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)

Meet our new contractor!

Greetings from Cambodia! The long radio silence from this side of the worlds has been due to some unfortunate set backs in our building process. According to our original construction schedule the entire building was supposed to be ready on June 15th. The deadline was pushed forward several times but by mid July even the foundations were not ready, material deliveries and work were delayed repeatedly, the quality of the work was poor, workers were going on strike due to unpaid salaries, the community was getting restless and it became obvious that something needed to be done. Hence we unfortunately had to let our contractor go two weeks ago. Before he left the site, he was finally able to produce the long awaited ground beam but unfortunately in such poor quality that it has to be taken down and recast.

EASA Wastelands REFUGE workshop in Helsinki

Some news from Helsinki for a while! Three of the members of Komitu Architects, Noora, Tuuli and Inari were tutoring a workshop as part of the European Architecture Students Assembly EASA in Helsinki 16.7.-29.7.2012. The workshop was called Refuge and we were working together with the Hirundo center for European migrants and travellers.

Social relations and bamboo swings

After nearly two weeks of absence KOMITU has returned to Phnom Penh and boy is it good to be back! Having recovered from the surprising culture shock and flue I caught on my return I was excited to visit the site. Unfortunately there hadn't been as much progress as we had hoped for due to some problems with material logistics etc. but I really saw the shape of the building for the first time with my own eyes today which was great! 

Sustainable Building -workshop with STT

On Saturday 9.6. we organized a workshop "Sustainable Building and Ecological Materials" together with ngo Sahmakum Teang Tnaut STT. More than 30 participants attended, most of them students from local universities Rufa and Norton. We went trough the most important phases in using bamboo and even got some practical experience of building the roof beams for the center.

The manual timelapse: week 23 on site

Almost all of the footings are now in place and hopefully casting of the ground beam will be done still this week! KKYC, we're going up!

So long KKYC - hope to see you soon!

It was very wistful saying again goodbye to the great team of workers working for the realization of the youth center on the site! Hope to see you all soon!

Sisko will be staying in Phnom Penh for another week now and Elina will be coming back for July, but let's see how far the construction has got by then and if members from Komitu are still needed on site during the fall.

Foundation work continues

Progress on site! This is a picture from the end of last week just before the few days holiday for the Cambodian communal elections. The brickwork forms a mold for the concrete ground beam which will probably be casted by the end of this week. And what's best about it that one can already start to see the shape of the building forming up!

Welcome to workshop on KKYC site on Sat 9th of June!

Interested in learning about the use of bamboo in construction? And of the advantages of the compressed soil bricks compared to the commonly used red bricks? And how to design a building that keeps the spaces cool without an AC?

Welcome to workshop on "Sustainable Building and Ecological Materials" on Saturday 9th of June 2012 on the Kouk Khleang Youth Center building site! We have places for 25 participants so please sign in before hand by email to den(a)teangtnaut.org from STT or inari.virkkala(a)gmail.com and sisko.hovila(a) gmail.com from Komitu!

Casting the concrete footings

The footings are almost done! Due to the loose sand used for the filling as well as using mainly man power instead of machinery, it has taken a lot of time to finish the underground parts of the building. Even though it is nowadays raining almost every afternoon, we could prevent the footing pits turning into rainwater ponds by filling them soon after digging with riprap (large stones). Stones would be compacted and lay concrete casted on top to make the base for the actual footing. Hopefully things will start proceeding faster now that the toughest part is done!