In the heart of Johannesburg, South Africa, one can find this modern oasis. Home to former international model Karin Hamilton-Brown and her Italian husband Alessandro. What a relationship between outdoors and in!
A simple setting.
By my count, only 7 different plants were used to create this landscape! Truly an example of less is more.
Found at Frank Features after reading Pretty Prowler’s blog. Love this!
Who would have guessed that this beautiful garden exists atop a 17-story bank building?
Washington Mutual Bank Roof Garden in Seattle, Washington by Phillips Farevaag Smallenberg.
Thoughts?
From Matthew Cantwell and his team of talented designers and plantsmen at Secret Gardens of Sydney.
An outdoor room designed for living.
Plant in foreground links to the plant on the table with similar form, line and color.
Plan view shows fountain as central focal point.
Every now and then, it’s good to stop and admire some one else’s work. Here is some work from Westover Landscape Design, a firm based in Westchester county, New York.
I admire these spaces because of their simplicity. I like their use of bluestone slate for the hardscaping and for the most part, their simple plant palette of grasses such as Hakoni grass and ferns, combined with shrubs such as hydrangea. All provide a sense of unity and harmony. The weeping habits are also restful providing for a feeling of tranquility.
It’s Spring and I have found a little inspiration from two of my favorite Landscape Architects Wolfgang Oehme and James VanSweden. This house is on Long Island Sound and they say it was once owned by Charles Lindberg. The job involved a new design for the grounds, a motor court, sensitive seaside planting and shoreline refurbishment. As you can tell from these photographs, they design using broad strokes and a native plant palette.
These gentlemen have written a book entitled Gardening With Nature. To me, all of their work is so natural and harmonious to its existing environment that it is hard to tell where they begin and the natural setting ends.
It is so harmonious, it reads as one with its setting. The grasses and perennials placed in the yard mimic and link to the native marsh grasses beyond.
Wouldn’t you just love to spend your Memorial Day weekend in a place like this?
To learn more about Oehme and VanSweden and their work visit their firm website Here. To see what others are hooked on this Memorial Day Weekend, visit Hooked on House's "Hooked on Fridays" or Fifi Flowers' Fashionable Fridays. I wish you all a safe and happy Memorial Day weekend where ever you may be!
Wolfgang Oehme and James Van Sweden have long been my heroes. They have influenced at least a generation of landscape architects! Here is a design they have completed in Washington, DC. 3303 Water Street is located in Georgetown. The design is a sustainable one and features a large meadow overlooking the Potomac River. It is typical of Oehme and Van Sweden’s style. They have the ability to design in large swaths, almost with a painterly touch. Here is the view looking out toward the Potomac River.
Now, here are some other angles of the same meadow …
Look closely …
This is a sustainable Green Roof design in Georgetown!
Can’t wait to see it the next time I’m in town!
This morning I am linking to an article on my husband’s architecture here in North Carolina. Dragonfly House was featured today in “Home & Garden” section of The Raleigh News and Observer’s series put together as a collaboration between the Home & Garden section of the paper and the North Carolina State University Design Initiative. The featured architecture was selected by a panel of experts whose mission was to highlight the benefits of good home design and represent the diversity of homes and home renovations of North Carolina architects.
As you can read in the article, as far as we are concerned, all design starts with the site! This house is on a very small lakefront lot in an exclusive golf course community in Wilmington, North Carolina. Only 11-ft. from one neighboring house and 14-ft. from the other, this house was designed to open up to an inner courtyard containing a pool AND look out over a million-dollar view of a beautiful lake complete with a nesting pair of swans, a beautiful golf course setting on the far side, and a sun-setting western exposure. Once inside this house, you would never even know you had a neighbor!
Here are a few photographs of the house, although some are not the best. Here is the money shot of the home on it’s lake setting.
Here is the site plan showing the house on its lot and the floorplan:
On the lower left, you can see the house situated among it’s neighbors. While the Dragonfly house is oriented for views to its interior courtyard and the lake, the other houses are typical box-type houses with windows peering into each others kitchens, living areas and bedrooms.
This is a view when entering the home through the courtyard gates. The main family/living room straight ahead has all glass curtain walls looking into the interior courtyard on one side and out over the lake on the other side.
Here is a view of the kitchen from the dining area that really does not show you too much. The floors are Brazilian cherry and the cabinetry and bar is Anegre wood with Absolute Black granite tops. The fashionable bar stools are designer stools called “Baba Bar Stools.” Sorry for the poor quality photographs.
This is a view of the large family/living room looking toward the kitchen/dining area. To the right is the wall of glass that looks out over the lake. The walls in this room are mahogany again with Brazilian Cherry floors and anegre wood built-ins. The blue wall at the end of the stair axis to the left of the photograph contains a beautiful stained-glass piece designed and built by the owner of the house.
Who is the architect you ask? Michael Ross Kersting. Visit his website at Kersting Architecture.
This week I’m hooked on modern architecture. To see what others are hooked on, visit Hooked on Houses Friday Blog Party and also Fifi Flowers Fashionable Fridays.
Are you making the most of your living environment? Outdoor living is becoming more in vogue these days. Outdoor spaces, like indoor ones, should be designed for how we live. If you live in a climate that is conducive to outdoor living, why not consider a courtyard space or outdoor room?
Why do something like this …
when you can have something like these:
Photo by Wayne Strydom Garden Design
The outdoor room or courtyard is enclosed by at least two or three walls. These walls can be man-made or they can be living, green walls.
The outdoor room or courtyard is considered a “concave” space. This is the kind of space that is the most comfortable space for people to experience. Psychologically, we feel protected and safe in this type of space.
These spaces can be small and intimate.
Or they can be large and open spaces.
Often, outdoor rooms will overlook or connect to other larger spaces.
Suzman & Cole Design Associates
Always, outdoor rooms and courtyards are connected to the sky above.
These spaces can be achieved quite easily with a little foresight and planning. Why is it that so often we spend so much time planning the design of our homes, and fail to consider the design of our outdoor spaces?
Is it a courtyard or an outdoor room? It doesn’t matter. What matters is that these spaces, like indoor spaces, are well thought out and planned for how we live. What makes them so special is that they are designed for outdoor living and/or entertaining!
Photo and Design by Philip Nixon Design
How do you live outdoors? Is your outdoor space an afterthought or your favorite place to be?
To see what others are into this week, stop by Hooked on Houses, Fifi Flowers Design Decor or The Inspired Room.
Here is some work by my friend and classmate Richard Hartlage who works with AHBL in Seattle. Richard is a very talented plantsman and designer! Hope you enjoy it as much as I do!
houzz.com
… and some more views of the same property.
To see more of Richard’s work, visit ahbl.
