Our friend Sergio Palleroni and his design/build studio from the UT-Austin School of Architecture came into town on Friday to spend the weekend at Patty’s house, lending a hand with construction and studying the landscape in order to go back to Austin and build some structures to complement Patty’s garden.
After getting oriented on Friday, everybody spent most of the day Saturday laying slate tile in the living room, bathroom, and laundry room. The tile is beautiful; it is also quite varied, both in coloration and thickness, which means we will need to chisel down the uneven joints. Sunday we finished laying almost all the tile and students began brainstorming various ideas for the garden. Patty already has a very strong vision which includes a variety of gathering spaces and a greenhouse of sorts for plants. The challenge for the students will be to help create these spaces using a limited number of architectural elements.
After two full days, after Vietnamese lunches, darts at Upstairs/Downstairs and dinner at Kiwi Brian’s, the students left on Monday morning to return to school and begin creating. Sergio’s plan is to return sometime in April so the students can install the work.
It was great to see Sergio and meet the group of students. The flow of talented and diverse people who come through Biloxi is one of the great things about working here. Many get drawn in, and end up coming back over and over, and hopefully that’ll be the case with this group. In the meantime, guys, send me pictures from the weekend!
