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Thanks Rennie, Peter, and Steve for helping us during our first few days of thinning! It’s always more fun to debark when you’re in good company.
Boy! Doesn’t Franklin look happy? He should be, because he’s holding a complete set of construction documents and an 80-page project proposal. The team finished these just in time for Christmas! The construction documents include architectural, structural, electrical, plumbing, detail, and specification drawings. The proposal is a book that thoroughly describes our idea for the bathhouse and the reasoning behind all design decisions involving constructability, accessibility, egress, composting toilets, and greywater.
In addition to our two documents, the Forest Service has received a structural analysis prepared by our engineering partner, Joe Farruggia, and a strategic plan that places the bathhouse within the broader vision for the future of Oakmulgee division, prepared by Cindy Ragland. Since the Forest Service has begun the deliberation process, we’ve taken to the woods to begin cutting trees!
Post-in-ground experiment: 1 year
I know it has been a while, but do you remember last December we told you that we were going to bury 54 posts 3’ deep in the backyard just to see what would happen over time? Check out this poor log after 12 months - it was wrapped in white plastic housewrap, buried directly into Alabama dirt (red clay, rather), and topped with a metal flashing cap. If looks can tell, the posts wrapped in plastic are doing worse than those we left unwrapped.
A closer look at what the plastic did:
Not pretty, huh? Our favorite pick of the one-year lot was this next guy - a little slick, yes, but it seems to us the charring technique has kept this log in good shape.
We’ve been working on making some pretty renderings to supplement our Documents. Franklin is good at Rhino and V-ray. Will is good at Photoshop. By our powers combined…
A group of USFS Engineers came up to Newbern from Montgomery to see the project and experience the mockup. All went well. They had very few question. In the next few weeks we hope to have the Construction Drawing Set and an explanatory Document on their desk to continue the approval process.
Step one: carry the 12’ x 4’ sheet of 18 gauge weathering steel up the scaffolding
Step two: Install first sheet lifting it onto second purlin using rope and pulley.
Step three: Screw eleven self-tapping metal screws through roof and into bottom purlin.
Step four: learn from mistakes, do not carry sheet up the scaffolding, Franklin can just pull it up on a rope. (He had a little help)
Repeat steps two and three for all six sheets.
Step 5: Smile and slap hands.
Constructing a Metal Break
The first step in installing the roof was manufacturing a metal break that would bend the pieces.
Then we had to bend them.
First we poured the concrete around the tops of the helical screws based on Joe F’s recommendation then we backfilled under and around the helical screws to simulate the slope at the site. (Thanks thesis folks for the shovel work!)
After recently installing the expanded metal on the screen today we talked with Joe F in the morning about the recent additions to the mockup and had one last client meeting with Cindy before we talk with the USFS engineers from Montgomery in one week.
Joe gave us a few things to do over the next week to stiffen the truss including pouring concrete around the helical anchors down 2’ below the anchors. The reason for this is that the helical screws disturbed the surface soil as we drilled them and now they are cutting through the soil at the surface. The concrete will give the tower foundations more area around the steel column to bear onto the soil as well as remove the disturbed dirt.
The meeting with Cindy went well, with only few comments we are ready to push the mockup forward for our meeting in a week.
Perc Test and Entrance Piece
One Item we need for our submission is a per test done at the site, so with a little help, by way of instructions, from Dr. Kevin White of University of South Alabama, we tested the soil on the site.
Conclusion: the data was sent to Dr. White and we carried a lot of buckets of water up from the lake.
Another thing that we explored out at the site was looking for precedents within the park for retaining earth. In general the recreation area does not retain much earth. The instances it does is characterized by the image below. The lower portions are usually rock or stone and are capped with something square, such as poured concrete or wood.
This is a string mockup of the entrance to the project: what connect the truss walkways to the ground. One thing to note is how quickly the ground falls away compared to the level stringline.
