Hello again and welcome back to the newest addition of the Rural Studio Bathhouse blog! We are so thrilled to show everyone what we’ve been up to recently! We have a big concrete update, but first—we’ve started stacking our wood walls!

This is super exciting because this is the major focus of the project, and will be the finish wall material in most of the spaces. Continuing with the construction of the outdoor shower, we have started the stacking here. With the help of the jig table that we built a few months ago, we can align our pieces of cypress wood on one side (the interior of the building) and can clamp them down to the board below, creating a uniform module of five pieces.

We are assembling the modules in the Fabrication Pavilion so we can have a clean working surface. This allows us to stack the modules as they will be set up on site, get everything square and level, and then move the modules in place on site.

We have just a few more layers of modules to assemble and then will begin the process of drilling the holes for the threaded rods in each module.

As the stacking of the outdoor shower walls was taking place, we also began the process of pouring the concrete curbs around the perimeter of the outdoor shower. We marked the curbs on the slab, assembled framed walls in place on the slab to hold the plywood formwork, and then leveled and attached the plywood to the formwork frames. Next, it was time for the pour!

With the assistance of some great helpers, we were able to form a wheelbarrow and bucket brigade, lifting the concrete up into the curbs in the outdoor shower.

After two days, we were able to remove the interior formwork and the vertical formwork walls on the exterior, revealing the hefty slab and curbs!

Once we saw how the pour went for the outdoor shower, we used the same process to build the curb formwork for the toilet and shower pods.

Pouring the outdoor shower first did teach us some things, including how to attach the plywood to the frames and the need to account for gaps at the seam between the formwork and slab due to the leveling process, and generally we learned the overall process of getting the concrete into the curbs.

After caulking all gaps, the formwork was set and it was ready to pour!

Again with the help of some fantastic helpers, we recently poured the curbs for the toilet and shower pods and are so excited to almost be done with concrete!

As this is being written, the team has been taking off all the interior curb formwork and the exterior vertical walls on the toilet and shower pod, revealing the slab and curbs!

We have another concrete pour coming up in a few days. This next pour will be for the foundation of a gray water filtration system for the outdoor shower run-off and the foundation of the bottle-filling station at the front of the building. We are already busy preparing for that pour with more digging and more rebar! Afterward, the only concrete left will be a topping slab going into each of the existing pods (the laundry and getting ready pods).

The team is very excited about the progress being made and cannot wait to dive back into the assembly of the wood walls for the outdoor shower and the rest of the building!

Thanks for following along with the Bathhouse blog! We look forward to providing another update very soon.

– Rural Studio Bathhouse Team

Carla, Ambar, Ashley, and Logan