Siem Reap bottle school

As we are waiting for the works to start off on the site, Inari visited Siem Reap during the weekend. There our friend Noung took us to see a new school built out of recycled plastic bottles and filled with plastic garbage collected from the neighborhooding villages. The school is built by ngo HUSK, who also built a small health clinic that we wrote aboout a year ago.

Waiting for start of finishing works and sensing the atmosphere in and around

 
It's now been a week that Inari from Komitu has been back in Phnom Penh. We are still negotiating about the prices with our contractor BQC, so the work on the site hasn't started yet. Hopefully still, BQC will start to mobilize their workers on the site already tomorrow in order to get started with the work as soon as possible.

Here is a few pictures from the site today and yesterday. The original site board is still in place by the site entrance.

The work continues on site!

There was today a meeting with Komitu Architects, AE Consultants and the contractor Mr. Heang. There'll be still some discussion about the quotation but most probably the works on site will be started again on Monday 27th and the center would be ready to be taken into use by the end of the Summer.

Inari from Komitu will be staying in Phnom Penh until the end of June. She can be reached with the number +855 16 814 323, please don't hesitate to contact her with any inquiries you might have of the project! 

Finally there's a floor!

Great to see the second floor wooden floor finished beautifully. Thanks for Chuon from KKHRDA for sending the pictures!

Bamboo structures going up

Take a look at our amazing bamboo structures! The building is finally beginning to look like it's supposed to. The bamboos are a refreshing change after all the concrete and earth blocks and soften the appearance of the building nicely.

Great progress on site!

Time flies when we're having fun at the site! So much so that there haven't been as many posts here as could have been. Everything is going well! 

Making of bamboo elements

Bamboo construction is a long process and consists of many different stages. In our case the process has been especially long because of our problems with the schedule and the contractor so I will remind you what has already been done before going to the actual topic. Firstly you have to locate and harvest the bamboos which happens in Bamboo in Takeo Province, Khmer Bamboo in Kroch Chhma and Chinese Bamboo in Tmoa Pum Village. Then the bamboos have to be treated properly against pests etc. which is described in Treating Bamboos and in Bamboo Preparations Continue with Kevin. Thirdly the bamboos have to be sorted and measured which is explained in Measuring Bamboos and oiled carefully with a UV-resistant wood oil to protect them from rain and sun. If you just pile the bamboos up randomly like we did, you have to sort them again before starting the construction: Back to Bamboo Business. And now to making the elements...

Back to bamboo business

Early this week the workers finished the entire concrete frame structure and started to take down the formwork. More importantly still we got back to working with the bamboos! When I left in August the bamboos were tucked in under the tarpaulins and left there so I was quite nervous when we removed the tarpaulins after three months of heavy rains.

KOMITU has returned to Cambodia

Greetings from the future class room upstairs! After seven weeks of absence KOMITU has returned to Phnom Penh. I will stay here until Christmas and if everything goes well the youth center should be finished by the time I leave. And so far everything has been going more than well!

We have a floor and more!

It is almost unreal to see that finally, after half a year of hard work and countless setbacks, the floor slab and frame columns of the ground floor of the youth center have been cast! Kudos to our new contractor Mr Heang, site manager Mr Kimsour and everyone working at the site for making this happen. In just six weeks they have demolished the foundations and ground beam of poor quality by the previous contractor and replaced them with new ones. In addition they have cast the ground slab and frame columns for the ground floor. Big thanks goes also to Bryse Gaboury and Sona Seng from AE Consultants firstly for introducing us to Mr Heang and secondly for the professional site inspections and for keeping us informed about the happenings on the site while we are all in Finland.  I will return to Cambodia next week and who knows, maybe I'll be able to walk on the first floor then...
(Photos by AE Consultants)