window chapter 1

I have always been amazed at how perfect the flush toilet and associated plumbing is.  Without any form of local power, with every flush the waste is pushed away, the pipe is automatically sealed against odour, and the cistern refills.  Automatically.  Every time.  What's not to love?

So it is with double hung windows, that perfect beast of balanced motion.  While modern technology has brought us sprung windows which don't require such thick mullions and frames, the older weighted sashes are a triumph of the simple machine.  A pulley balances the weight of the window against the weight of iron bars within the frame, allow for ease of lifting even the heaviest of sashes.



While not as everlasting as a cistern powered by mains water, the sash mechanism is pretty beautiful, until it needs repairing.  Even then it is simple. Remove the casing, pull out the broken cord, replace the cassette and casing.  I purchased new cord, and some 3mm ply to separate the weights and re-encase them.  It started whistlingly.






How could it go wrong?  The sun was shining, a cool breeze across the site. Easy Listening FM crooning out from downstairs as Jess remonstrated with suppliers and Dean reminisced about sniffing toxic paints.  And the first cords went in easily.




Breeze?  Did I say breeze?  A cold wind blew across the site and blew over my carefully unsecured and newly puttied window frame, shattering the glass.  Laugh?  I could have bought myself a drink.

So tomorrow is a Big Day.  Off to the glaziers, repair the remaining windows, and reputty the new glass.  considering I average 2 hours a day on site on a good day, this is going to be tricky.  Tension rises, cue dramatic music.

a grown up building site

Yesterday our site finally grew up and became a teenager.  It has grown it's scaffolding!

There is a larva-coccoon-chrysalis-adult metaphor to be played with here, but I won't pain you all with it.

It will suffice to say that while the scaffolding is up, it will transform from a stick-thing to a shell-thing

Seeing as how heights scare the crap out of me, I have successfully managed to avoid testing the scaffolding out so far...

post and beam connections

Circumstantial changes trigger design changes which give rise to detailing revisions which very often cause delays and variations. It's the same old story, but this time without love or glory. Shame.  It does however have some raw timber and a rough steel component, so there is still some sex.  Read on.

Problem
No, wait.  The word problem doesn't exist.  What do we call it now?  An "Opportunity". Bollocks. It's a problem.  Something changes, no-one knows what to do, and we all stand around looking at the architect.  It gives rise to an opportunity, sure.  An opportunity to vary from the carefully planned to the ad hoc.  An opportunity for the builder to ask for a variation. An opportunity to revise the design in line with where everything else is morphing.

When the slab went down and the roof structure went up, we suddenly saw just how great and open our Kitchen/Dining area was going to be.  So we deleted a proposed wall which was intended to hide a column, and suddenly the column has transformed from rough crappy thing with an agricultural fixing to something with grace and precision.

Solution
At least we are still allowed to use this word.   Refer attached detail.  Manufacture 4 off. Easy.

Golly I wish it were this easy. It actually runs like this:
1. Measure and make a sketch.
2. Consult with Jess for buildability.
3. Consult with structural engineer for structural capacity.
4. Consult with fabricator for price.
5. Consult with builder again for timing.
6. Revise sketch.
7. Confirm with engineer.
8. revise sketch again.
9. Beg builder for more time.
10. Order steel.
11. Cancel galvanising, promise to collect and save on delivery charges.
12. Spend more on priming paint than I saved on galvanising.
13. Stand back and revel in the unashamed faux-industrialness of it all.

See why I use the word problem?  Anyway, when they arrive on site I'll post a photo.
.

flashings

So Jess has the frame mostly up, bricks are laid, and she is angling to get the surveyor to sign-off the framing stage of the works.  This includes the 7mm ply sheer walls incorporated into the stud framed walls.  At a late stage of the tender negotiations, we revised the external cladding from timber planks to ply, (cheaper, simpler happier) so they could act as the sheer walls.

The vertical joints will be covered with a continuous 18x32mm Class 1 timber capping strip.  The horizointal joints however are tricky, and will require to be separated and flashed.
since it's one of the things that weren't fully documented due to the design changes, we are making the details at a 1:1 scale rather than using a drawing.

First I sourced some samples of the ply in both 12 and 18mm thicknesses, and then did a drive-by at Paint Spot to get them coated in the proposed Cutek finish, then into the shed to get some soft aluminium sheet so I could mock up a flashing.  The cover strip is a piece of junk timber I found on site, but it kinda fits.

So to keep the suspense down to a minimum, we are using BB class Birch ply, coated in a Cutek Low VOC finish with a Blondetone colour tone.  The flashing is a Colorbond colour "Ironstone". Thst'd the Usual Suspect second from the left.

twitter

In an innovative piece of cross-digital media promotion, I will be letting you all know about my renovation exploits on my Twitter account.  Crazy isn't it?  I am surprised that no-one has thought of this before.

So for updates on this blog, sign-up @smallbuilthings


For those already overwhelmed by the plethora of platforms out there for people like me to infect your free time, I am about to dismantle my Yammer, Facebook and LinkedIn accounts. Sad but true.

small moving things

So like all red-blooded austrayan people, I love getting outdoors and into austrayan caravan parks, surrounded by other red-blooded austrayans.  I love swapping one controlled suburban environment for another controlled suburban environment, particularly when I get to stay in an on-site van, or a permanent caravan, since then I don't need to share my ablutions with other red-blooded austrayans.

And everytime we do stay in one of these prefabricated huts, I know we could design a better one, one that has the mobility of a caravan, and the livability of a house.  Surely it can't be that hard?

These dutch designers have got something nearly perfect.  Although it's a shame it needs a tractor, Makkink and Bey's portable box is a pretty sweet ride.

bricks

In keeping with our desire to build a passively cooled, low energy house, we have started with a concrete floor, to give us a high thermal mass inside the house. Originally we wanted to build an inverted external brick veneer wall, with the bricks inside.  This went the way of many dreams in the face of the cold reality of budget.  But by then we were in love with the permanence and texture of bricks.  We chose second hand roughies from Paddy's bricks in Kensington, partly because they were cheap, partly because they were recycled, and partly because they look awesome.  Check these out:

Around a third of the bricks have been painted, and some have been drawn on.  Suddenly they have a texture beyond their physical nature, displaying a patina of reds, and pale greens and whites.  But beyond that they have memory.  These are bricks which have seen life, and been a canvas for other people's dreams.  Clearly, some of them are just pictures of genitalia.

The trouble with bricks is that they are a sinkhole for heat.  This is great in the middle of a hot day, because they have held the heat.  But at night they release this heat, both externally and internally.  So in an effort to control and perhaps increase the cooling down of the bricks, we have left every perpend open at each 8th course of bricks.  After the recent belt of hot weather, there is a significant difference in the cooling of the bricks near open perps as the shadows of the day pass over them compared with the normal bricks.  Et voila:

out and up

And so to our renovation.  There will be few people who undertake to renovate their home who haven't felt completely overwhelmed by the number of decisions which need to be made, the things they wish they'd thought of, or the things that changed during the process that they felt powerless to control.  I have been an architect for 30 years, this is my second renovation, - and I am still overwhelmed.

Back to the beginning.  We started with the idea of providing a room for every child, plus a study, and a more liveable living space.  The original house Californian Bungalow, built just after the Second World War.  Mostly is was still in one piece, other than the inevitable miserable, shoddy rear lean-to.

While up to 40% of the embodied energy costs associate with the life-cycle energy consumption of a building are contained within the design and construction phase of it's life, I didn't feel too bad ripping this down and starting again. Joists lying on the sub-floor dirt, gaping holes in the external cladding, and cracks in the existing internal plaster you could pout your finger through.  It leaked, the electrical wiring was faulty, and the sewer blocked up.

We ended up with the following design.  Two boxes, one light and stretching upwards, the other solid and lateral.  The main living spaces of Kitchen and Dining housed in the permanence of contoured brick, and the sleeping areas lightly clad in ply.

This naturally, was version 12.  Two architects rarely agree on a theme or a concept or a stylistic gesture, and even when we do agree we kept coming up with new approaches.  This usually involved wine, debate, beer and some surly silence.  Eventually we formed something that resonated.  Then there was council insistence on both a physical and thematic design difference between the original house (in a Heritage Overlay) and the new work.  (none of which we theoretically had a problem with, but we always had a sense that the planners wanted to design our home for us.)  Sometimes a frustrating process.

Environmental efficiency was the key thing here, both from an ongoing and embodied perspective.  Recycled floorboards, windows, bricks, joinery, doors, skirtings and screens.  A concrete slab on the ground floor for thermal mass, R6.0 insulation in the roof and ceilings, no airconditioning, rainwater tanks for toilet flushing, window positions to encourage fresh air ventilation, and every window shaded by either the house or the local trees.

After a long tender process we settled on 90,000 Hz to build our house.  Jess, Dean were really interested in the challenge of our house, and we bonded over the chickens and the dog.  We started the build in November 2013.

fruition

I have been a distant observer of the installation of Matthew Harding's latest work Fruition, a wonderful piece in Royal Park.  A few nights ago I had the chance to witness the lighting tests to see how best to display the work at night.  A low powered sodium globe seems to be the choice of the selection team, to articulate the 'seed pods' in a camouflaging glow to match the street lighting.  They have such a tremendous presence when you are near them, I encourage everyone to visit them, and then again in a few months when the lighting is installed

Here is an image under a higher powered metal halide. There is some awesome contrast going on there.

parklets

The restaurant district of Barkly Street in West Footscray has for some time now been transformed into a pleasant place to boulevard.  Slower traffic speeds, footpaths widenings, and trees have made is a safer and pleasant place to eat, shop and meet people.  It's one of the truly interesting and lively streetscapes in the inner west at night.

But City of Maribyrnong's City Design team have struck a winner with the Parklets. Designed by the team, they are temporary installations in existing permanent on-street parking places.  After the summer they will be removed, restored and stored, then relocated the following summer in a new place.

While they only temporarily remove a parking spot, they may be a good exercise in proving whether the parking increases or decreases passing trade for the local businesses.

And although we are months away from Parking Day, I vote them Best Action By A Local Government Body

It's only a shame that the warning bollards are also temporary.  Perhaps they will be removed as an unnecessary piece of risk mitigation. 

immersion and commencement

I am spending the next 3 months searching for those small built things that make a difference.  Mostly they are designed and intended, but sometimes not.  I am looking for the things which are the small part of a larger story, but which can be read separately and function independently. The small spaces or buildings or details which give the larger space it's rhythm and it's balance are what interest me.  Things which contribute beauty and utility, which make people's experience of space more meaningful, richer, safer and happier. 

Related to this quest for the small built things in our lives, we are renovating our home. It is also a small built thing, an extension to a larger house.  It's an idea of how we live made manifest.  A collection of small built spaces which force coexistence upon the inhabitants, stimulating interaction and manipulating the movement of life across the house.  Rooms become corridors, and corridor becomes a library.  A roof becomes a backyard, and a backyard is enclosed like a courtyard.  In an time of threshold free entries, a step becomes a deliberate doorway into another era.  And all of it sustainable, recycled, and low energy.

I have taken taken 3 months away from my normal employment to assist the build and do the easy things we can't afford to pay someone else to do.  I intend to crack wise, get in the way, carry bricks, sand weatherboards, sweep floors, and fetch coffees.  It's a time for me to recondition myself emotionally.  3 months away from a charged office environment, to be immersed in a physically charged building site.  Rather than watching people work through lunch, I am already watching them have determined scheduled smokos.

This - I have told myself -  is what I need.  I have spent 7 years looking at masterplans, long term strategies and the effect of my work on the political priorities of a large organisation.  The program of my design and management output is tied up with a project's relationship to the requirements of a large, diverse group of stakeholders, an organisation's political needs and a maintenance regime.  Sometimes we scored goals, and it is always wonderful, but the associated midfield arm-wrestle is depressing.

After seeing the big picture for some time now, it's a chance to see the beauty in the small built things.