Third Post: Ideas and Timeline

This blog post will present an overview of the process our team took in order to design the project outlined by the World in a Garden organization.

The project outline was to create a “living” fence made of bamboo that has plants/herbs growing within the bamboo.  The purpose of the project was to optimize the efficiency of the space used in the garden.

Brainstorming:

1. The Pole:

• First we decided poles should be about four feet long; Approximately one foot buried for stability, and thus making the fence about 3 feet tall. Also, the poles are to be spaced with one foot gaps.

• Second we discussed the holes we would be cutting in the poles;  After some debate we decided on circular holes because they would be the  easiest to install (opposed to oval holes), as well as being very well suited for the “planting” process because the herbs come in preprocessed circular containers.

• The stability of the fence was the next issue to be discussed.  At first we thought we would just bury about a foot of each pole, but we then realized it would need more stability so we considered connecting them with wire.  The wire would help hold the fence up, but since it would serve no other purpose we concluded that replacing this wire with an irrigation system was our best option.

• Another idea we decided on was to build concreted bases for the poles in the corners.  These poles would need to be extra stable due to the extra load they will take from the irrigation system.

2. The Irrigation System:

• The system would connect all the poles via a hose slotted into the top of each pole.

• The distance needed to span is approximately 160 feet, which is manageable for this design.

• A problem we ran into was transferring the water to each section of the bamboo (bamboo has sealed sections).  In order accommodate to our design we decided it would be easiest to simply break these “seals” (via jamming a rod of some sort down the shaft of the bamboo) and filling each pole full of soil to hold the herbs in place (at the holes where they will be planted).

Diagrams:

Figure 1: Diagram of pole design

 Figure 2: Diagram of corner pole with concrete                  

Figure 3:  Overhead diagram of the garden fence

Timeline:

February 12: First meeting with client

March 7: Design is finalized

March 10: Order required items

March 12: Visit site to check ground stability, and other environmental parameters

March 14: Bamboo arrives on site

March 15: Begin construction

March 23: Finish construction