Page 18 - Demo

18|August 2022 slippery rock gAzette Granite Portals Transition Chaos to Serenity
Massive blocks of Kenoran Sage granite become nature-inspired entry portals into a peaceful reprieve from the hectic Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex.
Megy Karydes
Reprinted by permission of the author & Building Stone Magazine
helped him understand the capa- bilities of this stone. “I get really, really involved,” he adds. “I’m not the kind of artist who comes up with an idea and lets others just do it.”
Goldberg met with the stone cutters at the quarry and looked at the design requirements together. If they noticed something needed to change or work through a prob- lem, they resolved it as a team.
One thing Goldberg was inspired by was the drill marks that occur during the quarrying process. He thought they could make for a visually intriguing tex- ture and would allow him to show how the stone was the byproduct of the quarry.
Transporting and Fabricating Granite Blocks
The final entrance design, called Sylvan Portals, consists of two entry elements—one at each access point—fabricated out of Kenoran Sage granite, as well as an adjacent seating area to help “ground” it into the space. Cut- outs in the general shape of a leaf create the massive portals and those leaf designs carry through past the entrance in the form of seats for visitors to use as a rest- ing spot.
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More than 180 acres of virgin old-growth hardwood forest in Richardson, Texas, dating back to the time of the city’s founding families and the Caddo Indians, sat largely undisturbed. Until recently.
The Spring Creek Nature Area, located 18 miles north of Dallas, is surrounded by a growing and dynamic area of some of the world’s largest telecommunica- tions, insurance, and network- ing companies including AT&T, Cisco Systems, State Farm Insurance, and Blue Cross & Blue Shield of Texas.
City of Richardson leaders, including the mayor and city manager, were keen to call atten- tion to the two main entrances of the Spring Creek Nature Area, a unique open space filled with Blackland Prairie forest. The area includes multi-use trails, a river, and opportunities for visitors to see and hear urban wildlife in its natural habitat.
The goal was to honor this nat- ural sanctuary while providing a visually engaging entrance expe- rience. Dallas-based artist Brad J.
Shands Photographics
Shands Photographics
Goldberg and DCBA Landscape Architects responded to the Request for Proposal (RFP) and were chosen for the project.
Goldberg knew he wanted to use granite for the design, which he showed in a 3D computer- ized model on a map within the space to the team approving the final design. He included details regarding the texture and charac- ter of the stone so the city leaders
could get a better sense of how it would look once everything was in place.
“Granite is a much more imper- vious stone,” Goldberg explains, especially compared to other commonly used outdoor materi- als such as limestone. “After 100 years, it’ll still be like a teenager. It will last and last.”
Goldberg admits granite will develop its own patina over time, but he says it gets better as opposed to worse with exposure to the ele- ments. It’s a durable stone and rel- atively maintenance-free, making it an attractive natural stone to use in such an environment.
To create the final project would require working with a company that had the skill sets, talent, and equipment to help make his design a reality. He didn’t hesitate reach- ing out to a company he’s worked with over decades on various projects: Coldspring, a primary natural stone manufacturing facil- ity and bronze foundry located in Cold Spring, Minnesota.
“I looked at a stone called Kenoran Sage from Coldspring, which has kind of a greenish sage color,” Goldberg says. “I just thought it would be perfect under the trees.”
“I looked at a stone called Kenoran Sage from Coldspring, which has kind of a greenish sage color,” Goldberg says. “I just thought it would be perfect under the trees.”
Goldberg showed his design sketches to the Coldspring team and asked them, “’What do you think is possible?’ They said they could do it and weren’t afraid of big work.”
With Coldspring on board, they made big plans. Their next stop: a nine-hour road trip from Cold Spring, MN to the Kenoran Sage quarry in Ontario, Canada.
Selecting the Blocks
Visiting the quarry and look- ing at the Kenoran Sage quarry blocks gave Goldberg ideas and Shands Photographics