The Construction of the Labyrinth at Dilkusha

Earth works commenced in February 2009.   A large flat pad was needed for the labyrinth to be constructed upon.  The landscape of Dilkusha is made of hills and valleys...therefore machinery was brought in to excavate the land needed for the labyrinth pad.  The site of the labyrinth was chosen for its accessibility for the residents of Dilkusha and the privacy that the site provides.  

Earth works.

 Once the pad had been created, it became apparent that retaining walls would need to be constructed.  Rob A. and Paul M.were the tradesmen who  constructed the timber sleeper retaining walls on both the top side of the labyrinth and the lower side.  This determined then the size that the labyrinth would be.  Cutting and or filling any further into either banks would require more sophisticated engineering and add significantly to the cost.  

lower retaining wall including seat back

cylindrical block

Now that the pad and the retaining walls were completed work commenced on making the cylindrical blocks that would form the divisions to create the paths.  Liz A came up with the idea of using local soil combined with cement and sand to make a "mud style' block.  Each one of these 1700 blocks are embedded with a leaf motif of an endemic species of the sub tropical rainforest  found on Dilkusha.  This is a significant detail of the labyrinth given that the restoration and conservation of the sub tropical rainforest ecology is an important focus of Dilkusha.  

Lyndall cutting the moulds

The production line could now commence.  We cut 90mm drainage pipe to form the moulds for the blocks.  Each section was approximately 10cm high.  After mixing a batch or two by hand it was decided that a cement mixer would be the more efficient process to make the mortar mix.

Paul at the bench saw

Paul M. developed expertise in gauging the right ratios of sand to soil to cement to create a workable consistency that would give us a good end product.  Lyndall M., Liz A. and Moyra J. was the team that set up the moulds, placed a leaf in the base of each mould and then poured the  mixture into each one of the 2000 moulds.  This too, was a time of learning as we began the set up with the moulds on the plastic covered floor of Rob A. newly built shed.  However, we too decided this needed some refinement, working at table height was much more efficient and comfortable with the multiple batches that were needed for make 2000 blocks.  A pattern of a morning batch followed in the afternoon with removing the set blocks from their moulds, cleaning the moulds and resetting the moulds ready for the next batches to follow.  

The floor Approach

The Table Approach

The first batch comes out of the moulds.  We felt a little daunted by the number that we knew that we would need to make...but the process of morning and evening

batches quickly saw the numbers grow.  Thank goodness for the mathematicians....they could figure out the number of blocks we would need......in my head I just saw the finished product...earth, leaf imprints and the labyrinth path.  I had no idea how to work out the numbers that would be required so was happy to leave that to those minds that thought that way.

Blocks now completed, stacked and dried, they were carted from shed to Labyrinth site barrow by barrow.  The levelling of the site with crusher dust completed by Rob A. and Paul M. The work of placing the blocks in the pattern of the labyrinth could now commence.  Many folk have asked me how did you manage to keep the paths in equal spacing with the concentric shape of the labyrinth.  The secret lies in a radius line consisting of a long timber strip with dowel glued at measured distances at path widths according to our map.  Lines were 'scratched' or drawn on the levelled labyrinth pad.  Blocks were placed along these lines.  The turns required a pattern of 3 blocks in each corner.  Once this was completed the decomposed granite was brought in and spread on the paths bucket by bucket.  The labyrinth was now complete but the garden needed to be established surrounding the labyrinth.  see the section on the garden for more information about this.

Labyrinth Completed