With the roof slab laid and slowly curing in the increasing heat, as the weather continues to improve, attention then focused upon the construction of the beams.
These beams are a fundamental part of the earth sheltered design.
All houses are an imposition on nature. By adopting an earth sheltered design, not only will I ensure that the house remains at or around earth temperature throughout the year, but, perhaps more importantly, I am also attempting to return this little piece of the planet back to how I found it instead of creating the usual heat producing, ostentatious dead piece of landscape.
Given the steep nature of the site this presented the engineers with the problem of how to support such a potential mass of earth whilst maintaining the clean lines that I designed for the interior of the house. The solution was to have a series of reinforced concrete beams
on top of the roof slab as shown in the photographs below thus not intruding on the interior.
The casting of these beams means that another important milestone in the construction of the house has been achieved.
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| Starting to construct the shuttering for the beams. |
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| The beam shuttering progresses. |
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| Beam shuttering in place ready to pour the beams. |
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| Finishing touches being applied to the cast in-situ beams. |
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| Beams finished. Another important stage completed. |
