Yellow Mountain StoneWorks

The grand opening of the Harborside Fountain Park took place this past Saturday in Bremerton, Washington. The vision for this unusual public space was that of Gary Sexton, the Redevelopment Projects Administrator for the City of Bremerton.

One of the key elements in the design of the park was natural stone. ‘We wanted stone that people could experience and touch stones they could feel, lounge on and even climb over,’ said Bremerton sculptor Will Robinson. Both raw and sculpted rock rest on a foundation of 630,000 lbs of a mix of sand set Salt & Pepper, Frosty Plum and Charcoal Granite pavers. Keeping to an aggressive schedule, Yellow Mountain StoneWorks collaborated with the general contractor, design team, and City of Bremerton to engineer a material that gave the desired color and cost efficiency while still delivering the aesthetic.

More than 6,000 selected plants and a collection of 175 mature trees have been installed, many of these trees rescued from land undergoing development and construction all across the Northwest. The centerpiece of the design, a striking copper clad fountain display by Wet Design, memorializes the scale and dedication of the shipbuilding tradition that has been an important part of the history of Bremerton.

To learn more about how stone can be used successfully as a building material, contact us.

Portland, Or. April 22, 2008 – Located in Portland’s Pearl District on the right-of-way between NW 10th and 11th Streets, Vera Katz Park is no more than the width of a sidewalk, but it brings the ancient world of Chinese stone masonry to one of Portland’s most vibrant neighborhoods. Originally known as “Sliver Park” due to its unique size and shape, this space was recently dedicated to Portland’s former Mayor, Vera Katz.

Vera Katz Park was created as part of Portland Center Stage’s master plan for renovating Gerding Theater. The park was designed by Scott Murase, principal of Murase Associates, both as an urban oasis and an integral part of the building’s storm water management. The design features drought-tolerant landscaping and a bioswale to filter storm water from the sidewalk, in addition to the elegant stone water channel. Widely known as a “stone artist,” Murase called on Yellow Mountain StoneWorks to provide the stone to make his design a reality.

“I conceived the water channel as a sculpture, where neighbors could interact with the wall and the water. You can sit on the stone, walk on it, and enjoy it,” said Murase. “When it came time to select the stone to accomplish this, the primary consideration is finding what feels right, since it’s an artistic decision.”

The stone used for the park’s water channel is black Chinese basalt from a small village in Southern China. The source stone is a sculptural piece, from which the water starts flowing through three different layers of stone stacked up to three feet tall at the corner of 12th Avenue. John Williams, president of Yellow Mountain StoneWorks, helped with stone selection from the early stages of the project, which included providing 3-D images, assembly drawings and hand-chiseled mock-ups so Murase could see exactly what the finished product would look like. In addition, Yellow Mountain StoneWorks founding partner, Erik Nelson, spent a week at the company’s fabrication facility in China overseeing the assembly, finishing and quality control inspections.

“Considering this park only measures 18 feet wide by 200 feet long, providing such a complex assembly of some 30 tons of stone was no small feat,” said Williams. “The intent was to evoke, in finished form, a boulder. The design involved cleft and pitched pieces with a random and rugged hand-tooled finish that had to be carried through adjacent pieces.”

“John was accommodating and resourceful, which was very important to me,” said Murase. “He worked with me along the way, even going on-site with tools in hand, to provide finishing recommendations and answer technical questions.”

The end result is a stone of refined shape with an organic finish, an elegant blend of artwork and craftsmanship to be enjoyed from the park’s viewing area. The park was built by Portland- based general contractor Baseline Industrial Construction.

Sliver Park is one of three signature Yellow Mountain StoneWorks projects in the Pearl District. The company provided design consultation and several different stone products for the Portland Festival Streets, a public project created in Portland’s Old Town area. Prior to forming Yellow Mountain StoneWorks, John Williams and Erik Nelson managed construction of the Portland Classical Chinese Garden, a Sister City project between Portland and Suzhou, Jiangsu Province, China. In this project, hand-finished Chinese stone helped transform a parking lot in Old Town into a Ming Dynasty-style Chinese Scholars Garden.

On Thursday, June 7 at Magnuson Park, Seattle, Washington, the Office of Arts & Cultural Affairs in partnership with Seattle Public Utilities dedicated “Straight Shot,” a piece of public artwork that highlights the Sand Point Calibration Baseline. The artwork by Seattle artist Perri Lynch is a procession of 12 standing ink jade limestone monoliths fabricated by Yellow Mountain StoneWorks. These monoliths run parallel to Seattles original survey calibration baseline.

“Everything we build or measure needs a ruler,” says Gavin Schrock, a surveyor and analyst for SPU. “And we have to make sure all those rulers are the same length. Whether you measure with lasers or satellites or whatever, you have to make sure they all measure the same thing, and that is what the calibration line is about.”

The accuracy of the Sand Point line is said to be within half a millimeter.

Historical surveying equipment dating back a century was displayed along the line during the dedication. The stones are perfectly aligned, along a one-kilometer course that runs north-by-northwest across the park. Two circular holes drilled through each stone invite visitors to peer through, creating a framed perspective of the surrounding elements of the park. The sight line offers a straight shot, thus the artwork’s title. Sighting through the stones, the viewer will have the experience of making a targeted observation in the landscape, adopting the stance of a surveyor calibrating his or her instruments.

For Yellow Mountain StoneWorks, this project was the ideal opportunity to illustrate the fluidity of natural stone. During fabrication, our masons allowed the uniqueness of each piece to emerge from the quarry block bringing to bear a skill that is thousands of years old. Through the use of digital photography during production, Yellow Mountain StoneWorks made it possible for Perri to be actively involved in the fabrication process. Working with this artist allowed Yellow Mountain Stoneworks to do what we do best — which is to leverage old-world stone craftsmanship to bring to life a designers concept and make the whole process transparent.

“My goal as an artist is to draw attention to that which is often overlooked or unheard so that one may derive a deeper sense of place,” said Lynch.

Learn more about the fabrication of “Straight Shot” on Yellow Mountain StoneWorks website in our Public Art secion as well as the background of the project and the installation of the monoliths on Perri Lynchs blog at sandpointbaseline.blogspot.com.

Yellow Mountain StoneWorks is well-positioned to support other public art projects. If you would like to determine the feasibility of using natural stone on your project, please contact us to Tell Us Your Stone Needs.

A stunning installation of Yellow Mountain StoneWork’s product is in place at the Swedish Executive Screening Center located in the James Tower Life Sciences Building in Seattle. Pepper Brown Granite, Antique Golden Marble and Kinaro Tan Limestone, were combined by Callison Architects to make up the elegant veneer running throughout the hallways of this upscale medical establishment.
The subtle variation in stone characteristics combined with our special finishes creates a rich patina that would otherwise be difficult to capture with a typical honed or polished stone surface. The Antique Golden Marble in particular, has a undulating, tactile surface texture evoking a worn and weathered appearance.

These natural qualities of the stone are a nice departure from the rigid geometries of modern architecture and give this environment a human touch and warmth not always possible in a health care facility. In our experience, this unusual finish application, would not be typically realized on a project with such aggressive scheduling and budget constraints. In this case, our client brought YMSW on early enough in the design process to develop the most elegant, cost effective solution to their customer.