The Getty Museum, Los Angeles, CA

Working on the Getty Museum's central gardens was a really great project for me, one I thoroughly enjoyed.  I worked with Bob Irwin, taking insight from his vision, and producing the benches, walkway bridges, and arbors and trellises for the gardens from solid teak.  He brought drawings and ideas to my shop, and didn't have any problems letting me input my suggestions.  For example, I had ideas to make the benches more comfortable and changes to the arbors, trellises and bridges to make them stronger and last longer.  He had come to me to make sure his ideas would last, have little maintenance, and be a comfortable place for the public to sit and admire the gardens, and we worked together on this project with enthusiasm.

No fasteners were allowed to show on my work.  There were to be 1/16" tolerances on everything.  Solid teak was used for the wood surfaces, and corten steel for all the structural steel components because they would be maintenance free.  Allowing the teak to naturally grey and the steel to get a slight rust patina was all part of the design.  

I even designed a machine to mill the compound curves in the benches.  And each of the components were installed using GPS to ensure the exact alignment that Bob required.

We finished the job on time, even though I had to work long hours, sometimes 16-hour days, for months at a time.  But I still found it very rewarding.  It was a challenging project, just the kind of project I like.

You may have noticed in the above pictures there are not many flowers, trees or bushes in the gardens.  Those pictures were taken immediately after installation, the day before The Getty Museum opened to the general public.  I visited the museum last summer, and took some pictures, which are posted below.  They don't show the full beauty of the gardens today, but they do show how nicely the benches and walkways have aged over the years.