week 19 - leap forward

Week 20 starting tomorrow !

We now have regular site meetings every Monday with the client and the main contractor, and the works have been steadily progressing since August.

We're starting racing a bit so that we really have the roofs in place before the rains come - but for now no sign of it, uuuf !

The Dorm was the occasion for the bricklayers to try a new way of laying stones... with less mortar than what they're used to. And they're managing pretty well !

very few men on this picture... the first Monday after pay day is always a bit difficult...

I didn't realize the ground and ring reinforced concrete beams were going to take so much time to cure when the structural engineer n°1 proposed that... it's a bit unnerving to have to count 21 days before being able to do anything... especially since all these curves* make the shuttering all the more complicated ! (*inherited design from design architect)

oh and soon we'll have compost toilets !

But oh well it's overall quite a satisfaction to see these buildings coming up. The dorm is going to be particularly nice, with its gradient levels and the integration of the tree in the outdoor area !

Oh and i forgot to mention we now have 11300 square CSEB blocks, more than 2000 half ones and 800 round ones... !!

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Chantier au jour le jour

I've already talked about the difficulties to plan anything ahead here last year. On Wednesday late afternoon, the person in charge of the site while the boss is away informs that he will have to be away for the 2 coming days, as he has to attend a relative's funeral. Ok, I am the one remaining, I will then spend Thursday and Friday on site. I'm also waiting for more info on the gardens to finish setting out the future alley. But the permaculture director just messaged me : she's been sick all night and won't be able to go anywhere today.

Week... 46 - Almost the roofs (this time for real) (I'm such an optimist)

I didn't realize I've waited for so long to post an update. It seems that the roofs have been under the works FOR EVER. We had wished to get them done by the end of November, before the rains would start. Well, something like 20 weeks later, now that the rainy season is ending, we still don't have the roof structures covered. Better doing it Necola's way : sit back and wait The contractor hasn't finished placing the designed (by structural engineers) structure, and then the tiles supplier, who is an engineer himself, wasn't happy with the structure at some places and asked the structural engineers to reinforce it. So now, we are in the final stages of putting that */&àçéè' structure up... My fingers are hurting, they've been crossed for too long now ;) But something is happening ! At the end of the day, it's going to be beautiful and inspiring :)

Week 5 : The launch of CSEB making

So, yeah, this week saw the start of the production of our CSEB - Compressed Stabilized Earth Blocks, also called "SSB" for Stabilized Soil bricks, or BTC in French, for Blocs de Terre Comprimée (manque un S pour stabilisée mais bref). They are much more eco-friendly than the fired bricks (using a looot of wood to get cooked) or concrete (using a loooot of (imported) cement), as these blocks should count only 5% of cement for the stabilization, and don't need any plaster or paint or any other layer on them at the end to be confortable and beautiful. So some soil has already been extracted and sieved, and kinda analyzed ( a bit too roughly unfortunately), we had a bag of cement ready, some water nearby, a large area for the curing was prepared, the machine was assembled and we were ready to start testing ! We made our first blocks on Monday afternoon, guiding the guys for the dry mixing, the wet mixing, the steps for the compression, the handling on the block...

Eco-Archi in Malawi

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