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It’s been a long time coming, but its time to take down the tripod. Not only did we use it to raise the 12 main columns, we also used it to position all the roof beams, climb up to the roof and lift materials to the roof. We had a lot of fun climbing up and down this structure over the past 6 months, pretending to be monkeys.

The length of the legs and bottom supports were designed so that we could just cut them off, fold it up and slot it out of the door. It almost fit, we only had to dig a tiny hole.

For the first time the hall is empty, its pretty big in there!

August 26, 2015 Other, Reciprocal Roof

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With the digger working away in the background we got started on the roof of the staircase. Again we started with a woven bamboo cover, this will be followed by fabric and then ferrocement.

August 18, 2015 Staircase

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The whole community came down to site for a full day of concrete mixing, and we were lucky enough to have clouds for once. It was very well disorganized but everybody found something to do. we started with two groups of 2 on ladders at one side of the circle (we only have 4 ladders) and went in opposite directions around the circle until we met up again 8 hours later. The bamboo box held up very well, and although it was tedious to build, the fact that it wasn’t rigid meant that we could shake, tap and vibrate it to help tamp the concrete easily.

We even had time at the end of the day to lay a concrete sub floor in the storage room, which will come in very handy later when leveling, marking and cutting the wooden beams. We rushed a little but its more or less level (it was dark when we finished).

 

January 26, 2015 Concrete