landscape elements.
Posted on May 27th, 2008 – 4:57 PMBy Jason Hammond
When most people think about landscaping it generally takes two formats:
1. Classic and ornate styles such as Vicotorian gardens that work with highly controlled forms such and repetitive and detailed materials e.g. herringbone paver patterns and vibrant colors.
2. Organic landscapes that utilized free form shapes and loose natural elements such as boulders and flowing grasses.
So what does modern landscaping looking like? What kind of plants and materials does it use? These are the big questions that surround what we are doing next with our house design. For me modern landscape design is about the use of simple materials minimalistic and repetitive forms.
Trying to wrap my minds eye around what our next step will look like I stumbled on some images of what I consider to be great residential landscape design work. Often times great examples of this style of Landscape architecture is only found on the grounds of commercial and public billings so I was excited to find some examples that were on a smaller scale. The first comes from Design and Architectural firm Marmol Radziner with their minimalist and simple line work complemented by the use of straight lines and modular forms, that integrate interior and exterior spaces.
Simple materials, modular elements and a blurring of indoor and outdoor materials and spaces make this project a great example of modern landscape design. (photos by: John Ellis)
The second example comes from a the 2007 ASLA (American Society of Landscape Architects). Design firm Andrea Cochran landscape Architecture, designed this space as a part of an affordable housing project. The space merges functional elements like the rooftop garden planters (for those of you not from farm country those are cow watering troughs) with more aesthetic pieces like a center garden water feature.
Functional yet non-traditional elements like the cow through used as planter boxes, are contrasted by aesthetically pleasing elements like the water feature in the court yard. (photos by: Brian Rose)
In our project we’ll be implementing a lot of similar elements and ideas as the aforementioned projects, with the hope of integrating the material elements of our home (such as concrete, wood and steel) into our landscape. The intent of our design is to blur the line between the two spaces and make our home blend almost seamlessly into it’s surroundings.
18 Responses to "landscape elements."
I am so tired and such a dork that when I saw the first two pictures I thought, “Gorgeous! Where is that on the house?!” Then the third picture confused me. And by the fourth picture I realized these weren’t your house, lol! Can you tell I have a big project due this week and haven’t slept much? I really should read the commentary, too. heh. Great ideas and perfect for your house.
Great examples. I especially like the planters in the last pic. I’ve also always like the work of rosenlof/lucas landscape design + installation from Minneapolis for modern, residential work as well.
I’ve seen these Marmol Radziner photos before as I like the homes they build and remodel. But I hadn’t realized that, in the first photo, the concrete slabs have the exact same length as the windows. Wonderful detail, love it.
Chad,
I’m huge fan of rosenlof/lucas as well. They’re not only great designers but they’re good guys. Their work was the first sample of modern landscape design that I had ever seen in residential work. We came very close to working with them on our project.
Jason
Connie,
Good eye, that was one of the details that struck me as well. that and the fact that the design is incredibly simple and utilizes very few elements while still remaining refined.
Jason
Another consideration, Jason: color.
In my opinion, color is really important during the six (or so) months without foliage. As much as I like the metal troughs - imagine how pale and plain they will look in a winterly color palette of browns, grays and white.
You are right. Contemporary & “Modern” landscape ideas are very hard to come by. I find myself looking in the backgrounds of photos of modern/comtemp. buildings. Occasionally I see something in the Dwell/Met Home type mags. I see a lot of great things in California life-style and “Atomic Ranch” publications, but little to translate into Minnesota growing conditions. The challenge is increased by my typical urban lot size which bears little resemblance to what most garden design & life-style magazines feature. It has forced me to develop minimalism, only room for one or two good ideas. My brother used to go to Europe on business and came home with some good ideas from Italy and Germany. Might be worth some google time but I don’t know what the good “key” words would be.
Connie,
I thought about that a little. Might be nice to bring in some color here and there to make the space look more vibrant in the winter. Stacy found some great landscape material that I’ll probably write about later on that is a great way to bring color in during the warm months.
Jason
Diane,
It is your lucky day as Connie is from Germany. And I am sure would be more than glad to share with you some tips for key words or even provide some samples of modern design in her homeland.
I like to spend my time fantasizing over Australian architecture. If you Google modern landscape design about half the stuff you find is from Down Under. When it comes to local examples, rosenlof/lucas has some great examples on their site. When it comes to modern landscape design they have a gift for doing great work with small city lots.
Jason
Hi Jason,
Thanks for bringing us up again! (You too Chad) We feel like your home might always be “the one that got away” in some sense, though working with a friend like yours is always a great thing to do.
Modern landscaping is not all that common and, affordable solutions seem even more rare. The pics shown here in this post are both from extravagantly expensive projects. Working with a firm like Marmol Radziner would be great but, my guess is that a plan would end up being in the $8-12,000 range. That’s a guess, but it is an informed one.
That’s really why we got into business 5 years ago. We knew we could develop a palette of affordable materials and solutions and work in a modern vernacular. We’ve done it too. Not just small lots either, we’re working on a several acre project right now. It is possible and happening.
Anyway, this isn’t supposed to sound like an advertisement and hope it doesn’t but, I just had to comment as, obviously, I feel very passionately about our mission and our work.
Hey Matt,
I still refer to your work quite often a resource of what is a great modern design. I hope anyone reading this didn’t think that I was implying that you only do small spaces. I just know thatyou will take them on and have certainly mastered the art of doing so.
Jason
Jason:
Sorry, I have a totally unrelated question to your post. I know you have in floor radiant heating in your home, via a water-based system. Can I ask do you have this on both the lower and upper floors? A more immediate question for me, as I am considering such a system for my own home project, is whether you have a separate A/C system with dedicated ductwork for the A/C. It would seem kind of wasteful to have two totally different systems, one for heating and one for cooling, but I can’t work out any other way to do it if you use radiant in-floor heating. I’ve researched radiant cooling and it seems that it is more suited to commercial applications and not good for residential. Can you enlighten me on how you do A/C?
Hi Brendan,
We actually have a dual heating system in our house. The radiant is only in the basement, garage and main living room on the first floor. The upper floors have a wood sub-floor (an insulator) which makes it less than an ideal place to use in floor radiant heat. This then requires us to have a second heating system which is our forced air furnace. I actually think that it’s a nice complement to one another as well. Our AC unit is at the house but hasn’t been installed yet(we’ve never had AC before so we’re not too rushed to get it installed since the heat doesn’t really both us). However when it is installed we will used the same venting/duct system that we use for our furnace.
A good HVAC person should be able to give you good solutions on how to engineer your system. We also utilized http://www.thenec.org/ to work with our HVAC person (Creative Air Heating & Cooling — Ross Goerdt) to come up with the correct system and loads for our house, something I would highly recommend.
Jason
Thanks for your response, that is very helpful!
Brendan,
Glad I could be of some help. Geothermal is also a really unique heating option and depending on where you live it can be a slightly more expensive and very environmentally friendly option. We opted against it based on cost as it was significantly more expensive than our High efficiency NG furnace and in floor heat. This isn’t necessarily the case for everyone, so it may be something you want to explore.
Jason
Thanks to Jason and to Matt for the R/L info and to Connie a question for all of us: Please any good links for German or other European Modern landscape design. Or maybe some European Design mags I can look up through my local library? I have one Aussie design mag. I picked up at B&N and you’re right Jason, some pretty cool stuff. They seem way ahead in the sustainability department without compromising in the looks department. Someone told me there’s some high-style uber-modern Japanese stuff to look into as well, if anybody knows how to find that.
Unfortunately, I don’t know any modern garden magazines in Germany or Europe, but I have several books about modern gardens. One I can really recommend is “Contemporary Gardens” by Stephen Woodhams. It also shows examples of small (urban) patios.
And there is a website I recently found in the “desire to inspire” blog, about an Australian landscape company http://secretgardens.com.au/index.html. They have several lovely photos in their portfolio.
You can also google for modern garden images. Lots of good photos and tons of new links to explore.
If I come across some other modern garden stuff in the near future, I’ll contact Jason.
Connie, thanks for sharing with everyone.
Once again the Australians win the day when it comes to cool modern design. Great link.
Jason
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