Built to Last: Dry Stone Design and Construction

Later this month I will be traveling to Atlantic City for the Annual meeting of the New Jersey Chapter of the American Society of Landscape Architects. Every year, members gather for a fun, 3-day event full of seminars, continuing education and networking. The event is attended by more than 500 professionals each year. I’ve been asked to present a session on Monday, January 27th.

In my presentation, I will offer a prescription for getting the most out of your building stone resources, and for performing field observations of existing dry stone structures with the aid of four key points for solid construction. The scope of the talk will range from practical advice on managing a building site to imaginative suggestions for creating stone-centric designs. The blending of greenscaping with grayscaping to foster ecological relationships, and echo historical patterns of land use, will be discussed in the session. I will offer ideas for addressing landscape erosion control issues with durable, sustainable dry stone structures. These, and other topics, will be illustrated with thought-provoking process shots and high quality photographs of outstanding, long lasting, stone work. Hope to see you there.