DECOMPOSING PAVER - TEST STACK FORM

DECOMPOSING PAVER - TEST CAST STACK WOOD FORM

This attempt was to create a form from piling it the two types of concrete and turning it over. However, after finishing the form, I abandoned the process due to the liquid quality of the concrete texture.

DECOMPOSING PAVER - TEST CAST STACK PAINT

I created three of these templates. This time consuming process required 4 laser cut birch plywood cutouts to be glued together (per form; total of 12 cutouts) and sanded carefully to remove any ridges. I then painted the surface and coated it with oil. After two trials this process proved futile due to the paint creating ridges that would catch the finished concrete.

Planted Verticle Garden!

The installed garden utilizes 3 tiered grow sites and was tied into the sprinkler irrigation at the Courthouse Garden.

The three layer mesh system holds the substrate and also promotes vertical plant growth!

Mounted directly to the wall the precast garden offers a one of a kind garden site that can be expanded horizontally!

Proud craftsmanship beside the four by five foot garden.

The real test is to see how the plants respond to their new growing environment.

After the class ended Amber and I continued work on our unit. Because we had struggled with removing our void block from the mold, our next step was to conduct experiments to test better ways of how to more easily remove a block when making a void. We cut rods and placed them in plastic cups of concrete. Each rod was treated differently. Our tests were: vaseline, tinfoil, metal sheathing, tapered rod covered in tin foil, bowing up a plastic baggy and sticking it in the concrete, and cotton balls surrounding rod then covered in tin foil. The method which worked best was the cotton ball one. The void piece slid right out of the concrete form like butter :)

Below is a photo of the void created with Cotton surrounding our void piece. Now we are in production mode b/c all our kinks are worked out. Next week we plan to assemble the wall in Amber's backyard. Final photos will be taken.

-Jenna and Amber


Mold with cotton/tinfoil making strategy


Compared to original mold we had to break in order to remove void piece.


The test that worked best!


Two sets of forms made!















Below are photos from the last day of class when we removed our blocks from the mold for the first time (forgot to post earlier)

The Whole Waffle

I'll apologize in advance for the lack of photos during construction...I was in the "zone" so to speak and didn't think to take a picture of myself using the table saw.

I talked a bit about my changes last post in "Veggie Waffle: Take 1" so I think I'll just explain in pictures how the big test went.

But here is a diagram I created to outline my construction and release process...had to make some changes along the way...but more or less it's the idea.

Here's my formwork... no reinforcing cage yet. Painted and primed with laminated plywood "zigurats" making the void for the cells. The hope is that if I spray enough form release on them those little guys will pop right out!.

Sweet reinforcing cage I made myself with two grades of metal grid stock and rebar tie wire. Took about two hours, but I think it looks good and is probably pretty strong!

Formwork & reinforcing...ready to go.

Concrete Mix
1 part cement : 1 part fine sand
I know this seems really high but after some mock-ups I thought it looked the best by far!

Here are some pictures of my test mixtures.

One of three batches of concrete mix that went into the form. One was twice this size & overall it was just a little too much.

After taking the sides & bottom piece off the idea was to attach drawer pulls to the "zigurats" and they would just slide right out...didn't exactly go that easily. Instead required a prybar and some big muscles.

Rich prying the "zigurats" out

I think the culprit making the removal so difficult was probably the edges of the laminated plywood, when you look at the pictures it doesn't look like a lot but even that little bit of friction made a big difference!

Lesson learned, sand smooth and think about coating the form in something more than primer. Or just use a different construction method.

Everything worked out pretty well though... here is the finished project with one of the little gabion baskets in it.

Patterned Concrete Planting Blocks...Design

After playing around in Photoshop, this was the first pattern we came up with. However, we decided that it was a little to static, and didn't seem to flow across a large face as much as we would have liked. But, we decided to plug it into AutoCAD anyway and see how we could tweak it.

This wasn't really working for us, and after a while we just felt like we were butting our heads against a wall with this design, so Vivian and Karim decided to try and work up a new pattern, based on our previously agreed-upon design principles (overlapping grids and a dynamic pattern).