My friend Sean Gavin mills logs on site with his portable Wood-Mizer I spent an action-packed weekend milling my first tree, a mature pecan (Carya Illinoensis) that grew in the sandy soil of a nearby horse pasture. The tree was beginning to die and had been dropping large branches, threatening the safety of the horses. […]
Tag Archives: watershed
An Exploratory Paddle down the Estero
Idyllic launch where Estero Americano meanders along ranches below Valley Ford Over the weekend I made an exploratory paddle down Estero Americano to the coast. The tides are in a similar phase as the dates of our planned Expedition, so I wanted to make a trial run to see what the CCA students might expect […]
Shed Metrics
My Shed Chair concept was inspired by fences built by local frugal farmers I’ve been paying particularly close attention to the vernacular forms of Sonoma County’s family scale agriculture- the fences, coops, crates and outbuildings associated with our region’s numerous orchards, ranches and vineyards. My friend Cindy Daniel is in the process of realizing an […]
Nicasio
satellite view of the village of Nicasio, CA, built around a baseball diamond Driving the back way from our studio on the Sonoma Coast to Marin County to install a project over the past few months, I’ve fallen in love with the village of Nicasio. Its tiny town center consists of a church, a general […]
Sand Trees
These elegant ‘sand trees’ are unique to the low tide conditions of Doran Beach As Ene and I begin to fabricate our relief sculptures for a system of watershed markers we’ve been commissioned to design for the City of Oakland, we’ve been returning to our local beach at low tide for research and inspiration. The […]
Collaborative Agitprop
Scoping a site for Watershed Field Research in Fruitvale One of the most rewarding aspects of a collaborative working relationship is that both the relationship and the work it produces tend to improve over time. Whenever Ene and I (aka wowhaus) perform field research for one of our public projects, we pay as close attention […]
Watershed Morphology Workshop
representations of water from across time and cultures How do we indicate water, let alone its increasing significance in maintaining the fabric of a healthy urban watershed? As we prepare a final design for the City of Oakland’s system of Watershed Markers, Ene and I will spend the weekend at farmer’s markets and major pedestrian […]