Day 463: Shutter boards for first floor walls

Day 460: Progress report

Day 456: Grinding and polishing the first floor slab

Day 455: Ground floor ceiling exposed

Day 450: Off shutter concrete

The shutter boards have been removed from the first floor slab revealing an exquisite finish. All the timber grains are clearly visible.

The slab edge

Looking up at the ceiling

Day 449: Aliens

When alien plants are creeping up the scaffolding, you know you have been building too long.

Day 442: Concrete stairs

I hope you will forgive me. I borrowed the concrete stair design from Carlo Scarpa’s Castelvecchio in Verona, Italy. The narrow and steep Italian steps did not pass South Africa’s building regulations. Therefore I adapted the concept to create a more comfortable and ergonomic stair. We are pre-casting the steps in sets of two and only installing once they have been polished. As you can imagine, these strange angled steps created some confusion among the builders!

Castelvecchio in Verona, Italy

Day 436: Cool cat on site

What an an interesting man! He was responsible for vibrating the concrete. Concrete is such a dirty job and yet he was dressed up fashionably. Sunglasses, chain with a cross and a pierced ear. Don’t think for a moment that the splashing concrete bothered him one bit… he just took it in his stride.

Day 435: Pouring concrete

Finally everything was ready. The concrete pump arrived at 08:30am. The first concrete truck arrived at 10:30am. At 13:30 the fifth and final concrete truck left the site and the first floor slab was done.  

36 cubic meters of concrete = one floor slab