A seating circle for the campfire

An established, lovingly tended garden in Königsdorf – a rose arch, lush perennial beds, and ceramic birds with character in between. What was needed here was not a new build but two precise interventions, built in two weeks in late winter 2024: a natural limestone wall that frames the existing bed by the house, and a seating circle around the fire pit. Both had to look as if they had always been there.

The seating circle is the centrepiece: a round gravel area edged with flat limestone blocks for sitting – and behind them, individual stones set upright as a backrest. The wall is layered by hand, in arcs and radii – without a digger; a course of natural stone blocks forms the top, and the seats are custom-made. You lean back against warm rock, not a chair back, and look into the fire. For contrast, a Corten steel edging with a radius of two metres frames the space, while three boulders and around a hundred perennials tie it into the garden. The material came by self-loading crane straight over the hedge onto the plot – two weeks of construction, and no churned-up garden. The fire bowl itself is missing from the photos – it had rained on the day of the shoot, so it was put away safely. You can still see the stage set for it.

The bed wall by the house is made of the same stone, deliberately kept low: it organises the bed without boxing it in – lavender, marguerites and cranesbill spill over the top. How we build walls like this is described under Walls and Fences; you can find more about fire pits in the garden under Barbecues and Fire Pits.

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Photos: Benjamin Klopp