Up! Up! And away…

March 9th at 9pm I will fly out and the mission will begin. As a case study for finishing my diploma at FAUP (Porto Architectural School), I've decided to volunteer and join A4A (Architects for Aid) in one of their humanitarian architecture projects. The projected on which I've been assigned is the construction of the LCCU (Lesotho Children Counseling Unit) centre in Lesotho. The building has been halted and an assessment, survey and new proposal and program will be drawn up in order that the building might finish to be built. Once this is completed a second trip will be organized and I'll be overseeing the building on site. The objective of this blog is to keep record of the work that is being done, both for the benefit of the members of A4A in London, FAUP to whom I'll also be reporting, my own record as well as friends and family that might want to know what I'm up to. Please comment on any post that you have an opinion, as this will undoubtedly help me in the completion of my thesis. Disclaimer: The information displayed on this site has not been previously edited or checked by any A4A staff and I'm the sole responsible for it's contents. A4A or any of the other involved organizations are not to be hold responsible on any account for what is published on this blog.

Tuesday, 19 June 2007

Film, trucks and beams.

Quick dash to the site at 9am to meet Badru. Badru is a local filmmaker that has been employed by Sentebale to do short documentary films to update their website. One of the projects he is reporting on is the LCCU, so this morning we did a short interview and I showed him around the site.

It was a fortunate day for him to come as we had a bit of everything… Men down in the village collecting stone, steelwork for the ring beams, 3 deliveries of material and at lunch time we even cast some concrete (only one of the 2 slabs I had been promising though).

So if I’m not mistaken (as I had to leave for a meeting that was later cancelled with TED), we now have 4/10 slabs done and we wait for nothing but the electrician to finalize his work to cast the 5th.

The materials that we were short on arrived today. The trucks and the way they offload the sand and gravel on site is quiet impressive (for pictures click here). Deliverd today was not only 19mm crushed stone for the slabs but also 12mm for the ring beam. I had requested this smaller size because with the width of our block we would have struggled with the other.

The ring beams are being prepared and so are the “anchor columns” for it (small column stubs placed at 2400mm cc and 3 courses deep to better connect the ring beam and the wall).

Once this work is completed we can then start erecting the roof. And for that to happen tomorrow I will try and visit, in Bloemfontein, the thatch specialists. I’m getting a bit concerned with the pitch of the courtyard roof not being suitable for thatch. I am prepared to change it if necessary however I want to meet with them to see if we can keep as it works in a much nicer way with the rest of the building.

That said all that is rest for today is to report on two totally different events: Lesotho’s game against Uganda ended in 0-0 draw and was not one that was really worth watching (though since we had extra tickets we did invite two children that were wondering around at the entrance, one turned out to be a brother a player), and the curfew has now been changed to 8pm-5am, I believe it is because they realized that yesterday many of the workers got stuck with no transport or means to get home.
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