More Bricks, Dirt, and Concrete Prep!

Bricks on palettes — Original stack of bricks

Students sorting through bricks — Original stack of bricks

The team and assisting students took a trip to Fuller’s Building Supply, in Selma, AL, to re-stack 3,000 bricks! Said bricks had been purchased by the courtyard team a little over a year ago. Due to the pallets sitting outdoors for so long, they started to deteriorate and eventually rotted away. For one day, a crew of five sorted through the broken and whole bricks, and re-stacked them according to brick color on new pallets. Once the bricks were delivered to the site, the cleaning process began! Similarly to the previously found bricks, these have been scrapped of remaining mortar.

Curb formwork removal

Before the site was graded, the students removed the formwork of the concrete curb from the previous week’s pour. They also created a temporary boundary box to retain gravel or dirt from covering the curb and the grinder pump lid.

Grading the site

Image of recently re-graded site from walkway — Before

Batter boards used to indicate edge of gravel underlay

Image of whole site after grading work finished

In order to proceed with construction, the ground needed to be re-leveled. Certain areas of the site needed to come up four or so inches and others needed dirt removed. Tyler, who had previously helped the team with excavation work, returned with his mini-excavator and got the job done in one day. Caleb, Claudia, and 3rd-year students assisted with hand tamping and moving dirt by hand in areas the larger equipment could not reach. About fifty tons or two tandem trucks worth of dirt was utilized to grade the site. And about twenty-five tons of gravel was brought in as an underlay for the brick pad.

Student hand tamping — Dirt hand tamped in preparation for formwork

Image of under walkway — Dirt hand tamped in preparation for formwork

Cleaning up the alley

Simultaneously to the site being graded, time was spent on tidying up the building on Beacon Alley. The wooden doors and window trims were painted black to diminish the attention they drew; the black window trim makes the whole window disappear into the shadows rather than sticking out being a bright white.

Prepping for concrete

As formwork under the walkway started, it was necessary to remove a layer of bricks on the door threshold. To ensure that the level of the concrete and interior finished floor have a smooth transition and avoid water coming into the building. Shortly after that, people working on site were split into two groups. One group was to work on the formwork for the porch/stage area and the other to start staking down the formwork along the south and east façade.