It has been a busy day for Studio V, and much has been accomplished at Corrine Jones Park, and at our Simons Street shop. The day began early, with most of Studio V meeting at the park with shovels and ratchets in hand, ready to get to work on assembling the new playground equipment being installed. After a brief doughnut break courtesy of Sara, we began assembling the many panels and hundreds of screws and bolts that make up the ‘Home-Rescue’ structure in the younger children’s area of the park. It seemed like everyone was at the park today, including Matt Compton and Beth Brownlee with the Charleston city parks. As Studio V was slowly but surely assembling ‘Home-Rescue’, Matt and Beth were also working on assembling the swings and spring toys- the water fountain was installed as well.
Later in the morning, the rest of Studio V showed up at the park, and work resumed on the monumental task of sifting hundreds of pounds of sand for the new sandbox. Just before lunch, we encountered a small…well, pretty large hiccup in our plan…. After examining the complicated directions from the manufacturer, we discovered that one entire side of ‘Home Rescue’ had been installed backwards (not by Studio V of course!). So, it was then our mission to take apart the pieces, and assemble them in their correct places.
After lunch, some of Studio V split off to gather materials for our shade structure mockup, while some stayed and continued to work at the park. Wood, metal, and lots of particle board was loaded into a pickup and taken back to Simons Street to prepare for the upcoming construction of our mockup, now that our beautiful footer is now set and dry. As the three of us returned to the park after unloading our materials at the shop, we were greeted by a big surprise- Corrine Jones Playground was bustling with activity! The nearly completed section of the playground was full of playing children, and the ‘racetrack’ sidewalk had children racing around on scooters. It definitely proved the saying ‘if you build it, they will come!”. The rest of Studio V had nearly finished ‘Home Rescue’, the giant pile of sand had all been sifted into the new sandbox (which was also full of children playing in the sand), and the spring toys had been cemented into the ground. The children and Wagener Terrace neighbors were excited to see all of the progress, as was Studio V- of course we had to ‘test out’ the new equipment too!
At around 5:30, Studio V began cleaning up and winding down for the day….NOT!- there was still so much work to do at the shop- so after a brief dinner break, we reconvened at Simons Street to begin work on our concrete forms for the mockup structure. We diligently worked into the night, cutting 2×4’s and plywood to get our forms built and ready for concrete to be poured tomorrow night.
At around 11 o’clock we finally finished our forms….and they look awesome! What a day for Studio V, now let’s get some sleep!