The Day of 400 Concrete Trucks

Sunday, March 19 starting at 5am trucks from Ocean Cement started appearing in the 1400 block of both Granville Street & Howe. About 400 truckloads arrived that day to pour 4000 cubic meters onto the prepared ground for Vancouver House. This is the base of the 52 floors above ground & 7 below.
This is how things looked on the day before this historic 'pour', the biggest in Vancouver's history. The historic crew too!

 

I got out to the Bridge at 8am. There were concrete trucks on Howe, Beach, & Granville.

There were two trucks feeding into each concrete pump.

It was pretty amazing. There were lots of people out on the bridge with me, including a top person with Dialog, the architectural firm here working with Bjarke Ingels, the Danish architect for Vancouver House. Some of the site supervisors were out there-- a safety man, and a man from Carion Construction. I'd talked to him before.

Conferring, watching, working, & there for the event.

The work is really strenuous. Someone from above manipulates where the pump hose is, but sometimes some one has to handle it. 

When I came back at 4 pm you could actually see that the job was nearly done.

              The detail men. They did all the edges, tight places, & smoothed it all over.

Pretty near the end. I left at about 5pm. 

The next day there were new things to do. The place looked different with white plastic!

Gravel was being poured in from Howe to level another patch of ground for a lesser pouring of the north end. A little front loader was buzzing around moving it to flatness. The guys on the right are attending to a detail I never understood.

                              

Then there were a lower layer of the stabilization pipes that were removed.

                            They will all be stored off the east side of Granville Street.  

 A man on the bridge told me that every 3 weeks another floor will be added to Vancouver House. Soon another part of the site will be excavated for the stage two building. I am torn about all this. I still see signs of sadness, messiness & struggle around the block. 

           That's it for now.

Before the Pour

On Saturday the Howe Street pit will get a huge concrete pour. Between Pacific & Beach Avenue Howe will be closed to accommodate all the cement trucks.
I learned that the sand that the Granville Island cement company uses for its making comes from Sechelt. All the rebar, some of it very, very thick gauge comes from China! The windows & cladding will come from Korea. 

I am beginning to piece together where all the buildings will be. These sketches made by Westbank, the developer, really help me.

The western triangular site is the one that is under development right now. The building again looking south. The building 'point' points north.

    

The South Gate gets new electrical.

I love these insulator gizmos!

Other aspects....maybe this is/is not the last constructed bed for a homeless person in the zone on 1400 Granville Street.

Meanwhile in the pit these empty shapes below are made for a concrete foundation slab.When this amazing triangulating metal grid went in I had no idea that this was all to be filled with concrete.

The Howe Street side basement wall. The men on the wall, securing the metal.

A late-discovered gas tank from Beach Auto Gas Station on Pacific. Yet another random whatever-- so common in neglected locations.

Rodney Graham's Erasmus sculpture has a visitor.

Sadness is at my feet. I am super aware of the wealth-gap/housing-issues plaguing our city & getting way more acute.

The final preps for the pour on March 19th.

            

This machinery on Howe was for lifting the small digger!

Great example of concrete rectangle slab with walls/pillars beginning to grow out of it.

I believe concrete will not envelop the red crane on the south end.

Suddenly it's photo time!!!

Then back to work.

This has continued to be an amazing development for me. I have had an opportunity to look at construction up close & personal.

Tomorrow the Big Pour.

I'll be out there twice for that.

THAT'S it for now.