Hi friends! Another update on our project was overdue, I apologise, so here it is. Enjoy!
In January and February we were joined on site by: Grace Brooks, Rohan Bodman, Julie Hanna, and Alexandra Boole. We welcomed back Kelsey Shanahan, Luke Hallaways, and Ashley Pincham. We welcomed sponsors, Caroma Dorf, Tradelink, CSR, and A. J. Edden.
Firstly, I will let you know what stage of the build we are currently up to; the wall framing is complete and most of the cladding is on.
We are currently constructing the formwork for our concrete kitchen/dining benches. When you enter our large breezeways you are presented with these benches, they are large, but serve a large purpose. The scale looks great, quite a celebration of the space, for gathering, cooking, cleaning, eating, storing and entertaining.
Over the next week or so, our plumbers are about to begin the flashing and completion of our box gutter, and the remainder of our roof (our solar roof to the south). We will then be completing the cladding and putting some external galvanised flashing on the building, which is mostly around openings.
The large items to follow will be constructing our large sliding entry walls. These walls are 6m wide and 3m high, they are the entry to the building and completely open up the breezeway. They reflect the large-scale agricultural openings you would find in rural buildings. They also allow the ‘closing down’ or ‘opening up’ of each house, similar to an Australian shack that you can open up when you are there, or close down when you are gone.
Once these are complete, the outside will begin to look ‘finished’.
We have designed many parts of this building as we go. It is not always viewed as the ‘correct’ way of doing things. We were encouraged to design, detail and document more things before we begun, however, we chose not to. This is mainly due to us not knowing how, not in the sense that we didn’t know physically how to sit down, work out details and draw them, but rather we didn’t feel like we had the answers. It went back to the words from Richard Leplastrier, who encouraged the project; “how can you design a building if you don’t know how it build it”.
I will elaborate further on what I am trying to say here, as this is one of the most valuable aspects of this project we have learnt from. Being involved in the immersion of this project has enabled us to learn from a more practical approach. Instead of guessing how details may have been drawn up, or guessing how parts of the build went together, we have learnt on site. We have learnt from ‘doing’, more importantly we have learnt from our builder.
A better understanding of how something is built and put together can only result in a better design.
We have also learnt the implications of our choices on the build. For example, a design change that can take a second to come up with may result in hours, days, or weeks to actually build. This isn’t necessarily a negative thing, but it did teach us about the power of our choices. What you design or draw is ‘real’ and will have a result, so a practical understanding of this is vital.
Practical knowledge is a beautiful thing. Something I hadn’t properly grasped before. Previously I guess I imagined it as just being ‘practical’. It is so much more, I believe it is an understanding of the relationship that ‘design’ has with ‘building’.
Materiality is also something that I believe myself, and absolutely everyone has learnt from being involved in this project. Materiality has a strong connection with practical knowledge I believe. Working with materials, expresses the immediate workability, attributes and characteristics that they hold. For example I have learnt first hand the unforgiving nature of steel, it has taken us a long time to complete wall framing on-site, yet the structural steel that was fabricated off-site we have used is brilliant, so quick and accurate to construct. It may seem a simple thing to realise, but learning these things every day on site has greatly improved a practical knowledge of design.
Our sponsors have also had a hand in teaching us this idea. Teaching us about their products and materials, and educating us on the characteristics of so many things has enhanced our knowledge base. It has been so rewarding having so many sponsors helping out with the project.
We were always expecting to learn from our mistakes. Nothing has been regretful. It was these mistakes, or perhaps I should use the term ‘understandings’, that has been a way of teaching us. Our design is not the ‘be-all to end-all’ but it was very responsive to the project. Not just site responsive, but also responsive to our needs. It had to have the ability to be constructed by students, and accompanied by professionals.
To date we have had more than 40 students involved in egresStudio, from all over Australia, and the World. I hope most will agree with some of the things I have learnt, and hopefully they have learnt many other things as well. No doubt there are many more things to be learnt. It is far from over.
Please feel free to get in contact with us if you wish to join the team and participate. Any time that you can volunteer to the project would be fantastic!
We will have another blog in the next few weeks. Don’t forget to check out the website and follow progress on facebook!
Cheers everyone!
Dean
