Summer Landscape Mini-Term Recap

What a summer! Even though it was a HOT, muddy, dirty process the time spent building the New Norris House landscape is one that I will always remember fondly. I even miss the manual labor, but maybe that's because I'm in an air conditioned room right now...

During the landscape mini-term we accomplished so much. We finished building and installed plants on the terraced bioretention beds.

We excavated for, and built, the raised vegetable beds and installed the 200 gallon irrigation cistern.


We successfully installed the stormwater overflow from the irrigation cistern to the bioretention beds and installed the pipe that brings the house's greywater into the greywater bioretention bed. We also built a gravel plinth for forest-side seating, installed over 200 linear feet of aluminum bed edging, dug beds for the perennial plantings, worked with a local contractor to finish the site grading, installed a stepping stone path connecting the sidewalk to the existing walking trails behind our property, weeded, watered and installed erosion control measures.


Some of us even got a lesson in how to operate landscape machinery!


So far, the plants are doing fantastic. The bioretention beds are lush and the perennial beds are off to a great start. We have plans for native shrub and tree planting in the fall, but for now it is so nice to be able to see what started as just an idea on paper growing and thriving in reality. Thank you to everyone who helped make the mini-term such a huge success!

Breaking Ground: Part I

Tomorrow is a big day for the New Norris House Landscape. Our team has been working to gather all the materials, get all the drawings finalized, and rally volunteers for our first big work day in the backyard. Thanks to the hard work Blake French did over the past week getting our terraced bioretention beds roughly graded and to the continued guidance from Alan Messler and Rick Cawston at Deltalok, we are ready to start installing the retaining walls that make up one of our biggest design features in the landscape. We look forward to having volunteer workers join us tomorrow as we fill 300 Deltalok bags with a special soil mix, and then stack them to form a series of retaining walls. It's not going to be easy - when full each bag weighs about 70 pounds, and unfortunately that is not an April Fools joke! We will post a full report of our work day including before and after pictures soon, so watch for Breaking Ground: Part 2!

Finished with one on to the other...

All the block are laid, the drainage is installed, and the back fill is in progress. After an exhausting couple of days of digging out clay the long, snake lie pipes are resting in a gravel bed. We had to slope the drains at an 1/8":12" (about 1% slope). This proved to be a fun challenge for the trenching. We had to dig far enough down at the front of the house in order to get the top of the drain far enough down to be effective against a rising water table. If the water table get to high and freezes it can actually uplift the foundation. Those drains are a very important part of this house. Chris led a team that applied the glue, water protection, and protection board to the house and retaining wall. The retaining wall needs the water protection mostly to reduce efflorescents on the interior of the wall.
In other news the plumber and electrician should be on site early next week, and we should be getting the eaves attached and the skylight framing up for the roofer to do his magic. Once the plummer gets the pipes in we can get the cistern slab poured and start our framing on that. The grader will be out soon to get the back of the site in order. All in all, the house is coming together and hopefully we can see a final product within the next couple of months.

Can you dig it?

Arya, now a professional ditch digger

The footing drain is an important aspect of the house. It wraps around the outside of the foundation to direct rainwater away from the house. The easiest way to install it is to dig out the footings and use formwork to allow a gap for the pipe to run. But since this method would consume a lot of extra materials, we decided an alternative. The footings were dug to their precise size, and the ground was used as a form to shape them. This way we did not use a lot of unnecessary wood to make the forms. Now a trench next to the footings needs to be dug by hand in order to install the drain. We didn’t realize how much work it would be until we started. The ground is mostly hard clay, and we have to dig a decent ways outward in order to dig the depth we need downward. The physical labor is intense, but if we get a good number of people to pitch in we will get it done in time. In the real world it would probably be more efficient to form the footings and install the drain in the beginning, but since this is something we can do ourselves we don’t have to worry about the labor costs of digging the trench.

On another note, the project as a whole is coming along nicely. The masonry team finished laying the long retaining wall next to the house, and once the capstones are laid we will be done with all of our block laying duties. At least for now until more of the site work gets started. Maxi and I have started cutting the rigid insulation that is applied to the interior of the foundation walls. This will insure a good R-value for the house to save on electric costs. A lot of the team members were busy on Friday with volunteering for the South Quad convention. It is an event organized through AIAS where architecture schools in the south east quadrant of the US get together to share ideas and experience different schools and cities. Starting on Monday the house will have the full attention of all the members again.