In the past two weeks the Triangle got something we’ve been needing for a year: lots of rain. Good for the plants and the earth, not so good for construction. But with now nearly 12″ of rain replenishing the groundwater (and 12′ or more of water runoff filling the local reservoirs), we were happy when the rain stopped and the crew could get back to work.
As you saw in the previous photos, the site was quite exposed in week 12. By the time I got back to the site, things were pretty much put back together, although there’s still plenty of evidence both of the progress that was made and the infrastructure that’s being laid. Compare this lovely spring panorama with the mayhem two weeks ago:
Do you remember when I explained that the seven 4″ pipes going into the audio eQuipment Room were only half the pipes that would ultimately surface there? Well here you can see the plywood template holding those fourteen pipes in place, the seven running along the trough with three more (on the right hand side) visible and four others covered by the tarp:
The three on the right are destined for the large machine room in the other building, and they will carry audio, video, and network traffic to/from the video and storage arrays as you can see here
The other four pipes? They come from the Music Room side of the wall:
Talk about stuffing 10 lbs of material into a 5 lb sack! I won’t say what kind of material the contractor used for his example.
I think I’ve already mentioned that to achieve modular block sizes for the inner withe as well as the outer withe, we expanded the air cavity from 4″ to nearly 5-1/2″. That’s handy because a 4″ PVC pipe describes the inner diameter of the pipe. The outer diameter (with collar) is about 5″, so it’s a comfortable fit to run a pipe right between the two withes:
Here you can see the underground network that now connects the panels in Booths A and B with the Control Room:
and some other underground networks:
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Finally, two pictures of the craftsmen at work trying to achieve 1/8″ tolerances in a 1″ concrete world:
I’m hoping that next week we’ll have some blocks repaired, the footings restored, and the pipes fully secured into their proper positions. Then the following week the electricians can work on electrical conduits, and the following two weeks we’ll finally be in a position to prepare and pour the slab. We’ll see!