GardenDesignOnline

Green Roof Design Awards 2011

Green Roofs for Healthy Cities presented its annual design awards for 2011 recently at its annual conference last month.  This post describes a selection of winners, but you can see all of them and read about them in more detail at the Green Roofs website here.

click to enlargeThe Extensive Residential award went to Hadj Design for a 3200 square foot roof on a coastal residence in Quilcene, Washington. Plants and soil were selected carefully with the objective of supporting local birds that live on the water nearby and in the surrounding forest. According to the designers, the residence has already become home to a variety of local insects and birds.

 
click to enlarge Intensive Residential award: Durante Kreuk Ltd, for Milennium Village in Vancouver. Covering eight city blocks, the project is the first LEED gold certified neighborhood in North America. The green roofs are actually a series of courtyards that allow residents to relax, featuring a variety of elements from fountains and waterfalls to ponds and fragrance gardens.  The design also incorporates many edible plants, many native varieties with a high tolerance for drought, and others that attract wildlife.

 

Garden Design Awards I

Landscape architect and designer Suzanne Arca has won this year's top design award from APLD, the Association of Professional Landscape Designers.  The award of International Designer of the Year will officially be conferred this week at the association's International Design Conference in Cleveland, Ohio.

Arca's winning design of a garden in Lafayette, California, includes low-maintenance native plants, a water feature, a "farm" for vegetables consisting of raised planters, and hardscape elements that are environmentally friendly.

Arca created a naturalistic garden by down-sizing existing lawn and asphalt areas; making smooth and natural connections between the existing terrai and drifts of ornamental grasses and native plants with accents of rich Mediteranean species.

  Main paths in the garden are constructed of Mariposa slate with tinted mortar joints.  The "farm" boxes are made of selected heart redwood, capped to  provide additional seating, and cable and post trellises were added to accommodate berries and grapes.  This part of the garden also includes a redwood potting bench and a matching tool rack. 

As Arca put it in her original submission, she made every attempt to "follow the principles of Bay Friendly landscape practices" in order to limit future waste in landfills, conserve water, and improve on-site water percolation. In addition, the design is intended to "wed to natural Lafayette backdrop of oak woodland ... with sustainable plantings."

 (photos courtesy APLD & designer)

Design: "Natural" Rules in 2010 ASLA Awards

There's no mistaking the latest trend in landscape design: natural is in, and the more natural, the better. This year's top award for residential design from ASLA went to Richardson & Associates of Saco, ME for their design of a lakeside family retreat in Maine that captures the spirit of old-time rustic New England camps.

The main residence and guest cabins that are located on other parts of the 369-acre property are nestled in the woods; the "beach" at the lakeside swimming area is actually a huge, flat rock.

  The "spa" sits in the middle of a "boulder garden" and  perfectly complements the many natural, large rocks found on the site.  

The jury called the design "a very light touch" and said it "takes full advantage of the rock outcropping."

Not only did the landscape architects preserve the natural features of the property.  They also took an extensive inventory of plants and worked to integrate the glades of ferns, mosses, and native shrubs into the final design.

2010 Top Landscape Designer

The Association of Professional Landscape Designers (APLD) has named James Doyle as the 2010 International Designer of the Year.  Doyle, owner of James Doyle Design Associates in Greenwich, CT,  favors the use of clipped shrubs in many of his designs.

His designs are definitely modern, combining untraditional 21st century elements with many traditional principles such as formal, very symmetrical layouts. 

 

A couple of years ago, I had the chance to tour two of Doyle's creations, and this formal vegetable garden, enclosed in hedges, is typical of his style.

From the upper level, you descend to terraces below and a knot garden filled with ornamental grasses and other unlikely candidates instead of roses and lavender.

This garden has an amphitheater built into the bottom terrace, but Doyle's sense of whimsy comes through in this sculpture just outside the knot garden. And in case you're wondering, yes ...

it is made from recycled tires.

(top image: APLD)

Design: The Unexpected

What I like so much about this garden, one that I visited some time ago, is the great sense of the unexpected.  It's what makes a lot of gardens quite unique ... the mystery of what's around the corner, along with a great sense of style in materials.The photo above marks the entry to the garden and a spacious entertaining patio.

Shown above is a "transition" area to the left of the patio, a serene but small lawn area bordered by a walkway of rougher stone, and a stairway at the end of the walk to an upper level shown below.

Again, the patio area is regular flagstone, but this time laid in a diagonal pattern, leading the eye to the the natural pond right next to it and across it to the profusion of evergreens and perennials on lower levels, reached by descending a natural stone stairway (below). The swimming pool is cleverly sited at the bottom of the property, and plantings on the far side of the pool disguise the sharp drop-off just beyond.

  

 

One big surprise in the pool area is the lovely deck at one end of the pool. Backed by a fence, it offers privacy and seclusion in a great spot for reading or just lazing about on a sunny afternoon.

Design is by landscape architect Yunghi Choi, formerly of the Washington DC area, now practicing near Tuscon, Arizona.

New Design Blogs

A couple of new design blogs may be just what you're looking for to get inspired for the upcoming garden season. 

Designers on Design -- for which I'm a contributor -- is written by various members of APLD ... the Association of Professional Landscape Designers.

One of the latest posts by Susan Cohan, APLD, of New Jersey, concerns the use of the color red in the landscape.  As Susan notes, red symbolizes luck, energy, passion, excitement ... check out the full post on the blog, and take note of the lovely photos of red in the garden.  They'll get you in the mood for spring right away. 

Garden Shoots is the new blog by my friend and colleague, Melissa Clark, APLD, a landscape designer based in Bethesda, MD.  Not only is Melissa an award-winning designer, she's also a fabulous photographer, and her new blog combines all the best of design and skilled picture-taking. 

As we designers all know, you can learn a lot about design by looking at photos of great gardens (and plants) and you'll find it all on Melissa's new site.

The garden images alone are enough for almost anyone, but Melissa's fine eye for design will give you much to think about as the year progresses.

You won't be sorry if you subscribe to both.

Halprin Obit

Lawrence Halprin, one of the 20th century's prominent landscape architects, has died at the age of 93 in San Francisco. Among Halprin's most famous works are the Franklin D. Roosevelt Memorial in Washington DC; Ghirardelli Square in San Francisco; Freeway Park in Seattle, Sea Ranch in northern California and, pictured below, Ira Keller Fountain in Portland, OR.

Charles Birnbaum, president of the Cultural Landscape Foundation, told the San Francisco Chronicle that Halprin was "the single most influential landscape architect of the postwar years," ... who "redefined the profession's role in cities."

For more on Halprin, see the Cultural Landscape Foundation's profile, here.

(photo ©Jane Berger)

Rediscovering Jens Jensen

Not everyone has the luck to move into a house with a landscape designed by Jens Jensen...

Read the inspiring story in Urban Times (of Indianapolis) of a couple's odyssey to restore a historic Jensen landscape buried under invasive honeysuckle, overgrown trees and euonymus.

The article is here.  Enjoy.

Water-wise Urban Projects

Tanner Springs Park Portland

Sustainability ... it's about the only word you hear these days in landscape design, so it was no surprise that the annual conference of APLD (Association of Professional Landscape Designers), held earlier this month in Portland, OR, focused on that issue for a day or two.

One of the city's top environmental landscape architects, F. Michael Faha, ASLA, of Greenworks PC gave a great presentation on the city's efforts to conserve water, increase open space, and protect the environment.  You can see highlights of the presentation by clicking here.

One of Faha's projects, above, was planned as a place for contemplation in the busy Pearl District.  It was formerly a railroad yard, and although the creek that ran through the property has long been buried, the design recalls the former wetland that once upon a time occupied the site.

10th & Hoyt Apartments

On our walking tour, we saw many other water-wise sites, including the Apartments at 10th & Hoyt Streets (left) by Koch Landscape Architecture. This innovative design channels water (only when it's raining) through gutters that spill into water features throughout the building's plaza.

The Koch web site here has many more photos of the water features and other views of the gutters and the main plaza.

Origami Roof Garden

Check out my cover story .. An Origami Landscape ...  in the July 09 issue of Landscape Architecture Magazine ...

It's a Brooklyn roof garden in the DUMBO (Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass) area along the riverfront ....

A stunning design by landscape architect Steven Tupu of Terrain-NYC Inc.  You won't often see anything more original.