January 2010 Progress Report

We have made amazing progress with the Academy’s new home since our last report.

More of the concrete subfloors in the Center, Caretaker's/Guest quarters and Art Studio have been poured. Some rooms in the Center have finished and sealed concrete floors like our entryway and the Academy offices. The Caretaker's/Guest Quarters, Art Studio and all of the mechanical rooms will also have finished and sealed concrete floors with radiant heat. The remaining spaces in the Center will have wood flooring laid on top of the concrete and warm board holding our radiant heat. All of the wood flooring in the Center comes from sustainably harvested forests, which is part of the LEEDs certification process. Most of the areas with wood flooring will also have an additional layer. We will be installing neoprene bumpers. This will allow the floors to have a “spring” or bounce, great for dancing and movement, a fun and important part of the Academy’s work.

More mechanical equipment has been set in place and the ongoing installation of conduit for electrical, computer/data, and audio/visual use has been interwoven in the spaces between the walls and ceilings. Our fresh air and supplemental cooling systems are being installed. Most of our windows with a low-e glass coating have been installed, allowing for better energy savings. Light fixtures in the ceiling and wall and ceiling speakers are starting to be set in place and well underway. Fire suppression tanks and sprinkler systems have been installed. PV, our photovoltaic arrays are mounted and soon ready to be activated. We set the PV arrays in a radiating arc, accentuating the landscape’s radiating patterns, and all emanating from our round Meditation Chapel in the middle of the Center. Like a pebble dropped in a pond with its radiating ripples sent out, the landscape will echo this theme, with our ideas and work radiating out in all directions.

Our metal railings and fascia are in the process of being installed. Outdoor trenches are mostly filled, layered with the conduits for power, data and water.

We expect to be open in the late summer of this year. Soon we will all be looking back on this incredible adventure when we will be creating and working in our new home!

View of the Center looking north from Seton Village Road

Looking east towards the Caretakers'/ Guest Quarters and Art Studio from the front balcony of the Center

Our Gallery, or main group room, under construction

Our Photovoltaic arrays laid out in a radiating arc. The arrays will follow the sun during the course of the day.

Looking south on the west side of the Center. The round Meditation Chapel is layered with insulating foam.
A step before the finish stucco is set in place.

Kate our architect and Ramon our foreman inside the Meditation Chapel.

Carrying some of the glass window sections in our upper level lobby.

View inside our Art Studio

View inside an area of the Caretakers/Guest quarters.
The building is designed into 3 separate yet attached units.

Christa and Speed Franklin,
Ernest Thompson Seton's great granddaughter and great great grandson visiting the site.

Valmai, our Feng Shui practitioner and her family, David, Tilka and Nicholas at the Seton Castle site,
soon to be the Seton Castle Contemplative Gardens.