The piling rig has two computers.

This one controls the rig - making sure the pile is vertical.

The other one logs the depth and other data from each pile and relays the information to head office.

Thunderbirds are Go!

One...

Two...

Three...

Four...

Five...

The staircase at our current house, 38 Grove Park.

We are looking to reinterpret the traditional Victorian villa stair for the modern setting of the new houses.

The staircase will sit within a top-lit atrium, which will bring natural light into the heart of the house.

The site at dusk.

"Dracula sticks" for setting out the site.

Kit for setting out the piles.

The site temporarily open to the street.

A thought for the day...

Fletton bricks. - good only for hardcore...

The ugly Fletton brick wall goes.  The bricks will form the ramp for the piling rig to get onto the site.

The new wall on the street will be of clamp fired bricks, handmade in Sussex.

A modern sprinkler head sits flush with the ceiling.

The flush cover plate is soldered to the body.  When the temperature at the fitting reaches 60 degrees C, the solder melts, the deflector drops down and the water flows - a simple, low-tech solution.

A sign seen in Peckham.

The houses will have sprinkler systems, which allows for flexible planning and increases safety.

Plastic mushrooms for the setting-out of the piles.

Compacted crushed concrete.

An aerial view from the west.

Lord House,  one of our previous projects, is the green roof, towards the top left.

Crushed concrete for the piling mat.

A research visit to Beth Chatto's garden in Essex.  

She was a pioneer of gardening for climate change, publishing The Dry Garden in 1978.

Dry clay in the excavation.  What colours!

The clean, modern lines of Dr Lettsom's house.

A view from over the road.

There are a few more images on the se5 architects website.

Grove Park - 4 miles from the Houses of Parliament.

A "bee hotel".  The flat, green roofs of the houses will be bee-friendly.

The weather is looking good for the coming few days...

A view of the model.

A visit to the window manufacturer's workshop.

Glazed porcelain tiles by Billy Lloyd.

Pumped out and getting ready for the piling.

Camberwell is under the dark grey cloud to the bottom right of the map!

We have 2 water pumps ordered for this afternoon.

The superstructure of the houses is to be CLT (cross laminated timber) panels, to be supplied and erected by Eurban.

These are large (up to 3m x 13m) sheets formed from softwood blocks, bonded together like plywood.

For complex building shapes it is ideal, avoiding cold-bridging and creating a robust, air-tight but breathing envelope.

Potter Billy Lloyd is making a collection of pendant light shades for the new houses.

These are maquettes of some initial thoughts.

An engraving from an edition of  "Grove Hill, a descriptive poem" by Rev. Thomas Maurice, published 1799.
Grove Hill, now Grove Park, was previously called Springhill.