This weekend, Studio V began its first construction mock and building assembly to figure out design details and construction methods. We needed to test out all the kinks in the design and practice putting materials together in order to improve efficiency before we go to Greenville and build our final structure. For our mock assembly, we are building a section of the final structure, which includes, footing, four columns, two beams, and five rafters purlins, decking, stairs, and picnic tables.
Our schedule has us going to Greenville during our fall break and assembling the entire porch structure in five days. We should know what we are doing before that. On Saturday, our goal was to set the foundation so that we could start building on Sunday. This is my first time building a structure from foundation up. I did not anticipate all the time spent in lining up the footing and squaring it to the existing building. We used the Pythagorean theorem of a 3-4-5 triangle to mark the site and dig two feet deep holes to pour concrete and set our footing. The process took eight people four and a half hours. This process gave me a new perspective of building compared to the usual scaled models and using straight edges we see in studio.
Saturday was an all-day building event. We cut, we climbed, and we put up the beams and rafters. Building full scale gave us a chance to fully grasp what was happening from design to construction. It also gave us the opportunity to see and analyze what worked and what needs to be redesigned. Just by having a practice run setting foundations the night before, we were able to set the next set of foundations in more than half the time it took yesterday.
