Studio Construction: The Site

The building is looking good.

The site is another story.

The combination of trench digging, lifting pavers, uprooting garden beds and rain has resulted in a hazard zone. 

A Destruction Zone

But look - the next step has started.

Cladding Dave can be seen beginning to wrap the building in Tyvek.

Tyvek is a Dupont product designed to keep air and water out while letting water vapour escape. It is just like putting a Gortex jacket on the shed. It is a second line of defence if rain gets behind the exterior cladding.

Cladding must be arriving next.

The cladding team will need to get access to the back of the building while carrying large sheets. There isn't enough room down the sides of the building to do this. Up until now, all work has been restricted by temporary fences to keep people and materials out of the sensitive forest areas. Compaction by foot traffic and the dumping of materials causes major issues with the health of the soil.

Here I am marking out a path where people can walk when they need to carry large loads to the back of the building. Plywood will be laid down between the flags to spread the weight of the load on the soil to reduce compaction.

Ron is reducing the steepness of the bank to give easier access to the temporary forest track.

This is B horizon soil from the site excavation. With all of the site activity, including being driven over by many large, heavy delivery trucks, the soil has become very compacted. Rain no longer penetrates, instead it pools on top. It will be dug up later to backfill around the building and compacted again. The soil piles behind Ron are precious top soil for garden beds.