Here is a look into a recent project... I spent a few weeks outdoors with the crew, working with them and collecting images and memories of the experience!
Normally I work inside designing, drafting, and occasionally rendering or performing other office tasks. It is also pretty common to catch me outside around Indianapolis, measuring clients' properties and preparing a base plan for the future design. It is not normal, though, to catch me digging out the soil to prepare for the base of the paver patios that I helped to draft. Also not normal to catch me shoveling multiple tons of gravel before my coworkers compact it down to prepare for the sand base. However, if you were in Cicero during the fruition of this design, you would have caught me doing these things. AWESOME, RIGHT?!!!!
I'm not exaggerating when I say that I loved being there for the learning experience! Sure, I learned a lot of great information during my landscape architecture undergrad at Ball State. I learned how to specify a great, long-lasting and reliable base to support various paving materials. I learned about soil compaction, grading, water and drainage, and the importance of doing things the right way. I learned about good design practices and how to take both micro- and macro-climates into consideration. Ball State gave me a great start with a great education.
But, there is more to design than what you learn in school. There is something unique and exciting about being there and building what you already designed on paper. Putting pencil to paper isn't quite the same as plunging the tip of a shovel into the earth and breaking ground. Then doing it again, and again, and measuring the grade of those efforts to determine whether they are deep enough to get a solid base under the pavers.
Fetching about 5 tons of gravel in one trip, unloading, shoveling, and wheeling that gravel, then smoothing, leveling and compacting it teaches a lot about the time it takes to get things started. It teaches a lot about the elbow grease lodged under those pavers. We aren't quite to the pavers yet though. Of course, another load of gravel must be fetched and the process starts again. (The project took more than 25 tons of gravel.) The story is about the same for the sand.
Building a project also teaches about the techniques involved with making each individual paver level and sturdy. Well, I'm rambling a bit. At any rate, it was a wonderful experience and if you get the chance to be a part of an experience like this, don't turn it down!!
Here is my video, which chronicles the progression of the paver patio:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xfK2GFUl_Gk
(The images on this blog are not in the video, but supplemental. Check out the video... worth watching!)
