8 This shows the first floor walls and buttress layout nearly completed, looking east. (South is to the right in the photo.) The structural mesh panels are mostly in place. Note the interior rebar exoskeleton hanging on a rope stretched down the center. The grey stuff isn't cement - it's a clay/wheat paste slip coat, the first of several earth plaster coats. The white area on the left is a lime plaster test patch.     9 Buttress showing structural mesh panels before they were "stitched" down with 12.5 gauge wire. One mesh panel goes up one side, over the top, and down the other side, and also overlaps the vault wall in the back part of the photo. Another panel is attached to the gabion, then goes up the face of the buttress, along the top, and down the interior face of the vault.     10 Finished buttress detail. The mesh was attached to the gabions with pneumatic hog rings, and wire was sewn through the bales (using bale needles) every few inches along each course of bales, and then twisted to tighten the mesh to the bale walls. This drastically increased the stiffness of the buttress. The beam assembly is attached to the buttress by a mesh/plywood cap (just visible between the beam and the buttress top) nailed to the underside of the beam. Some cob sculpting is visible on the toe of the buttress. The white area is a lime plaster test patch.

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