Spark

Monday’s fabulous post by Curlin on Rick Joy’s brilliant barn got me thinking about ancient construction techniques used in new ways. An old civil engineering technique of building with gabions has surfaced all over the world, making it’s mark on the landscape with gusto.

Love the sliding barn door, which looks to be constructed of six recycled doors teamed together and painted orange. Slick!

It can be an earth (and budget) friendly way to terrace your yard, particularly if you are able to fill the wire mesh construction with reused/recycled stones or other heavy bits, perhaps recycled concrete from a sidewalk?

Lots of ideas for using gabions at Studio G’s blog – options for filling the baskets and inspiration for different sorts of wire mesh shapes.

Artist Celeste Roberge has been working with the idea of gabions since the 1980′s, producing phenomenal work. This is Gabion Chaise. I’ve lusted after Walking Cairn since I first tried to place it in a landscape in 1987 – the hotel owner refused to use it and there is now a tiny faux wooden bridge over a tragic fountain in its stead. You feel my pain, right?

Historical sidenote: The word gabion comes from the italian gambionne, translating to “big cage”. Leonardo da Vinci used gabions to create the foundation for San Marco church in Milan. He called them Corbeille Leonard, after his own genius for thinking them up.

We learned so much in constructing our home and building everything around it from Rodrock Homes who provided us with so much useful information. We couldn’t have done the project without them.

Don’t you love old pen illustrations?

~ sue lambe, your Spark exterior stylist