Jarvis – Foresters Development – September 23rd Visit

Arriving again with sunshine, I took a look around with slightly less pressure this time, as my car was beyond the reach of Traffic Wardens. Certainly many more areas of the roofs are now clad in tiles, but I mistakenly thought some of the scaffolding might have been coming down to reveal more of exterior of the various buildings. On the right of the site, the Retail area was one that I had not really covered completely on my last visit, so this was my priority.

Speaking to one of the tilers working on the circular section of this roof, he told me he was determined to avoid any step in the cone with his work, unlike the other roof close to the entrance done by a different company. It was good to hear voiced such a sense of pride and determination to do a good job!

This Retail section of the construction, is not as far ahead in terms of the roof as other areas on the site, so I was see ing far more carpentry as it slowly begins to take shape on all the steelwork. The three dormers are nearing completion from tilers and carpenters, but have yet to receive their windows. Down below, window frames are being assembled by their final destinations, still shrouded in their protective polythene sheeting.

Ridge tiles and corner tiles were being cemented, and valleys and dormers were being flashed with lead or zinc, so that the completed areas were becoming weather-resistant. Cabling was going in in many areas, and plastering was being done, and in the basement even fluorescent lighting and signage was in use. Hidden around the back of the site, curved walling was quietly progressing in what is the gloomiest part of the site.

The Cerex crane, which has been the most visible feature of this development, is due for disassembly soon, but has proved so useful it has already had its stay extended.

Harpenden Site Visit 19th July

Although there was sunshine on my arrival at the Foresters Development site today, I could not claim I had brought it along; it certainly did not last long, and in fact the clouds threatened rain during my short visit.

Some parts of the roof are now coming close to becoming watertight, or at least having some cover from the elements. Electrical wiring and light fittings are going in within the basement area, and even more piping is in evidence. The different areas of the site are at different stages, yet it is more evident as to how it will look when completed.

It is somewhat ironic that despite it being more than halfway through July, it is way cooler than it was a few weeks back; so much for English weather!

1st July Visit to Jarvis Development at Harpenden

I had a deadline to meet – I had to find four different images in Lightroom to create two birthday cards and get them in the post before I could set off for the Foresters site being developed by local builders, Jarvis in nearby Harpenden.

The sun was fairly shy today, often disappearing behind clouds, but the temperature was ideal. Arriving on the site, it was very apparent that woodwork was the name of the game now, roof trusses were topping several of the areas where steelwork had been prominent earlier.

The basement is now becoming a maze of pipework for drainage, water and electrical services and this work is also now moving to the floor above, it is quite a challenge taking shots down in the basement, and I find myself regularly using 4,000 ISO and shutter speeds down to 1/60th and still barely managing an aperture of f/4, whereas outside in the bright sun I am using 100 to 200 ISO and shutter speeds as high as 1/250 at apertures of f/14, but if I need to capture movement I drop the shutter speed as low as 1/30th. It seems ancient history to recall using a 5x4 or larger camera on a tripod and having to set up sometimes as many as six separate flash bulbs and still only manage to capture in black and white! That was the 1960s!

Digital photography is definitely very liberating, and what is impressive is being able to produce quality results with post-processing in programs like Lightroom, I can create images where the verticals remain vertical without resorting to lenses with Tilt and Shift movements, by taking into account some spare area in the images to allow for cropping. When you also factor in the ability to maintain good colour between sunshine and cloudy shots, it is a real bonus. All this post processing can be carried out within just the one program – Adobe Lightroom.

Jarvis – Foresters, Harpenden June 14th

I still seem to have the happy knack of bringing sunshine to the site, and I mentioned this to Trevor as soon as I arrived, and he said he might have to call on me for that at sometime in the future! Since my last visit, the major change has been the arrival of steelwork for the roof structures. The brick work has also had another scaffold lift.

Down below in the basement many more pipe arrays have gone in and some new holes have had to go in to carry some of the services. It is interesting to not how window and door fascias have been pre-assembled, put into place and then pointed in situ. It seemed odd to see a pre-assembled chimney stack had arrived on the topmost slab, with only its pointing needed to complete it once in place.

By the time I was ready to leave I was feeling the effects of the sticky heat, so perhaps bringing sunshine is not all its cracked up to be!

Jarvis Foresters Development Harpenden

Milky sunshine was the order of the day for this 6th May visit. The brickwork is now rising above ground floor level in many places, and scaffolding being added to take things higher.

In the basement the supports for water piping is going in.

More steelwork is due next week, but I will not be covering this as I go into hospital on the Wednesday, and will be having to take things easy for probably a fortnight, so I expect quite a change when next I visit.

Toureen Mangan’s Project Manager, Sean Mooney was on site for a meeting, and greeted me whilst the team were making their rounds of the site.