When i wake up in the morning, I never know what to expect. However, one thing is for sure. At least half of my 24 hour day will be spent at the Corinne Jones Playground or at the wood shop on Simons street. Today was yet another one of those eventful days. A twelve hour shift at the park ended with much accomplished. Did I say a twelve hour shift? As surprised as i may seem, this was not the first time this semester, not the first time this month, and most certainly not the first time this week. Yup! Twelve hour days are the norm around here, a little ridiculous to be honest. You would figure once the sun goes down most people would call it quits and head home. Nope! We just pull three of four cars up and shine high beams down and continue to trowel freshly poured concrete through the night. Forget the the warm hot meal we call dinner. Who needs dinner when you have a box of wheat thins and teddy grams…Oh and lets not forget all the tasty gnats one could ever ask for! Does this sound like fun to anyone? I’ll say yes, and no.
Welcome to architecture! I’ve been in school for quite some time now and i can honestly say this is by far the most demanding course I’ve come in contact with yet. Studio V truly pushes everyone to their limits both mentally and physically day in and day out. Although it may seem, this experience is not as terrible as i make it sound. It really is a great opportunity and is a testimony to an amazing feat we as a studio accomplish one day at a time. Each day, no matter how many hours we put in, we can slowly see our goal nearing an end. To think where we were just a month ago to where we stand today is impressive and I’m glad to be apart of the experience. We aren’t even finished yet and after today i feel a sense of accomplishment.
I can’t end this post without saying the name Steve Gross. What an individual…I just don’t get it. If i was him I would be on the lake not eating gnats with a bunch of young buck college students. This guy just happened to drive by the park one day and now it’s as if he’s one of us on site. You can see the dedication and passion this man has…it’s amazing. I think he deserves and A. I’m going to speak for everyone in Studio V and say we greatly appreciate his help and can’t thank him enough for his time.
Today was a milestone. The entire wall is now poured along with the majority of the adjacent concrete pads . A few days for the concrete to set up and the rest of the community will finally see what lies behind the wooden forms. We are all very excited to demolish the form work and expose what lies beneath!
As we began to add our finishing touches on the wall at around 7:30 P.M, a comment came across regarding something about the possibility of rain. A quick glimpse of the radar on an iphone and Steve transformed into someone we haven’t seen thus far. A shear case of panic was displayed! At this point portions of the wall were still fairly wet and weren’t even troweled yet and the wind was blowing like it was fixing to rain any minute. The remaining crew was ordered to quickly cover up all of today’s work with plastic and even though we all felt like the odds were it wouldn’t rain, I’m glad we did because as I’m typing this right now, it’s raining…
-Richard Chalupa