Landscape Rendering to Fire Pit Construction

The Original Rendering:

A few weeks back I posted about this drawing for a pergola design. The idea was to anchor a fire-pit seating area.

This drawing was to give the client an idea on how an anchor structure would look/hold down/define the back side of the area.

[ A simple rendering for fire pit. ]

This rendering was enough info to go ahead and install the patio, fire pit, and seat walls as part of the large patio behind the house.

Rendering to Construction:

However this was not enough to make a decision on the final pergola design. Also more information would be needed to be shown on a plan/drawing for those involved in the construction of the pergola.

From Misc #01

[ The completed area, without the pergola. ]

Take a look at the corners in the seat wall and you’ll notice that the corner columns are a little heftier than the rest of the masonry. They were built to receive the wood columns for the pergola, and act as the anchor for the structure.

Now what:

My next job is to design a pergola that will anchor the end of this structure, hold a few sconce lights, and provide some spatial definition-creating a room-like space.

What I come up with here has to provide all the above and at the same time take nothing away from the view down to the lake.

Okay then . . . . 2 posts, create some depth, and 2 or 3 levels to the overhead wood work. I need to remember to add the sconces for light and ambiance, which were agree on when the clients had reviewed the rendering(s).

This will be a fun little design it allows for some nice creativity in a pergola structure, and at the same time I get to pull a little off of the house structure and add it to the landscape.

This idea of pulling off the architecture of the house has always been a strong design principle for me. It creates strong work.

The unifying of the house and landscape creates strong ties and balance, while allowing for design creativity in just how you pull those structural elements together. this will be more apparent when we all look at my drawings and I’ll post a pic of the cross beam supports on the house.

Cast Iron Pots; Another Thought

I just want to clarify the size of those 3 pots that I had written about in the previous 2 posts.

Two Previous Post

The 1st post dealt with my finding these pots and a list of ideas on how they might even be used. The 2nd post was a synopsis of the 1st and the added bonus of ideas added by some of my readers.

Based on a few remarks I wasn’t sure that everyone understood the sizes of these pots. So lets try to clear this up, and I think there’s a quick and easy way to do this.

Take a look at this photo showing the size differential below. Some readers thought they were the size of the tiny little pot in the center of the big three. My pots are much bigger:

[Check out the size of the little one for a comparison. ]

There were several comments/remarks but this was the comment that threw me a little:

How would I use them ? Perhaps as a rustic bird feeder, hung on a wrought iron or copper shepard’s hook .

I would guess that would be possible with the little tiny one but these other 3 are too big for that; almost 24 inches across and close to a foot deep.

I’m still looking for ideas to use these for, and at some point will post the entire list of ideas on using them.

Send me your ideas.

The Landprint Project

A while back I posted a few pictures of farmers in Japan who created art in rice fields. Pretty low-tech stuff, but very beautiful. Now I come across this unusual form of land art.
Completely different in style and really different in how the art is made-really completely different.

The group work is called the Landprint Project and I came across this on Kitchen Budapest:

The aim of the Landprint project is to reproduce subtle patterns and photos by combining various species of plants with programmed robotics.

Plants and flowers that spawn seem to make continuous patterns with their various colours and shades seen from a distance. With the use of programmed robotics for the planting and cutting of plants, we can manipulate the evolving patterns, to render photo-like, delicate images.

[ A grass art rendering (courtesy Kitchen Budapest). ]

Wow, that is amazing. So amazing that in this day and age most would say that’s photo shopped, it can’t be real. Then I go on down through the article and I see that this beautiful work is(to be?) created with my hand held blender . . . no way!

[ Sure looks like a blender I use. ( Courtesy Kitchen Budapest) ]

There is a decent explanation of how this machine is designed and built. However there was no good explanation of the type of grass, and or other plants in the field. No mention if a specific type of grass was necessary.

This form of land art beats the simplistic/geometric crop circles, and like the author of the article I think this will become very popular and very commercial. If it can be done in a realistic time period.

Speaking of time period, none was mentioned in creating this particular work of art. I’d like to know the time frame needed to make this happen.

Now the Important Stuff:

Okay; help me out here, is the above image actually real? Take a look at this part of the article:

Current state

With the collaboration of a professional, we have studied different types of grass and their planting methods. We have also examined how a traditional lawnmower should be transformed so that it produces the desired effect with the help of the hand-mixers and the built-in program.

The first prototype can cut a line of text into the grass. We can cut also patterns or pictures, but at the current state the device cannot automatically assure that the successive lines will fit together in the resulted image.

The illustration of the header image is an artist’s rendering.

Let’s take another look at that last line:

The illustration of the header image is an artist’s rendering.

Does that mean what I think it means? That this is their goal . . . to create images like the above? What have they really done? Have they done anything? Or have I gone off the deep end and I am totally wrong.

The other important reason I bring this up is this. There are two other websites/blogs(both with big followings) that posted on this image and accepted it as real. I think they missed that last paragraph.

One more thing-robotics. The continuing development in machines to improve the quality of life, to remove labor issues from man, to free us for more creative pursuits is awesome. So much exciting stuff going on out there in the World. It’s a very exciting time to be alive.

I just have to keep an eye on my blender next time I concoct some weird drink.

An Appreciation of Stone (36)

A double set of Briar Hill sandstone walls, before the planting(s) occurred.

[Briar Hill: 7 and 3/4 inch ht. plus 1 and 3/4 ht sections. ]

This wall stone usually ships out at those heights and the length is 34 to 36 inches. I do all the “rock-facing” to create those edges and that awesome shadow line.

Lumberjacking

I started this blog to write about the profession of Landscape Design, and a few other things(see elevator speech). Well this is another one of those other things.

Part of Landscape Design is Landscaping, and part of Landscaping is dealing with trees . .. still with me?

Trees where do they grow?

Why it’s in the forest right? right? In the forest.

And how do we get them out of the forest?

Lumberjacks !?!!! Of course Lumberjacks, if you said Lumberjacks you were right.

So in honor of the great profession of lumberjacks:

Obviously this is from a live performance and I think it’s the best vid out there on the Lumberjack sketch.

Thanks to Monty Python!

An Appreciation of Stone (35)

A little different thought and image for my appreciation this week. There is stone involved, trust me-you just can’t see it.

This is an image of a iron ore ship called Buckeye, and it’s owned by the Oglebay-Norton company. Back in the day(my day) this ship was called the Sparrows Point and was owned by the Bethlehem Steel Co.

I spent three years working on this ship and another until I was laid off in 1981. Man I could tell some stories, some really good stories, so good . . . that you wouldn’t believe them, so I’m not going to tell them.

This lay-off pushed me back into the landscaping business which I am very grateful for. From there owning my own design/build landscaping business for several years.

I wanted to get away from having employees(another story) so now I am self-employed as a Landscape Designer and Consultant.

[ The Buckeye in port loading taconite for the trip South. ]

The stone part . . .

Well we used to haul taconite pellets (iron ore) down to the steel mills. I was a deckhand and spent a lot of time working in very rough conditions and circumstances.

Shoveling wet stone dust in a driving rain and 15ft waves will change your outlook on what working for a living means.

[ Another lovely morning at the office. ]