hurray for Wall-E!

Wall-E (seen on the left side of the picture with his dump truck buddy) did a great, efficient job with the grading. We were there every day with icy cold beverages (Wall-E likes a fresh bottle of M-150, the malt liquor of energy drinks), and thankfully it never rained. Now half of our site is well above water level, ready for construction next summer. We are running a large pipe along the side of the property to drain any surface run-off to the klong (canal) behind the site. If time permits, we will also plant a wall of bamboo along that same side, up against the neighboring school/temple fence.

a wise man once said: "a little less conversation, a little more action"

Groundbreaking ceremony at Baan Sai Ma! (photo courtesy of Wikipedia)

Our grading contractor started moving (and adding) dirt this morning at 9am. A few unfortunate coconut trees and a disquieting-ly large termite hill had to be sacrificed. Our contractor said it was bad luck to destroy a termite's nest during the course of building our own, but we figured that if given the chance, they would do exactly the same to us.


4000 cubic meters of fill (!!!) will take Wall-E (pictured above) about 12 days to move, deposit, and compact... We'll post more photos as the work progresses, as we will be on site daily.

lean machines

Today I read this beautiful quote in a book written by architects Stephen Kieran and James Timberlake: Evolutionary change in vernacular building is a record of lean thought that becomes poetic by virtue of its fitness.

Throughout this design process, I keep visiting these three houses in my mind and in our conversations:

talk is cheap, dirt is not

We have been in contact with a few grading contractors, each with varying opinions/theories/positions about how and when a piece of property should be graded. One would think that the business of soil logistics would be a (logical) science. However, here it seems to be more akin to alchemy, with every contractor believing his wizardry to be superior.

Since we are in the rainy season, we've been told that dirt is hard to find-- since construction never commences during the rainy season, foundations are not currently being dug, and hence, there is no excavated dirt available in town (to transport onto our site). We just received a couple of very high bids-- approximately 550,000 Baht to raise 1 rai (1600 square meters) of land by 1 meter, putting our grand grading total at about 840,000 Baht, or roughly $25,000 (this is only for Phase One because we are only working with one-half of the site right now). These contractors say it is wiser to wait until the monsoons are over. By November, they tell us, construction projects will start up again, foundations will be excavated, and dirt will be cheap and plentiful. Dirt for everyone!

So that is one story.

The second camp of contractors believe that dirt is dirt, and it will cost the same regardless of the season. They argue that while soil contractors prefer to grade during the dry season (road transportation is easier, and dirt weighs less when it is not saturated with water), it benefits landowners to grade during the rainy season, since dirt settles more evenly when it is moist. Dry dirt, they argue, crumbles and results in uneven settlement. So grade now! They say. Don't wait, silly fool! Prices will only rise!

Keep in mind here that the methods of soil compaction are pretty low-tech here (unless you are building a tower, a condominium, or a mammoth-sized mall). Dirt is hauled onto the site, dumped, spread evenly (um, "evenly"), and driven over a few times by a 10-wheeler truck (a.k.a. "compaction").

I have been on the phone with grading contractors all morning today, getting enough information from one contractor, then calling the next, and so on and so forth-- building my knowledge base a little more with every phone call so I am starting to actually sound like I know how things are done around here...

welcome to the jungle!

We've been spending a lot of time thinking, planning, sketching, drawing, re-drawing, day-dreaming, and trying to track down 4000 cubic meters of dirt. And by dirt, I mean dirt. Good old fashioned dirt: sandy, silty, clayey, crusty dirt-- because the Thai equivalent of "compacted engineered fill" is whatever someone else is giving away, spread generously across the site and driven over a few times by a very large truck. And finally yesterday, after weeks of taking note of every mound of rocky debris we drive by, we might have finally found our dirt...!

So after doing a little bit of math you may ask: "Why do you need 5231.8 cubic yards of dirt?" Well, the site (an acre and some) is flat and only 50cm above the level of the adjacent river. So when-- not if-- but when it floods, we want to make sure that we have a little bit of high ground to stand on.

Goals for Summer 2008:
- Buy dirt. Get dirt to site.
- Find a good structural engineer. Make friends.
- Find some good contractors. Make friends.
- Build a (temporary) fence around the property.
- Get some bids? Too early?
- Plant some trees.
- Pick out doorknobs.
- Stockpile steel? Am I crazy?
- Can we fab our own Kalwall?
- David: learn some jobsite Thai.
- How big do Dobermans get?

A photo of our site/jungle (looking south):

To the south, a canal.
To the east, a small Thai temple.
Directly east of the temple, the Chao Praya River.

The tall, spindly beauties are betel nut trees. The site is an old durian grove, although the only fruit trees that remain on it today are coconut, banana, and lime. Sounds like a sherbet waiting to happen.

date up

We've updated our website to include most of these projects, as well as a few others...
http://www.studiomake.com