Starting to go vertical

At the end of this week, structural elements started to rise vertically. After weeks of digging holes and shoring up to prevent collapse, this feels like big news.

The elevator shaft began to rise. First, sheets of wood (aka forms) defined the spaces where the the walls would be. Then, concrete was poured into those spaces. Finally, the extra space in the pit outside the walls was re-filled with some of the dirt that had been dug out to form the pit.

Up on the roof, the walls of the 3rd floor began to rise.

Meanwhile, north met south in the major new horizontal element - the square tube. The tube came in two sections, designed to meet just above the rear green column. First, the top of the column had to be prepared for welding; then a heavy steel bearing plate was attached to the top of the column. This photo shows, from left to right, the north part of the girder to which additional flanks have already been welded making it wide enough to support the tube, the top of the column, and the south side of the girder not yet widened. The plate, inserted over the "O", will transfer some of the weight of the tube directly onto the column so that it isn't all resting on the girder (aka green beam).

This column is in our current living space, and some of the prep work had to be done from below. The crew did an awesome job of cleaning up before they left Friday evening.