Day 119

Brickforce

Retaining walls

Recycled concrete ground fill

Basement retaining walls

Day 98: Reclaimed bricks

As a designer I have a passion to create more sustainable architecture. I often see products and buildings claiming to be GREEN because the materials used can be recycled when the life of the product ends. However, recycling is not a prevalent practice in South Africa. Most often, those materials never get recycled and end up on a landfill site. Therefore, the best way to be sustainable is to reuse existing waste materials.

At a landfill site in Pretoria, homeless people collect bricks from construction waste which was dumped there. They clean the bricks and sell it. These bricks can be reused in construction projects, reducing the need to use virgin materials.That is exactly what we are going to do. We started building the retaining walls of the basement using these reclaimed bricks. 

Day 87: Concrete for foundations

Oh, what excitement. Every person on site spent the day rushing to get everything in place before the concrete trucks came at 03:30pm. The plastic layer of DPC was arranged in place. The steel reinforcement was bent, positioned and inspected by the engineer. And finally, the concrete was brought in and poured smoothly into place. It splashed everywhere. For a curious little architect it meant dirty jeans and a camera full of concrete spray.

Day 83: Stormwater

The pipe visible in the photographs is a 160mmø stormwater pipe running through the length of our property. The purpose of this pipe is to assist in the movement of water runoff which comes from the hill on the nature reserve’s side. The pipe is bedded in soft sand and will be buried beneath the future floor slab.

Day 69: Digging foundations

Day 59: Excavations 90% complete

It was such an amazing feeling, to stand in front of the newly carved driveway and to realize that I have made the right decision. The wonderful and terrible thing about this site was the beautiful big rock. You do not want to destroy even a portion of it, but you stil need to gain access. The realized concept of the driveway exceeds expectations. It created this beautiful portal leading up to the future house. I believe the building will appear slightly tucked in behind the rock and, with the planned vegetation, will subtly blend into the site.