Blood, gore and piles

Is this a blood and gore no holds barred blog or am I going to filter out the nasty bits?

As anyone that has been involved in building knows, there are always nasty bits. The first and most common of these occur in the ground, sometimes even before the first shovel hits dirt.

The soil engineers reassuring telephone call after his drilling rig had left the site was confirmed by the official results from the lab tests. The standardised contract for a soil test, obligatory for insuring the construction, requires the soil engineer to suggest the most appropriate type of foundations for the given site conditions. And that is where the problem lies. As a professional he engages his responsibility with any suggestion he might make. This engineer’s not for taking chances.

The site is in a street where houses stand tall and proud, their 50cm thick stone walls rising up 3 storeys from the simplest of strip foundations (the first course of stone laid directly on the ground) without a crack or any sign of subsidence since the 1930’s.

So what sort of foundations has he suggested?

Piled foundations !

Sketching on autopilot

Do you know that uneasy feeling when you've been driving along a winding country road at dusk and you suddenly realise that you have been on 'auto pilot' for what seems like the last 20 minutes?
You've been wandering in your head, following a thread, drifting from one idea to the next. You have a vague recollection of having negociated a junction, overtaken a tractor and trailer, and although it was you that was driving, it's almost as if you were there as a passenger.

Sometimes it happens when I'm drawing.

Floating Cassocks

The soil engineer has been and gone, leaving the site with three 10 metre deep bore holes. We have to wait till Wednesday for his official report. The day after the drilling he called to announce the good news as if it was the birth of a healthy baby.
The house is not sitting above a municipal tip or mine workings or a gravel exploitation or quicksand! He did however announce the 'good floor' at a depth of 2 metres or thereabouts. This does seem to be a bit deeper than anticipated. The question needs further investigation.

It would have been extremely surprising if we had been above mine workings because the area where the site sits, is below the level of the nearby river. Twice in the last century the river burst its banks and spilled over into our neighbourhood. The local church bears witness with a line engraved in the stone façade indicating the highest level reached by the floodwaters.
An image springs to mind of the local priest, waiting patiently as the waters rose, with a hammer and chisel, cassock floating in the current.

Until 2000, the floods were just events in history. The impending millennium awoke French politicians with apocalyptic visions of globally warmed catastrophes. A law was passed restricting and controlling construction in flood plains. The law was called a Plan for Prevention of Flooding Risk. This is not as one would imagine, a plan to protect the citizen from imminent disaster with the construction of flood barriers or sophisticated computer generated simulations showing the impact of urban development on the potential risk of a major flood. More loosely translated it is a plan for preventing the risk of any politician being blamed for loss of life or property damage.
The Maison Camy will be part of a new generation of buildings conceived under the flood code. In her code compliant house The Client will be safe from the rising waters like Noah in his ark.
She still has not been to site yet. She hasn't even visited the blog yet. It is now 11 days since the demolition.

An empty canvas

The missing tooth!

Early morning vibrations

The JCB, that had been parked in a nearby street the night before, started early.

It was still dark and the humid air from a river fog helped damp down the dust. The poor neighbours must have been awoken earlier than usual. One neighbour squinted bleary eyed from her bedroom window at the sight of a double chest freezer sized scoop of rubble swinging effortlessly out over her car to be dumped into the waiting lorry.
'I think it'd be a good idea to move the car?'

The rubble was a three dimensional jigsaw puzzle of the house. Having known the house so intimately I could recognise a familiar piece as it dropped into the lorry. The house had been largely built of limestone, probably from a quarry somewhere in the neighbourhood.
That was also, more than likely, its ultimate destination. A well informed neighbour assured me that there was a very large abandonned quarry in the outer suburbs that was being filled.
So stone to stone, dust to dust.

History

This is the story of two houses. The first house has just been demolished and the second house is just about to be built.

I am the Architect for the project of the second house and I want to tell the story of its construction.

Let me introduce you to The Client, without whom there would be no project. Until very recently, she lived in the the first house. She is the one for whom the house is being built. Although she is very keen on the idea of a new house, she is upset by the demolition. So upset in fact that she stayed away from the site on the day of the demolition and hasn't been back since. It's been three days now.

I suppose it's natural really. The house has been a home to her family since the 1930's. The Client's son is the fourth generation to have lived in the house. A lot of memories get attached to stone and mortar. Where do they all go when the bulldozer arrives?

It will take a bit of time for her to get used to the idea that the house no longer exists, except for images captured in photos and souvenirs.