Design-build projects end in tears

We decided at our Sunday afternoon meeting not to accept a possible SAB donation and to reduce our programme so that we were working within the original R10 000 budget, as intended. (Hannah had said last week that we should not be exploiting our connections for donations, but rather using township tactics to work with limited resources, despite her – then very confusing - Fischer introduction.) The SAB donation represented a possible R15 000 (though it wasn’t confirmed) but would have been slow in coming and would have involved other forms of assessment than the application form I’d filled in and sent to my friend at SAB’s CSI department. (I did establish that SAB would be open to applications for funding of the research report work in KwaThema in the second semester.) This means waving goodbye to the slide and the jungle gym, but perhaps this is an advantage as our programming becomes somewhat less circumscribed to the realm of children. We are going to try to focus on some more ephemeral interventions such as inscribing the names of all participants on the structure, painting lines through the building which relate to the original Calderian modernist planning principles, incorporating the mattress springs we’ve found, linking the building to the landscape more strongly, etc, but are adamant that the balustrade should be erected. The steel already in hand cannot really be repurposed and we feel it is an important – nonetheless not irrevocable – intervention that opens up possibilities for the use of the beerhall at this particular point in time. To Hannah, it seems our choice not to fundamentally redesign out intervention unfortunately represents a cold completion of our plans to be followed by a withdrawal from engagement in which we will simply abandon issues to sort themselves out.
Anyway, accordingly, we met on Monday morning in the workshop to drill our C-sections. Peter Kelsey, who seemed to have warmed to us slightly despite his warnings that all design-build projects end in tears, got us organised into a very efficient production line and the work was completed much more quickly than expected. We then loaded up the car with our borrowed drill and surveying equipment from Guy’s dad, and with a ladder over our laps in the back seat, we headed off to KwaThema – it was almost lucky that Khula was out of contact again as he wouldn’t have fitted! Marking out the levels was a tricky process, using one of the C-sections, a spirit level and Guy’s beeping laser level, and with Gareth marking the spot of the upper bolt with the drill. Unfortunately when it came to drilling the holes properly, the battery gave out quite quickly. So we returned today (Tuesday) and completed the process. Now we are ready to start installing the uprights on Thursday.