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Part Three: The Pergola

If you  have been reading this series of posts, you will recall that my landscape design called for a rectangular cloister style pergola to be built off my client’s sun porch and garage. That shape was dictated by an L shaped space established by the sun porch, and the long back side of the garage.  The center of that cloister would be a fountain pool. My drawing, pictured in the previous post, was schematic, meaning that drawing was a generic structure, just holding a place on the page.  Once she indicated an interest in a pergola surrounding the fountain, I went to work to actually design that structure.

 

 

So what is a cloister?  A cloister is a covered walkway, frequently surrounded by a building or buildings on all four sides. Historically, it was an architectural feature common in monasteries and courtyard spaces in universities. The design for this pergola is predicated on a 6 foot wide covered walkway which would provide overhead structure to the fountain pool. The photo above shows Buck’s CAD drawing of the long side, which is almost 47 feet long. The design revolves around a series of elongated diamonds of different sizes, and steel spheres of 3 sizes. Buck added some figures to his drawing, so I could see what the relationship would be between person and structure. A good part of the reason it is 11 feet tall is its placement. Standing at the bottom of five steps from the sun porch grade, it was important that the roof did not appear too low from that vantage point. That height will also give it some presence from the upstairs windows, and the balcony which is on top of the sun porch roof.

This drawing of the roof panels makes clear the idea of a covered rectangular walkway. And that the interior space would be open to the sky. It was almost a year ago that we ordered the John Davis roses that would be planted on the pergola columns. I still have hopes of putting them in the ground yet this year, but if not, we can winter them over in our landscape building.

The drawings are useful to a designer, but maybe not so much to a client. Buck figured out how to scale the three drawings the same, and I built this model from sheets of copy paper. Buck drew the schematic for the pool on the roof plan. All of the white spaces on the paper will be open spaces.


This model came months after the presentation of the original plan. Once my client approved it, there would be much more work to come. Not only were there engineering issues to sort out, all of the dimensions would have to be coordinated with Mike Newman, as his steps and walls were an integral part of the installation. The following drawings were passed back and forth between Buck and Mike, so all the the locations and dimensions could be mutually agreed upon before anything was built.

This plan view of he steps, walls, and pergola show the relationships between the various elements. The walls would have 2  12′ wide openings that would provide access to the back and side yards. Upon reaching the bottom of the stairs, there would be 5 feet of open space before reaching the pergola.

These drawings do the best job of illustrating the fact that there are pairs of columns that would hold up the roof. There are 32 in all. And the columns are round.  I designed as much of this pergola to feature round shapes, as opposed to square or rectangular. The round shapes seemed less industrial, and more fitting to the period of the house. Buck said this decision made the engineering much more difficult, but I think it will prove to be well worth the trouble.

view from above

view from the far end

the view of both exits

Pictured above is a group of the roof panels, after the galvanizing process. The round rods are captured in a square steel channel. The solid steel spheres, welded at the juncture of every other diamond, will face down. There are 2000 of them, in all.

These fascia panels feature a larger gauge steel rod, and 2″ diameter solid steel spheres. These are finished panels in their raw steel state.

The pallet in the foreground is stacked with the pergola entrance panels. These have the largest diamonds, and 3″ diameter steel balls. In the background, pallets full of columns.

Branch limited the weight of every pallet so it would be easy to offload them at the site.

Prior to loading up the pallets, Buck had his guys pick random pieces from each stack of parts, and had them put together one 12′ by 6′ section. He wanted to be sure all of the parts would go together easily. Putting a pergola together in the field is a much different operation than putting it together in a warm dry shop, with a bridge crane overhead. The install will be lengthy, as it is a big structure. Maintaining the precision with which each piece was fabricated was a challenge. That precision is what will make the install go smoothly.

This view from the mezzanine at Branch shows a roof panel set in place.

Jackie arranged for a dedicated flatbed truck to transport the pieces to the job. Even so, there were 6 pallets left over that my landscape crews loaded in their trucks. None of the pallets could be stacked.

We had our loader on site, so we could offload once the truck arrived.

There was one part to the story we did not anticipate.  3.5 inches of rain fell in the area where the boom truck would be located, and those pallets would be staged.  We had not gotten to a finished grade in this side yard. The ground was very low here. Our original delivery and installation date came and went. I was not pleased with the prospect of having to waiting until the ground froze. I put in a call to my large tree contractor, and asked if there was anything he could do.

Ralph brought in 80 yards of sand, and 100 sheets of 3/4 inch thick plywood, with the intent of building up the grade such that we could access the site.

He built a road in that would be able to handle the weight of the pergola pieces, and trucks. Fortunately, this side yard is still so low, that all of that sand will eventually become part of the finished grade.  He is estimating he will need another 200 yards of soil to bring this space up to grade.

The boom truck is an incredibly heavy piece of equipment, featuring a large arm that will pick up each piece in the proper building order. That truck has huge steel arms that come out, and rest on the ground, to stabilize the truck.  Plywood and sand would not be enough to keep that truck stationary.  The construction mats you see in the above picture weigh 1000 pounds each. Ralph assured me that they would stabilize the ground for any truck we needed to get back there.

finishing up the road in

Sheets of plywood were all we needed to stash the various pallets.  The boom truck operator will be able to pick up any part he wants, when he needs it. It took 3 days to get the site ready. Templeton Building Company will do the actual installation. Buck will be there the first day, to advise.

Everything is ready. The boom truck is scheduled to arrive this afternoon. I hear the scaffolding is going up now. Each column will be bolted to the footings that Mike poured some time ago. The structure will be bolted together, one piece at a time. It could take a week, from start to finish. For now, I am just very happy to know we are in the home stretch.

Posted on: November 13, 2018 14 Comments
Filed Under: Deborah Silver and Co Inc, The Branch Studio, Landscape Design Tagged With: , , , ,

The Schematic Plan: Part Two

As promised, here is part two of the story of this landscape installation. The limestone terraces and wall caps were next up. I am very fortunate to have a stone mason that is as capable of building walls as he is installing flat work. That is not always the case. I suspect all of the trades are much more specialized than they were years ago. I have no doubt that the craftsmen that built this house to begin with had design skills. By that I mean, they could design their way past a problem to a functional solution. And they had a broad range of knowledge. I absolutely ascribe the visual success of this hard scape project to just such an old school craftsman, Mike Newman.

The contribution he and his crew made to this project is enormous. Their work is completely appropriate to the style and period of the house.  We had several discussions about the pattern of the limestone, and the sizes of the stone. Choosing 24″ square limestone tiles for the body of the terrace had a residential and more vintage feel. This smaller area, designated as the grilling and dining terrace, would have been overwhelmed by larger pieces of stone.  I associate larger pieces of limestone with commercial projects, and more contemporary projects.  The terraces would have a 16″ by 48″ border of limestone all around. The purpose of the tent? It was 92 degrees and sunny this day.

Mike did do this drawing for me showing the sizes and pattern of the stone. This drawing reveals that centered on both windows and the door are 48″ by 48″ limestone slabs. I like a client being able to walk out a door onto a solid piece of stone, rather than a mortar joint. The adjacent slabs centered on the windows gives visual weight to this detail. The large slabs as a group indicate the center of the space. There is strength in numbers. A house built on symmetry such as this one is asks for that kind of centering. Though Mike is a craftsman of the old world sort, he is perfectly capable of producing a CAD drawing to verify the pattern and dimensions. Verbal explanations can be misinterpreted.

The sizes of the tiles and the pattern is a very subtle detail, as the mortar color matches that of the stone. But those subtle details are what helps to make a landscape project visually believable. The size of the border tiles is repeated in the size of the step treads.

We brought a couple chairs out, so our client could sit up there, and get a feeling for what was to come. There is yet a long way to go to complete the project. I am sure some landscape issues that will have to wait until spring for completion. After finishing the flat work, Mike installed 32 concrete footings for the cloister pergola. They look like stools, in the lower left of the above picture. Once the soil in this area is brought up to the proper grade, these footings will not be visible. Each of 32 columns that hold up the cloister roof will be bolted to these 42″ deep footings. 42″ is the outermost typical depth of the frost in the ground in our zone in the winter. When the frost comes out of the ground, it can heave around anything that is not securely anchored below the frost line. A large steel pergola gone out of level would not be a good look, nor would it be easy to fix.

The next order of business in this area would be the fountain. That fountain will double as a spa, meaning it would be heated, and have spa jets below the water line. Decorative water jets will arc from the sides of the fountain towards the center, rather than having jets in the middle. The center of the fountain will be open, like a swimming pool. I know very little about the construction of a pool, except to say it is complicated and messy at best. A fountain that is a spa which is also a pool is even more complex.

The first step is to build a form which is deeper, wider and longer than the finished interior dimension. This assumes that the pool has been designed, and the plans submitted and approved by the city.

Once the form is in place, all of the plumbing work can begin. You can see in the above picture that each fountain jet will be operated by its dedicated pipe. Each water function is plumbed.  It was a little easier by this point for my client to see that the pergola would have a roof around the perimeter, and be open to the sky above the pool. Once the interior plumbing is finished, the inside would be sprayed with a thick coating of concrete and sand called gunite. This process insures that the pool is water tight.

One would think that once the concrete had been sprayed on the pool, all that would be left to do was the final finish and hardware. In fact, the process of hooking up all of the plumbing and filtration was just about to begin.

Once the gunite is finished, the process of running all of the pipes to the pumps began. This is the messiest and the longest phase of the construction. The small structure that had been added onto the garage from my previous post would house all of the pool equipment. A mini excavator was used to dig the trenches required for all of the pipes. The operator did an amazing job of navigating that machine around the pergola footings.  At this moment, I was relieved that most of what would be planted in this area is grass.

It is fortunate that most of the construction part of this project was confined largely to this area. We were able to begin the landscape installation in other areas not affected by this level of upheaval.

Once all of the underground pipes were installed, this area would be ready to back fill with the existing piles of soil. Great care was taken not to disturb the footings.

Hiding these pipes going into the pool equipment room would be a landscape issue. We have had worse to deal with than this.

Once the back filling was complete, and the area cleaned, the limestone pool coping could be installed. The pool coping was installed by the pool contractor, Gillette Brothers Pool and Spa, as opposed to the stone mason. Any element of the pool that touches the water is installed by the pool contractor, as he is responsibility for the warranty on that work. The best way for them to insure the quality and integrity of that work is to do it themselves. Once the coping was installed, the copper grounding wire that ran all the way around the pool had to be inspected. You can see that wire laying on the ground in the above picture, just in front of the pool wall.  Every pool has to be grounded, as the combination of water and electricity can be dangerous.

It eventually was time for my crew to come in, and bring the soil up to grade. A lot of the filling had to be done one wheel barrow load at a time, as we could not drive the skid steer over the footings. The difference it made to have the footings buried and the pool coping installed-considerable. Five months worth of work had been finished, and I am very pleased with how it looks.

 

 

Posted on: November 4, 2018 21 Comments
Filed Under: Deborah Silver and Co Inc, Landscape Design Tagged With: , , , ,

Part One: A Schematic Plan

A great client with whom I have a close relationship called more than a year ago to say she had bought a new house. Her last house was built from the ground up on a lake property we landscaped five years ago. I never imagined there would be a second project. This new land locked house actually dates back to the 1920’s. A stately Georgian style house on a large piece of property captured her heart. Georgian style refers to the classical proportions established by the Greeks and the Romans, and a symmetry that is clear and satisfying. I was intrigued. My first visit a year ago July revealed a gorgeous and solidly built brick home. The front door entrance, porch, steps and keystones above the windows were limestone. The existing landscape was formal, but the yews had not been pruned properly, and were in decline.  The boxwood were flourishing. The driveway came alarmingly close to the front door. A deteriorated asphalt driveway would need replacing. These were my initial impressions out front.

She had told me she had a big yard in need of a landscape. As the house sits very close to the road, I was very interested to see the lion’s share of the property in the the back and side yard. The driveway to the garage lines up with the driveway across the street, as seen in the above picture, and is elevated 3 feet above the rear yard. Landscaped beds above and below a concrete retaining wall signaled the need to make a 90 degree turn into the garage. Though most of the property is enclosed by an imposing brick and limestone wall, a broken concrete dry stack wall on the north lot line must have at some point replaced a brick wall that failed. The rear portion of the house is more complicated, architecturally.

The garage features a small addition, perhaps for storage. A narrow group of concrete steps was the only access to the back yard.  Given that this addition was three feet above the rear yard grade, an iron rail was in place. A concrete balcony with an iron rail was most likely an addition after the fact. A house that is coming up on 100 years old probably has had several owners. This suggests that improvements from one owner to the next may not have made an entirely logical progression, although most of the brick and limestone details were consistent throughout.

To the south, a glassed sun porch off the formal living room immediately got my attention. I was sure it would prove to be a lovely room, with great views to the yard. Above the sun porch was a parapet wall/balcony off the master bedroom. The landscape plan would need to address both of these views. The grade dropped away dramatically from this porch and the garage wall to the left in this picture.

The dramatic existing drop in grade from the garage and sun room walls suggested the possibility of a rectangular sunken garden of some description tucked in to that L shape formed by the long wall of the garage, and the sun porch. Why not make something of that drop in grade?

I am embarrassed to say that the only plan I have now is my original marked up hand drawn schematic drawing. All of the finished drawings have gone out to my client, the large tree contractor, the stone mason, the irrigation contractor-and of course, my landscape superintendent. But it will do by way of illustrating my scheme. Identical limestone terraces to the east and west of the sun porch would provide an at grade flat space for grilling and dining to the east, and to the west,  a place designated for the cultivation of herbs and vegetables in pots. The terrace proud of the sun porch would provide a view to and steps down into a sunken garden. That garden would be enclosed by seat height walls. A pergola would surround the pool, with sets of columns and a roof 6 feet wide. A pergola of this style is commonly referred to as a cloister. In this application, a rectangular covered walkway will surround a central fountain feature. The area above the pool would be open to the sky.

My client was perfectly happy with a conceptual drawing. She trusts my judgment in a way that is rare, and I treasure her for that. I did not need to do construction grade drawings for her. And not for my stone mason either. We had a number of conversations about grade issues, and the number of steps we would need down into the pool garden. I trust him every bit as much as my client trusts me. Mike, from Mountain Pavers Construction, is every landscape designer’s dream come true.  He can translate a concept into a finished piece of work. He brought a concept to life.

The limestone walls called out in the plan, capturing the sunken garden, turned in to brick walls with limestone caps. That wall was determined to be seat height-22″ high. My clients very sandy soil made quick work of digging the foundations for those walls. Mike would eventually pour the footings for the cloister pergola, which would be manufactured at the Branch Studio.

My large tree contractor, Ralph Plummer from GP Enterprises was my first contractor in. He spaded in a number of large evergreens along the perimeter of the property, per my plan. We have worked together better than 25 years, and I can rely on the quality of his trees and his installation. As usual, he planted giant trees in perfect concert with my conceptual plan. Once those trees were planted, the construction of the brick walls that would enclose the sunken garden could be built. Mike determined all of the finished grades of the yard prior to building those walls. The concrete footings you see in the above picture would be covered with soil at the close of construction. By the time that this picture was taken, Mike had moved on to setting the limestone outside the sun porch.

The view from my client’s upstairs balcony illustrates how a landscape feature designed to be viewed from above would prove to be a delight for this client. In my opinion, a good landscape addresses the views up close, as well as the views from afar.

Once the defining exterior walls were in place, and the brick risers for the steps down into the pool garden, it was easier to see how a few lines on a piece of paper had become a reality.

Mike did a perfect job of matching the brick on the walls to the brick on the house. Adding an architectural element to a house of this age asks for matching materials, and style. At this point I could see that what I had intended to add to the architecture and landscape of this house would be believable. An awkward or thoughtless addition would always stand out in not a good way.

Make no mistake, you are seeing photos that do not reflect the time it took to get to this moment. More than a few months passed before these walls were in place. And the footings for the stairs.

Mike Newman – mason extraordinaire. Bravo!! There is a good deal more that has already happened with this project. We are ready to begin the installation of the cloister this coming Monday. I hope to post several times more by then.

 

Posted on: October 31, 2018 27 Comments
Filed Under: Deborah Silver and Co Inc, Landscape Design

In Consideration Of All Of The Views

Creating beautiful views in the landscape is an important component of good design. Those views are not exclusive to the outdoors. The frames around windows and  glass doorways provide an ideal opportunity to create interesting views of the landscape from inside out. This is the most compelling reason there is to avoid foundation plantings that grow tall and obstruct the view out, rather than frame or enhance it. Foundation plantings? Any planting that is cozy with that place where a house comes out of the ground is considered a foundation planting. I grew up in a suburban neighborhood in the 1950’s, where every house had shrubs and trees lined up tight to the base of the house. I am sure the idea was to soften that hard structure emerging from the ground with plants. This is a fine idea, as long as the plants don’t overpower what they were intended to augment. Dead center to this large window and pair of French doors is a large container. I plant it tall and lavish enough to provide an obvious focal point from the garden that can be enjoyed from inside the room.

The pot is not a foundation planting; it is at least seven feet away from the house. It is however, the star attraction out that window. I plant it for summer and most definitely for winter. The view out that window in those seasons are just as important as the views from outside. Providing room and airspace is key to a good landscape design. Even the arborvitae in the center background of this picture was planted a good five feet off the foundation. How it hugs the house now it friendly, not threatening.  There are no views from the inside out there.

At least twenty feet away from the window are a collection of much taller plants. They not only provide a garden like backdrop for the pot planting from the indoor view, they provide some privacy from the street. This means the blinds can stay up. The outside view of this pot is a feature of the walk to the front door. Anyone who gets within six feet of the front door has has a pot left and a pot right to see. It is an unexpected view, as the street view does not reveal much beyond the top section of mandevillea.  The pot also screens the maintenance opening in the boxwood hedge from this view. On the far side of the boxwood is the hose, piled up in a messy heap. No one sees that but me.

The house is symmetrical from north to south. A corresponding set of doors and a window provide an identical view out from this room. The same pot, the same distance from the foundation, on axis with the center window, repeats the gesture made to the north.  A repetition of interior views means there is an opportunity for the exterior view to form a strong and consistent exterior axis. Would that I could take a photograph looking left and right at the same time. Only a drone could visually convey this axis established by two pots placed parallel to the house, but a person coming up the walk can take it all in with a blink of an eye.

Creating views out of any interior windows asks for a good space between the window and the view. The boxwood is part of the exterior view.  From inside, one’s line of site passes over them.

I am fortunate to have a front door whose upper half is glass. There is a view out that door that has plenty of interest in the foreground and mid ground space.  As for the background, the street sign across the street is a sign of urban living. But the rest of the view is remarkably green.

The view in to the front door is accompanied by, and celebrated by, the landscape. The pots at the front door with lemon cypress stuffed with lime and variegated licorice embraces the house number. I like this. My corgi Howard is too old to navigate the back stairs from the driveway up to the kitchen, so I pick him up and drop him off at the front door every day. There are 3 sets of two steps, separated by long runs of flat walk. He is a dawdler, so I have a chance to enjoy the view. Landscapes that are designed such to provide interesting views for the people who visit and live in them are landscapes I admire.

The view out the kitchen door is framed to the right by a mandevillea in a pot. The views out is substantial, given the strong design of that element in the foreground space. The mid ground space here is a perennial garden. The background space tells the story of living in a neighborhood. I have lost the maples in the tree lawn. I plan to replant with trees that will be happier in a confined space. At one point I will be standing here, to determine the placement of those trees. One rarely has design control of the background. My advice?  Make the foreground and mid-ground views as strong as possible.

The view in, approaching the side door, is a welcoming view.

The view out here is all about perennials and roses. Yes, those roses, boltonia asteroides, and anemone Honorine Jobert were planted close to the foundation of the house. They have created a filtered view out. Perfect for a bathroom window. The arborvitae in the background have screened all but the very peak of the house next door. The planting is a better privacy solution than a blind. The large pot planted with a multi-trunked birch and carex provides the interest in the mid ground space. This pot will go on to organize the entire view of this garden in the winter. Providing for views from the inside can make the long winter season more tolerable.

The outside view is the strong view. But there are still subtle views out to the Japanese anemones all along this south side. It won’t be long before all the blinds go up for the duration of this season. That pot is centered on that bathroom window. It is also centered on the stairs coming up into this garden.

That same pot anchors yet a third view, from the sidewalk looking in. Small properties do not imply limited landscape design opportunities. All the possible views are there for your consideration.

 

Posted on: September 14, 2018 24 Comments
Filed Under: Landscape Design, Deborah Silver and Co Inc, container planting, Good Design