What they DONT teach you ...

In 1984, a lawyer turned entrepreneur, Mark McCormack, authored a bestselling business classic, provocatively entitled 'What They DONT Teach You At Harvard Business School'. I was reminded of this book recently, in the context of the challenges our architect team has been overcoming while dealing with the boulders that form an integral part of our home design. No contemporary architecture school really prepares one to deal with the complexity associated with these large rocks.

So what precisely DONT they teach you ?

Working with boulders requires quite a bit of thought and planning.

It's one thing to place, move or adjust a boulder on a computer 'render' of a site or a structure. It's an entirely different matter to do it in reality. As an example, placing our signature 'tear drop' boulder took six hours of concerted effort and multiple failed attempts with two cranes, one excavator and fifteen workers.

Placing a boulder on a concrete wall

Now given that boulders do not come in standard shapes and sizes, rotating a large rock by just fifteen to forty-five degrees will completely change its profile and therefore how it fits into the overall space it is in, both physically and visually.

Another implication of their weight is that they tend to sink into the soil where they are placed unless the earth is extremely densely compacted - such compaction is rarely feasible on a construction site especially during the monsoons. Often boulders will need temporary support for example, when one is placed on an under construction' concrete wall. This will also impact how shuttering for the wall is done and how one finishes the edge between the boulder and the wall.

The very process of handling boulders with earth moving equipment can damage them. The earth moving equipment also tends to destroy the soil grading (the slopes and levels of soil on a site) and any soft and hardscape in the area.

Earth moving equipment tends to be hired by the hour so all this rework is expensive. Usually, the end result is well worth all the effort !

...Moving the Moai

...The Sublime Invasion