The workers began arriving. One was wearing two sweaters and a coat. Another wore two coats and a sweater. Another wore a skier's face mask.
Adela and Victor, our chief architects, arrived. Victor was wearing red gloves and slapping his hands together. She was bundled up, with a thick scarf around her neck and a baseball cap.
All of a sudden everybody started to move. 4' x 8' panels were being picked up and their ends placed on the slab vertically over the protruding rebar. Each panel consisted of a polystyrene foam core with outer layers of welded wire mesh. (See picture) One panel went up; it was supported by bracing wires. Another panel went up and was braced with wires. This continued until all the outer and inner walls were up. The house blossomed on top of the slab--white panels waving in the wind, no windows yet, just a square box sitting there. The wind was getting stronger. I asked Sergio, "Have you ever had a house blow away?" He laughed and said no.
By now the site was getting hot with rushing bodies and activity. Our small 600-sq. ft. house was surrounded by 5 architects and 10 workers, plus several bystanders taking note of what was going on. My friend Bud and I were photographing the activity. Everything occurred rapidly. People were moving fast. There were chunks of wood and foam scattered around, piles of sand, boards, boulders, boxes, and stabilizing wire fastening the house to the ground. But nobody tripped or stumbled. They moved deftly, with grace and speed. The air was electric with excitement. I heard somebody say, "Es la casita del Futuro."
Now the workers started to join the panels together, using an air-compressed staple gun and reinforcing the joints with braces. The walls immediately became solid and rigid. My fears of its blowing away blew away.
The worker with the mask walked from place to place, his piercing eyes peeking out from the ski mask, observing everything. Once in a while he'd say a few words. Although I never saw his face, I could tell he was the moving force behind the muscle machine. Later I found out he was the foreman of the crew, Pedro Castro.
Sergio and Leopoldo, the industrial advisers from Mexicali, were hands-on people, showing us how to cut the panels, how to mark them, how to lay them. They worked as hard as anybody else on the site. They too were pace-setters. Victor was at one end of the building, working with the others, putting panels up, overseeing and participating in the construction. Adela went from one place to another with a clipboard, writing notes and comments, making sure no detail was overlooked. Nobody stood around with their hands in their pockets--except me.
By the end of Day One all the walls were up and reinforced.
Most of the morning was spent doing additional reinforcing and tightening of the panels. By afternoon some of the men were inside using hacksaw blades to cut windows and doors out of the metal and foam panels. Little pieces of foam flew about in the wind, sticking to people's clothing and hair. It looked like the beginning of a snowstorm.
Once the windows were cut, light entered, and the edifice became a house, not a box. I suddenly realized that there was no facade for the rear of the house. We needed something to hide the roof lines and the air conditioner. I asked Sergio if they could make one like the one on the front, and he said yes. He told the workers to make one. They wired a panel into position and marked the cutting line with blue spray paint, to be cut with a hacksaw. When I saw that blue line on the white panel, the house started to live.
By the end of Day Two the walls were tightened and reinforced, and the roof was in place. It too was made of Tridipanel.
By afternoon the team was getting the structure ready to spray concrete. The process uses a 5 horsepower compressor and a specially-designed gun to blast concrete, called shotcrete, onto the walls, bonding wire, foam, and concrete into a monolithic unit. Some hand troweling is also necessary. The first coat brings concrete up to the level of the mesh. A second coat extends the concrete 1/4" above the surface of the mesh. A final coat of plaster is applied and then the wall is painted. Once the wall is complete and the concrete is dry, the roof is supported with temporary beams to hold it in place while 2" of concrete is applied to its surface.
Juan Martinez at Tridipanel tells me that they have been able to put up 1200 and 1300 sq. ft. homes in less than 20 days. That's tile, paint, stucco, utilities, everything--ready to move in. Ours, of course, may take a little longer until we get enough practice to do it that fast.
These are the friends who are participating in this effort:
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