The roof has now been turfed and the membrane trimmed to shape... many thanks to all those who contributed to this stage of building, in particular Marcus Rowlands who gave so much and Nick Horigan, the Iona School for their patience and continued commitment when things went quiet for many months and the parents and children who lugged timber and gravel to make this possible.
Parents Kalina and Tom, Alina and Tom, and Kula worked on the roof, with students Lucy, Marwa and Rhys.
]]>After 2 and a half Fantastic Weeks of Construction, the Shelter is almost complete.
It was Superb to see the children interact witht he build as well and play within the structure on Sunday the 28th August at Jessamine Hughes' Birthday.
Simon Mason
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A great turnout from the Iona parents, teachers and kids today as the roof structure finally met the posts.
Thanks to days of careful and complicated (and to a certain extent, boring) preparation, the installation went smoothly.
We installed the beams in pairs, propping up the unsupported end of the structure as we went. After a couple of hours we had worked our way all round the structure and were able to join the final beam to the first. Then the moment of truth for the structure- removing the prop to leave the roof spanning freely between the posts. Would it work...?
Iona Land Shelter: Moment of truth for the reciprocal roof from Buzdjow on Vimeo.
Result.
Meanwhile the deck team toiled to create the curved edge of the platform- tricky work to make the boards 'kiss' tree trunk poles in a smooth curve, but worth all the effort as it looked fantastic in the end.
End of day progress shots:
Friday was grim, a constant steady downpour. But the team battled on with the build and made good progress with reduced numbers.
Top brackets were bolted in their final positions (32 M16 bolts should do the job), the roof structure given it's final prep and the deck scribed for it's final radius cuts.
A big call has gone out for help on Day 16... Saturday is going to be roof structure day.
]]>Until now we have been incredibly lucky with the weather- Friday might be grim but today worked out well, with heavy rain clearing before we arrived on site. We were welcomed, however, with a couple of surprise water features on site- one in the tarpaulin over the roof structure and the other a rather beautiful bowl lake trapped on the events shelter/site office...
Nick soldiered away with chainsaw and drill to give us 8 roof brackets.
Finally we could survey the real beam end locations, and we had a bit of a shock discovery- we'd adapted the beam ends too hastily and they were now too short. Fortunately engineer Steve Wickham was able to advise on a solution and as is sometimes the case, the end result is probably an improvement on the original plan.
So here is the plan for tomorrow....
With the finishing line within our sights it was just a matter of putting the final aspects of the building into position...
Especially the Recipricol Roof structure
Which was alot harder than anticipated.
Bring on day 14!
]]>What was forecast to be a rain sodden day turned out to be another sunny day of production on site.
The fixing of the bottom brackets...
(PS but here is a shot taken the following morning...)
A bit frustrating today as we struggled to fit the steel brackets to the poles. The trunks being so much larger than expected means longer drill bits, longer bolts, added complications. However, the first 4 brackets are in place allowing us to get the major floor structure into place by the evening...
End of day progress shots:
Day 10 at the Iona Land site was a beautiful sunny one, and another relaxed day of preparation for the floor structure...
The highlight of the day was probably the testing of the reciprocal frame roof structure. You might remember a post from a couple of weeks ago describing Simon and Alina's work with Steve Wickham of Price & Myers engineers. These are some shots of the pinned balsa wood model they used to test the idea:
Iona Land Shelter- Roof structure test from Buzdjow on Vimeo.
In other news, the ropes and props finally came off the poles, leaving us with a proud freestanding woodhenge. A nice moment.
End of day progress shots:
Day nine was a quiet one after Friday's frenetic concreting: A site tidy up, the arrival, shifting and treatment of the construction timber, measuring up and building the central pad foundation. A change in gear as we move from heavy engineering towards more conventional methods such as bricklaying and carpentry.
One little photo should say it all really for today's achievements:
The final post eased into place, all aligned and concreting finished.
]]>After 2 days of 'awesomeness' we carried the lessons learnt and progressed
But through fantastic team work and discussion we solved it and progressed with erecting the structure!
By the end of the day 7 out of 8 trunks were in place, another successful day was finished thanks to fantastic help and team work!
Best sounding construction process of the day: bark stripping:
Iona Land Shelter: Bark Stripping from Buzdjow on Vimeo.
End of day progress shots:
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After a superb day on Day 5, the progress continues
After a very swift preparation we were ready to further the previous days progress
1. We moved 8 logs (around 300 kg each) to the site.
Iona Land Shelter: Log carry team from Buzdjow on Vimeo.
By the way, this is how to carry a log easily using some lengths of 2x2 timber and some webbing straps:
2. We successfully raised the first pole into its foundation pit using an A-frame and a winch.
Iona Land Shelter- Pole Raising from Buzdjow on Vimeo.
A triumph of teamwork! Still lots of work to do and many more hands needed on deck to help out- all are welcome, we even have a site kettle now...
End of day progress shots:
Day 4 saw the pit foundations finally bottomed out. We think we've got the technique down pat now and would like to share it with other unfortunate folk who have to dig very deep holes by hand. We had to do this give our miniscule budget and the inaccessibility of the site to heavy machines.
Firstly, make the hole as wide as it needs to be at the end of the day. If this is too narrow to work in, make it wider. A deep narrow hole is very difficult to get earth out of.
Thirdly, use square buckets- you can lay them down and scoop earth sideways into them, which is a lot easier than trying to scoop the earth upwards in a confined space.
Finally, if you can afford it and you can get access to the site, hire a machine to do the job.
In other news, Nick continued to craft the logs to shape. Nick is a sculptor who works a lot with timber, it is great to have him around to do this work. You can see some of Nick's more delicate and nuanced pieces on his website.
Iona Land Shelter- pole preparation from Buzdjow on Vimeo.
Day 4 progress shots:
Day 3 and we started to deal with the tree trunks. Nick got stuck in to sorting the logs out into workable positions- achieved through cunning use of levers and carefully applied violence. We are able to take quite a bit of the length off the logs which makes them look far more manageable, but shifting them to site will still be a big task and we will be putting out a massive shout for help on Tuesday...
Elsewhere it was more heroic foundation digging. If we had medals they would be used up already thanks to the efforts of Day 3 stalwarts:
Jaspreet, Rhys, Simon, Jack, Ameet, Aiden, Stuart, Matthew, Hannah, Tom & Alina
WE NEED MORE HELP though- all hands can be put to good use even if you can only come for an hour or so, please do. We face a massive task ahead and any input is incredibly valuable.
End of day progress shots:
"I have had a great today - fun, productive and exhausting - on the land helping build what is going to be a fantastic structure for our children and Iona school. I know some of you have already been helping (and are planning to help) and am sure enjoyed it as much as I did.
These students are spending weeks of their holidays doing this and Alina has already spent weeks (if not months) on this project. I just wanted to let everyone know what amazing work they are doing - and how much we will all appreciate the structure when it is finished. We are so lucky to have their help and expertise.
I also wanted to encourage any of you to go and spend a bit (or a lot!) of time on the land while this project is underway - even an hour's help would be appreciated I am sure - and if your children are with you they can keep you sustained with all the wonderful foraging to be had on the land at this time of year."
The second day of graft was all about bringing the foundation excavations up to the size specified by the engineer- 60cm by 60cm wide holes, 1.4m deep. Those are deep holes, big enough and deep enough to stand in, and we need 8 of them, plus 3 more the same size but half as deep.
Digging in heavy clay with lumps of limestone dotted about is hard work and the NTU students Jack, Jaspreet, Rhys, Kingsley and Simon toiled away tirelessly, having given up their weekends to get this going. Anyone who thinks students are lazy should have seen these guys in action! 
They were joined by Iona parents Tom, Alina, Louise and Aiden. Valuable guidance also from Terry and Nick. Together we made good progress, and hope that by the end of Sunday we'll be nearly there.
End of day progress shots:
Once the debris had been cleared, the infant steps of construction begin.....
Today and yesterday have been all about clearing and preparing the site, taking final decisions on placement of the poles, and marking out those positions on the ground.
Today gave us a real buzz as we set out the building in its clearing, able to visualise the structure in place. We think it will be magical. But before then, there are one or two things to do...
The Land at Iona School is a fantastic resource- including a number of allotment plots (which are actually part of Sneinton Allotments), a 'story circle' amphitheatre, a couple of ponds and many many trees. You'd think we'd be spoilt for choice when it comes to sites for the new shelter, but in fact is has proved rather tricky.
The strongest contender in the early running was on the boundary of the school land and the allotment plots, but this was ruled out by planning restrictions on developments within 5 metres of a boundary.
Just today the final decision has been taken- to locate the structure in woodland at the heart of The Land, where it will nestle next to and connect a number of different areas of the site. The energetic Land Group set to work right away and by the end of the day had cleared the site. It really feels like things are underway, the hard work starts in earnest very soon...
Alina and Simon from 2hD architects have had a few meetings with Steve Wickham of Price & Myers engineers to develop the sketches up into a buildable, durable design. The initial design was for the circular roof to be supported by plywood beams radiating out to the posts at the edge, with the beams meeting in a single node in the centre:
Reciprocal frames are created from a closed circuit of mutually supporting elements- each beam leans on another beam. They can span large distances with relatively short beams, and are often found in nature (for example birds' nests). Better still, the geometry can be distorted to cope with the supporting posts being in non-regular locations...
Here's the developed design:
