Foundry Courtyard

The Foundry building in Hudson is a converted iron foundry now housing a restaurant, three boutique retail spaces, and ten apartments above. The owner asked us to design a courtyard that would feel like a quiet room in the middle of a working town.

The paving is reclaimed Belgian cobblestone, sourced from a yard in Pennsylvania and laid by hand over two weeks. The joints are sand-set, not mortared — the courtyard breathes, drains, and ages. Twelve Cor-Ten planters of varying heights anchor the perimeter, each planted with the same palette: little bluestem, prairie dropseed, mountain mint, and one specimen river birch per planter.

The water feature is a single slab of bluestone, eight feet long, with a hand-cut runnel that sheets water across the surface. It is loud enough to mask conversation from the adjacent retail patios; quiet enough to disappear at night.