After the threaded rods were trimmed, a torque wrench was used to tighten the nuts to HILTI’s requirement, 60 PSI.
Before the team left for the holidays, the walkway structure was all put up! Thanks to Rowe and Jeff’s help the team finished setting up all eight wall plates, and a few days later Devin and Charlie brought some extra muscle and to site. This facilitated lifting and bolting the “arms” and struts into place. The arms, being the assembly of the three horizontal plates welded together, on which the grate will sit. And the strut is the tube that connects the “arms” to the two plate tabs at the bottom of the plate bolted to the wall.
The future main entrance to the walkway, and point where levels were checked throughout the instalation of the brackets.
A 3x4x1/4 inch angle supports the South end of the grate, which is equivalent to only using half of the bracket.
This week the team put up the first plate on the wall! First, they removed the clips from the conduit and strapped them in place to the scaffolding legs. This allowed the team to slide the plates behind the conduit and into place, and temporarily fix them to the wall with washers and tapcons anchors. In order to use the plate as a drilling template. The tapcons were removed once the first set of rods were cured and ready to receive washers and nuts. After all were done, the rods were cut to the desired length and tightened further with a torque wrench.
This week the walkway grate was delivered! Once all the walkway structure is up, there will be dropped in place.
In preparation for putting up the wall plates, for the walkway, the Horseshoe Courtyard team set up scaffolding on-site, and ground off the old threaded rods on the East facade. These rods used to be part of the structure of the historic balconies, back in the late 1800s.
Testing jig, and ease of temporary attachment to the wall with Tapcons and washers. Initial leveling of tabs done with string attached to the 2×4.
The team also took a day trip back to the shop to cut the 5/8 inch threaded rods that will be used to fasten the walkway pieces, as well as the footing plates to the concrete. And the 1/2 inch rods that will connect the screens to each other.
After months of fabricating at the shop, we are finally back in Hale! Thanks to Mason, and Shane from Stillwater, we were able to take all the pieces from Jim’s shop to Metal Works, and finally to Morrisette.
The last few pieces the team worked on were for the walkway, which were dry-fitted at the shop before delivering everything to the galvanizing plant.
We are incredibly grateful for the opportunity to have spent time at the shop and become empowered with new metalworking, and welding skills!
Luis at the grill
What is a celebration without tacos? After wrapping up fabrication, Luis and Flo made carne asada and al pastor tacos! A huge shoutout for them, not only for teaching us, and making sure we didn’t injure ourselves but for sharing stories and becoming part of our team.
These kids have been here for about month…and haven’t stopped sweating since. The 3rd-Year Studio is such a small, diverse group of students who work together in Red Barn and live together at the Morrisette campus. Throughout the semester, they create their own blended community — full of fresh baked pies and domino games — and work hard at becoming better architects while learning about the people and this place that’s their new, borrowed home.
Instead of the paper and pens of syllabus week, the 3rd-years had shovels, gloves, and paint brushes for what is called “neck-down” week. This first week, everybody participated in small jobs around our campus and became intimately familiar with existing Rural Studio projects.
And after neckdowns, the 3rd-years had their first assignment; the Sawhorse Race. The students split up into teams to design, build, and test a pair of sawhorses. They also measured their tool trailer in order to design an organized and efficient system for tool storage.
The students then participated in two lovely days of water coloring and charcoal sketching in the annual workshop taught by Frank Harmon and Dan Wheeler, learning to use drawing as a way of seeing.
This semester the 3rd-years are going to build a home for our neighbor Ophelia! What a privilege and honor! Ophelia currently lives in a site near two previous Rural Studio projects, and this past week the 3rd-years documented her current home and property extensively to try to understand the constraints and opportunities they may face during the project. The presentation team has interviewed Ophelia, getting to personally know the women that the students will design and build for.
The 3rd-years are also participating in Rural Studio’s first quilting elective! Local artist Aaron Head lead an indigo dyeing workshop using locally grown and found indigo, poke weed, and osage to hand dye natural fabric and wool… and themselves. They will use these materials throughout the semester to piece together a quilt that displays beautifully abstracted renderings of Ophelia’s current home.
