Friday, July 22, 2011

Today I am maestra again, for the second time. Today’s to-do list for the kitchen space included:
-west wall – outside horizontals – figure out the doors to the cabinets (are they removable to be used as a cutting board, or another table surface?)
-Fasten the shelves to the concrete columns
-finalize and construct the Mortise and Tenon joint
-design the joint for the tree column
-design the joint for the column opposite the tree
-figure out the countertop detailing and support
-Raise all the columns and beams into place
I will admit I was a bit nervous during the day. There’s a lot of pressure measuring the columns and beams and making sure they are plumb and square, lining up with the other concrete columns. They all seem like their own independent variables, and somehow they all have to align together in parallel and perpendicular. Tim and I tackled these measurements and checked over and over to make sure. We only had 2 6 in X 10 in beams – there was no screwing up. Paul’s previous comment rang true when he spoke about this new landscape we’ve created for ourselves (our poured concrete columns) and the interventions we’d have to carefully plan.
All in all, though, tasks got accomplished, the beams were raised, columns were plumb, beams were level. The tree column looked better than I ever expected (and chiseling it out for the beam pocket was a good workout!)
I breathed an excited sigh of relief.

Until later,
Keihly

I am in a dual Masters program in Architecture and Urban Design at the University of North Carolina Charlotte. I am participating in the RAW Dakota 2011 workshop in Custer, SD July 13-27, 2011 and blogging about the experience. Do you have any thoughts you'd like to add? Thanks for reading! – Keihly Moore

Wednesday, July 20, 2011

The concrete pours were interesting because I felt like we truly meshed as a team. We were all a machine, working all the kinks out to get the timing just right. Finally we fell into a rhythm, buckets get passed, rocks get set, concrete troweled and smoothed. Boards are tampted, shims checked. Through the madness some organization is felt. We know our spots and our tasks. This is what organized chaos feels like!
***
To diverge into a little ditty about finishing concrete – it’s a process very new to me.
After you build your extra fortified formwork and you pour the concrete, the first thing you do is a process called screeding. Take a nice sized piece of plywood or 2x material and move back and forth across the top of the concrete, taking care to push the concrete down and taking extra off the top. Then take the magnesium float to the surface, calling the water to the surface. Wait for a few minutes, then come back with a finishing trowel with steel and your edger. Finally – add mica dust to the top for a nice sparkle!

***
It’s interesting how much you can learn about yourself through these group projects. You learn about your own communication style and how to play to other people’s strengths. You seek out the people who are light hearted and goofy so they can lighten the mood in more tense situations. You push people to take charge and build confidence. This all happens beneath the surface – but it’s there.

It’s amazing how a group of people work together when they eat/sleep/design and build all with such close proximity. There’s not just a building getting built here.
I also do so love being able to design on the fly, walking 50’ to the site to confirm dimensions, test out the best feeling for a ceiling, and where the best views need to be captured and framed. All architecture should be built this way – living, breathing, and sleeping on the site. (Though, of course this is not a reality.)

Also, the experience of living completely out doors has been pretty amazing here. We have gotten so lucky – not having many mosquitoes, only one midnight rain incident to which we could prepare and overwhelmingly cheerful skies. We huddle around headlamps and flashlights sketching, planning, and detailing – the whole night sky our ceiling. The first week the moon was bright and prominent, lighting our travels to and fro through the ponderosa pine wood campsite.

I also have to say I love being disconnected from the internet. It makes me realize how much time I spend fixed to it. Being disconnected in one sense allows me to be more connected with the work at hand, the weather, and my own thoughts. The sun too, is more noticed, the darn thing keeps moving! We especially notice it as we move the tables for breakfast, lunch, and dinner to escape the rays and find shelter in the shade.

You also notice how the light changes. They don’t call it the Black Hills for nothing! One morning, Monday morning perhaps, around 7am, with the tops back lit and the denser portion deep and black. The forest looked thick and solid. The early sun lights the needles finely on one side and I swear the forest was darker than before. Sometimes I feel like I’m wearing polarized sunglasses – the sky is so blue, and the trees as a saturated green.

Tonight we sleep in the Abode, the RAW Dakota 2010 project. The fearsome mountain lion can’t possibly eat all of us, we figure. I saw 4 shooting stars, the view is splendiferous, to say the least. The light from the flashlight propped up against the column bounces off the underside corrugated metal roofing. (Paul and Adam later tell us the Abode looked like it was glowing.) The night was calm, the breeze slight. We all slept well. 

- Keihly

p.s. For some good music check out El Ten Eleven, Bombay Bicycle Club and Foster the People (all new to me, thanks to Jocelyn!) 

I am in a dual Masters program in Architecture and Urban Design at the University of North Carolina Charlotte. I am participating in the RAW Dakota 2011 workshop in Custer, SD July 13-27, 2011 and blogging about the experience. Thoughts to contribute? Thanks for reading! – Keihly Moore

Saturday, July 16, 2011

Today, we jump into building the formwork. The site is infused with rocks that don’t yield to our pick axes and we learn the valuable skill of scribing – fitting the formwork to the contours of the footing. Trickier than it looks, we finally got the hang of it after a few runs. Knowing full well that these next stages are critical for the next few days, we figure out unexpected issues on the fly, in the field. It feels good to fall into a rhythm and get things accomplished. It is just another reminder as to how much the drawings are just the very tip of the iceberg!

As we each are faced with new challenges of handling new power tools, figuring out the right elevation and finished floor heights and grappling with the calculations to make the formwork fit, I’m finding an added joy to teaching others what I know and understand. It feels good to understand a process and communicate effectively enough with someone else who was just as confused as you were in the beginning.

- Keihly

I am in a dual Masters program in Architecture and Urban Design at the University of North Carolina Charlotte. I am participating in the RAW Dakota 2011 workshop in Custer, SD July 13-27, 2011 and blogging about the experience. Thoughts you'd like to add? Thanks for reading! – Keihly Moore

Friday, July 15, 2011 

Today I am acting as Maestro, or, Maesta, rather. Our goals are site elevations, dig, and draw. We are also preparing for a presentation with our client, Julie. Through our meeting we start to understand her expectations and interests more – she likes open space, good storage in the kitchen, counter space, lockable places, a balance of concrete and wood, and she had some great ideas for how to incorporate more of the mined rocks into the project through the columns or the retaining wall.
After a quick, and hot afternoon of one group digging more of the foundation wall and setting the lines and the other group building a mock up of our rock faced retaining wall, which also tested for how the rough sawn and plywood textures came forth, as well as a test of mica powder on the top surface. Here I learned how to properly use a float and an edging tool for the concrete top. This is slightly different from the Rockite models I’ve done in prior months!
The evening is the most comfortable time of the day. The solar water heated showers are hot and ready, the sun is still hot, but the air is cooling. The breeze is steady and keeps the bugs at bay. We finally got the other solar panel hooked up to the right battery, so we were able to charge the devices we are oh-so dependant on.
Tonight I have a second juice of energy, ready to tackle the confusion of the elusive foundation wall details and the formwork elevations. Tim, Adam and I hash it out by lamplight and I’m finally able to explain each of three systems fully to the next Maestra. I’m excited to start finally feeling like I have a handle on these things – the systems which we often so easily draw in as lines without thickness.

- Keihly

I am in a dual Masters program in Architecture and Urban Design at the University of North Carolina Charlotte. I am participating in the RAW Dakota 2011 workshop in Custer, SD July 13-27, 2011 and blogging about the experience. Thoughts you'd like to add? Thanks for reading! – Keihly Moore