7.10.2016

lingering landscapes: installation pt. 5--ponded! arted! treed! slivered!


Some more progress on the lanscaping. The photo above shows the sculpture planted out in the front yard. 

The grass sliver finally got installed. The splash of green looks really good there and balances out the hardscape:


Everything is still alive outside the master bedroom. Ground cover and shrubbery that pulls around the corner plus a formal pedestal for the "Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil" statue. Really digging that concrete pedestal. Thinking of making more on my own for potted plants and what not...



The landscaper came and sealed the pond. After it set for 24 hours, we filled it up with rainwater and then went up to Hill Country Water Gardens to pick out some plants and fish. We shoudl ahve waitied on the fish since they were all dead inside of 48 hours. Need to let the tank equlibrate before fishing it, it seems.








Finally, the scaper planted three Anacacho Orchid trees along the back fence to green it up back there.


Still waiting on the metal planter to complement the concrete one toward the back of the patio. 


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7.02.2016

dancing with architecture: alexandria, virginia



The cool thing about architecture is that there is always something to admire, leer, or sneer where ever you go. And while Alexandria is not exactly a hotbed of Modernism, it does have an interesting built environment.

Westerners first settled the area in 1695. The namesake of the town, Captain Philip Alexander II,  donated land to create the town in the mid-1700s. George Washington (THAT George Washington) surveyed land for the town. Other notables: (1) the Wright brothers won the first military airplane contract after flying from Arlington to Alexandria, (2)  Jim Morrison (of The Doors) graduated from high school here, and (3) Fox Mulder (The X-Files) listed his address here.

As might be expected, based on that history, much of the architecture is colonial quaint. I stayed in the newer part of town where much of the construction is revisionist. 

Didn't have my real camera with me (when will I learn to always have it!). Iphone photos!


Boot scraper

REAL shutters, people.

Found one Art Deco building.

A new old brick.


The Torpedo Factory, now an art center.


Cobblestone alley.

Cobblestone street.


Check out the shutters on the door!



Another view of that Art Deco building.



A minor treat: Modernist landscape architecture projects out front of the Washington-Alexandria Architecture Center.











A sadly uninspired federal courthouse...



Church

Yarn bomb!


Washington Masonic National Monument with a nice Deco top 


Deco monument to something or the other...



The airport!