Setting a space column

Sure enough when some time ago I spotted a great building potential in a certain log stuck in the canal, I didn't really know what it was going to happen to it and indeed now... it's filling the space.
It became a space column!!!

Check out all the details of the wood working construction process...

Unexpected bamboo in Italy

In these days I really need to give big thanks to all the good stars upthere: sometimes reality gets so unexpectedly amazing that everything seems to fit right here... right now! It just takes the time to let things happen and come to you.

This is the way I eventually bumped in the best italian bamboo I have ever seen. Talking about the real stuff up to 14-15 centimeters of diameter and 15-16 meters long canes. Fabulous.

No time to loose: just get into designing and building stuff right away.

Post hole digger meditation

Meditation of a post hole digger. Every Yoga, every sutra... it's just a suggestion! Daily actions are way more inspiring and challenging, when you're making the real muscles. 

Transforming a fence in a window at zero cost

Just finished today! It took me two full days (besides usual to-do-things) to tear down part of wall, rebuild a frame and then a window to go into it. The result is more than acceptable... actually it's quite good, matching closely the thai-style design but with a bit more careful approach in the total re-use of materials and left overs.

Endless inspiration from hexagonal geometry

Playing around with half equilateral triangles the combinations of designs are pretty much endless... what a fun game to play! Thinking about water crystals and the spinning wheels of Natural cycles.

   

It's such an interesting and playful mind game: here I tried some square patterns using the same half equilateral triangles... and there are really endless combinations! All good practice for bigger models that are under construction here in these days for another building project with wood! What a wonderful opportunity to work and learn at the same time! Giving very deep thanks...

 

Carbon-negative reform job

Proceeding in the reform job documented in one of my recent posts, we added an extra room outside the window and the wall that we removed, creating a much bigger kitchen space and a very interesting flow of energies through the whole building.

This is the view of where there was previously the window and the external wall; the picture is taken from the new room, that before was actually the outside of the building. Being this a really special client, we had an interesting request to do something that I more than gladly accomplished and documented in this post!

Under the wooden floor of the new room...

 ...we placed 20 kg of charcoal! ...and there is place for much much more, to absorb humidity and bad smell.
Indeed this is a very interesting feature of japanese traditional building used especially in the basement of wooden temples but also below households that were thought for lasting long time and for the well being of their inhabitants.
Once I met a retired japanese man in Toride prefecture who was preparing bamboo charcoal for this purpose... there are pictures of that nice meeting somewhere in my hard-disk storage, now too far to reach.

The only concern is about the source of our charcoal... home made biochar /charcoal would be the very best choice, but in this case let's say that we got close enough... anyway still effectively storing C-carbon element instead of burning it and transform it again in the CO2 that the once-trees originally absorbed.

The simple equation of the atomic weights it's the following, so according to this we can calculate that by doing this we sequestered the equivalent of about 73.3 kg of carbon dioxide... partially balancing out the ecological footprint of this reform project. 

The aim now is to prepare another device to produce biochar from the leftover wood, while cooking on top of it of course... Get really close to finish one today, but some parts are still missing. Please stay tuned and keep check it out!

Hexagonal inspiration

Here is sequence of pictures from a very special private building construction site in Japan. The hexagonal wooden blocks we are using here have been custom ordered from an external wood worker. Amazing elements to play with...

 This will be the new wall supporting the window we've just tore down.

 Inspiring deities 

The shining mark of an hexagonal sunlight window on the roof of the new room. Enlightened inspiration...

The undoing of a japanese window frame

This is a sequence of pictures taken during the undoing of a window frame of a 60 old japanese house. You'll find it long and tedious (tell you from now...) if you're not into carpentry and how to make a good house or follow any of the very many schools of ecobuilding house making... Anyway
At moments it got to look like some sort of mind game to play fair and easy... but it end up being a dusty demolition, with a big wealth of insight on the oldtime japanese building techniques, the quality and the materials of a really well made type of house.

This is the top corner of the window we have to dismantle. Notice that the vertical pieces, painted in that blue grey color, has a precisely carved notch running all through the profile of the horizontal piece... it's quite amazing and feels too bad but we are meant to do it... c'est la vie!

When we remove the roof cover of the frame and the win the fight against the top piece, this is how the left side looked like. Amazing carpentry! 

Here is couple of detailed pictures of the left corner of the base (the sill) of the window.
This notch was inside the lowest part of the piece described in the previous pictures. Please notice the nails *very well hidden* under an about 5mm-thick layer of wood... note also that the vertical pieces did not make it and ended up smashed in pieces.

The right corner of that same board of the window sill, still partially inserted in the vertical piece.

Here is a detail of the center of the window sill, showing the notch that was holding the central post.
Notice that the profile of the piece entering here was a good 7mm wider and perfectly sealed.




 Amazingly long board but unfortunately had to be cut in the process...

There is no way out of the series of tricks of multiple notches. So here is what we ended up doing to take out the top post...
Soon after starting we have always been against the nails so pretty much working with all the nail bits that you'll see later on pointing against you... 

Notice in this section that this top post is actually made of two separated pieces, one not planed on top of the one with the glossy brown finish. Between the two pieces it sticks out the inserted portion of the table that was closing the window sill box. You'll see it better in the next picture.  

 

 The central notch of the top beam.

This is the outside of the window after grinding and demolishing the external 30mm of some really hardly compacted dark grey cement layer under the peach color rendering.

What a mess of noise and dust!
In the next picture, as you can also have a look here at in the lower right corner, you can see the frame of the floor of the the room where we are connecting into.

 Other details of how various parts were connected together. Still rough surfaces but amazingly precisely cut. 

This is an interesting detail of great quality: the blue metal piece is the last bit of the top-right corner of the roof of the window box. 

As you see it's fixed under the horizontal board but was sticking out passing through the lower board, already missing in this picture... too fast steps sometimes, too fast to take good pictures at!

The second day of work we proceeded taking down the plastic cover another section of frame, the one holding all the rendering boards and the cabinet that was behind it. We are still debating on the posts to insert as we'll cut through the last section with the fan on top. Proper planning required in the next days so you'll see other updates soon.