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[ Great things show up looking down at the ground, ]
So here is an earlier drawing where I was looking at the possibilities from head-on; that is, from a person looking from the lower level.
I liked this look . . . but wasn’t sure if it was working. Then after I was done scribbling this I noticed that the wall heights were really 3 levels!. Well if i were to have to patios at different levels for this plaza-it seemed to me this would not be the look.
Unless one of the lower walls was not a seat wall(wall on right?). That could account for the difference in height.
I had even looked at the possibility of splitting it up this way. With an upper plaza area, some steps, a large landing-like space and then more steps out onto the connecting walkway.
It was around this time I had got the word that two distinct levels would make people happier. Something along the line of “lets have plaza space for both sides of the apartment complex”.
All of this looks much different than the original proposal(s) part of which is the drawing on the right. this color rendering is showing a more benign set of steps and a long serpentine wall going the length of the landscape.
This wall could still be part of the final plan. Again; looking at this as I type, I am now not sure if I like the idea of a long serpentine/curvilinear wall with a couple of right angle terraces at different levels.
1st thing that comes to mind is easy . . . where does the wall tie into the terraces? Upper or lower? Does the wall stay with the curves as I had earlier shown? Maybe the new set up calls for an even kinder gentlier(sp?) flow to it.
Maybe the entire area would look much better if the budget was put into making the terraces the absolute best they could be, add some other detailing, or embellishment to the walls, or change the material for the plaza floors to something a little heftier in size, texture, and emotion.
Maybe I’m crazy . . . no comment John, we already know what you think about that.
One thing is for sure the previous post(drawing below) had something in that perspective drawing that I was looking for. I think I’ll go back to that(for my amusement) and try to add walls to that perspective. My guess is they will make no impact from the angle I was drawing at.
This drawing . . .seems to be the closest I’ve some yet to solving my problem. I’ll try and add a wall(s) and see what happens to the space.
If the wall doesn’t work then we would have a gentle slope run the entire length of the landscape. It wouldn’t be the end of the World as we know it.
Heck it might look just fine.
[ A ink line drawing, for me this one one of many concept sketches of the area. ]
Possible solution for some student seating between two apartment buildings for upper level and graduate students. The newer apartments off to the left are about 4.0ft higher than the existing apartments to the right.
The Task
I was asked to come up with a way for students to collect and get together, and at the same time not make one large space, but a upper and lower level for smaller groups to congregate. I’m also assuming they did not want one large blast of flat level surface.
To answer the question, no I do not know what the square footages are yet. I would like to see the upper level be about 1/3rd larger than the lower. Why?
I’m not sure. It’s just that in every sketch I drew where the upper was slightly larger the drawings looked better.
[ I thought I'd give this a try, looking straight on into the two-levels. ]
The above is obviously a real minimalist attempt at a landscape study for this space. The more I look at it the “rawer” it looks. Just stripped right down to the specifics.
I would guess that I/we would never use this as a presentation drawing(by itself) but it’s good enough for me to show a client and say, “Hey, here’s what I’m thinking, what do you think”?
If it were to become a presentation drawing it would need to show the apartments in the background, and I would need to throw some color on the page. For me . . . that wold also mean fewer ink lines.
Away they Went
I gave the 2 drawings along with a couple of even rougher sketches/studies to the contractor to show to the client. Will these need fleshed out?
I don’t know, not even sure if they’ll think this is in the right direction, but it’s a good start to the communication.
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Addendum: The top sketch was done on a sheet of copy paper-from a stack of copy paper on the clipboard. I had reached a point where I was stuck on this concept. So I got up, grabbed the clipboard and a cup of coffee and went out and sat in the backyard . . . drawing away . . . trying to find an idea or two to put together for this two-level plaza.
The lower drawing was scribbled done in the moleskine a day or two earlier, also away from the desk/drawing table.
So I guess I am trying to say . . .
if you’re STUCK
Get off your ass, out of your comfy everyday workspace, and go find another space, another environment, another sensory experience.
Here’s one from the “old file” showing a 100 ton crane after a days work of setting some large stone boulders. Uh, of course they’re stone-they’re boulders.
This was back in Columbia, SC in the late 1990’s built into an embankment, the idea was too look like a tumbling waterfall cascading down this hillside.
The shelfs have been dug and today’s image shows the really large anchor stones already in place. How’d they get there? Stay tuned for those images.
[ A few of the lower boulders behind crane weighed in excess of 15 tons. ]
I will post images of boulders being set and a final look at the project in the next post.
[ Does this remind anyone of someone? ]
That certainly sound like a cryptic question but if you’ve done it you’ll know right away-I think.
I had just received some COPIC sketch markers and wanted to give them a try. I really like their vividness and how the colors seem to jump from the page.
If you do use markers(I’m a Chartpak guy) and a blender COPIC’S do no play very well with others.That has been my experience so far. I am using them for highlights, and to make a pop where needed.
Looking at this I just decided those are really BIG trees on the left and right, they must be 80′-90′ foot tall-wow! I never noticed that before until right now. That’s funny. Well it’s funny to me anyway.
Enjoy the weekend.
Today I was hit with another one of those ah-ha thunderbolts. It was like “well hell yeah I knew that, but I had just never said that out loud”.
A statement so clear in vision, so simple in design, so darn obvious in execution:
“A vase should never, in the open air, be set down upon the ground or grass, without being place upon a firm base of some description, either a plinth or a pedestal. Without a base of this kind it has a temporary look, as if it had been left there by mere accident, and without any intention of permanence.”
The author continues:
” . . . gives it character of art, at once more dignified and expressive of stability”.
Recognize the author? The book? Some modern hotshot who has it figured out? . . . Hardly.
1841, that’s right 1841 and not by some English high brow Gardener, nope, it’s Andrew Jackson Downing.
Mr. Downing is the man.
Downing; in my way of thinking, is the “Godfather” of American landscape design. His book A Treatise on the Theory and Practice of Landscape Gardening is the 1st great American book on the subject of garden design in America.
This book was so popular that Downing edited the 1st 4 Editions of the book. The book went on to at least two more editions-the 6th Edition(edited by Henry Winthrop Sargent) was released in 1859. A copy of that 6th edition fell into my gnarled, grubby, smashed, beat-up hands today. Making me a very happy Landscape Designer.
For some weird reason I went immediately to the chapter on ‘Embellishments’ and came across the above quotes. Words which really struck me, struck me hard.
I got rights
We Americans have gotten a little too lazy with our “New American Garden Style”, this whole notion of just throwing things out there or plopping yard art anywhere it comveniently fits-doesn’t cut it.
Oh yeah, I hear you now . . . “Well it’s my garden and I damn do whatever I please“, or “Hey what about my individuality, I’m an American!-I got rights!“.
Well it’s true, you got rights, and you got the right to screw up if you want to. And in this case all those rights are still wrong.
Jackson’s got it right
Jackson is right, in today’s lexicon he would probably say “plopping” stuff out there is a bad idea, because no matter how you cut it . . . plopping is still-plopping”!
The harder we try to make it “individual” the more we fail. Every time someone adds a mass-produced doo-dad to the garden bed means we are 1 more doo-dad closer to a million doo-dads in the landscape.
All those doo-dads scattered about, with no real home, no base, no sense of structure, no sense of permanence-no real aesthetic.
I am just not talking about the $2.99 doo-dads, I am also referring to the $299.99 doo-dads. After all a doo-dad is still a doo-dad.
So what exactly am I rambling on about?
Am I telling you to put your concrete bunny on a pedestal-heck no. Am I telling you to put your $159.99 awesome blue glazed urn setting/dropped/plopped in your perennial bed on a base/pedestal/plinth-heck yes.
It’s art
Sometimes it’s very good art. Art that deserves a stage, a setting, a sense of permanance-as Jacksonn says:
“. . .expressive of stability.”
I have been guilty of this, even as I am writing away I can think of some vases/urns/big beautiful pots(vessels) that I have dropped into the landscape. I can even visualize those same pieces with a pedestal or some sort of base beneath them, elevating them and giving those pieces a real sense of place-and space.
Will I now completely change my way of thinking 100% and put all substantial vessels on a pedestal?
No, no I will not. 100% is too strict a rule. There will be a time, or a space, or a vessel that doesn’t warrant such a solution.
However, I will look at how I use vessels in the landscape differently. There will be more thought on presentation. I will be less lazy.
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Addendum: I will have much more to say on this whole idea of urns/vases(vessels) in the designed landscape including my use of chimney caps as pots.
Including why I will continue to leave them partially buried into the ground-not raising them onto pedestals.
Mike Holmes hits the nail on the head; again, so to speak. Friday nights episode “Semi Dilemma”(04/11) on Discovery Home(DTV286) was a great one for me because there were some good “Holmesism’s”(I just made up this word).
We(viewers of the show) are all familiar with lines like:
“Bring it all down”
“Unbelievable”
“Okay, tear it all down”
my favorite,
“This is unacceptable”
Friday he said something else that has stuck with me, and it’s something that should stick with every other contractor/service person/provider of service(s):
“There is no doubt when you run a business like this you need to listen to the client, and you need to help the client come to a decision.”
That really stuck with me, after I heard it I jumped up ran into the study and grabbed my idea notebook and wrote it down as best as I remembered.
Helping the clients come to a decision, that should be a laser-focus part of what every professional designer does. Decisions based on site, need, want, desire, money, experience, climate and good old know-how.
I couldn’t agree more.
He said this later in the show:
“Whatever their dreams are, I’ll help them with what I know.”
Bingo!!!
Man the guy is good, not only as a contractor, but as a human being who provides a service. Putting the clients needs and desires 1st, not his ego.
Designers are notorious for this mistake . . . the need to put their “oh so” significant stamp on every project they do.
Mike has a slight signature to his work(it’s very subtle), but he listens, and he does use what’s available at each residence to it’s best advantage.
Refreshing TV
To hear someone on TV talk this way, and speak so sincerely about the client/contractor relationship is truly some ‘rare air’. Most home improvement shows are all about some telegenic host, ‘out of control ego” designer, or do it on the “CHEAP” . . . lots of do it on the “CHEAP”, or cheap and fast.
We’re going to transform this barren hell-hole of a front yard into a Balinese-Oahu-sub tropical paradise in 7.4 hours and under $1,843.53.
Stay tuned as our ever so cute designer strips the entire street of sod while wearing stiletto’s and designer jeans . . . while not getting dirty.
And so on, and so on.
Why do I care?
Because our clients watch the dang TV.
They get ideas, and even worse . . .
They get expectations.
These expectations are a killer, whether it be the design process, the time line to start. The time line to do the “actual install”(this is a biggie, a real biggie). Of course the biggest biggie . . .
Money
Real unrealistic expectations about cost. I know Designers all over the country and this is by far the biggest hurdle to getting the work installed for a fair price. They see the show, they hear some wacky numbers, they expect the same.
The other real problem; as I mentioned above, maker is the time factor, folks got no idea how long it takes to install some of this work-and it can become a real problem with clients. Again; these are unrealistic expectations, created by TV shows that are clients watch.
The best we can.
So we need to be aware. We need to know that very few TV shows show our potential clients real world problems, dilemma’s and solutions.
By knowing the above, we now educate and prepare ourselves, to meet the challenge(s). Designers and craftsmen at the ready to design creatively, quote the job fairly, and finally, install the job with good craftsmenship, pride in our work and integrity in our professionalism.
As Mike likes to say:
“Whatever it take to make my job right-I do”.
[ Drawing shows a "new" patio on an English style Tudor house.]
This is an older plan view, from around 2002-early 2003. I just can’t remember the exact time. The idea was to match up some stone patio and columns to match up with one of those Tudor style houses.
An aside this landscape study and following plans fell through and this project was not installed. At least not to this plan.
I don’t know if another contractor came in and found another solution.
I would like to see this backyard, and see if anything came out of this. Considering the style and SIZE of this house I would think something would have had to happened here . . . but what?
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Addendum: Note the lazy lettering with this style of rough drawing. I would think that I still work with this lazy style in rough drawings except the mixing of upper and lower case lettering. Everything today is upper-case.
Even for landscape studies, and rough landscape conceptuals.
Okay, after some back and forth, looking at this design, then taking a look at another design, or four-we have come to a consensus. And a very good consensus it is.
Here it is.
[ The winner, after much discussion, I hope this will be a Rumford designed fireplace.]
The Particulars:
The rustic angles at the edges the arched opening at the fireplace is echoed in the opening for the firewood storage area. Boulders on the right just flow right into the fireplace.
On the left the boulders will continue with cedar bench(es) built into the boulders.
There are still several different possibilities for the stone patio, I would hope that it would be large slabs of sandstone-3.0×3.0, 3.0×4.5 around 3″ thick dry-laid on stone dust.
As for the stone for the fireplace. It will either be the same stone on the house, or we could use Ohio fieldstone . . . this would just be smaller pieces of the surrounding boulders.
The History:
To look back through the entire story there are several other pst to take a look at.
- This is where it all started with a plan view of a deck possibility and a look at a fireplace idea.
- A pencil sketch of two ideas-notice the stone/wood benches in the upper photo.
- I like this one with the extra wood storage and the “weird” right side to the fireplace. Would be tough to pull off, and I doubt this could be a Rumford.
- #4 is a look at the previous work with some interest in an arched look in the fireplace. This turned out to be very prophetic(sp?).
- A much longer post with more analysis of the entire area, including several other looks at fireplace possibilities, including a larger sketch that’s very close to the final drawing.
Looking back that will take you through everything involved so far. The Contractor of record has given the numbers to the homeowners for the entire project and we are awaiting their decision, and it’s a big decision.
Providing this all falls into place we will follow along with the build process, including all the lowdown on those involved building this project. Especially those that will be asked to do something out of their comfort zone.
To me there are two types of contractors/subs/craftspeople.
- Those that embrace new ideas and are not only up to the challenge but attacked the challenge with gusto. Knowing that this is a chance to show off their skills and abilities. Folks who have pride in their work, and are never satisfied. They want to be better. Cabinet makers are a good example of this kind of sub/contractor. Another; is/was Ernie Washington’s bricklaying crew in South Carolina. His guys loved doing one of my projects, because they new it was always something out of the norm.
- Those that abhor new ideas and challenges. It’s the status-quo for them. This is the way “I”/”we” do it and that’s that! Just put in their time, do whats required to get paid and get off the job site. The last thing they want is some “&^%$ %&$$* jerk, know-it-all” telling them to push their limit. To me concrete guys are at the top of this side of the coin. Okay concrete guys . . . fire away.
Let’s be perfectly clear-I am in no way pointing/talking/referring to the contractor of record, or anyone who may be connected to the fireplace build. I thought this was a good place to point this out.
This job will be a difficult build. There is limited access, and what access there is requires working around trees that need to be saved-saved to carry on the aesthetic and ambiance they have created for this site.
There is lots of stone boulder/out-cropping work to be done. Outcropping work can look so good that it appears it was already there . . . to:
“Holy^(^(^%$&#&_$&$($#^@?!? Did those guys just dump them boulders off the truck”.
Paths to build, large steps to lay, structural work. Concrete and stone deck. A large circular paved courtyard, and on and on.
Challenge yes, build it’ll be fun as hell to build, and an awesome place to live your life.
Need to know more about outside fireplaces:
Here are several links of various interest when looking at designing/building fireplaces, outside . . . or inside.
- The information you need in builiding a Rumford fireplace. It’s a step-by-step tutorial. This is “The site” on the Rumford fireplace. hmm, Rumford . . . what a strange name . . . must be named after some guy. <buzzer noise> Yeah! come on down, you are correct. The Rumford fireplace is named after Count Rumford and he is not from Transylvania, and quite an industrious guy.
- CSIA is a site . . . CSIA? CSIA? What the heck is the CSIA? Oh, you know . . . the Chimney Safety Institute of America-CSIA! Back to what I was saying . . . the CSIA site has very good information on chimney maintenance and safety. How to find a certified “sweep”, using firewood, and other safety measures. A good resource and tip page for the homeowner.
- The Masonry Heater Assoc. of North America. Lots of info here, mostly for indoors but another site for good info and ways to continue your search.
- Architectural codes, specs., information, information, information, it’s all here. You could spend a long time here. This is a site I highly recommend to Landscape Designers to expand their knowledge of the building trades, codes, specs., etc. the building codes link on the left will get you to any municipality in the U.S.
- Codes, codes and more . . . standards the International Codes Council(ICC) is a good place to find some code(s) info. Way beyond fireplaces it will get you to just about anything you need to know.
- Quality, some companies still believe quality is the driving philosophy of their product and not just another high-falutin’ word that gets paid in lip-service. One of those would be The Superior Clay Corporation, makers of really great chimney ‘toppers’(my word). How do I know? I buy their “seconds” and use them as pots/urns in the garden and those “seconds” are superior to almost every other clay pot I have laid hands on-the “seconds”. If you want to really “finish” off you chimney-outside or inside . . . these are the guys.
- At Period-Homes.com there’s a lot of solid links for professionals to pages with various type products. Including a page for fireplace links.
- Custom Building and Restoration services at Tradweb also has a web page for fireplace equipment, services, etc.
- Traditional Building magazine is a great source for all things architectural, and I mean all things architectural. The magazine is also worth the subscription.
- Then there’s the National Fireplace Institute(NFI), that use to be the Hearth, Patio, and Barbecue Education Foundation . . . the supply a list of ‘certified’ specialist. For those of us in the trade the page with info about industry pros, certification, codes, etc. Go straight to this page.
- You didn’t think I create a list without mentioning chimney sweeps did you? Well there is the National Chimney Sweep Guild(NCSG). By the way did you know . . . Chimney swifts winter in the Amazon Basin of Peru. Well they do. Says so right there. I would think they best way to find a “Sweep” is like a lot of other trades; ask around . . . check with local brick/stone masons who build fireplaces-heck, they may even be ‘Sweeps’.
Okay that oughta keep you busy for awhile!
I really appreciate finding great watercolors of good looking botanicals. The tulip below is a fine example of this style of painting. The artist is a fellow named Johann Bartholomaus Braun.
Found in an album of 190 watercolour illustrations, entitled ‘Flora Picta’ ca1660. Apparently this is part of a large study documenting the garden of the “Count of Baden-Durlach”.
With a name like that he must have been an important fellow.
[ A very stunning watercolor. ]
I did some searching around for more on ‘Flora Picta’ and found very little, actually almost nothing. I would like to see the rest of the illustrations if they are scanned into the collective internet somewhere.
[ Somewhere in SE Ohio. ]
My hope is to use this site to spread some info about the art and practice of Landscape Design. It is a very misunderstood profession; I do not cut grass like the next door neighbor's cousin who carries 3 mowers and a blower in the back of his truck.
I will also pass along comments on industry happenings, events, etc., and any maybe a few other adventures going on in my world-after all this is "my" blog. Thanks for stopping by and taking a look. Questions? Drop me an e-mail.
rick (at) whisperingcraneinstitute (dot) com
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