Driving up to the site today seeing Professor Pastre and my fellow classmates arranging columns around the slab was the first real taste of the building coming together. While it is crunch time, there are definitely moments of pause to think about how truly unique our pavilion will be. I honestly can’t wait to see the end result for the sheer sense of pride that I know it will give me and the rest of the team. Even tomorrow, at the Community Day hosted by the Parks Conservancy, when some of the walls will be erected, it will give the project a sense of human scale and reality.
Also, it is important to realize the small tasks that get completed each hour, each day. While they may seem negligible to some, those small reveal details or carefully aligning the girder elements will ensure a high quality of craft and care that has been put into this project. Priming was another key example. It’s amazing how much primer and paint we have gone through and the time and preparation it takes to be efficient in our painting. I’m sure the building process would have been significantly faster if we kept the structure bare, but who wants greenish tinted wood for a welcoming garden pavilion?
It will be interesting to reflect on this designing and building process once we are long gone from Charleston, back in our hometowns over winter break. I’ve learned more about using wood than I ever thought I would in one semester. Personally going into Studio V with only a basic knowledge of machinery used to manipulate wood and the tools of the building trade in general, I now feel fairly confident with such tools, concepts and working with wood. Furniture design and other small scale projects have always been something I wanted to pursue as a hobby, so I am feeling pretty inspired right now to dig out my Dad’s tools when I go home, salvage some lumber and make some Christmas gifts!
