Tuesday, August 25, 2009

Our First Look at the Future Arts Village

Mud Mud Everywhere!

Walking through the future arts village at North Fork can be treacherous! One person was stuck in the mud already and lost a shoe! With all of the unavoidable Florida rain showers, there's nothing to do but keep going, even though it makes laying down the foundations of unit houses, bunkhouses, and the main house a bit difficult.

Despite the mud, we were able to gain some fun facts about the emerging arts village. Two different types of wiring are used inside the concrete - First re-barb is used to help maintain the shape of the concrete and steel wiring goes inside the concrete. This is primarily used to provide uniform heat throughout the concrete. Because metal acts as a conductor, if one part of the concrete was warmer than the other, the heat would travel through the metal inside and spread the heat to other parts. This does not mean that the floors will be heated during the winter, just that the floors will feel the same no matter where you stand on it.

There are a lot of pipes sticking out of the ground right now, all around the concrete foundation. The gray pipes are going to be used for electricity while the blue ones are used for water. There is one red pipe for the emergency sprinkler in the ceiling, used in case of fire.

All the concrete floors are split into a pattern of 4 pieces. This is because concrete hardens and will also expand in heat, and will always crack in some way. By controlling where the cracks are, the construction crew helps prevent other unwanted cracks and also allows for the concrete to expand without ruining the concrete. The cracks put in by the construction range in depth and can be anywhere from a quarter of an inch to five eighths of an inch.

All foundations must be sprayed for termites, even though there is very little wood used in the construction so far. The ground has been compacted to ensure that it will not shift after the building is constructed on top of it. After it has been firmly packed, it is sprayed for bugs and then covered by plastic. By treating the soil beforehand any existing bug populations are eliminated from underneath the future building sites.

There are many old trees in our camp, and the crew has carefully worked with a civil engineer to make paths and building around our most precious and oldest trees. Though many have had to be cut down, there is a big effort made to save as many as possible.

We met an artist who was involved with making our arts village! The architect, Ms Holly Gramble, was visiting the camp while we were on our tour. She had come to North Fork to attend some meetings. Her field has a lot to do with combining art with the practical needs of people. She told us about how they had met with girls to plan out the camp and that they made most of the plans on a CAD program.

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