After our review on Friday, Vesna and her team looked over all the designs, weighed pros and cons and picked the base design to build the final from - and it was my group's! There were a few parts she didn't like, and parts from other designs that she wanted added but it was nice to know we had been on the right track in our vision for the site.
After our lovely weekend dancing and hiking in Zadar, the groups were re-configured for the next part of the process - details. There is a group for stonework, the water feature, boardwalk, shelter structure and design synthesis which is my group. Our job was to re-design the area that will be built to better match what Vesna wants in the final, work everyone else's designs into the final and eventually produce a master plan.
The first day or so the some of the other groups didn't all have a lot to do while we were figuring out the final, while we were designing and problem solving as fast as possible. Now that we were down to detail level decisions seemed so much more important and impacting that we really had to do it right. EXACTLY where the entrance will be, how the boardwalk curves into the plaza and how the water feature works into all of that without having awkward dead space. Then the other groups got into full swing and had to furiously get the detail work down on paper or CAD so we can transcribe them into the real world.
But because of the nature of the time limit of design/ build projects we were under a crazy time crunch. For example the arborist came on Tuesday and we had to know exactly which trees needed to go so the maintenance guys could cut them on Wednesday. Then Thursday the excavator started cutting the foundations and leveling our seating area. We had to get the footings for the structure poured and the crushed rock ready for the rock walls on Friday because the stone masons were coming to teach us to do walls on Saturday.
We had to work as fast as we could to even have measurements to have locations to tell the guy with the machine where to put the dirt. In some cases we were still designing the next area while the excavator finished up the previous area. It was, in a word, exhausting. Fun, challenging, certainly enlightening and also extremely exhausting.
I really enjoyed being out working on the site trying to pick up as much knowledge about actual construction as possible. Luka, our amazing artist, consultant, landscape architect and translator let me come along when he met with the arborist so I could learn to tell which trees should be taken down and why. Then the next day I was there to see how they took the trees down while damaging the standing ones as little as possible. When the trunks were crashing down to the earth it struck me that this is real, this design is no longer theoretical and it's coming true one way or another. We are severely altering the landscape for our design because the hospital believes in us. And it's a little intimidating.
Friday and Saturday I was out at the site all day, first moving dirt from point A to point B then setting in the casings for the footings and putting a lot of the dirt from point B back to point A. A lot of the construction process as far I as I can tell seems to be moving material around and changing the form. Turn a pile of rocks into a stone wall, a hole into a casing into a hole full of concrete. More than anything its a lot of shoveling, shoveling a wide variety of things, dirt, crushed rock, gravel, in a variety of different combinations.
Friday evening the stonemasons came, had dinner with us and we had an impromptu party out on the decks of one of the apartments. Most of them were really nice and excited to talk about their art but one who managed to keep pulling me into his conversation only wanted to talk about how the US has ruined the world, how all of our systems are f-ed up, our people are lazy and medicated and expected us to explain or try to defend things that the U.S. did before we were even born. And he also managed to casually explain to me that I'm fat and should work out more. He considered himself an intellectual. I considered him a sociopath.
I was torn here, because I should have told him to go to hell and push him off the balcony. But the greater us needed him and his friends for the good of the program. If they left angry because I beat up/screamed at/murdered their friend everyone would suffer and the consequences probably would have been worse than I wanted to deal with.
So, anticlimactically I kept more or less a cool head, said "Fuck you. I'm beautiful." and left.
The next day I of course was put in a group with him to build a wall and I did my best to ignore him and only say something when I absolutely had to. In this manner most of the day passed focusing intently on the slow-mo tetris, and with 26 people building we got a lot of the walls almost finished by four or so.
----
If we were a spectacle before when we were just walking around and taking notes we certainly are more of one now. The site is completely ripped up, mostly dirt with a dump truck arriving a few times a day leaving us giant piles of stone, gravel, and crushed rock. Some of us are making walls, others are shoveling, and still others who are getting their details finished are moving around us finding tangents of curves to figure out where their team's features go.
A lot of patients are coming to check out the construction, they usually just stand at the nearby road in their pajamas and stare. Every so often one will wander into the site and we awkwardly wheelbarrow around them. Sometimes they try to help and shovel a few scoops then go away. They are harmless, at least none of them have caused any problems. The only continually annoying thing is at least once a day a guy will wander over to where I'm shoveling or hauling or digging and tell me to "-Stop. That is a job for a man." Again, ignoring is the best way to deal with it, most of them don't know enough English to understand a half hour long rant on why I'm capable of work, and can do it just as well or as fast as most men. There is also the whole cultural difference of gender roles argument blah blah blah. It doesn't make me feel any better about it.
Sunday was our first completely free day, several people rented bikes to explore the island, others went to an optional drawing class in town. I took the opportunity to sleep in (8:00 yay!) and try to go for a hike. A friend came with me to explore where our road goes. Turns out it's through a valley with a mansion on the hill then into an oak forest up to a house with olive terraces. Apparently the road goes further but it looked like it just ended so we went back. Along the way we followed what was either a path or a drainage ditch along a terrace field until it got too grown over and we hopped up the wall into the field. I think it was a vineyard at one time, tiny grape plants were losing against stronger bushes and grasses taking back the land. We hopped another ditch, then a stone fence then a barbed wire fence into a narrow valley until our path truly ended at a wall with forest on the other side.
Our adventure was fun, in part because we were probably not supposed to be there, but we kept our ears perked and eyes up in case any angry farmers showed up. None did, but in one field without much cover I smelled cigarette smoke on the breeze. With no one else in sight that was enough to make me high-tail it back to the road before we disappeared into the Croatian wilderness never to be heard from again.
The rest of the day we spent in Rab, intending on doing some errands, but everything closes on Sunday except for one gelato place and the tourist shops. So I walked around and stumbled across most romantic spot in Rab.
Panorama views of the city and several islands was a nice way to end a stressful week. Now another few days of construction and it's off to Plitvice Lakes we go!
After our lovely weekend dancing and hiking in Zadar, the groups were re-configured for the next part of the process - details. There is a group for stonework, the water feature, boardwalk, shelter structure and design synthesis which is my group. Our job was to re-design the area that will be built to better match what Vesna wants in the final, work everyone else's designs into the final and eventually produce a master plan.
The first day or so the some of the other groups didn't all have a lot to do while we were figuring out the final, while we were designing and problem solving as fast as possible. Now that we were down to detail level decisions seemed so much more important and impacting that we really had to do it right. EXACTLY where the entrance will be, how the boardwalk curves into the plaza and how the water feature works into all of that without having awkward dead space. Then the other groups got into full swing and had to furiously get the detail work down on paper or CAD so we can transcribe them into the real world.
But because of the nature of the time limit of design/ build projects we were under a crazy time crunch. For example the arborist came on Tuesday and we had to know exactly which trees needed to go so the maintenance guys could cut them on Wednesday. Then Thursday the excavator started cutting the foundations and leveling our seating area. We had to get the footings for the structure poured and the crushed rock ready for the rock walls on Friday because the stone masons were coming to teach us to do walls on Saturday.
We had to work as fast as we could to even have measurements to have locations to tell the guy with the machine where to put the dirt. In some cases we were still designing the next area while the excavator finished up the previous area. It was, in a word, exhausting. Fun, challenging, certainly enlightening and also extremely exhausting.
I really enjoyed being out working on the site trying to pick up as much knowledge about actual construction as possible. Luka, our amazing artist, consultant, landscape architect and translator let me come along when he met with the arborist so I could learn to tell which trees should be taken down and why. Then the next day I was there to see how they took the trees down while damaging the standing ones as little as possible. When the trunks were crashing down to the earth it struck me that this is real, this design is no longer theoretical and it's coming true one way or another. We are severely altering the landscape for our design because the hospital believes in us. And it's a little intimidating.
Friday and Saturday I was out at the site all day, first moving dirt from point A to point B then setting in the casings for the footings and putting a lot of the dirt from point B back to point A. A lot of the construction process as far I as I can tell seems to be moving material around and changing the form. Turn a pile of rocks into a stone wall, a hole into a casing into a hole full of concrete. More than anything its a lot of shoveling, shoveling a wide variety of things, dirt, crushed rock, gravel, in a variety of different combinations.
Friday evening the stonemasons came, had dinner with us and we had an impromptu party out on the decks of one of the apartments. Most of them were really nice and excited to talk about their art but one who managed to keep pulling me into his conversation only wanted to talk about how the US has ruined the world, how all of our systems are f-ed up, our people are lazy and medicated and expected us to explain or try to defend things that the U.S. did before we were even born. And he also managed to casually explain to me that I'm fat and should work out more. He considered himself an intellectual. I considered him a sociopath.
I was torn here, because I should have told him to go to hell and push him off the balcony. But the greater us needed him and his friends for the good of the program. If they left angry because I beat up/screamed at/murdered their friend everyone would suffer and the consequences probably would have been worse than I wanted to deal with.
So, anticlimactically I kept more or less a cool head, said "Fuck you. I'm beautiful." and left.
The next day I of course was put in a group with him to build a wall and I did my best to ignore him and only say something when I absolutely had to. In this manner most of the day passed focusing intently on the slow-mo tetris, and with 26 people building we got a lot of the walls almost finished by four or so.
----
If we were a spectacle before when we were just walking around and taking notes we certainly are more of one now. The site is completely ripped up, mostly dirt with a dump truck arriving a few times a day leaving us giant piles of stone, gravel, and crushed rock. Some of us are making walls, others are shoveling, and still others who are getting their details finished are moving around us finding tangents of curves to figure out where their team's features go.
A lot of patients are coming to check out the construction, they usually just stand at the nearby road in their pajamas and stare. Every so often one will wander into the site and we awkwardly wheelbarrow around them. Sometimes they try to help and shovel a few scoops then go away. They are harmless, at least none of them have caused any problems. The only continually annoying thing is at least once a day a guy will wander over to where I'm shoveling or hauling or digging and tell me to "-Stop. That is a job for a man." Again, ignoring is the best way to deal with it, most of them don't know enough English to understand a half hour long rant on why I'm capable of work, and can do it just as well or as fast as most men. There is also the whole cultural difference of gender roles argument blah blah blah. It doesn't make me feel any better about it.
Sunday was our first completely free day, several people rented bikes to explore the island, others went to an optional drawing class in town. I took the opportunity to sleep in (8:00 yay!) and try to go for a hike. A friend came with me to explore where our road goes. Turns out it's through a valley with a mansion on the hill then into an oak forest up to a house with olive terraces. Apparently the road goes further but it looked like it just ended so we went back. Along the way we followed what was either a path or a drainage ditch along a terrace field until it got too grown over and we hopped up the wall into the field. I think it was a vineyard at one time, tiny grape plants were losing against stronger bushes and grasses taking back the land. We hopped another ditch, then a stone fence then a barbed wire fence into a narrow valley until our path truly ended at a wall with forest on the other side.
Our adventure was fun, in part because we were probably not supposed to be there, but we kept our ears perked and eyes up in case any angry farmers showed up. None did, but in one field without much cover I smelled cigarette smoke on the breeze. With no one else in sight that was enough to make me high-tail it back to the road before we disappeared into the Croatian wilderness never to be heard from again.
The rest of the day we spent in Rab, intending on doing some errands, but everything closes on Sunday except for one gelato place and the tourist shops. So I walked around and stumbled across most romantic spot in Rab.
Panorama views of the city and several islands was a nice way to end a stressful week. Now another few days of construction and it's off to Plitvice Lakes we go!
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