Design is usually at a remove, often a best guess, and always reliant on the skill and dedication of others. I am grateful to the people who build with seriousness, patience, creativity, and art.

A wharf stone, exiled from Battery Wharf to Brockton, returns to Boston Harbor. Just so. Frank and Jason.

Square pavers in a non-square world: improv.

I didn't tell the contractors that the pavers should flow around the stones like the sand around boulders on a rocky beach; they just knew. Keith and John and a stonecutter I haven't yet met.
That last photo shows some really beautiful work. It reminds me of the adjustments that builders of wooden boats have to make to the frames and planks of a boat, the kind of adjustments that leave me scratching my head and saying “How’d they do that?”
Great sequence of pictures!
Nice paving pattern, too. It looks quiet and well-conceived.
Thanks for the kind comments. I had thought of the paving pattern as “tweed,” but on the day I took these photos rain had heightened the contrast and the pavement suddenly chimed with the ripples on the gray harbor beside it. I’d like to claim that was the plan all along, but it’s pure luck. (On a dry day the colors will be more subdued, and over time the wood decking will weather to gray.)
I am in awe of the workmanship here. I have never seen it done so well.