first, special thanks to the clemson group for coming out to help out
much progress has been done. instead of spending even more of our budget we became a little more efficient with what we had. we have an abudance of brick so only naturally we find a way to tie that back in with our design. Seeing how much the trex took up of the material palatte of the site it seemed appropriate to use brick as a stair in order to tie the historic brick wall back in the game. the brick also blends the rustic metal in with the brick from the shingle wall too. overall this small detail really ties in the new intervention with the old and provides a space that after all the wood decays or the deck collapses (hope no time soon) the brick steps will remain and serve as an elevated space that has a variety of applications.
A soap box is a raised platform on which one stands to make an impromptu speech, often about a political subject. It is also used to express concern or to release frustrations. The term comes from when speakers would stand on a wooden box meant for holding soap. I thought reinstitute a common forum to speak your mind in a historic setting was a no brainer. By using the old brick it also makes the installation permanent instead of temporal like the back half of the porch is intended to be. This new layer immortalizes the past.
As you can see from the pictures, we first dug a 8 " trench in the space where the last three steps would go. We then filled that with gravel and concrete masonry units (cmus). We then used brick and mortar on the rest to create the brick stairs. The same technique used in creating the brick wall behind/ underneath the porch is repeated in the front of the porch not only for function but for unity. The site had a problem with separately layers, we intend to overwhelm the visitor with unity. I'll add more pics of the finished brick stairs later.
