Site Works - latest photo

Site Works - Latest Images

Now What Exhibition

All the different Now What groups will be exhibiting their work in Smithfiled over the coming weeks. All are invited to the exhibition which opens Friday 9th at 7:30pm

Site Works - 20th September

Many thanks to Mark Halpin for these images.

Site Works Aug.31 - Sep.5

We now have completed all of the necessary brickwork to proceed with the dome!





We have placed an additional timber guide within the structure to aid in the correct positioning of the tiles for the dome. This guide represents the line of 1/2 of the dome (or 1/4 of a sphere) from springing point to oculus.



The dome tiles are cut to fit with the arches and laid out prior to plastering and placement.




The first layer of tiles is laid with a mix of pure gypsum plaster which is mixed in small batches immediately prior to laying as it hardens quickly in 1-2 minutes.



These tiles are laid in correct position by triangulating the line off of the timber guide. With practice the tile placement has become much quicker and cleaner.


The second layer of dome tiling is laid with concrete and set at a diagonal angle relative to the first tile layer. The dome gains strength through this process of lamination while breaking the joints.


Doming will proceed all week.

Site Works Aug 22-26

Work has been progressing all week on the brickwork corner buttressing as this needs to be in place prior to completing the dome. Work has been slow due to the high number of specials where the brick meets the arches, but we are almost over the hump(s). The dome has arisen in each of the corners but will begin in earnest next week. Thank you to all who have been putting in the hard hours on the brickwork, especially - Carthage, David, Mark, Bruno, Alex, Ian, Elaine, Rae, and Suzy.

Site works - 20th and 21st August

We've completed the arches and have started work on the dome. The key thing for the coming week is to keep the brick rising walls ahead of the dome, as we cannpt complete the dome until the walls are in place.

We used the lower course of the arches as a test for getting the placement of the slips right for the dome - and so used casting plaster to allow us to perfect the mixing of small amounts of plaster (enough for one slip) to the correct consistancy quickly. This will be critical for the dome as we will be relying on the plaster to set quickly and to hold each slip in place as we work upward.

Pines Calyx time lapse

A time-lapse of the construction of the main dome in Pines Calyx using timbrel techniques.

Site Works - 19th August

Laying bricks continued and we passed the 11th course on all piers. This means that the angle of embrace for the arches is now less than 52 degrees for the remainder of the arch. This will allow us to complete the brick slip portion of the arches and get going on the dome. The remainder of the brickwork will follow on over the next few days to its completed state.

The beam across the top of the site is part of a setting out methodology for the dome that we will be testing tomorrow. It replaces our initial idea to use a central pole. Once we have the system working correctly we will document it here.

Ecocem

Many thanks to Ecocem who have provided a significant quantity of cement for the project, which we are mixing with Portland cement as required. Ecocem is bascially GGBS, and using this reduces the carbon footprint of our project by substituting a by-product of industrial processes for cement that is made locally and consumes a significant amount of energy in its manufacture.

Site Works - 18th August

Works today took the walls to 7-8 courses high.

Site Works - 15th August

We continued bricklaying and building the arches today as was the case last Friday. Work was still slow but we managed to get to the 5th course on each pier, so we are getting a bit faster. We're taking tomorrow (Sunday) off and will continue where we left off on Monday.

Site Works - 14th August

Dermot Fullam from Dermot Paul construction came back and gave us a very thorough lesson in brick laying. There was a lot of work in getting things going in the correct manner. I think that we all gained an insight into the skill of a good brickie. We are going to take this section of the works very slowly to ensure that we can be accurate. Hopefully as we learn we will get faster.

Our intention is to work each pier up simultaneously with the arch, to brace against the buckling experienced in the earlier arch test. We will have to lay the first 12 courses this way, until we reach the point where the angle of embrace is reduced to less than 52 degrees. Once this is the case we will be able to complete the arches and start work on the dome as the brick walls continue to rise.

Site Works - 12th August

Today was spent finishing the remaining forms and erecting on site to get ready for the construction of the arches and walls starting tomorrow.

Time Lapse

As part of the work of the group Rae and Carthage have been covering the site using time lapse from two camera positions. The first rush of one days work is now ready. A full video will be posted once the workshop is complete.

Design Tool - Masonry Domes

Wanda W Lau of MIT has a number of very useful tools to assist in the design of masonry arches and domes on her website. Of particular interest is this graphical analysis tool.

Many thanks to Michael Ramage for forwarding this to us. We will use these as part of the ongoing research into the redesign of the space resulting from last weeks work.

Design Workshop - Analysis of failed arch

Following the collapse of the arch we carefully sorted through the broken pieces of the arch to attempt to form a full critique of the problems we had encountered. The following is a synopsis of what we observed:

• Not enough overlap between upper and lower brick courses allowing potential for joints to occasionally pass right through the arch. The cause of this was the rapid work method we had used, where the lower course was frequently completely obscured by plaster. Where good overlap been achieved the arch was very strong and it was difficult to retrieve bricks without breaking them.
• Small air-pockets between both courses. Again this appears to have been a product of the frenetic work method employed.
• The casting plaster was occasionally crumbly and hadn't set to a full strength.

Based on the above we held a design workshop over Skype with Michael Ramage and Peter Brunner.

Michael was incredibly useful and outlined our problems as being primarily geometrical in origin. A Catenary arch would be a far more stable form for a universally loaded arch to take, whereas a taller circular arches need some buttressing to contain the lateral load without buckling. Based on the discussion it appears as if the route forwards is the following:

• Drop the arches slightly (another 100mm or so)
• Build the side piers to the arches at the same time as the arches. This will entail keeping the formwork in place until the end of the project.
• Build the arches by placing the brick slips one by one. Use casting plaster for the lower course. This is not strictly necessary for the construction but will give valuable practice for the dome works.
• Use portland cement for the second course to save casting plaster
• Use bed-joint reinforcement for the bricks to the lower section of the piers.
• The geometry of the dome as designed should be fine - in this he mentioned that a good rule of thumb is to keep the angle from the apex of the dome to the springing point to a maximum of 50degrees.
• As we dismantled the collapsed arch we noticed that occasionally the casting plaster hadn't set hard but rather was biscuity and slightly crumbly. Michael recommended wetting the bricks before laying as this will allow for a greater adhesion between the casting plaster and the bricks, without the bricks taking too much water from the mix.
• Again in dismantling the collapsed arch we were able to pinpoint weaknesses in the pattern of overlapping between the upper and lower levels. Rae prepared new patterns for how to do this to ensure complete cover through the arch. Michael commented that running the second course perpendicular to the first would be adequate for our arches.

We will modify our existing formwork and complete forms for the remaining arches. On Friday we will have a brickwork workshop with Dermot Fullam of Dermot Paul construction to allow us to work through the weekend.

Site Works - 10th August

We designed the formwork to be easily removable, first dropping the edges from underneath and then pulling away both sides in turn.

As we dropped the formwork it became clear that there was a major problem with the arch, as it dropped with the formwork, eventually completely buckling to one side.

We cleaned up the site, and managed to salvage most of the bricks. Our instinct is that the geometry of the arch is wrong, being too upright where it bears on the pads. We also feel that there were errors in our construction methodology with not enough overlap between the first and second courses of the arch.

Tonight we are going to have a design workshop with Michael Ramage to adjust the design to solve these issues. We meet tomorrow morning to adjust the formwork and begin again.