garden
In most projects, great work requires the watershaper's personal understanding of who the clients really are, deep down. That doesn't mean we have to become our clients' best friends or marry into their families. Rather, creating watershapes at the highest level involves a different kind of relationship, one in which a shared vocabulary and common vision develop through discussions of water, stone, art, plants and the orchestration and staging of experiences that will occur in given spaces. Take the project covered here as an example: The scope of the work, an unlimited budget and a mandate for the highest possible levels of quality were enough on their own to force us to explore the limits of our skills and creativity. More important from our perspective, however, is that we
Working in constrained spaces is entirely different from tackling projects that unfold in pastures where the only boundary might be a distant mountain or an ocean view. Indeed, in small areas that may be defined by fencing or walls or adjacent structures, the constrained field of view offers substantial aesthetic challenges to the designer in that every detail, each focal point, all material and color selections and every visual transition will be seen, basically forever, at very close range. When you're working small spaces, in other words, there's literally not much room for error. In this smaller context, each and every decision watershapers and clients make will subsequently be in direct view, and it's likely that each detail will take on special significance for the clients, positive or negative, as they live with the watershape over time. And on many occasions, what we're asked to start with as designers leaves much to be desired, including spaces already vexed by sensations of confinement, closeness or downright claustrophobia. To illustrate what I mean, let's take a look at two projects I recently completed in smallish yards for clients who wanted to
"No matter how sophisticated you may be, a large granite mountain cannot be denied - it speaks in silence to the very core of your being." - Ansel Adams The man considered by many to be the father of American landscape architecture often referred to himself as a "garden maker," a self-description by Fletcher Steele that influenced me greatly when I first saw it in a book about him in 1990. When I think of the word "making" on its own, I see images of human hands crafting cherished artifacts or offerings, while the word "garden" conjures a host of images from Eden to Shangri-La. Taken together, however, the words evoke even more powerful images of the deliberate shaping of places of great beauty and serene repose - an apt definition for any landscape professional. When I borrowed those
With everyone's thoughts turning to spring, it's an opportune time to think about new ways to enhance our garden designs. In addition to considering basic components that lay the groundwork for designs, I'd like to suggest looking for more specific ways to define and personalize our clients' spaces. You might explore gardens made for entertaining, for example, or spaces free of allergy-aggravating plants. One prospect I've been considering lately (and will discuss here in detail) is ways of attracting beneficial insects to my gardens - specifically butterflies. I enjoy watching butterflies float through my backyard, gently land on their favorite flowers and then spread their wings to reveal
This project was all about fun and finding ways to infuse watershapes and the overall landscape with childlike senses of playfulness and wonder. At a glance, of course, it's obvious that this particular approach wouldn't work for too many clients, but in this case, we were working with a woman who wanted her yard to express her love of color, her sense of humor and her unparalleled inclination toward the unusual. From our first meeting, I knew that this was someone who wouldn't settle for anything that even approached the ordinary. Maybe it was the 12-foot-tall fiberglass chicken she'd placed in her front yard or the life-size hippopotamus in the backyard or her wildly eclectic taste in art and interior furnishings or her fittingly off-beat
It's that time of year when our thoughts begin turning to the beautiful colors of the fall - and the subsequent bareness of winter. Whether you're in the coldest northern reaches or enjoy the relative warmth of the Sunbelt, we all are aware that fall is a transition to a time when the annuals will fade once and for all and the deciduous plants will drop their leaves. But I propose that it doesn't have to be so - or at least that we can minimize the seasonal holes in our gardens through thoughtful use of evergreen trees and shrubs. These are the most abundant of all plant types, after all, and the bones of
Successful residential exterior design is akin to a precisely choreographed dance. One sequence of steps defines the relationships among hardscape, water and plants. Other sequences distinguish light and shadow, color and texture, open views and intimate spaces. If the choreographer has done a good job, we don't see the individual steps so much as we enjoy the overall experience of motion. The key to making these multifarious steps work together? It's all about balance. Transferring these principles to backyard design, there's a similar need for
The Chicago Botanic Garden is located, oddly enough, a good 40 miles from that city in the suburb of Glencoe, Ill. And although it is specifically named for the Midwest’s greatest city and might seem a municipal endeavor, it is actually maintained by private donations and serves to display the entire region’s rich flora and scenic beauty. The garden is organized around a large body of water known as the Great Basin, which was created some 60 years ago by dredging the area and diverting the Skokie River to create a series of islands and lagoons. The largest island, known as Evening Island, was the initial focus of our work in redesigning the space. My firm, Oehme, van Sweden and Associates of Washington, D.C., became involved in the project
Watershaping advanced by leaps and bounds from 1999 through 2004 – a journey of artistry…
I'm steadily reminded of one key point: No matter how talented any one of us might be, the work ultimately is not about us. For intensely creative people equipped with the necessary measures of self-confidence and ego, that point can be tough to accept and absorb, but it's true: For all our skills, we nonetheless work with our clients' visions, and the reality is that creating sympathetic designs for them takes time, patience and lots of effort. As a result, I'm passionate about uncovering what my clients are truly after in their garden and watershape designs. It's an investment of time and energy at the onset of the relationship that always
