slab pour

How wet should the fill be before pouring the slab? "Soak the 'sumbitch."

 

Concrete was once described to me not as a material but as a combination of materials and processes.  I know now that it is a combination of materials and processes and tremendous skill, the kind of skill that is either innate or shaped over decades (or a little of both).  There are men who were born to be athletes, to write, to fight, to paint, to speak; men who were born to work with their hands, or to sit behind an office desk, or to sing.  And then there are men (and women) who were born to work concrete. 

ReStore ReDesign : Project 1 : End Table

Materials:

Salvaged 2 in. x 8 in. pine boards

1/2 in. diameter dowels

Salvaged desk legs (steel)

Planing the edges of the boards:

 

"untitled" : pastel and ink on butcher paper : 24 in. by 32 in.

 

"Johnson Village Study #2" : pastel on paper : 18 in. x 24 in. 

weekend update

Drove down to Salida, CO on Saturday night to catch FIBArk, one of the largest whitewater festivals in the world:

http://fibark.net/

In-floor heating installed on the east half of the duplex:

The PEX tubing is laid out on the re-mesh frame (it's tied in using copper rebar ties).  Hot water (125 degrees or so) circulates through five different circuits that feed into a manifold located in the laundry room:

The future site of the manifold:

Thinking through drawing: working through the framing details that we will be faced with in the next couple of weeks.

Sketching possibilities for a rammed earth wall section:



Johnson Village study #1  : pastel on paper : 18" x 24"

Plumbing going into the compacted foundation; a critical step before the slab is poured

"Untitled"

the newness—the anonymity in this place. 

we rush and then pause

under reddening clouds, granite pink,

a staccato of motion and sound. 

the dark arrives lazily and we are just voices

in a child’s dream.  feelings and friendships and stories

float above us like neon signage;

our dance unravels and we disperse as if after a funeral.