scratch and making a complete turn around in a matter of three weeks. That’s cramming a demolition-construction-turn-over job, which was supposed to take several months, into just 100 hours. Well, it was what the hit reality show in the U.S., Extreme Makeover: Home Edition just did. Oh well, it’s a routine fix for the show. But guess who was among the ingenius workhorses in what seemed like “mission impossible”—a young architect from Cebu.
“This is definitely one of my ‘extreme’ experiences as an architect,” says 33-year-old architect Hector Lawrence Gomez II, who completed his architecture degree at the Cebu Institute of Technology in 1996. After passing the Professional Regulation Commission board exams two years later, he worked in various architecture firms in Manila, and became involved in diverse and mostly large-scale projects. Armed with a barrage of experience, he shifted homes to the US and now works for Florida-based WCI Communities, who recently did the design and construction of one of the houses featured in the show.
Taking up the cudgels. Actually, Hector discloses that they were not the original pick for the job. His firm, which has been America’s preeminent builder of award-winning neighborhoods and communities in various States, partly has a local builder to thank after it backed-out from the job. “Their reason was that they totally miscalculated the work ahead of them and didn’t knew before-hand how enormous this undertaking would be—that is, designing the house from scratch and erecting it in a matter of one week. The reality show’s producers contacted us and our company gladly accepted the challenge. This was the first time our company was tasked to do this type of project,” says Hector.
It was no cake walk for them since they were also doing the normal schedule of work at the office. So they had to spend a lot of overtime sessions for this once-in-a-lifetime project. Their main priority was to finish the project on time without compromising the clients’ needs and the firm’s brand and quality.
Every member of their team proved valuable, and that includes this ever-reliable architect. “I was tasked to do parts of the production work, construction documentation, product-approval research and construction supervision. I remember going to Tampa on a night shift, from 8 p.m. to 8 a.m., and the temperature was in the low 40 degrees Fahrenheit. It was cold. All team members shared their specific tasks assigned to them as well, and everyone did a great job. Each member contributed his ideas as well. It was a great teamwork.”
Designing for a cause. What made their big project more special was that it was for a bigger cause. Their client’s previous home was destroyed when a plane crashed into their house. “Thankfully, most of the family members were out during that time except for the housewife, Cynthia Tate. The pilot was killed along with the family pets and the co-pilot was badly burned but survived. Cynthia miraculously escaped without any injuries while the house and everything inside of it was destroyed. To make matters worse, because of a clerical error, the home was not insured and the family was unable to pay off the existing mortgage, let alone rebuild their home,” he shares.
Thankfully, he adds, the project turned out absolutely fantastic. And their clients brimmed with so much happiness after laying their eyes on the output.
His own makeover. Asked if there was any other person’s house he would like to do a makeover on, Hector instantly avows, “It would be my mom and dad’s house. They always love entertaining people and the house they have certainly needed a bigger space, especially with the growing number of our family who come and visit them every now and then. They and the rest of my family are my prime inspiration.”
