River Sanctuary, built in the corner of a shaded yard deep in suburban Rochester, NY. Designed to resemble a rumbling and flowing river, this sanctuary space is created from Irregular Bluestone and supported by locally harvested fieldstone, mostly granite and sandstone. The pattern, if you look closely, is of a slow current on the outer edge paired with a rushing torrent down the center line, the power of water holding in the chaos of gravity.

The mechanics of this sanctuary were a fair challenge to calculate as the entire surface needed to be pitched down very slightly while also keeping a plumb plane (flat surface in all directions). I decided to created a wall in front that locked the stone slabs into the hill behind instead of digging the depth twice over. This saved me time and managed to create a "flowing over" effect with the river-imagined space.

The signature key-jointing that I love to use, as seen in many of the close-up photographs, obeys the classic style of dry-stone walls though on a surface. An interlocking display that is both tight and tough, ready for the brutal WNY winters and everlasting for years to come.

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