It all started with an unruly slope, bad access to the street from the house, and a poorly built dry stone wall...... We started by taking up the concrete path through the trees to the street, and removing the poorly built limestone dry stone retaining wall for many reasons: 1) It was failing, 2) [...]
Transitional Dry stone elements in the landscape help us read and move through it more smoothly, flowing from one point to the next. They strengthen connections between plantings and hardscaping, indicate relationships with materials and pattern languages, provide us with contrast, give us direction physically & visually with destination features, as well as providing high [...]
Nick Fairplay & Patrick McAffee looks sum up the weeks hard work. It was an amazing week of transferring knowledge in stone to students, to faculty, and to the broader community that participated. This was my 8th StoneFest to attend. The first one I attended lit my passion for a relationship with stone. No [...]
Dry stone fence, limestone, Kentucky. Image by Mark Jurus. Why do these dry stone structures last so long? Luck? Lack of exposure to extreme elements? Freeze thaw not present in certain elements???? There are as many theories as there are people who have put one stone upon another. You can go to school and [...]
Each project we start begins with one stone. It sets the tone for all others that follow in response to it's mathematical proportions and character. Generally I like to start with a good sized stone and build out in enough directions where my crew and I can see where we are going. On this project [...]