(in)Famous at Last!

Well,

Sort of. Korea.net ("The Official Website of the Republic of Korea") is featuring my blog on their front page. As that will be transient, I've taken a screen shot..

It falls up faster..

Despite bouts of rain, the Korean workmen have stayed at it and now have the second floor framing in place...



The inside of the first floor is a rat's warren of support beams. Perhaps because of the rain, no concrete is currently being poured.

Day 4 and 5

Today there was no activity, as it was raining, but things are already reaching towards the sky. In the first picture it may look like there are walls up, but if you look closely at the left side of the photo (up near the top) you'll see that these are actually the metal molds into which the concrete will be poured. Look closely and you'll see about 12 inches of space between two "walls" of metal. Also, some structural bits are up.. rebar surrounded with the metal frames.

Looking at those support bits I can't imagine that the place will be actually be three stories, since the supports only go up one story.. can you offset support columns from floor to floor? Don't supports have to be stacked or columnar?

I have questions!

Anyway, this second photo is from the angle I'll take most shots.. just to show how it grows..

Day 2+3

On day two our intrepid constructionists poured the slab on top of the "foundation" concrete (which could not possibly have set in that short, and cold, a time.).

They use the Korean construction technique of linked metal plates (that pile in the foreground) which are used to create forms within which the concrete is poured. As the concrete sets it pulls away, slightly, from the metal, and once set the metal can be pulled off of the concrete.

It's a wickedly quick way to build walls and, as I noted yesterday, largely silent.

It is Saturday (토요일) here in the land of the everchanging national slogan, but this did not stop the workers from coming out and doing some sort of work with two-by-fours. I couldn't quite suss out what it was. Unlike a lot of construction around here, the demolition guys were quite careful about the sidewalk, so you don't have to walk in the street to get around this site. That's a sort of bonus in these parts.

I hope, as the YAF optomistically suggested in comments to the last post, that this is going to be a three-story piggie abatoir.

And soju, I'll need some soju. ;-)

Falling Up (From My Bestseller "Great Expectoration: Spit-Takes on Korea")

Korean construction is, well.. unusual by the standards I am used to. It happens incredibly quickly and sometimes looks like all the details haven't been thought out.

Right up the street from my place was a lovely 삼 겹 살 (Sam gyap sal - bbqued piggy) place which had an outdoor garden with graceful trees and a proprietor who played guitar. His wife and he cooked and served and it was one of the OAF and my favorite places.

Consequently, it was doomed.

One day we saw the owners taking things out, the next day the windows were busted out, and the following day the land was scraped to bare earth.

Yesterday the construction began and I am going to take a series of photos (one a day, I hope) to show the thing going up. I stopped and "talked" to one of the construction guys, and while my Korean didn't quite get me to what the building would be, it did get that it would be a three story building.

Yesterday, in temperatures below zero, they poured the "foundation." This is the first picture up there .. it is of two inches of concrete poured directly over bare dirt (that blown up part of the photo shows where the dirt actually pokes through). This morning, with the concrete set (uh, maybe?), they began placing a frame of rebar above the concrete. As far as I can tell, there is nothing in the way of a connective foundation here .. certainly I don't see any footings, or anything that would tie the foundation to the ground. We'll see what happens as they continue along. This may just be a difference in construction technique because Korea is not on the Pacific Rim and thus not subject to much in the way of earthquake threats.

As is the case with all Korean construction, great pains are taken to protect the buildings next door - cloths are hung up on their walls! ;-) I'm not sure I would consider that sufficient.

Finally, because it is butt-cold, the workers keep a small fire going at the edge of the site, to which they occasionally repair to warm up.

As I watched and took photos, the workers began setting up the metal forms that will contain the concrete walls. Korean construction is often much more quiet than construction in the United States because the buildings are made out of concrete and not wood - no hideous hammering at 7:30 each morning.

Tomorrow, I hope to get some pictures of the concrete wall creation.

I'm gonna miss that restaurant.