Not a lot to say about this day. Today was spent collecting the cellulose that was sprayed in the wall cavity around the east door. This was to show the section through our walls to communicate the amount of insulation used. Great idea- a mess to clean up. After a few trials, the discovery was made that the shop-vac was going to be the cleanest alternative. Dusty and I worked finished after innumerable empties of the vacuum- which equated to about 5 large garbage bags filled with compressed cellulose. Tied them up and called it a day.

Today was day one of the deconstruction. Driving into an empty fairground this morning was more relieving than I can explain. We began the day by discussing the order in which things would be dismantled/numbered/packaged/etc. Chris and I started with the slats in the loft… I do not remember putting that many finish nails into this thing! They were everywhere. The process was pretty painless and we had them packaged quite quickly. Next came the burlap panels and then the posts. Before we knew it, it was 3 o’clock and time to shift into thesis mode. With our RFPs due in a couple of days, we all left early to focus on the assignments happening back on campus.

LAST SHIFT! This evening was my last time on duty at the fair. Labor Day weekend brought more people than I had imagined. Though the day was quite hectic, the house emptied early giving Ty the opportunity to coerce Mike and I into riding the Skyscraper after close. I had resisted the temptation on my walks to and from Eco, so being it was the last shift- I had to. We had all had our share of the fair- but seeing the midway lights upside-down 150′ (if I remember right) in the air was a great way to end the night with a quick thrill.

Before ending this portion of the build, I figured I could reflect a bit on the experiences had over the past week and a half…

There were some interesting encounters over the extent of the fair. To name a few- the guy who compared our design to one of his recent nightmares (thanks!), the somewhat paranoid individuals concerned with the amount of glass and lack of privacy or the impressive thickness of our door that would be the perfect addition to a concrete house (or bunker), the couple who had recognized our program from a conversation they had on a flight with students (us!) on their way to SanFran last fall, the large amount of renovation/retrofit questions thrown our way- not always pertaining to the ideas used in Passive House but still fascinating all the same, the people interested in our schematic design process and how we arrived at the decisions we did (I liked those questions), and the countless questions about… the rocks.

All in all, it was a great experience. So many people, so much food. I think NDSU and everyone that has been supporting us through this whole process might really benefit from the exposure at the fair. There seemed to be a lot of genuine interest and I’m excited to see what comes off it.

How about we measure the last dismantle day as every good thing needs to come to an end.

Saturday was our last day of dismantle, all of the walls were down and all that was left was the floor framing and the sheathing that was place on top of it.  It doesn’t really seem like a hard thing to do but let me tell you it was no easy task.  The flooring was the first thing that we put down, and at that time it was probably the first time most people had ever built anything ever, and making sure things were perfect is what we do best.  So needless to say there were a lot of screws and they were sunk, and then since so many people had walked over the top of it that the OSB had been smoothed so much that the holes for the screws were almost hidden or unseen.  The OSB had also been tongue grooved together so we had to start at one end and pull it up one piece at a time.  However, since we were determined to get it finished it did not take too long to get the flooring and the framing apart and put into groups and labeled.  It was kind of hard to see the structure completely gone, it has been such a long, amazing ride, that I learned so much from and an experience that will forever change that way that I construct and look at designing.

The best word that would describe this day would be unknown and awe.

I missed the first day of the dismantle because I had to be in Fargo for school, so when I got back on Wednesday morning it was almost unreal how much of the house had come down already.  The dismantle went so quickly that by the time I got to the site on Wednesday morning the interior was almost done, and the trim around the windows was almost off as well.  I started taking the blocking off from around the windows and then went to taking off the exterior siding from the west side.  It was a very quick take down that day.   The dismantle actually went a lot smoother then I had anticipated, everything was organized so when you would take something down from one part or another of the building you would wrap it up and label it.  It had made things a lot easier, except that we are going to take a lot of time moving things around more then anything, but this is a minor problem compared to the ones we could have.