BuildBuild: All year…
The red binder
Every signed inspection sheet goes into a red ring binder in the site cabin. Forty of them. Very tidy. Bottom shelf, next to the kettle.
Stage 5 · Build it · Stop 5 of 13
Site records
The back alley's bill so far: 110 weeks · See the bill
The information · Diaries, inspections and readings
Every day on site makes more of me: diaries, inspections, readings, fixes. If I'm not written down, I didn't happen.
The wrong way
DesignDesign: Month five…
The readings
Every morning Stevie, the site engineer, reads the targets on the basement dig, three metres from the old Precinct. One reading turns amber. The PDF goes to 23 people.
Fixed by lunch
A precast chamber arrives with the pipe opening on the wrong side. Site drills a new hole, grouts the old one. Nobody tells the designer. "Sorted."
BuildBuild: November…
The river
The river next door has opinions. The cabin floods to the knee. The red binder is soup.
The crack
Eight days after the amber cell, the old Precinct's wall cracks. The warning is still somewhere in 23 inboxes.
Three weeks
Two drainage runs re-tested, the patched chamber cored, the dig stopped beside the old Precinct. The Clerk of Works, the client's eyes on site, has a question.
Clerk: When did you know?
Stevie: Tuesday. Last week.
Forty records in one binder, one amber cell in 23 inboxes, one patch nobody mentioned, and a river with opinions.
+3 weeks on the back alley's bill: Records kept where floods and inboxes could eat them: re-tests, cores, and the dig stopped beside a cracked old Precinct.