Renovation Update
After months of clearing out garbage, we started doing some actual construction work. We started by ripping out almost everything in the former grocer area and setting it up as a staging area for the rest of the house. We tore down the ceiling and ripped out the wirings for the light. The cover of the ceiling revealed a light joist system that suspended the lights and plaster tiles from the steel structure. After the plaster tile, wooden joist and wiring was all taken down the area expanded bringing in new feeling of ease. The space now is a far cry from once it was of being overly packed with random artifacts of once was a family grocery store and over a decade of neglect with dirt, garbage and dust to verify the neglect that the space had endured.
There’s a outdoor space between the house. On the first floor the space sit between the front house and the back house and on the side of if used to be the toilet and laundry room; opposite of that would be the facade of the neighbor’s house. The facade of the neighbor’s house is a steel corrugated face with no windows, making it easy to cover up if we decide to do so. Above the space is a steel corrugated roof with a large window at the top that allows in enough daylight to light up the space from dusk till dawn. The corrugated steel have poured cement on it allowing occupancy on the second floor. We plan on using both floor as a indoor outdoor space filling it with vegetation and keeping it open as much as possible to the outside.
The house in the back seems to be much older than the house in the front facing the street. The house in the back have a view of the small river coming from the mountains meeting the larger river coming from the damn. The house sits nine to ten meters above the river bed. This area was gutted just like the rest of the house exposing the decaying bones of the house. The amount of work that have to be done for this house is overwhelming however it is slightly too late to turn around from this project. During the tear out we exposed a traditional Japanese roofing system which was covered by the previous owners. The design plan will be to celebrate the roofing structure and to take advantage of the elevated view.
