Building the PLUShouse: A look back, or How far we've come

When you're standing on a floor in a house somewhere, you don't really think about all the stuff underneath. To me, the word "house" describes the structure that encloses the interior space. But often that's the least significant part of it.

At least for the house on Norfolk, there is a whole lot of house under the surface. Since the floors for half the house are slab-on-grade, all the infrastructure has to be assembled and constructed before that final slab of the finished floor is poured. Only then do you frame the house and put a roof on it. This house doesn't have all that much framing because a big percentage of the exterior walls are glass, and a big part of the interior space is open. So there is a huge amount of work that must be done before the "house" -- the structure that rises above the ground -- starts to appear.

Last Friday (July 18) was The First Pour of concrete, and yesterday (July 21) the Adorno crew began stripping the forms. What emerged is just the beginnings of what will divide the interior space from the outside, but more importantly it is the first step in that portion of the infrastructure under the house. Here are pictures in sequence of several parts of the house where big changes have taken place over the past few weeks.

Remember this? These pictures were taken after the retaining wall close to the south property line was finished and backfilled.
June 13