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Here the Californian climate has been a help – apart from a two-day freak rainstorm the weather hasn ’ t disrupted work on site . By November 2018 the building should be closed in and weathertight , and work can continue on fitting out the interior . Some of Faber ’ s time until then will be taken up by monitoring the remaining concrete pours – about 10 of them – and seeing the roof goes on . However , more of his time will go into the constant process of interaction with all the stakeholders in this building . “ Ultimately the users of this museum are staff or faculty members : five years from now nobody is going to be talking about the construction , but they will be living with and in this building . We have frequent meetings with staff , and with the Director of the PCMA , Professor Kathleen Howe . The nice thing about working on an art museum is that the end users are typically artists or artistically-minded people and so I have found that things are more easily conveyed to them .” They can visualise spatially , and because of the process of meetings and explanation , Faber believes that these end users will be handed a workplace , teaching space , and public gallery that is already familiar and which they know will work .
Faber sees the communication loop , with everyone who might be touching the project , as central to his work . “ We try to be very proactive in letting them know the things that are going to happen and keeping all the parties , including the people who are going to maintain it five years from now , on board feeling they ’ re part of the project . I think we do a really good job of that at Pomona College .” The other thing he is happy about is the positive vibe among contractors , subcontractors , the design teams and end users . There have been barbecues where all of these stakeholders have fun , and end up with the feeling they are all contributing to a project that will entrench the college ’ s position on the cultural map . www . constructionglobal . com 111