Tuesday, November 7, 2017

Finding Form






The work site with preliminary shoring up of the edge, surfacing stacked on a pallet


September 2017: A heap of surfacing stone stored on a pallet for years awaited the day the mason would finally get round to the task. Eventually, he did. The original idea was to use the flat pieces, three quarters to an inch and a half thick, to resurface an angular concrete patio pad to dress it more presentably. Abruptly defined edges would be softened, sketchy retaining stabilized and thickened for better support, finished sides of weathered bedrock would help it fit in. My overriding interest was to discern how to link the pad to its surroundings by making it seem to actually rise from bedrock, rather than just plunked down there. To be kind, the slab was both visually intrusive and perched carelessly on hastily made prism of rock waste, construction debris and soil (see next pic). The design was all utility, zero beauty - and even the utility was sketchy. 

Over a winter I put energy into shoring up the pad's edges while trying to create a toe for the rather steep bedrock diving beneath it. All the while I was considering how best to obtain a more natural integration of structure with the rock outcrops beneath it. The plan was for the pad to accommodate circumnavigation of the building, as well as access from a new back door to the cottage. Due to its height, this meant it would need to be fitted with steps-up from adjacent walkways. The pad originally was a sort of promontory rather detached from its immediate surroundings, sitting higher than you would have made it if your goal had been to fit it into its context. Whoever built it was happily oblivious of these considerations, so his un-ideal placement is now just our datum, from which we are working to conjure the missing sense of integration. Building up the sides with paths and steps incised as naturally as possible is necessary to realize the pad's full potential. Check out the original crudeness of its edges and eroding base in the photo below, taken in January 2014. Working up shoring at the base of a slope is challenging, because there really wasn't a bench to work from. Much of this shoring would be covered in when rock retaining walls were placed along the west edge, in 2015.


The pad was originally placed on a relatively loose heap of rock, building waste and soil


A lot of time went into building a pad supporting toe of slope




All of which got covered over when the landscape was retained to create an edge for the house





Shoring up the edges and just beginning to consider how steps might run up to the pad






My surfacing stone was assembled from off-cuts and left-overs cadged from my brother-in-law's nearby patio project, some of it headed for road base when I rescued it. There were also some larger intact pieces that were unused which my generous BIL gifted me, and I've added a few chunks of local sandstone that are consistent with the colour mix. I think I will have enough for the surfacing job, though probably just barely - a challenge will be not winding up with a collection of least attractive pieces around the last portion done. Most of it is some sort of slate material, in attractive blues, greys and greens, with a few orangy streaks to animate the mix. As you'll see there's considerable irregularity to the pieces, so turning them into a unity is like sorting out a jigsaw puzzle in stone. In English garden parlance this is known as 'crazy paving', in Japanese tradition it's known as 'stone carpet'.  

Crazy paving in English terms, stone carpet in Japanese garden design



I have taken forever to get going on this job, as my attention has been focused elsewhere on building a linked series of paths and patios around the house. A lot of preliminary work went into securing and sealing the material the pad sits on, and beginning to elaborate a set of steps connecting to a finished pathway. I'm the kind of stoner who likes to see what he's making before he commits to mortaring it together, so there's been lots of layout going on and not much mortaring. I guess I needed to see how the sides of the pad could be evolved before tackling resurfacing. But recently I resolved it was time to get moving, and then finally a solo weekend with more temperate fall weather came along and brought the right mood, so I finally began tackling the beast.


Looking westwards across the pad, very beginnings of an edge treatment on the north side



I began by roughly sorting my heap of stored materials into a half dozen groupings based on shape and size, and whether they did or didn't need trimming. This was a practical necessity and it allowed me to see enough clear space to begin a layout. I wanted to be able start at the west end, furthest from the house, and I wanted to introduce some modest movement into the outside edge to steer it off the straight lines currently modelled. The general idea was to let my imagination play with the stone, following a precept of achieving a sense of flow across the pad that would reflect the actual path of energy moving over it. Here, above a bay sitting across from Saltspring Island, the wind often blows out of the southwest, the channel's waves tend to roll into the bay in the same plane (ferry wash included), and sunlight also traces a similar path as it crosses the sky. Reflecting this movement of energy in the placing of stones means keeping them more horizontal than vertical across the patio. The next pic shows the very beginning of hinting at the lines of force in layout.


Stone roughly sorted, notional layout beginning, feeling buoyant about possibilities

So this is where it all started in earnest, in early September. It's a finicky process to achieve good results, so it's bound to go on for a good while now.




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