Cool Views From Above

I got a little push this week to leave my safe perch.

I asked permission to take pictures from the 9th floor of the Nu Skin tower.  You are seeing the annex area north of the tabernacle footprint.  If you need a little orienting from this altitude, University Avenue runs north and south.  North is at the left of this photo.  Forms are being placed in preparation for a concrete roof over the annex.  Notice the area near the center with the little light.

The light was coming from a torch cutter removing piers from the northeast tower foundation.

The southeast tower foundation, which was poured Tuesday, is not quite up to strength.  However, the concrete should be fully cured soon and then these piers will be cut away, also.

The area in the lower left of this picture will house part of the dressing rooms for the baptistry.
There will also be an elevator and stairs which will lead to the lowest level of the temple.

The square hole for the elevator can be seen here adjacent to the rectangular opening for the stairs.  Imagine that you are down there with the workmen.  Take a little walk east along the back of the brown form.

When the temple is completed, a hallway will be there.  It will turn left, or north, and if you were walking there today, you'd walk under the forms now in place for the ceiling.  This hallway will turn left again and pass along the north end of the annex, and then turn south toward the tabernacle again.  This hallway will then lead to an emergency exit opening seen here as a gap across the corner from the concrete cylinder.

This is that gap as seen from University Avenue.

You have seen this cylinder lift station before.  It is part of the drainage system for the temple site.  The black waterproofing will ultimately protect all exterior walls.

A similar but deeper lift station is underway in the south lot.  Another lift station will be on the east side of the temple.

More drains for this system were being placed today along the southeast wall.

This south lot will ultimately be underground parking.

Aerial views are fun, but Mt. Timp will always be my favorite.

The west entrance to the underground parking is now complete.  Notice the sign for the roundabout on the right side of this picture.

The roundabout in the center of the photo is at the north end of the underground entrance.  The post office is on the left.  Nu Skin's new above ground garage is on the right.  First South heads west from the roundabout between the garage and Nu Skin's campus.  It is still blocked off at Second West, which can be seen in the upper right-hand corner of this picture, but signs indicate it will open soon.  Second West has been repaved and is very nice.  Notice the red barriers just to the left and below the roundabout.  These barriers mark the opening into the temple's underground parking.  Beneath the landscaped area is Nu Skin's underground parking garage.

While still on the 9th floor balcony, I turned completely around so I could take this picture of the upper north lot.  You can see Center Street, which goes east and west, along the left side of this picture.  The base of the white crane is in the upper right-hand corner.  Temporary buildings for the Jacobsen crews can be seen here.  The four tower caps are completely hidden by the trees, but I walked past them this morning, so don't worry.  The gap between the north concrete wall of the annex and the wooden barrier is a working area which enables the crews to place waterproofing membrane along the exterior walls, keeping Lake Bonneville out of the new temple.

The forms being placed for the roof of the annex are thick plywood panels which have been covered with a film.  They can be easily removed once the concrete is poured.

Today I noticed gutters which line up where the columns from below come through.

Supports for the forms can easily be seen in this picture.  If you follow the construction cam, you can see that the workmen are zipping along.

My escort to the 9th floor told me that when the cam is down, the phone rings off the hook.

Two west openings to the temple are visible on the right.

The larger opening is on lower level 1.  The smaller opening is from lower level 2, which will not have patron access.  This lowest opening leads into the mechanical access tunnel.

This tunnel extends north from the temple and then turns west.  Heating and cooling units will be along this east-west portion of the tunnel, far enough from the temple so as to not disturb the reverence.  The tunnel floor received a concrete pour this morning.  The yellow vapor layer is being placed in the mechanical shop area in preparation for a pour there.  This is a space where repairs and other projects can be completed once the temple is complete.  The sumps we watched placed in this area will be connected to the two trenches we can see twenty or thirty feet from the crane.  A vertical wall separates this shop area from the west side of the west lot, which will be underground parking.  An optical illusion implies that the yellow layer is higher than the parking garage, but they are at the same level.

This is a view of that area from the post office lot.  My camera has learned how to squeak between the green construction barrier and the jersey wall.

These drains will feed into the sump and allow the mechanical shop to be an effective place to work.  My engineer-husband assured me that mechanical shops don't have carpeting on the floor.

This picture shows some concrete bases which I had not noticed from the cam view.  I'll try to learn more about these.  Please notice the red ladder at work in this picture, helping the workman retrieve a form from the crane.

This sump near the west entrance will get the same treatment we saw with the sump in the mechanical shop.  When finished, we won't even know it's there.  Separators will filter out grease and oil and prevent their transmission into Provo's storm drains.

Holes in the north wall are visible from the 9th floor.

My knowledgeable escort was certain they were for cables to operate the heating and cooling systems.  This zoomed in view is from the post office lot.

It was harder to peek in windows from the 9th floor.  I managed to get this shot through a ground floor window.  I cannot imagine why I am seeing pink paint pots, but there they are.  The new concrete floor is visible, too.

My camera loves to zoom through windows.  He captured this view of the concrete pump from the north.

Have you ever watched a concrete pump before?  It would make a hypnotic screen saver.

The new porch on the south side is getting the waterproof treatment.  An opening for a stairwell can be seen between the porch and the tabernacle.  This will allow access from the underground parking garage to the lowest level.

I learned a new word.  The white stair column you are seeing is called a newel.  So, this is Newel #1.

This is Newel #2.  I suspect #3 and #4 will appear in their respective towers once the piers are cut away.

My camera zoomed in from the east side.  I noticed that the beams supporting the floors are being secured. It looks like they are using heavy-duty gorilla glue.

On the left you can see the portion of the grand staircase which reaches to the second floor.  Cinder block around the north side elevator shaft can be seen on the right.

Mr. Engineer-husband has no idea what the hangy stuff is.  Your input, as always, is welcome.

It was a beautiful morning.

And new signs kept me from getting lost.