Stöckli17a: underground floor all but complete

After the rather long phase of excavation, the building phase feels much faster. We are now getting a first feel for the size and layout of the building, after looking at plans for a couple of years (or so it seems!). The concrete for the cellar ceiling will be poured next (after the title image of this post).

David & Jacqueline have a long weekend in Southern Germany

Jacqueline had another scheduled visit to Dr. Meier in Ulm mid October, and we decided to hang a short city trip by rail on after that. We went to three cities that we didn’t really know (we had gone through them in the train, but that was that): Bamberg, Nürnberg and Karlsruhe. The first two didn’t disappoint, with their delightful medieval town centres, both substantially restored after the Second World War, but keeping the character of their centres. In many cases, key old buildings miraculously survived, at least the walls, and they constrained the style of the renovation. Both Bamberg and Nuremberg adopted a similar approach to Ulm, and restricted the height and style of their replacement buildings in the old town centre. In Bamberg, World Heritage Site and a lively university town, the old town hall in the middle of the river was a particular beauty. Nuremberg’s castle, cathedral, and city walls had been expertly restored. Karlsruhe, a planned city centred on the château, was a different kettle of fish: the renovation of the centre after the War was less careful, and the planned nature of the roads made the centre feel considerably less intimate. An interesting installation was the “legal” signs, quite near the pyramid, celebrating Karlsruhe’s role as seat of the German Constitutional Court.. The older medieval town of Dulach which preceded Karlsruhe itself, was nicer, and the trip to the top of the “Bergbahn” gave a good view over the Rhine valley nearby. One of the “legal” signs was repeated here.

Deutsche Bahn was mostly late, but this time not too bad. A couple of journey were even on time! Our last journey back to Switzerland arrived too late for the Swiss rail network arrival window, so we had to change train in Basel, and arrived back in Zürich punctually on a regular Swiss train, 26 minutes later than planned.

End of the Stöckli excavation phase

The building work started at the beginning of May 2024 and the excavation phase got going in early June. Now, early September, the excavation phase is over and we have a deep hole in the ground behind our house with a beautifully tidy ground and four red marks that indicate where the foundation floor slab will come, duly measured by the public surveyor from the City of Zurich. So far, we found no skeletons, no enormous stones and the various walls and buildings around the site did not move even a millimeter. The two slots under the supporting wall will join the wall with the slab, so that the whole thing (new house and wall together) is stable. The next phase will be carried out by a different company, so we have exactly one weekend without building machines in the back yard, next to the house and across the street!

Building of the Stöckli gets under way

Building work on the Stöckli finally got under way in May 2024, a little over three years after the first meeting with our architect. At the time of writing (mid June), the former Atelier building has been demolished and the 125 year old retaining wall of the Kantonsschule Wiedikon is studded with earth anchors and vertical shoring below the wall is now being built downwards. Successively, the earth in the back yard has been taken away and now we are approximately at the level of the new back yard. The beginning of the excavation pit towards our neighbours (Schrennengasse 19) is already secured with reinforced concrete. Unexpected things: putting the earth anchors into the wall involved core drilling and the foundation of the wall had to be cut away by a specialised company (the pedestal was partly on our land and would have been in the way of the new building).

The overall time plan is a bit delayed, but we are now seeing great progress in the excavation part of the building project.

Trips to Germany and various local visits

Carrying on with our pattern of short trips, David was in Butterstadt bei Bruchköbel (near Hanau, DE) for a summer party, and David & Jacqueline made a short trip to Ulm. In between, we had the traditional Schrennengasse 17 art visit to a Leonardo da Vinci exhibition in Zurich and did some walks in the Zurich/Schaffhausen region (and a concert in Einsiedeln) when the weather played along: this year we have not had stable weather for more than a couple of days – heavy storms, really hot weather, then quite chilly weather, and so on… Rather unpredictable weather. Global warming is of course playing a role in all this: the main picture shows one of the results of the heavy rain in the Grisons in June.