Concrete Matters

One of the favorite sounds from my youth is the beep beep beep of a concrete truck as it backs up to the site to drop its load. The unbridled stress, the scrambling excitement, the harrowing permanence of it - it is pure joy to me.

My concrete guy is the coolest hand in the land. Nothing was a big deal. Everything was no problem. And when we set the house on it a month later, it was dead-eye dickie accurate.

The process is simple enough:

You dig out the hole...




pour in, spread and compact the gravel...



set up the formwork...


call in the truck...

and pour....

A few days later, you set up the wall forms....

and pour them too.

This was my Ando moment. I'm reminded that buildings are so beautiful in their rawest stage, that the more they look like buildings, and actually function, some of their poetry vanishes.