Washington Post Article

Yesterday's article about David Jameson included a bit about the tea house:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/alexandria-architect-david-jameson-piling-up-design-awards-in-the-prime-of-his-career/2011/08/22/gIQAMzPbAL_story.html

Congratulations to David!

Concert Reception

Last weeks concert was followed by a reception at the tea house. It included a 4 course "tea house meal":

And as seen here:

 

  

Public Concert and Reception

We are presenting this free public concert, featuring Olivier Messiaen's Quartet for the End of Time, followed by a reception for the audience and musicians at the tea house. 

Tapas in the Teahouse

A late spring evening with Tapas in the teahouse. Details are at poposriver.blogspot.com

    

 

Mozart in the Teahouse

 The tea house was the setting for rehearsals of Mozart flute quartet and clarinet quintet. The acoustics are superb.

 

Finally, a bamboo forest

The bamboo planted in fall 2009 is finally starting to having significant growth (35 shoots so far this year). This is an essential part of the tea house design.  We'll show how this changes in the coming weeks.

Tea house table progress

Sidney sent this photo of the progress on the tea house table. The material is walnut with thin layers of a lighter wood (birch?). We hope to have it in the tea house by late winter/early spring.

Fall colors

Fall colors around the tea house bring out a different look.

Building a table for the tea house

We've been working with a local wood artist (Sidney) to design and build a table befitting of the tea house.  She has come up with an initial design (2nd picture). Today we just suggested a few changes, and hope to have a new walnut table soon.

 Sidney in her workshop.

 The initial design for the top.

The workshop.

Harvest Moon in the Tea house

September 22nd was the harvest moon festival in China. The clouds cleared off just enough last night to see the moon (and Jupiter).

The fully lit tea  house.

 

The moon peaking through the trees.

Fashion shoot

The tea house was the setting for a magazine fashion shoot.  A crew of about 15 people, including photographers, makeup and hair artists and wardrobe stylists.  The photos give a glimpse of the process, which lasted from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m.  The photos will appear in a spread in Vive magazine.

 

 

Sunset after the Storm

A thunderstorm came and went quickly, leaving behind a wet garden, in time for the sunset.

Frank Gehry comes to the Feng-Zhu Tea House

Ok, so Frank Gehry didn't really come, but the benches that he designed did.  The are very much in the same spirit as the tea house: Calm and inviting.

 Feng-Zhu means "maple-bamboo", for those who have been asking.

May Feng-zhu teahouse event

The initial teahouse party/concert was held on May 15th. About 40 guests enjoyed music, food and drink on a perfect Saturday afternoon. You can see some of the audience reflected in the glass.

The architects and clients.

 

Just some of the food that was prepared for the event, including Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese, Indian and Spanish dishes.

 

Lazy Sunday in the Teahouse

We spent an afternoon with the NYT, books, tea and various snacks in the teahouse. A needed break.

 

 

And the damaged Japanese maple has made a full recovery!

 

Tea house garden in early spring

 Spring has finally arrived and the garden is just beginning to grow.

All of the maple trees were somehow saved by by tying up the cracked branches, and are just beginning to leaf out.

 

Japanese maple tree repair

We have tied up 3 of the Japanese maple trees on the advice of Mark Sampson. We'll see if the cracked branches can heal.

Storm damage to the garden

The big winter storms dumped about 4 feet of snow on the garden. The main casualty is the Japanese maple that we just moved to the front of the tea house last fall.  It's sad because we've had the tree for 10 years, and moved it 3 times trying to keep it out of the way of Henry's tractor during the tea house construction.  We'll look for a replacement in the spring. 

 

First Guests

The first "event" in the tea house was a vegetarian dim sum with Italian guests. It was a relatively warm day, but we ran the heating, so it was prety comfortable. You can find the menu from the January 23rd posting of poposriver.blogspot.com.

Tea House Furnishings

I dug a path to the tea house today, and Sara was able to take out the Zabuton sitting pads that she made on the weekend (material from Ikea).

The tea set (from Beijing) is sitting on the return grill that Henry made in November. The grill spacing is a little too large, as you can see down into the space below where all the mechanical hardware is located.