What lurks under the mysterious blue tarp ?

We finally received our winter rains and they couldn't have come at a more inconvenient time.

Our project is suppose to be wrapping up and instead it and slogging down.

Normally we just roll with the punches ( ie the weather ) but on this particular project the clients are preparing for an 'event' and we would all like for the construction to be complete and looking flawless.

So we have erected tents and tarps to work under in order to make our dead line.

When I drove up to the job site today this is what I found : The Garden Of The Great Blue Tarp

From Anatomy of a ...

And what on earth lurks underneath the Great Big Blue Tarp ?

A sculptural water feature :

From Anatomy of a ...

It will evenutally have another coat of red hot chili pepper stucco applied , a copper water spout and two thick planks of wood secured to the metal L brackets that will be painted jet black which will serve as bench .

The red stucco water wall will tie in with the red front door and the red pots that line the front of the house.
There is also a sculpture gallery just beyond the wall which will sport a 16 foot long core ten steel arc ( a la Richard Serra ) and several large colored concrete orbs.

Stayed tuned.

Anatomy of a landscape project - part 2

To follow-up on the poor resolution quality YouTube movie that was posted yesterday , here are a few abbreviated photos of the project.

The first is a montage of the model which was made to visually assist the clients in seeing their design .

From Anatomy of a ...

Jumping several weeks ahead after much grading , drainage , steel and concrete form work, here is a photo showing the day the concrete was poured .
You can see Miguel troweling the colored concrete smooth and the wall in the background just had one of its forms pulled off and was starting to be finished.

From Anatomy of a ...

Below is the water feature / bench .
It will serves several functions.
# 1 - It acts as a spatial division between the front and side yards
# 2 - It will have a flowing sheet of water spilling out from a copper spout
# 3 - It will have a sitting bench built in .
# 4 - It serves as a sculptural element directing visitors to the adjacent recessed front door

From Anatomy of a ...

A detail of the colored concrete path, the honed black granite inlaid strip(s) and the black pebbles.

From Anatomy of a ...

So we are in our 6 th week of construction and I am starting to bring in the plants for the planting as well as some of the sculptural elements such as the pots.

The strip/ bed that the red pots are currently sitting on will get a carpeting of black shiny mexican pebbles slightly larger that the black pebble mosaic. Then the red pots will be placed on top of the pebble bed and planted with equisetum ( horsetail )
The rest of the plants that you see in this photo are destined for other locations in the garden.

From Anatomy of a ...

Anatomy of a landscape project

I'm just like a deprived middle aged woman in a good porn shop in regards to finding out about YouTube.

So here is another little slide show depicting a project that we are currenting in the throws of working on.

We still have about 2 to 3 weeks worth of work on the project so the YouTube movie will have a part two sequel showing the completed project.

Here it is :
Kind of modern in design.
Super duper great clients.
Some fun element and of course, fabulous fine craftsmanship .



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZR7b_pn8k3g

Mendocino musings

This past weekend I wandered up to the Mendocino coast.
Our sojourn took us through the architecturally iconic town of The Sea Ranch where we stopped to take in the sights and sounds of this utopian enclave.

Those of you who may not be familiar with this town may find it a bit peculiar albeit intriguing.
The 10 mile long stretch of The Sea Ranch resides on northern most end of the Sonoma county coast. It was developed back in the 60’s by Castle and Cook who had the visionary foresight to hire the MLTW group and notable landscape architect Lawrence Halprin, to master plan a community that would seamlessly blend into the rugged Pacific Coast naturescape.

There are stringent codes and home owner association laws that must be adhered to in order to make The Sea Ranch The Sea Ranch.
Over the years some have found these laws excessively restrictive while other have found them to be necessarily protective.
I guess it all depends on what side of the fence you are standing on.

Despite its rough, rugged and wild landscape , TSR likes things soigné.
Top on their check off list when approving a house for construction is to make sure that the parking area for the residential vehicle(s) is screened from view as much as possible.
This has spawned some very innovative solutions but to my minds eye it is the use of berms that has been quite effective in addressing this challenge.

Some of the best examples of man made berms can be found on The Sea Ranch.

From Mendocino mus...

From Mendocino mus...

From Mendocino mus...

From Mendocino mus...

From Mendocino mus...

A picture says a thousand words so I don't have to

I am tepidly sticking my tongue out and entering the blog a sphere.
Now this is somewhat uncharacteristic of me because I usually just open my mouth and 'stuff' just comes spewing out ,in which more times than not, gets me into some pretty tempestuous waters without a paddle.

So I guess now I have to come up with some kind of witty banter.
- ______

- silence.....

- er, um,

Well I can't think of any thing to say so I guess I will just post this link to a YouTube movie that I recently made.
There are two movies in my You Tube page.
One has terribly dreadful resolution quality and a zippy little bluegrass riff that is entertaining for the first minute or so but then it get increasingly annoying to the point of tortuous irritation.
The other movie is not a real movie at all but a slide show . It has mo betta resolution but is stone cold silent.

so much for my foray into the YouTube world.





http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xj93LfRf0m0

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BcFENOGV45E