outdoor rooms
It's a class of projects I'm coming across more and more often these days: Clients with homes in new developments want swimming pools and spas for their backyards, but the buildings are so big and consume so much of the available real estate that finding places to put worthy watershapes is a real challenge. The difficulty, of course, is that these homeowners are just like the owners of larger properties in wanting more than just pools and spas these days: They're thinking about generous seating and dining areas, outdoor
As a matter of habit and long practice, my design process for an outdoor environment begins the moment I arrive on site, starting with an assessment of the property's physical qualities. Indeed, before I let structures, features and visual details start dancing in my head, I focus on grading, drainage and basic spatial relationships. In my experience, this overview of the practicalities will help drive the design - and allow the aesthetic decisions to flow smoothly into view at the appropriate time. In the case of the project that's been under discussion through this string of four articles, for example, my early assessment of
Some of our favorite projects have gotten us involved with an unusual class of clients. These folks are affluent enough that they travel extensively and own multiple homes in spots around the world - places they'll stay for stretches ranging from a couple weeks to several months each year. When it comes to developing or remodeling new acquisitions, they'll set some basic ground rules and step back, leaving the specifics to a trusted firm or individual who assembles a hand-picked
For most of my professional life, I've worked on projects in which the dominant color is green. With the project under discussion here, however, both the client and the setting called for something quite different. As I knew going in, the property, located in Northridge, Calif., is both a residence and a place of business, so on any given workday multiple cars and trucks invade the space and need convenient places to park. But while this primary use of a plaza-scale space as a parking pad suited clients' business needs, it was plainly too dusty and downright bleak to offer any
In the course of my career as a landscape architect, I've had the good fortune to work on the full range of possible projects, from residences to commercial and institutional properties and in spaces ranging from the compact to the vast. Through all of this experience, I have to say that working on botanical gardens, in whole or in part, has been about as satisfying as it gets. The first two articles in this three-part series have demonstrated some of the potential these facilities have to
