Gabions & Ipe Alternatives

[JA Castillo, PLA, ASLA]

I am looking into the possible use of gabions on a project (with tumbled recycled glass pieces in-lieu of stone).  Has anyone designed or built with gabions?  If so, what was your experience and thoughts on them?  Can you use them in non-linear situations (i.e. on a radius)?

 

(image via Houzz | Jeffery Gordon Smith Landscape Architects)

 

I am also looking for some alternatives to ipe wood (for use in Florida).  I know there is a lot of buzz surrounding Black Locust, but is was my understanding (which may be wrong) that BL is appropriate for Northern states / climes.  It has also been mentioned to me that Mesquite wood may be a suitable material, but I have yet to see or hear of anyone using / building with it.

 

(image via Houzz | Alterstudio) 

 

Anyone input on either of these items would be greatly appreciated.

 

Thank you.

 

[mark foster]

J.A.

I have used gabions in this application (we used “river rounds” because they are a locally available resource).  

The wire in the gabion panels is pretty stiff and would be limited to large curves (unless you have it molded to shape in a machine shop), but I have made round columns using thinner guage meshes (aka agricultural livestock fencing, hardware cloth etc).  The nice thing about curvalinear design is the stability of the shape means you don’t need as much tensile strength in the mesh–just strong enough not to bulge or sag.  You can even counteract this by placing a hollow structure (if a column, use pvc pipe for instance) in the center to remove some of the pressure.

Mark

[Kevin J. Gaughan]

JA Castillo, you could always go to the source:

http://land8lounge.com/profile/jeffreyGordonSmith48

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