Powahouse Blog

Mugshot

PH — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 13:05:04 +0000

Folks have been wondering what I’ll look like when all this process is said and done. Above, my makers’ sketch of what they imagine I’ll become.

Drop

PH — Fri, 17 Feb 2012 12:57:26 +0000

Lumber drop. Boom-truck driver, bellowing over the loud engine and through a thick unruly beard: “…those LVL‘s are slippery! If they start sliding, you’re gonna want to get out of the way – fast.” Steve, in the foreground, is not running for his life. He’s just angling for a good photo of the hefty stacks of engineered wood being gingerly maneuvered into place.

Airseal – Part 1: Wrapped

PH — Thu, 16 Feb 2012 18:39:07 +0000

As walls start rising, the placetailors take care to stick a whole lot of stuff together very tightly – making a complete air seal wrapper around my shell. Here they are setting up the air seal between yours truly and the neighboring rowhouse. They say this yellow Stego wrap is at once amazing and infuriating. It stands up beautifully to the rigors of construction but is difficult to fold into intricate origami around corners and other obstructions. Can’t blame Stego though. That’s just one of the minor hardships of detailing a super-duper building envelope.

Walls Rising

PH — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 18:06:19 +0000

Up, up, and away.

Lumbered Up

PH — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 20:28:06 +0000

All lumbered up and ready to go. With concrete curing behind us, and final plans and details (mostly) figured out, the walls are about to start rising.

Slab – Part 3: The Cure

PH — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 15:23:51 +0000

In an ideal world, fresh concrete needs to be kept above 50 degrees Fahrenheit for at lest 48 hours in order for it to reach its maximum strength. In our world – at this time of year – 50 degrees are hard to come by. That’s why the green (uncured) slab was covered with mesh, to create a continuous air/moisture film, and then 3 layers of blanketing (foam, bubble-wrap blankets, tarps). This creates the ideal environment for an effective concrete cure and a beautiful finished floor in the not so distant future.

Slab – Part 2: Trowel Magic

PH — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 12:58:58 +0000

Liquid rock. It never fails to amaze how wet lumpy stuff can be transformed into a hard-wearing, smooth, and perfectly flat surface. It takes years of experience, and a good dose of tradesman magic.

Slab – Part 1: Heat Island

PH — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 14:03:05 +0000

Ground floor slab was just poured. Air temperature was frigid, hovering around 30F with a forecast for low 20′s by nightfall , but that’s OK. The guys took precautions:

2% accelerator was added to the mix, to help it “kick” (set) sooner. The sooner it kicks to sooner it can be troweled and then blanketed for curing;
Concrete was heated at the Boston Sand & Gravel plant to ~80F so it would arrive on site at ~70F and could be placed while still steaming hot (~60F);
The site fence was draped with tarps and two “torpedo” heaters were positioned to jet hot air over the slab as it was being poured. This effectively transformed the worksite into a little heat island.
A concrete boom pump truck, with a far reaching remote-controlled articulating hose, sped up the process of spreading ~40 cubic yards of heavy concrete over an area of ~2,000 square feet.
Scrap slabs of board insulation and insulating blankets filled with bubble-wrap were at the ready, to cover the slab once everything was said and done.

Meet My Makers

PH — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 13:09:31 +0000

Placetailor, three of whom are pictured above, are my makers. With a little help from their subcontracting and consulting friends – their plan is to significantly complete my construction by the fall of this new year, and that will be no easy task. Today, they’re in the site office doing design work. Tomorrow, they’re facilitating the pour of my ground floor slab. Next, their job is to build my shell. They’re an interesting bunch. I’ll tell you more about them soon.

Alibi

PH — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 13:32:47 +0000

Alibi, the local architect-artist studio of Harry Lowd and Catie Newell, won the Powahouse Percent For Art Competition that was held last year. The competition was facilitated by the friendly visionaries at the Urban Arts Institute.

Alibi were selected by a jury of neighbors, artists, and architects made up of Chris McCarthy (lives around the block, of Friends of Alvah Kittredge Park fame), Celia Grant (lives across the park, of the Haley House board – among many other initiatives), and Gretchen Schneider (my Architect, who lives just north of the Charles river and also co-edits the wonderful Architecture Boston magazine).

Catie and Harry will be proposing initial concepts and schemes for their Powahouse artwork. The photo above is from an installation that won them the Architectural League Prize for Young Architects and Designers. Excited to see what they come up with.