Design is the easy half. The forms get cut, the lime gets slaked, the pour happens at six in the morning because the caliche will not wait for a convenient hour. This is the part of Noon that gets dirty — what we make, what we make it out of, and how.
Every category below exists on the ground in South Texas, built by this shop. Specifications are what was actually done — not a catalogue range.
Monolithic forms struck from birch, assembled to tolerance off-site, poured on location in a single continuous placement. Geometry set out by hand from a drawn centre.
Largest to date · 28 ft diameterAcequia channels running on gravity over limestone, closed-loop fountains, and basins finished in tadelakt — waterproofed by the plaster itself rather than by a membrane or a sealant.
Gravity-fed · no pumps where grade allowsBioswales cut to hold and infiltrate rather than shed. River rock over filter fabric, planted margins, sized to the roof and drive area actually feeding them.
Measured intake · ~200 gal/hrLime plasters applied by trowel and burnished — marmorino, limewash, tadelakt. Surfaces that cure by pulling carbon dioxide back out of the air and returning to stone.
Binder · slaked lime puttyHand-laid stone walls and stone veneer, set to read as though the ground produced them. Local stone wherever the site and the budget agree.
Laid by hand · no mechanised settingNative and heritage palettes chosen for the exposure they will actually live in, planted into caliche the way caliche requires — not the way a nursery tag suggests.
Palette · South Texas natives + mission heritageAnyone can name a material on a capabilities page. These are the ones we build with, each one written up in full in our open library — what it is, why it behaves the way it does, and where it fails. If we did not understand it, we could not have written it.
Grade, drainage, exposure, and soil before geometry. Soil goes to the AgriLife lab. Where the water already wants to travel decides most of what follows.
Geometry struck from a drawn centre. Formwork cut from birch ply and assembled to tolerance off-site, then carried in and set on grade.
One continuous placement. Cold joints are decisions you live with for fifty years, so the work is staged to avoid them — which is why pours start before dawn in August.
Forms come off when the concrete says so. Mineral finishes go on by trowel and get burnished by hand — the surface is worked, not coated.
Water run and adjusted, planting set into prepared caliche, and the whole thing handed over with the numbers written down.
The part most builds skip. We return, take readings, and publish what we find — including when it underperforms.
Every figure here is something we measured or built, not a capability estimate.
We are a small shop that builds its own work. That is the whole proposition, and it cuts both ways:
San Antonio and the Texas Hill Country · hello@noon.bio · (210) 309-2684