Board Formed Concrete Seat Walls
See how board formed concrete seat walls were used to curve around a backyard spa
A video transcript featuring Joseph Huettl with Huettl Landscape Architecture
Achieving a wood-grained look With the concrete cast-in-place ellipse, we wanted to tie in with the rest of the concrete walls on the property, so we wanted to match the board-formed finish. With the tightness of the curves, it was difficult to get wood to bend like that, so we ended up going with a Masonite product with imitation wood grain that you'd normally find on house siding. We used this imitation wood grain to achieve a board-formed effect to mimic the real board form of the other walls.
Wall height and width On the ellipse, we wanted to vary it to make it more dynamic, so the width of the walls varies from 8 inches to 14 inches wide. It just creates a more interesting sculptural piece that way.
It was important to size the ellipse at a human scale that would work for a small group or somebody that was just coming up from the spa to hang out not too far from the spa. Part of the raised area acts as a seat wall in addition to a retaining wall to retain the hillside. It's also at seat height so when people get out of the spa, they can either sit close to the spa or they can sit a little away from the spa.
Seating capacity This size space works really well for anywhere from two people to even six, seven or eight people at one time.
