After two months of design development and preparations since the summer school with Ed Taylor, Scotia Homes, and numerous other members of the project team, construction began today in Gordon Park. With a warm welcome from some of the Ellon residents but a cold temperature in the park, the eleven Building Craft Apprentices were on site at 9:00am sharp for site inductions. The day began with a valiant effort to pry open the jammed doors to the site toilets and generator before either became a necessity. The apprentices were very eager to get working right away, but realized that much of the first day on a job involves tracking down the materials, tools and becoming oriented with the site.

Site Orientation

The joiners then set off for the Alba Green Oak Frames Workshop outside of Edinburgh to begin the timber frame with Master Timber Framers, Jack MacGregor and Luke Mallet, while the masons remained on site with Andrew Bradley of Laing Traditional Masonry to begin setting out the footprint.

The apprentices worked together using geometry to lay out the footprint of the octagonal pavilion.

With everything now marked out and ready to go, the apprentices eagerly request to begin earlier tomorrow at 8:00 in the morning.