5 studio + 3 seminar + 1 professor + 1 Jeremy = Green Oak Initiative Materialized.
Step Zero: deconstruct
Step One: get the wood
This was harder than we imagined. After weeks of phone calls to local sawmills, we started the telethon. Each of us was frantically googling sawmills in every surrounding state; we catalogued, pitched the Green Oak Initiative, and finally dropped our phones as soon as Hunter yelled "You all owe me drinks!"
4:30pm Wednesday, September 23, the wood arrived from South Carolina. They told us we had three hours to unload and the clock began as soon as we cut the cants loose. By the time 7:30 rolled around we had sweat drenched t-shirts, several pinched fingers, a bundle of aching muscles, and most importantly we had the wood unloaded into the atrium of the Art+Architecture building.
No more pretending. Now that we have the main ingredient, we need to build as quickly and carefully as possible because every day that wood shrinks a little bit, so does our window for construction.
Each 14'-16' member weighs in at about 150lbs wet. Thanks to Hunter Todd's home scale we know that one foot of a typical cant weighs exactly 9.85lbs right now.
Two weeks into building: two massive bents stand precariously upright before us. We've already encountered one casualty. Lesson learned- metal clamps become weapons when they fall from 16'. The number one rule on the building pad is if this thing starts falling, run away.
