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Additional support for our engineering group – Hernan Espinal

Thursday, January 26th, 2012

Tournesol Siteworks is pleased to welcome our newest employee, Hernan Espinal. He’s joined us as a manufacturing technician in our engineering group.  His job is to make life easier for our production personnel by configuring our manufacturing space more efficiently, building fixtures and arranging equipment around the shop. He’ll be contributing to our quality efforts by documenting our standard operating procedures, as well as acting as a pair of eyes on the shop floor to look out for problems. Finally, Hernan will be helping to make Tournesol a safer place to work by participating in our safety committee, conducting training, and reworking processes to ensure that they don’t pose a threat to our production crews. He’s the first person to have this position at the company – we’d looked for over 4 months to find someone with his set of skills.

Hernan is fluent in both Spanish and English, growing up in Honduras then moving to Northern California.  He recieved his high school equivalency at Sequoia High School in Redwood City, CA, then went on to study industrial engineering in Honduras.  After returning to the US, he worked as a process operator and senior manufacturing technician at several local pharmaceutical companies.  He lives in Union City, CA, and has 3 children.

Welcome, Hernan – we’re delighted to have you as part of the team!

Unique VGM wall in Southern California

Thursday, December 15th, 2011

Cool VGM living wall installation uses the boxes' modularity

When it comes to creativity, the designers we work with have us here at Tournesol Siteworks beat hands down.  Architect Ross Andrews and Landscape Architect Jim Ridge came up with this design for a small living wall installed on a retail center in Fountain Valley, CA. Instead of viewing the modularity of the VGM system as a drawback, they leveraged the geometry to create something quite spectacular.

Installed by Matsunaga Landscape Maintenance, and grown in by our friends at Instant Jungle, this wall adds pop to an otherwise bland area.  The one column reaches all the way to the ground, which allows irrigation to be run up behind it. As the wall grows in, the variation in plant material’s colors will containue to add to the effect. A great installation, and one that shows what creativity can do on a budget.

 

Update – San Francisco Residential Living Wall

Friday, November 18th, 2011

All images courtesy of Michelle Bond, Thumbellina Gardens

Since starting in the green wall business, we often get the comment – “it looks great when it goes in, but what about a year later?” Thanks to Michelle Bond of Thumbellina Gardens in San Francisco, we can show you a time lapse of a living wall in San Francisco. We featured the installation of this wall last December (here), and then revisited it again 6 months later (here).

 

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La Plaza VGM Living Wall in a major cultural center in Los Angeles

Thursday, November 10th, 2011

The walkway at La Plaza, with the living wall behind

Tournesol Siteworks was delighted to have its VGM Modular Living Wall system chosen by noted multi-disciplinary group Rios Clementi Hale Studios for the newest cultural center in downtown Los Angeles, La Plaza de Cultura y Artes.

What you should know about the location, in La Plaza’s own words:

The nation’s premier center of Mexican American culture, and the newest addition to Los Angeles County’s family of cultural institutions.

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Los Feliz Residence in the Los Angeles Times

Tuesday, November 8th, 2011

Los Feliz Residence - photos courtesy of Park Slope Landscape

A while back we featured a few images of a residential project in a blog post titled “Another satisfied customer”. Joan Grabel of Park Slope Landscape worked on the Gurman Residence in Santa Monica, transforming a beatiful 1924 home with an average landscape into something special.

Not only did she send a few images to us (and thank us for a job well done), she submitted the project to the Pro Portfolio section of the Los Angeles Times.

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The San Diego Convention Center: SeaCrest Series pots 14 years later…

Thursday, November 3rd, 2011

SeaCrest Series Planters at the San Diego Convention Center

As I’ve mentioned in previous posts, we like to feature projects that we’ve previously done – we’re proud of how our product holds up in the field! Most images shown by companies will be right after installation – when things look their best. Because the differentiation between the quality levels of  manufacturers often comes down to the product’s performance over time, posts like this will let you know where we stand on the scale.  This is a great example of our product’s durability.

We just returned from the American Society of Landscape Architects conference, which took place at the San Diego Convention Center. This was the site of one of our early large installations with the SeaCrest Series planters with built-in irrigation. They are double walled, feature our sensor-based irrigation system, and are made of durable lightweight polyethylene. The planters were installed in two different phases of the convention center expansion. Well over 100 large pots were purchased (as near as we can remember)  from 1997 to 1999. Sizes ranged from our 24″dia. x 22″h and 17″h (shown here on the steps leading up the front of the building) to the 55″dia.  x 36″h and 17″h, several of which grace the driving entrance and act as buffers to cars. The product was specified by Vicki Estrada of Estrada Land Planning.

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Come visit us at the ASLA ’11 in San Diego!

Sunday, October 30th, 2011

Booth #2805, ASLA EXPO in San Diego

The sales team is looking forward to the next few days at the American Society of Landscape Architects conference in San Diego. We’ve been exhibiting at their EXPO for almost 15 years, and it is always a good chance to connect with our most important group of clients. Come visit us at booth #2805 anytime over the next two days.

This year promises to be something special. The show is bigger than ever – more floor space, more exhibitors, and more attendees. It hasn’t been on the West Coast for some time, so we expect to see many contacts from California.

We’re also showing something special -  site furnishings, featuring our new Boulevard™ Upcycled Urban woods. We’ve got our Sydney Collection bench and table there, the modular people-oriented TWIG bench, as well as the new VersiJack deck and paver supports.  We’ll have David Shaw, founder of our Australian partner Street & Garden Furniture, as well as Jerry Soh of our Singaporean partner Elmich on hand. It promises to be a great show…

We're showing a bench featuring our new Boulevard Upcycled Urban wood

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Follow-up: Walt Disney Concert Hall Cafe, Los Angeles, CA

Friday, October 14th, 2011

Two years after install, the GFRC Wilshire Rectangles still look great

We occasionally use this blog to check back in on projects that have been in for a while. Our Regional Sales Representative just re-visited this high profile project in downtown Los Angeles, originally designed by star architect Frank Gehry. The Walt Disney Concert Hall has quickly become an icon in Los Angeles. A few years after it opened,  Gehry Partnerswas asked to design an outdoor seating area.

Walt Disney Concert Hall, Photo courtesy Carol Highsmith via Wikipedia

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CEU Course Update – CEU credits also available live!

Tuesday, October 11th, 2011

Our living wall continuing education course has been a great success thus far. According to the people at McGraw-Hill and Construction.com, over 1300 continuing education credit tests have been taken (and, we assume, passed). Click to continue »

Fixtures Living – an interior greenwall in a game-changing retail environment in Costa Mesa, CA

Monday, October 3rd, 2011

The Fixtures Living showroom in Costa Mesa, CA

We recently received several installation shots from our friends at Instant Jungle in Santa Ana. They worked with Kevin Evernham at Fitch, a leading retail architect in Scottsdale, AZ and Burke Construction on the showroom for Fixtures Living in Costa Mesa, CA. The people at Fitch describe the showroom best:

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