N° 082
CornellCourtyard
Cornell, ON·2024
“A patio that defers to the trees it lives between, dry-laid so the rain returns to the soil that grows them.”
N° 082 · Patios
The clients — both architects — had inherited a tired stamped-concrete patio that fought their otherwise contemporary backyard. The brief was simple: make it disappear into the landscape. The answer was irregular natural flagstone, dry-laid, with joints wide enough for creeping thyme.
Salvaging two mature maples at the patio's edges meant we could not over-excavate near the drip lines. Air-spade work and a custom raised perimeter were the only way to preserve the canopy the courtyard depended on.
We air-spaded a 600 mm buffer around each root flare, brought in 150 mm of structural soil at the edges, and dry-laid hand-selected limestone flagstone on a permeable open-graded base. The thyme will fill the joints by year two.
From what was there to what should have been.
Materials used
- M.01Hand-selected Wiarton limestone flagstone
- M.02Stabilized open-graded clear stone base
- M.03Structural soil at root-flare zones
- M.04Permeable joint sand — landscape grade
- M.05Cedar shadow-line edge restraint
What we delivered
- 01Demolition of stamped-concrete patio
- 02Arborist consult & air-spade root work
- 03Permeable base preparation
- 04Hand-set flagstone installation
- 05Joint planting prep — creeping thyme
- 06Final wash & 24-month workmanship guarantee
Anissa treated our maples as part of the brief, not an obstacle. The patio looks like it was always there.
The craft, day by day.
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Day 14
Every Anissa Inc. project begins the same way: a quiet walk of the property, a measuring tape, a sketch.
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