Thursday 14 April 2011

My Easter "Holiday"

Over my Easter break I have been working on site with my Dad's construction company. Conveniently allowing me to document some key parts of how buildings go together and the over all experience on site. I have worked with my Dad on a lot of builds and have always been interested in the hands on part of building. In past projects I have fitted windows , done plumbing work , some joinery and digging foundations. But never before have I really recorded any work from an architects point of view, it has basically been get on with the work and i must say its resulted in me being a bit of a pest having to stop and take notes and photographs for my later blogs. 


The project on the go at the moment is in Aberdour, Fife and the client is a reasonably wealthy product designer from York and is wanting to upgrade a 1960's bungalow (which he inherited) into a comfortable home for holidays and later his retirement. Now I must say the building is no architectural masterpiece but from a construction point of view is rather interesting. The house has a lot of subsidence so the existing roof is running off by about 7cm and barely any existing walls are perfectly plumb. A bit of a problem as the house is being extended to all four sides apart from one small area on the north elevation. So marrying in old and new in a "structural" sense is what makes this project rather interesting. The kit for the house is being built on site and the trusses have been manufactured by a company called Muir timber, a local manufacturer. Over the Easter break I hope to document most of the work I have helped with on site from constructing the kit from scratch and erecting the roof as well as other bits and pieces that may be of interest. Although I wont be around to look at the entire build I will hopefully go back towards the end of the project in 5 or so weeks time and post some images of the finished product. 

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