Ground Beams

Laying of ground-beams are underway. As of today, the ground-beams for the kitchen/toilet area at the back of the house have been laid.

ground-beams for the toilets & kitchen area

Ground-beams function as connectors between pile-caps. (and pile-caps are concrete blocks that sit on top of the piles) In a site where the ground is soft, there is a high risk of uneven settlement amongst the pile-caps. So, what the ground-beams do is that they "tie" the caps together to stabilize the foundation and minimize uneven settling. The workers are currently laying the beams in the studio/gallery section.

moulding for the ground-beam in the studio area, waiting to be filled with concrete

Look at how high the water-table level is - sitting just below the pile-caps. After a recent bout of monsoon rains, the water level rose up to about a foot and a half below floor level. You can gauge the water level from the ground-beam at the back section. It looked like this:-

after the rain