VT Schools Face Challenges Funding Construction

Schools across the state are in need of repair and maintenance but are facing challenges with passing local bond measures to fund the work. This was the story reported this week on WCAX TV.

TruexCullins is currently working with Rumney Memorial School - and others across the state - to come up with solutions to their building needs. As David Epstein points out in the report, creating high performance schools from both an energy and educational standpoint is a great investment for Vermont.

WCAX.COM Local Vermont News, Weather and Sports-

You can also view this story on the WCAX webpage.

TruexCullins Offices Under Construction

Our earthbag wall is rising!  Well, in this case, we are using air, but the end result is the same:  we are building an "earthbag" structure inside our offices at 209 Battery Street to symbolize and celebrate our work in Nepal.

In an earlier post, we described this method of earthbag construction, being used by Edge of Seven to build new schools for disadvantaged girls in rural Nepal.  Diantha Korzun is currently assisting Edge of Seven with the design of the latest earthbag construction project, a new school and community center at Mankhu Village Farm.

So what's our airbag wall all about?  You will see it in the front lobby of our space, where the walls are forming a makeshift classroom facing Battery Street.  We acquired some polypropylene rice bags and have been inflating them to emulate the real earthbag walls being built in Nepal.  The room that is forming has become an ad-hoc meeting space.  It has become a teaching tool.  And the rising walls have become a symbol of the upward mobility that these projects are affording to the girls of Nepal. 

At Sparky's retirement party on May 9, everyone will be invited to help us expand the construction.  We are looking forward to this being a fun, interactive event! 

 

 

We've collected all the info about our extended campaign with Edge of Seven into one mini-website:   For info about the earthbag construction projects, Sparky's party on May 9, and the October trek to Everest Base Camp, check out: www.truexcullins.com/sparky

 

And to make a donation to Sparky's fund now, please go to:

http://www.crowdrise.com/truexcullins-nepal

 

 

Building Hope, One Bag at a Time

In an earlier blog post, we described the innovative building technique known as earthbag construction that is being used to build schools in the rural countryside of Nepal. We shared the details of our own earthbag construction project that we are designing with Edge of Seven. And we invited you to celebrate with us as we commemorate the transition for Sparky Millikin from TruexCullins Managing Principal to Himalayan mountain climber.

Well, these is one more surprise we have in store. To build excitement for our earthbag construction project in Mankhu Village in Nepal, we are building a wall of our own in our offices at 209 Battery Street in Burlington.

LET’S BUILD THIS TOGETHER

FILL A BAG FOR A NEPALESE SCHOOL

The “earthbags” will come together during Sparky’s retirement party on Thursday, May 9th. For a $50 tax-deductible donation to Edge of Seven, we will place your name on a polypropylene bag like the ones we will use to construct a new community center for Nepalese girls. As our wall rises, it will symbolize our collective efforts to lift up these girls out of poverty and raise opportunities for all.

In Nepal, your donation will go far to educate and empower girls and break the cycle of poverty. Edge of Seven is a non-profit organization that works closely with local NGOs to ensure that all projects are carried out in a cost-effective manner. In 2010 and 2011, less than 10% of donations went toward administrative costs.

Donate Today!  You can make a donation through our crowdrise site at: http://www.crowdrise.com/truexcullins-nepal


And please join us on May 9 to celebrate Sparky’s lifelong career and support the work of the Edge of Seven in Nepal!

A New School and Community Center

THE NEXT EARTHBAG CONSTRUCTION PROJECT

MANKHU VILLAGE FARM FOR WOMEN

This spring, TruexCullins architects are collaborating with Edge of Seven and The Mountain Fund to create a new Community Center specifically for women at the Mankhu Village Farm in rural Nepal. The center will be built using earthbag construction and will complement the existing programs at Mankhu Village Farm to offer women a safe and collaborative space for education and health.

Many women at Mankhu Village Farm have been victims of sex trafficking or domestic abuse, and, as a result, have nowhere to go. They possess valuable agricultural skills, but have been deprived of the opportunity to achieve independence from their own labor.

Known as “Her Farm”, this project will help women in these situations heal and develop the skills they need to live independently and support their children. The Community Center project will include 2 buildings: one will contain a classroom and computer lab; and the other will contain a health post and daycare center.

TruexCullins is donating design services for the Mankhu Village Farm. Architect Diantha Korzun and others in our office are supporting Edge of Seven and the team on the ground in Nepal.  For projects in the developing world like this one, architects still play a contributing role, but it is one which is substantially redefined from the western model.  Here, it is less about pure design or individual style, and more about engaging local communities, working within vernacular aesthetics and finding creative solutions to practical problems.

For example, the buildings are designed so they can be easily replicated in other villages, built by local Nepalese people who may not possess construction skills. Local materials are relied upon, which influences the design of everything from the structural connections to the interior finishes.

The building itself is modest by American standards, but what it represents is huge.  We are excited to have the chance to work on such a unique and innovative solution to address a dire need.

The foundation for the adjacent residential building is now under construction:

Interested in supporting this work in Nepal?  You can donate now on our Crowdrise site at www.crowdrise.com/truexcullins-nepal

And stay tuned for more adventures related to our work with Edge of Seven!

Building Hope for the Women of Nepal

Last week we announced an exciting new campaign with Edge of Seven, a 501(3)c non-profit organization that works to build infrastructure and provide opportunity for women and girls in rural Nepal. Edge of Seven typically partners with local groups in Nepal to facilitate their projects and ensure that they are community focused and locally driven.

Edge of Seven joined one such group, The Small World, and together they have introduced an innovative and sustainable building method for the construction of new schools for Nepalese villages.

A SUSTAINABLE BUILDING SOLUTION

EARTHBAG CONSTRUCTION

Earthbag construction uses readily-available polypropylene rice bags filled with dirt as primary building blocks. The bags are laid in courses, like bricks, and covered with chicken wire and plaster.

This building method is environmentally friendly, sturdy and earthquake-resistant. Building with earthbags is affordable and requires less skilled labor than traditional masonry construction, allowing community volunteers to participate in the construction.

The first earthbag school in Nepal was built in the village of Phuleli, completed one year ago in February 2012. The facility, located in Nepal’s Everest Region, houses classes 7 and 8, enabling more students to receive an education in a safe and healthy learning environment closer to home.

Phuleli is a community plagued by poverty. 90% of families live off of subsistence farming and many families cannot afford to send their students to school. Previously, classes 7 and 8 had to walk 2 hours daily to a neighboring village to attend school. Many families chose to keep their girls at home, concerned about the large volume of household chores and the time away from the fields.

Another project was recently completed in the village of Basa. Up until this time, there had been only one higher secondary school in the Everest region of Nepal to serve 34 Village Development Committees and a total population of 107,686 people. The Government of Nepal approved the addition of a second higher secondary school in Basa, one of the largest communities with a population of approximately 4,000, to educate 150 students per year.

This is a two stage building project that is constructing two structures using the earthbag method. Each building is a two room structure that can hold up to 45 students per room. Again this project is being built in partnership with the local community and Nepali NGO, The Small World.

We are happy to share the stories of these successful projects by Edge of Seven, but our real interest lies in another project with them, one in which TruexCullins is taking a more active part.   More on that next time...

Making Good Homes: Conditions and Challenges

by Rolf Kielman

At TruexCullins we’ve spent decades contemplating the necessary requirements for good places to live. Twenty years ago we designed a series of modestly sized, affordable and energy efficient homes for a statewide competition sponsored by Housing Vermont. Now, we are picking up that banner again, developing the design for a prototypical home that meets all of the requirements and expectations of a modern-day family in an affordable and efficient package.

First, let’s define the criteria. What are our basic needs for the places where we live? The basic components of a house in Vermont include spaces to sleep, prepare and eat food, and wash ourselves and our clothes. Beyond these human necessities, we place great importance on having a comfortable place to socialize and entertain. Conversely, our homes are increasingly places where we work and study. The spaces just outside our homes are also valued, whether it’s a porch for protection from the elements or a garden within which to grow food and play. Finally, an auxiliary building such as a garage or shed is added to store vehicles and outdoor equipment. All of these components have come to be viewed as essential parts of our homes.

Second, we must come to term with the challenges we face. Externally, the need for shelter from our environment is perhaps more challenging now than it has ever been. Our climate is demanding and unpredictable, from the cold of winter to the heat and humidity of summer. Global climate change has brought an increase in extreme weather events that test the endurance of our structures, from flood to drought to the frequently returning 100-year storm. Meanwhile, the cost of fuels is accelerating, in economic costs and environmental costs. The physical land and materials with which we build our homes are also increasingly rare and expensive to come by.

We look forward to addressing these challenges over the next several months, continuing our exploration of designs for homes that sufficiently meet our needs while abundantly filling our souls. Ultimately, our goal is a product that could be acquired in any number of forms: a set of complete architectural plans for purchase at a modest cost; a set of component parts available for purchase with a manual for assembly; or even a complete home, pre-made and brought to the site ready for placement and occupancy.

In the meantime, you can expect that we will share our thoughts, present some designs, and keep you informed of our progress. We hope you enjoy this creative journey.

A New Venue for the Big Game, on the Field and on the Ice

This is it, sports fans: the weekend you’ve all been waiting for. (cue football music) On Sunday all eyes will be on New Orleans for the biggest sports event of the year.

This will be the seventh Super Bowl played at the Louisiana Superdome (now rebranded as the Mercedes-Benz Superdome). This impressive arena opened in 1975 and soon became a major draw for its size and location. More recently, in 2005 it suffered major damage from hurricane Katrina and became the symbol of institutional failure in the wake of a disaster.

But this year marks a new beginning for the aging structure. With a major renovation complete that spanned 6 years and cost $300 million, the Superdome may seem like a brand new building, inside and out, to the millions of fans tuning in.

If you’re still reading, you’re probably wondering what our connection is to this modern architectural landmark. Well, this is the moment in the TruexCullins blog when we roll out our design for the new 70,000 seat sports arena that will soon grace the Burlington waterfront.

Well, not quite. But we can share a sports facility renovation project that’s a little more… Vermont-style.

While modest in comparison to this weekend’s Super Bowl site, this project nonetheless would have made a notable difference for some local skaters. The project is an addition to one of our community ice rinks.

The building currently consists of two ice rinks connected by a long walkway. The design on the drawing board connects the two sides with a new addition that provides a suite of new amenities. A new Pro Shop, concessions, seating areas, offices and locker rooms all occupy a central location, with direct access to each of the rinks. The project improves circulation for players and spectators, and it unites the two rinks under the same roof with a singular grand entrance.

Unfortunately, this project can be filed under ‘Unbuilt Works’ due to a detour on the road to construction. This is a story not uncommon in the world of real estate and development, as many projects never get off the ground. But perhaps some day this addition will be built, and perhaps some day millions of viewers will tune in to watch two teams go head to head on the ice in northern Vermont.

Anglo-American School of Sofia Grand Opening

This fall the ribbon was cut and the doors swung open on the new $8 million expansion project for the Anglo-American School of Sofia in Bulgaria.

TruexCullins first developed a master plan for the school’s growth from 350 to 650 students, then provided Design Guardianship services as the new building addition took shape.  Under the leadership of David Epstein and Diantha Korzun, the school doubled its classroom space, which serves middle and high school students from 44 countries.

The project also includes new sports facilities, a performing arts complex, and an outdoor amphitheater built into the naturally sloping site.  The new wing has a green roof, solar power collection, and greywater recycling.

The existing wing received LEED Gold certification for Existing Buildings, and the new wing is currently being certified under LEED for New Construction.  The school is the only LEED Gold-certified building in Bulgaria.

The project was completed in August and the reviews are now coming in.  The Anglo-American School received Building of the Year 2006, and Sustainable Building Project 2010 by the Chamber of Architects in Bulgaria. The project was also profiled on the Interior Design website in October.

If your Bulgarian is up to par, you can follow along with this video from the opening ceremonies.  The event was attended by school officials, dignitaries, and plenty of happy students and parents to mark the opening of their new school.

A Sneak Preview of the Juniper Lounge

Anticipation is mounting on the west end of Cherry Street.  You may have seen the 200 foot crane towering over the downtown block as the city’s newest hotel takes shape.  Hotel Vermont is set to open in Spring 2013, and we are looking forward to a very grand opening.

This photo, taken earlier this month, shows the progress being made on the exterior envelope.  The hotel, designed by Smith Buckley Architects, occupies a formerly underutilized parcel on Cherry Street, between Macy’s and the Courtyard Marriott.  The hotel will be in an ideal downtown location, halfway between the waterfront and the Church Street marketplace.

Meanwhile, our work on the interior is continuing, with the design of natural materials, custom furnishings and dramatic lighting.

On the main floor, the heart of the hotel will be the Juniper Lounge.

With juices and pastries in the morning, and creative cocktails in the evening, this is a fluid and flexible space that will change accordingly throughout the day.  We recently produced these photorealistic renderings of the bar area, with actual materials and colors.  The bar features a local wood floor and wall finishes of white oak and black slate.  The space looks out to an outdoor terrace with a fire pit and lake views. (Click to enlarge.)

You can see these and more images on the Hotel Vermont Pinterest site.

Anglo American School of Sofia nearing completion

Written by Principal David Epstein, AIA, LEED AP

On a recent trip to Bulgaria, Diantha Korzun was able to check in on the construction of one of our current higher-ed projects, the Anglo American School of Sofia.  TruexCullins has been working with the school to develop a master plan, growing the school from 350 to 650 students.

The school serves middle school and high school students and the new facilities include classrooms, sports facilities and a performing arts complex, including a new outdoor amphitheater.  The design allows each section to be built independently, fosters the creation of smaller learning communities within a larger school, and minimizes disruption to ongoing operations.

When working on international projects, we take special care to listen to our clients and design spaces that are appropriate to each locale and culture.  On this project, we have had a wonderful working relationship with the local architecture firm Ivo Petrov Architects.  TruexCullins has been providing Design Guardianship with Ivo Petrov Architects acting as the local architect of record.

The facilities are nearing completion and will officially open for the start of the 2012-2013 school year.

 

Hotel Vermont at the Vermont Expo

Visitors to the Vermont Business and Industry Expo last week had a chance to get a sneak preview of the interior design work we are developing for the new Hotel Vermont. We assisted the hotel with their booth at the Expo, with the arrangement of interior finishes that will grace the new boutique hotel in downtown Burlington.

The presentation of carpets, fabrics and greenery gave visitors to the Expo a sense of what the new hotel lobby and lounge will feel like. 'Stay Natural' is the tagline of the new hotel, and the interior design will deliver on this promise, with local, natural and healthy materials.

Some of our 3D renderings of the first floor lobby and lounge were also on display, along with this video from the groundbreaking ceremony featuring the owners and designers explaining the project.

The Vermont Business & Industry Expo is the region's largest business-to-business trade show and is hosted by the Vermont Chamber of Commerce. An estimated 3,000 people attended the two-day show held at the Sheraton Hotel and Conference Center in Burlington.

Chelsea Street Ribbon Cutting

The Vermont Law School has just announced that U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, Gov. Peter Shumlin, Vermont Supreme Court Chief Justice Paul Reiber and other officials will attend the ribbon cutting of VLS's new Center for Legal Services at 11:30 a.m., Friday, May 18.

The historic building at 190 Chelsea St. underwent a $3.5 million renovation to convert it into the new home for the South Royalton Legal Clinic and the Environmental and Natural Resources Law Clinic. The two clinics provide millions of dollars of free legal services to needy families, community groups and others in the name of environmental stewardship, social justice and public interest.

The ribbon cutting and a tour of the building are free and open to the public.
 

You can find a brief description of our work on this project on our website.  You can also read about the new center for legal services and the story of the Legal Clinic in an article posted on the VLS website.

Hotel Vermont Under Construction

Many people have been asking us when construction will begin on Hotel Vermont. Well, the wait is over. After a winter hiatus, construction has resumed on the new hotel that will occupy lower Cherry Street in Burlington.

With the foundations completed last year, the crews from PC Construction are now on site moving this project forward. The building is designed by Smith Buckley Architects, with Interior Design by TruexCullins.  Our work on the interiors will continue throughout construction, as we develop the design for both the first floor public areas and the guestrooms above.

The hotel is on track to be open to guests in April 2013, so get ready for Hotel Vermont. To learn more about what you can look forward to, take a look back at last fall's announcement event:

Hotel Vermont: Announcement Event 09.21.11 from HotelVermont on Vimeo.

Stowe Home featured in Vermont Magazine

One of our recent residential projects has just been published in the latest issue of Vermont Magazine. 

“At Home in Vermont” tells the story of how this family’s home began from the small-house plans that Lee and Rolf developed during the depths of the housing crash in 2008.  The design was then tailored to the site and personalized for this client, who wanted an energy-efficient home that could support an active lifestyle.

Designed To Be Tops,

  from the Bottom Up

The concept for this home was one of a small, energy-efficient house that blended in with the land.

Lee Grutchfield likes to think that the path that led to his becoming an architect, and Principal with TruexCullins Architecture in Burlington, might be part of a tradition steeped in New England craftsmanship: apprenticeship, in which a potential architect learns to make a building from the ground up. Through hands-on experience, he believes an architect learns to intuitively understand acoustics, structural principles, mathematics, and the workings of natural light. Lee should know; he spent 14 years working as a carpenter prior to studying architecture at Norwich University, where he earned his master’s degree.

To read the rest of the article, pick up the March/April 2012 issue of Vermont Magazine at a newsstand near you!

Lead-up to the Solar Decathlon, Part 2

At the Solar Decathlon, which opens this Friday on the national mall, 19 teams of college and university students will be competing in 10 categories to see who can design, build and operate the most energy-efficient and beautifully designed solar-powered home.

What makes the Solar Decathlon so successful is that it is a competition between teams of college and university students.  The fact that it is a competition is a great motivator to maintain the level of energy needed for a project that takes about 2 years to develop and hundreds of thousands of dollars in fundraising. Once on site, the competition aspect adds a level of excitement that unfolds a little bit each day as points are awarded and a winner emerges.

That these houses are designed and built by college students is key to the role of the Solar Decathlon as a forward-looking research project on emerging green design and construction methods.  (It's also a great way to engage the public to be able to connect with your alma mater, or to the school in your community.)

The Solar Decathlon is more than a showcase of current technologies... it is more than a home show.  After a long process of research, design, development, funding and construction, the competing teams often discover new solutions and develop new building methods for creating better, more comfortable and energy efficient homes.

Past Solar Decathlons have led to patents on new building products, and past Solar Decathlon teams have gone on to create architecture firms to continue their work that they started here.

This year, Middlebury College is competing as the first Vermont school to enter the Solar Decathlon and the first ever liberal arts college to enter the competition alone.  From the looks of things, they are going to face some stiff competition.

There are a few teams that I will be especially interested in when I’m on the Mall this weekend. One of these is the University of Tennessee, which has designed a house they call “Living Light”.  As you can see in their video walkthrough, the Living Light has a double-glazed façade with an inner air space that is used to help heat and cool the interior.  The house’s PV modules are cylindrical, something I haven’t seen before, designed to absorb more of the sun’s rays.

What makes the event so interesting is the range of very different approaches that each team takes.  Some schools opt to fit up a conventional home with solar panels to show that these technologies are within reach for the average homeowner.  Other teams choose to push the envelope and think totally out-of-the-box, disregarding cost or “market appeal”, in favor of innovation and invention.

One team in this latter category this year is the joint effort of SciArc and CalTech.  Their house – CHIP – is forward-leaning, futuristic and puffy. (yes, puffy.)   In this house, you use an iPad app to control the home’s systems and an Xbox Kinect to turn off the lights.  

Other schools competing this year include Purdue, the City College of New York, UMass Lowell, Ohio State, and Team Florida.  International teams are coming from New Zealand, Canada, Belgium, and China.

At past Solar Decathlons, students have built houses with soy-based SIPs, reclaimed shipping containers, and polycarbonate facades filled with translucent aerogel. Homes reduced their energy consumption with radiant cooling panels, phase-change materials, and ERVs with silica-gel rotary wheels. Landscapes were irrigated with greywater systems, facades were clad with copper sheets, and electric cars zipped around town on the surplus energy that was harvested from the sun.

In fact, the houses contained so many innovative features and materials that they were often criticized for being too expensive for the average homeowner. So this year, the list of 10 categories that comprise the Decathlon was modified slightly to include a new one: affordability.

In addition to displaying financial solvency, the students are judged on architectural design, engineering, and energy balance.  They have to boil water, run the dishwasher, and throw a movie night on the wide-screen TV.

It’s all an effort to show that these are real houses ready for widespread consumption.

Brunelleschi’s Dome

Posted by Matthew Bushey

Before the summer completely winds down, I want to offer a recommendation for one of the books from my summer reading list.  It was in part by chance that I picked up a copy of Ross King’s 2000 national bestseller Brunelleschi’s Dome: How a Renaissance Genius Reinvented Architecture.  But it was also from a desire to expand my understanding of this pivotal structure after having studied it firsthand in Florence with the Syracuse University study abroad program, some 15 years ago.

 

If there was ever one place to be, at one moment in time, to witness the biggest technological and aesthetic breakthroughs in architecture, it has got to be Florence, Italy in the Renaissance years of the 15^th century.  The home of the greatest revolution in art and architecture, the Florentine Renaissance produced works by Michelangelo, Botticelli, Raphael, Leonardo da Vinci and Dante. And towering above them all stood the Santa Maria Del Fiore, Florence’s central cathedral that was built to rival all others.  The dome that sits atop the cathedral was the widest ever built at the time, with a diameter of 143 feet, and the highest, topping out at 350 feet above street level.  It remained the largest such structure for almost 500 years and today remains as the largest brick-and-mortar dome in the world. 

The Opera del Duomo, the guild of wealthy Wool Merchants who were responsible for building and funding the cathedral, had selected a design for the cupola by Neri di Fioravanti.  Most gothic cathedrals of the time relied on flying buttresses – external structural supports that braced the outside of the basilica.  But Neri’s design did away with this external bracing that many in Italy considered ugly and burdensome.  Instead, the proposed design relied on a series of stone and iron chains embedded inside the double-skinned dome to prevent it from collapsing upon itself.  The result was a structure that seemed to rise majestically without any visible means of support.  This single aesthetic decision ushered in the Renaissance and marked the end to the Gothic age.

A concept model was in hand, but no one actually knew how to build it.  So a structural design competition was held in August 1418, and by the following month the project was granted to a goldsmith and clockmaker, Filippo Brunelleschi.  Soon named the Capomaestro of the project, or architect-in-chief, Brunelleschi solved the biggest technological challenges to the dome’s construction.  

An ingenious designer, engineer, and inventor, Brunelleschi came up with a number of supporting devices and concepts that were instrumental in the dome’s construction.  Facing the primary challenge of transporting 70 million tons of building materials and lifting them several hundred feet above the ground, he invented an ox-hoist that was assembled on the cathedral floor.  With his machine, one ox could raise a load of 1,000 pounds to a height of 200 feet in approximately thirteen minutes.

Brunelleschi also solved the problem of how to build the dome without wooden centering supports.  He is credited with inventing linear perspective, and he holds the first-ever patent for invention for a ship used to transport building materials up the river Arno, a precursor to today’s paddleboats.

Repeatedly subjected to public scrutiny, doubt, and even jailed by his enemies at one point, his career was marked by breakthroughs and setbacks.  He was engaged in a bitter rivalry with his lifelong competitor, Lorenzo Ghiberti, and was constantly entering competitions to prove his worth.  His final competition reward was for the lantern that tops the dome.  The cathedral was finally completed with the placing of the copper ball atop the lantern in 1496, over 80 years after the competition for the dome was called in 1413, and 200 years after construction had started on the main basilica.

Ross King’s book goes into intricate detail of the structural and engineering feats by Brunelleschi, but is nonetheless a compelling story of human dedication, political posturing, and rival competition during a time of plague and war.  The book instills a real appreciation for the Duomo - just as much an artistic achievement as it was a structural one – and for the Master Architect who made it all happen.

Anglo American School of Sofia Breaks Ground

Our international work remains strong these days, with a variety of projects around the globe.  This week, David is travelling to India for a new international schools project.  Meanwhile, crews are busy at work pouring foundations in Sofia, Bulgaria, on a new 80,000 square foot middle and high school addition to an existing school.  Designed by TruexCullins to meet LEED Silver Certification, the new addition boasts a new atrium, library, classrooms and gymnasium, all clustered around an exterior stone amphitheater.

Environmental features include solar hot water, green roofs, daylighting, regional materials and innovative stormwater management. Classrooms are clustered around common areas designed for small group instruction and as social space.

Great care was taken to create a design that could be implemented with minimum disruption to existing operations. Summer holiday periods will be used for crucial tie-in projects.  The project was also designed to accommodate a theater at a later date.

The project is being managed by Gardiner and Theobold (Sofia office) and built by INOS Construction with Ivo Petrov Architects as design partners.  A big thanks goes to the Sofia team for an outstanding job so far!

Here are some photos of the project, currently under construction: