Friern Road site visit - Concrete Finishes

This morning I made a site visit to Friern Road to see progress on our new build house. We are currently building the concrete elements of the construction. This includes the external ground floor walls, which are all in-situ insulated concrete with a board-marked finish (left image below), and the stair-cores which have a smooth, ply finish (right image below).
 

  

To create the external walls, timber formwork is erected around a core of insulation, reinforcement mesh and basalt ties (which eliminate thermal bridging), into which concrete is poured in layers. Between each pour the layers of concrete are vibrated with a poker to remove air bubbles and create a clean surface. This construction allows us to create the structure, insulation and finish simultaneously.

For the formwork to the external walls we have used locally sourced English Larch which has been finished to provide a relief of the grain on the concrete surface. The timber is then sealed and coated with a release agent prior to fixing into the formwork.

We have spent many months researching the techniques and construction methods in order to create an efficient building envelope and a high quality architectural finish. This research has allowed us to test innovate concrete construction methods to eliminate cold bridging and improve thermal performance - I will write a more technical blog on this subject sometime in the future.

Keep posted for that, and further updates from Friern Road as construction works progress.