Currently, I am working on a residential project – a really large modern residential project. It’s unique compared to our other projects because it is basically commercial construction – cast in place concrete, steel superstructure, and composite floors (steel decking and concrete).
Did I mention it’s 4 stories and on a lot that is 50′ wide and 225′ long? There aren’t a lot of residential sites in Dallas that have those dimensions – oh yeah, it also is hemmed in on 3 sides and slopes down from the street about 10′. Getting water off this property is difficult – can you say “bathtub”? There are dozens of architectural firms who wanted this job and rightly so – it’s a fantastic commission and the site is physically a challenge which makes for an exciting project. I have already been on this job for almost a year and we have about another year of construction left so I’ll put up some isolated progress photos from time to time.
Today, I thought I’d show some of the concrete form work and illustrate some of the concrete texture patterns we are trying to achieve.
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Hard to believe but this is a tunnel that connects the lower levels at the front and rear of the site. There is an underground parking garage and we have 12′ high of cast-in-place concrete wall for the entire perimeter of the house. The picture above was taken about 3 weeks ago.
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Fast forward 2 weeks and the form-work is just about completed. Part of the design includes a wood grain pattern on the concrete so as the site slopes down, the wood grain will become exposed as the site falls away. This is the same tunnel as earlier.
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I have to admit, this is the first residential job where we needed this level of bracing – crazy looking isn’t it?
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So here is a picture of the wood boards being installed on the inside of the form-work. This is the surface that the concrete will be cast against. When the form-work is taken down, these boards will leave behind the pattern that we are looking to develop.
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This picture is taken at the transition between the portion of the basement wall that becomes exposed as you move towards the rear of the site.
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If I remember correctly, there were 20 concrete mixers spaced to make deliveries 15 minutes apart – that’s 5 hours of constant concrete trucks coming and leaving the site. The contractor did a good job of orchestrating all the moving parts on this day and we didn’t have any complications or missteps.
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This is a picture from approximately 2 weeks ago after the form-work had been removed. I am standing on the outside of the building – on the right is the retaining wall for the site and on the left is the basement wall running around the perimeter of the building. You can see the intent of the wood pattern on the concrete – that despite concrete having a reputation for being gray and cold, the wood grain and pattern of the boards goes a long way of softening the final look.
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A close-up look of a portion of the wall – I think it looks pretty good and I think once this material gets married with the remaining materials (dark zinc metal siding and stucco), I think it will come together really nicely.
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