Romania LIVE

2006-10-24T19:28:00.000+01:00

Bit of a wait for the next blog I know, but we have been working hard if the tutors ask. Since Saturday we all slumped and relaxed on Sunday; Monday started with the usual wake up call at 0700 hours, and the tired group busied away on site for the final run untill we leave.

To cover the last two days briefly we have been frantically finishing form works to hopefully have some concrete "bricks" and slabs to establish the start of the walled system that will cover the front of the school.

This meant numbering and regulating all parts to be made, filling the form works with their predesigned textures and reinforcement. Sounds simple but in reality it takes a lot longer than intially thought, especially with seven girls............

Last threads of today were encompassed with finishing the osb board to cover the timber frame proportion of the wall that we intend to start hanging the panels from.

Tommorrow will be are last day on site, which willl be the crunch time for what we are able to get done, and also bbq and beers in the evening.

2006-10-21T20:07:00.003+01:00

It's Saturday night and the strain of the last week has taken it's toll. Much as we would love to be painting Brasov red right now, it's far more likely that we'll watch some more of the studio presentation DVD (many thanks to Russell for sending it and all tutors who gave a Eurovision-style "hello Romania") and get some well earned sleep.

As far as I'm aware, the production line is going well although being in the circular saw link meant that I saw and heard very little of what was happening other than "cut this". I am reliebly informed, however, that the base panels have been uncovered to show some lovely crisp edges, plenty more formwork has been put together (a few bits even cast) and another hole has been dug/filled.

We have found a couple more "challenges" having noticed the windows were built up from an old drawing so the design had to be revised once more - Bea's putting the finishing touches to it now and it should all be adaptable from what we have. A lesson in procurement was also learned while attempting to visit a builder's merchant after lunch on a Saturday. We have lived, learned, and are still debating whether it's worth trying to work tomorrow. Can we do 10 days straight? Watch this space....

Cati-Lee village crone.

2006-10-19T21:49:00.000+01:00

After a frosty early start and a long day on and off site the construction of concrete gets ever faster.....Today the concrete mixer, aggregate and sand arrived!!! Halleluiah... We never thought it would make us so pleased!!

The production line finally begins in earnest after all our sourcing worries and aches and pains from mixing by hand.

Base panels have been poured and are busy curing whilst the bench has been well sanded and inlayed with flock wallpaper (a treat from home) and has had a special trench dug ready for its conception early tomorrow! Will tested it out for comfort...

Design work has been remolded and rationalised in anticipation for forming some sexy slender panels tomorrow. Inspired by our surroundings in Tarlungeni we have decided to incorporate local textural features into our concrete wall panels as part of the overall narrative. The more time we spend here the more we are excited by what we are going to produce in the next few frantic days...

Apologies for the shortness of our blog but tomorrow will be another early start so we're off to our bunks after putting aside our smelly steel toe-capped boots...

Buna Seara (Our Romanian is really coming along!)

Night,
Hannah and Alex P

2006-10-18T21:21:00.000+01:00

Wednesday the 18th already????!

Well, Saturday was summer, Sunday was autumn and today was most definately winter. Taxi windows and playground grass crisply frosted, and mountains drenched in pale morning light and capped with snow....Romania Live team freezing body parts off.

After a progressive meeting on Monday with Voluntary Design and Build (VD&B), it was clear that more thought and experimenting was needed with some aspects of the design. Over the last few days (with concrete mixed not quite materialising and Bea having to sweet talk Stefan for some more aggregate - Hungarian handy! Kosonom!), it has been generally accepted that only a section of the wall will be completed this year.

Today, the day started with a meeting with all of us, Dave (of VD&B) and Laura (our tutor) about the design of the panels which we WILL be building on the far end (i.e. the ones nearest the school). Decisions were made (hooray!) - window sizes and positions staying put mainly put. Cathrine pointed out a slight technical hitch with the current connection detail (thank you Cathrine's brain for settling unanswered things as she went to sleep!), which lead to a discussiong about the current panel system and a decision to stagger and rearrange them somehow...

***While some made formwork for a bench to sit against the wall, Alex, Bea and Cathrine worked on their 1:1 (in situe) cardboard model of the panels. However, it took more sun, tomatoes, salami, gerkins, bread and some chocolate wafers over lunch to fuel a breakthrough - the 5 minute model (yes, we learnt this in 1st year and somehow when it matters, the most obvious does not always occur). With window layout clearly shown at a workable scale, people drawn (children and adults) inside and outside, and moveable 'panels' it was easy to play...

The model helped catalyse a radical change in the plan for the concrete panels - we're cutting them up! One more quick get together with all our team and VD&B suddenly brought about a shattering of the panel system towards the far end, opening up the wall to let more light in. With this new system in mind, Alex, JP and Ruth worked on a possible layout while everyone else did some proper building! (if there is one thing this project has taught me to question, it is the relationship between architect and builder).

By the end of today, for the first time, everyone on site had held carpenter's pencils as well as architects'. It feels healthy. Bench formwork looking beautiful (ready for some concrete!), and even with sawdust in her hair, Hannah looked fab.

***Need to sleep now - to avoid further illness and to solidify todays words (creme de Zahar ars anyone???)

B

2006-10-17T19:53:00.000+01:00

Tuesday the 17th

After a sucessful meeting last night with the clients we split ino three groups. One group made a formwork for a cantilevered bench, the second group made another even fancier test panel + more formwork for panels and the final group made prototypes for window openings, very successfully it must be noted.

End of the day and with the best work so far. John celebrates with the local kids!

2006-10-16T21:00:00.000+01:00

Monday saw the long awaited unveiling of our concrete masterpiece, a whole panel and it only took us six days!!!

The teams looks on tentatively, waiting, hoping..... (above)

Despite a few technical teething problems the panel was universally percieved by the the group as a success, inspiring the team to further endeavours.

We worked hard and fast against the fading light to cast another panel and double our productivity to two panels!

Succces, another panel cast and we set off home for showers and hot coco after hitching a ride from two generous Romanian drivers, saving us from an unthinkable walk home.

Another day another panel, we are one step closer to our goal. The team tucked themselves into bed dreaming of the next concrete masterpiece awaiting them onsite tomorrow!

2006-10-15T18:15:00.000+01:00

After a heavy week of work on site the group unwound with a night out in Brasov on Saturday. Today we took a trip up the cable car to Mount Tampa to see the views across the medieval landscape of Brasov.

Brasov central square: Piata Sfatului and the Trumpeter's Tower.

The Brasov sign seen from the town centre and views down over Brasov from the cable car.

The Piata Sfatului - The Gothic Black Church (left) and the White Tower in the distance.

Our group (+ Joe) at the top of Mount Tampa and the Brasov sign and views out to the Transylvanian Alps.

Early to bed, early to rise...

2006-10-14T18:18:00.000+01:00

Saturday - lots of fun and games on site today.

Bit of a mission getting gravel involving finding ourselves in a quarry and negotiating transport from a family with a horse and cart. But hey we got it and finally poured our first concrete panel!!

Mixing concrete a group effort with a makeshift mixer - a plastic sack.

Maybe our success was as it was not a school day so we didn’t have the little ‘uns to play with.

Hannah and Alex P stayed at home and CADed up our cracker of a design.

No bus back today so had to thumb a lift. Had a good sing along in our cab home and now getting ready for a night on the town!!

Sunday tomorrow…a much needed day of rest.

Ruth Queally

2006-10-13T17:05:00.001+01:00

Friday 13th - Despite having an unlucky day date-wise, today felt like we were really getting our on-site act together. After recovering from the worst journey in recent history, involving an invalid passport, stolen wallet, assault on the busses and three days not quite sleeping in various transport terminals throughout Europe, I finally joined the rest of the group on site in time for our first team photo.

We had our “tea party “ with the kids this morning. Thankfully it involved the minimum of tea, a few biscuits and lots of drawings of “house” , “school”, “tree”, “rain”, “tv”, “stars” and other of the ridiculously cute and grubby kids’ favourite things from the village.

Today also involved input from the whole team in working up our design at 1:20 and resolving some of the details. We have even figured out how to use bits of this morning’s session in the wall.

After some technical deliberation and a fair bit of posturing from our fair gents, we successfully constructed the frames for our two sample slabs and ordered more wood from the vD&B team. We are still waiting for the second procurement team to find their way back from the builders’ merchants but are confident that they will get all we need for another cracking day tomorrow.

All we can hope is that tomorrow has as much good humour, fun power tools and bright sunshine as today. Until then we’re off for a celebratory beer and will be in touch tomorrow.

Cati-Lee, fortune teller extraordinaire.

2006-10-12T17:55:00.000+01:00

Thursday, what a day, missing members, muggings and Will being escorted off the street for drinking in public (well we did expect the last). In all seriousness it was an interesting day, long but fruitful, plans of action have hopefully been organised and the empire will be spread to Romania within the next couple of weeks.

The day was split between five groups delegated to manage the fragile tasks of:

Builder’s yard - we need concrete for a concrete wall, it took a while but we finally worked it out.

Timber yard and sawing - Ideally taken on by someone competent but will got the short straw.

Tools - We lacked a lot, but brought the wrong type.

Policia - The most unfortunate incident of heroism, Catherine finally made it to Brasov only to be mugged - despite the best efforts of John and Ruth to pursue and apprehend the fugitive were to no avail.

Designers - Initial concepts had to be pinned downed to a practical design that would dictate the modular system, create happy clients, and allow us to finally start banging nails tomorrow (Will is so pleased)!

To close, the weather is cracking at the moment, we still have Yorkshire Tea, and I am content.

Count von Kaiser Villheim Dracula Bran Burns of Transylvania, Romania

2006-10-11T17:49:00.000+01:00

We made it!

You'll have to excuse the lack of a blog yesterday, it was considered but decided against as it probably wouldn't have made sense. Due to a slight passport hitch, only 9 very tired people arrived at the hostel about 24 hours ago (our greetings and thoughts go out to Cathrine wherever she is now - somewhere between Warsaw and Bucharest...see you very soon!).

The epic journey began when 6 people met at sheffield train station at 2pm, joined by a further 2 at the airport at 4am tuesday morning, most without any sleep. A very short trip to Amsterdam and a half an hour tour of Scicpol airport saw us back on a plane, this time for a little sleep on the way to Bucharest. The views out of the window almost made it worth trying to stay awake for.

We arrived at the airport and faced our first real test, how to get to the train station with almost no Romanian and very few euros. I'm afriad we failed a little in accepting the illegal taxi at a fairly extortionate rate but we were tired and glad to keep moving, even if it was a little crazy following the tram down the tracks and barging our way through the traffic. I may be doing Bucharest a huge disservice but the bits we saw were pretty grim and I think everyone was very relieved to get on the train. Away from the tempramental cash points and impassioned train sellers.

The train journey itself was stunning. Grass plains that East Anglia would have been proud of gave way gently to the wood covered hills. Concrete flats and houses to wooden chalets. Soon, apon waking from sleep most were amazed to be deep in the mountains, overlooking streams, huge forests and tiny hamlets. After 15 hours of traveling, over half an hour of Will going chug-a-chug and a euro-pop, carpet covered taxi ride to the hostel.....we had finally made it.... to a bed, well, a room with 10 of them in actually.

This morning was a bit of a write off, as we allowed ourselves to sleep as long as we needed. Which turned out to be 11am (Brasov time, 9am Sheffield) We got our first view of Brasov in the daylight, which is beautiful, you can see why they say it'll be the next Prague. But more importantly our first view of Tarlengeni and the site we'll be working on; a chance to meet the rest of the team, explain what we've been upto and talk about our plans for the rest of our time here. More tomorrow on Tarlgeneni itself, the people and the project.

2006-10-09T10:32:00.000+01:00

What a crazy few weeks it's been..... This time two weeks ago most of us didn't know leaving the country would be an option, let alone imagine we would be getting on a plane bound for Romania at 6am tomorrow morning. But I guess we have to get used to the pace of the MArch.

The first thing we had to do was understand the brief. The project we are joining is the design and build of a facility for the social integration, nutrition and education of 250 children from a deprived community. It will be run in partnership with the existing school and two local charities (FAST and Hope for the Nations) and has been on site in the Roma village of Tarlungeni in Romania since June. Most of the project has been designed by Voluntary Design&Build and is in the process of being constructed, however one area hadn't been designed and our brief was to design and build this concrete wall.

If we're honest, it initially didn't sound a very interesting proposition and no-one was very happy with the idea of using concrete as a material. However, the wall is the main facade of the building, facing onto the playground and we soon realised an ordinary, plain concrete wall would never be enough. Before we could start designing we had lots of things we needed to understand first, everything from the practicalities of how to make attractive, engaging concrete to more philosopical questions of culture, integration and education.

What are the wider issues of the community? Does the Roma culture integrate with the Romanian? Is there a shared history? Who uses the school? What are the best ways of designing for children? Can we use our design to make it easier for these distinct communities to integrate? How do you make concrete? Can you make it coloured, textured, interesting not only in a lab but on site with limited equipment in Romania?

As the sixth years have grappled with the final days before dissertation hand-in, and everyone has researched various areas we needed information on, the fifth years have been experiementing in the lab, thanks due here to the wonderful people down in engineering, especially concrete technician Chris Todd. Some of the samples we produced are shown here below. Who would have thought embossed wallpaper could make concrete so attractive? Or tights work as formwork?

Over the last few days everything has started to fall into place and all the hard work seems to have paid off. Sixth year disserations are at the printers, the concrete samples out of the moulds and research written up. 10 pairs of site boots have been purchased, flights and trains booked, people injected. After a fantastic design meeting we realised everyone was thinking pretty much on the same lines and that actually, if you're given something really simple, there's a lot you can do with a wall, even a concrete one. The design hasn't been finalised, there's just no way we can do from such a distance, but we are fairly confident there are a series of elements we can reproduce. Elements such as projecting boxes that can be accessed from both sides, and closed off as required, a simple story told through the decoration on tilt-slab panels and landscaping and decoration kept to slightly recessed panels around the windows.

Will it work? Who knows? Watch this space.....

2006-10-08T19:13:00.000+01:00

Hello and welcome to Romania LIVE.

We are hoping that once in Romania we will be able to update this site everyday and use it not only to record our progress for the presentation to the department when we get back to Sheffield, but also so everyone back home can see what we're up to and be inspired.