Office of Outdoor Research, 
Landscape Morphologies Lab


Coast Live Oak Deck


The garden deck was designed with a single salvaged and slabbed fallen Coast Live Oak (Quercus agrifolia).  This protected wood is rarely used for construction, as its tortured habit is difficult to mill and the wood often continues to “move.” To accommodate this the deck design methodology and construction were modified. The unique live edge wood pieces were digitized and virtually arranged in a digital model to create a balance between mimicking fractal landscape form and expressing the unique profiles discovered in the sectional slabs. The “living” condition of the slabs was celebrated by allowing flexibility for continued contortion and placing vine cabling and planters to grow vegetation in the voids left by the slabs.




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