Meera - more than just a building
Preliminary sketch pergola for grapevine and cooling
The hours
Working and being in a circular super adobe building through the day
It's predawn and the autumn days are closing in here. The black ducks are calling to one another from nearby water and it’s a little chill walking up the path way at 6.30 am to my teaching space. I can see my way without a torch. I've walked it so often now during the build. Just a big circular monolith beckoning me forward in the faint eastern glow.
The ducks will fly off at the slightest noise, so I’m walking quietly in my bare feet but still I can’t get to the top without the one warning quack and a flutter of wings as they fly off.
It’s my time. I can claim the day.
Got my coffee, had my rooibos with lemon and the brain’s nearly awake.
I’ll be ready to walk with another student in her online piano world by 7 AM.
Entering through the heavy oregon/douglas fir doors and the all encompassing warm wraps me round.. It’s like no warm I’ve ever felt. It’s amazing every time, the way the thick thick walls filled with humble volcanic scoria can warm my bones so completely.
I look up and the mosaic under the night sky is dark except for the white snake bones curling around.
It seems not only a visual delight of a place I work in, it’s all my senses get to dance.
One note on the grand piano in my favourite area around bass C and the walls sing softly back from all sides, although there are no sides.
6.40 am. Time to boot up the computer and angle it so the light will not reflect too much through the screen from the east.
A drink of water at hand because my voice is my tool across Bass Strait to Tasmania as the little family there warms up their own day and their own learning space ready for an online piano lesson.
‘Ding dong’ they sign in. We both adjust our keyboard cameras so there is a good view of both face and fingers and we are away.
All times of day in this superadobe nine metre diameter building are exceptional and changing. I love the moment at about 10 am when a student says something meaningful and suddenly the constellation in the oculus mosaic above throws a twinkling reflection on the tall spiral curl walls that are a part of the structure. It seems to agree with whatever we just said.
So pleased we especially did those two constellations in mirror tiles to get that effect.Thank you to Annabel the architect for that one.
I love that the building tells me about the majestic firmament above as my life passes through the hours.
Midmorning
It’s 10 am -the sun is in the east. So of course the southern cross stars will be thrown in that particular direction when it bounces off. The snake mosaic responds differently on a cloudy day...softer colours and random areas emerge and sparkle as the sun moves through the clouds and with clear skies there’s darker grout and more consistency in colouring.
It’s a dynamic art form.
One day the little dots delighted me by landing on the swirly moulded kitchen bench and then sailed across the walls distorting the orb as the sun did it’s day journey.
And we nearly didn’t have the oculus. There was a moment in the building where there was the hole in the centre of the rafters for the predesigned cupola. A little church steeple for Meera. But serendipity walked in the door and my son Ray (how appropriate..sun ray!) said ‘mum why don’t you just have the sky visible up there since you have the circle already?’ And we did.Thanks Ray.
I have my own Stonehenge here...there’ll be a shaft of light coming across from the sunray doors to light my dark frosty winter days while I’m standing at the warm fireplace at 8 AM. There’s still more observational work to do and then we'll sink a little glittery stone in the wall to mark the solstices and equinoxes as they come by.
Afternoon
It’s afternoon and the light starts streaming through the west side.If it's 40 degree plus the shades will be already down. The internal temperature will also be adjusted by grape vines on the north and south, (see the planning sketch). We already have little ventilation shafts low down around the space to capture those vital breezes late in the day during a scorcher. Because hot air rises, the breeze will ascend to an exit shaft craftily placed by Pete in the oculus.
Evening
There’s often a magnificent sunset sky show through the west windows over the water. (The building has water on both east and west sides). During the build we would often down tools when someone noticed it, and all lapse into a dream like silence enjoying what seemed to be a daily phenomenon.
Clear skies in the evening are common in the Wimmera. While hubby John hauls out his telescopes, the stars are shining directly through the oculus now with a dark mosaic and just that white snake backbone twining around reflected from above.
As I saw at 6.30 AM at the beginning of the day.
I do have a room of my own, a temple of my own, a sacred space of my own, a castle and palace, my Pantheon, my Parthenon and my Versailles, my skin, for music for all..