Wednesday, June 05, 2013

Emergency building



While we were getting used to the new house and playing around with the ideal protection for our stone floor, a real emergency happened: I now have a 3-year old girl, and a visual artist partner. And the partner is due to exhibit in a few months, preferably sans the 3-year old's contribution. Meaning, her finger-painting on the said partner's completed works is _not_ welcome. At all.

So... We are in urgent need of outside storage for the completed works and also for the work-in-progress. And, we need a guest room. Finance is limited, and ideally we'd rather have waited a few months more, but the risk of more works being spoiled by an unruly, opinionated, stubborn child is too high.

Back to the drawing board, then, for the ideal visitors' bungalow. (We are only expecting our first visitor in October at best, and the exhibition is in September, so the visitor won't have to sleep among the stretchers.)

One technique we've been gathering information about is compressed stabilised earth blocks. A friend of mine in Senegal has a house currently being finished using this material. The artisan uses 98% laterite and 2% cement blocks. What I've read elsewhere is closer to a 95/5 or 90/10 ratio, but I'm willing to learn. With such a low cement content, compression is key. Fortunately, I was able to trace a block-making machine that would fit the bill. It's local, and it's proved its efficiency.

If the Senegalese builder is right, and this technique will indeed halve the cost of building, we might just be able to do more than just a shack for the paintings, and get the guest room ready earlier than expected. The plan is simple; small, efficient, no space or materials wasted. What we have in mind is something like this:


The most important aspect is that we are back to the wrap-around porch idea, this time a full wrap-around: the first building's porch covers only two sides, but I regret sacrificing the east side, which gets quite a lot of rain. Experience shows that only the north side doesn't really need it. Besides, since we've moved in, we practically live on the porch, and consider it a very useful and pleasant addition to any house.

So... drafting, drawing, counting, calculating... We are back to all this fun, and more!


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