Rejointoyage
After 122 bags of lime mortar and 8 months of hard work, Mélanie and Béranger, our self-builders in France, have completed the repointing of 200 sqm of stone wall in their converted barn in Dordogne! Beautiful result and a major achievement before starting to build the internal timber structure next month.
Photos by Béranger Hau. More on our clients' blog...
In the making
The proof of the pudding, as they say, is in the making. I spent Sunday volunteering at the site of our Childrens' Home project, helping them to get the building phase of their Living Room project underway.
It's been a fascinating project to be involved in. We were approached by The Mighty Creatives who were looking for someone who could work with the staff and residents at the Home to redesign their living room, making use of IT to communicate and visualise the process. In the end, we used StickyWorld and SketchUp with the LightUp plug-in… and if we could have found another software with a JoinedUp name, we'd have considered that too.
It's a tiny but intense project, and I found the design process really challenging. Working on occupied houses is always pretty involved, as being invited into the home requires a great deal of sensitivity to residents' preferences and relationships. At the same time, your own knowledge and experience as 'the professional' needs to be given a voice. As you'd imagine this particular living space is charged with a lot of meaning for many different people... But, by working together, we gradually achieved a design that everyone could take pride in.
The idea is that as much of the making work as possible is done by the staff and residents of the home, but I invited myself along on Sunday to lend a hand as they got underway. The electrian had already been in to do the first fix, so the next stage was setting out the studwork for the 'portal' feature, the lighting raft and the storage/entertainment wall. We made pretty good progress- a bit slowed by the effort of breaking up the world's densest fireplace hearth, but by the end of the day the design was beginning to pop off the page and in to the space. I loved being there to see this happen and hope to be back again as the project progresses.
In the meantime, we made a little film to celebrate the success of the collaborative design, and keep spirits up during the hard messy work ahead:
Living Room Project from 2hD Architects on Vimeo.
Finishing touch
Mélanie and Béranger have been working hard on their self-build barn conversion during these last months. After creating the new openings in the stone walls, installing the new roof and finishing all the groundwork, they are now getting ready to repoint the interior of the freshly cleaned stone walls with lime mortar.
We are now finalising the detailed drawings for the internal timber structure while they manage the site themselves and do the hands-on building under their own steam. We are following their progress through their personal blog dedicated to the project.
Lost Cuckoo report
The Lost Cuckoo project culminated last weekend with an event at the Wheee! International Childrens' Theatre and Dance Festival at Nottingham's Lakeside Arts Centre. Nearly 1000 visitors participated in this live public art project, building imaginative and gravity-defying structures.
In the weeks leading up to the festival, we designed with artist Marcus Rowlands and families from three schools in Bilborough, a cardboard building “module”. In essence, a box with a “secret corner” that could be popped in to join boxes together at interesting and unpredictable angles.
We've blogged about the project before: You can read more about the process, the event, and catch up on our live blog from the event itself.
We really enjoyed working on this project and are very proud of the results. This is largely down to our brilliant collaborators: Marcus Rowlands, Ruth Lewis-Jones from the Lakeside and — most importantly of all — the children, parents and staff from Portland, Melbury and Brocklewood schools.
Thanks also must go out for the generous support given by the Lakeside Arts Centre, the Arts Council England, Faspak, Staples and Nottingham Education Improvement Partnership.
Mission Control tops out
It has been a while since we last gave our hairy micro-office project some attention, but this weekend we completed the roof. This tiny building is taking shape. Specifically, it is now the shape of a large wooden box.
What we are doing is trying to build ourselves a tiny office building that shimmers from above, shelters from within and bemuses from outside, a space for focussed work away from our increasingly chaotic home office.
This is not a project that we are rushing.
We have a strange idea about the cladding for this building, which is where the hairy comes in. In the meantime we are celebrating topping out with the Viking (possibly...) tradition of fixing an evergreen tree branch to the roof.
Skål!
Chapeau et bottes
Our self-build barn conversion project in France is progressing well, with the new roof and floor slab now completed.
More photos on our client's blog…
Mud, straw and tree trunks
I just returned from a five-day eco-building workshop at the EkoSense community in Blatuša, Croatia, for some hands-on work on low-tech construction.
A very refreshing approach to making buildings: no tape measure, no drawing, no laser level, no materials shopping… Just a chainsaw, some odd tree trunks found on the land, strawbales from the neighbouring farm and some buckets of clay dug up from the foundations.
A big thank you to the EkoSense folks in Blatuša for their inspiring enthusiasm, warm welcome and fantastic home made sour cream!
