Designing Your Own Private Garden

An overview of details and ideas to take into consideration when designing your own private garden. Adding a private garden to any home always brings a feeling of warmth and comfort to any home. There are a number of reasons why someone would want to transform their yard into a private garden. The two main reasons for most people are aesthetics and privacy. Homes with an untouched and open yard can leave an empty and cold feeling to the home. A beautiful garden goes a long way towards improving your mood. A garden adds another dimension to your house giving it not only character but another living area in your own abode. A garden can also be used to entertain guests as well as provide a personal sanctuary to recharge after a stressful day. In terms of privacy, a private garden can provide ...Read More

This week’s Sketchy Saturday top 10. Sketchy Saturday is back after a long break, way too long, and we have a big back log of sketches to get out. As we sort through them, however, the top ones are rising to the top for your viewing pleasure. This week’s selection offers a range of styles and abilities making it another difficult week for judging as it is, of course, challenging to compare vastly different styles and so we have to look at each sketch from an overall point of view and rate them based on how they stand alone and not necessarily when compared to one another. We hope you are inspired by our selection of top sketches by top people. Enjoy this week’s Sketchy Saturday top 10! 10. by Kristýna Haisová from the Czech Republic. Landscape Architecture student at the Czech Univer...Read More

Beekman Plazas, by James Corner Field Operations and Piet Oudolf, in Manhattan, New York City. Striking architecture can have an impact on the design of the landscape that surrounds it. The controversial Frank Gehry, who is changing the language of architecture as we speak, designed Forest City Ratner Residential Tower. At its base are the Beekman Street Plazas, designed by James Corner Field Operations in collaboration with Piet Oudolf. The building footprint was reduced by about 30 percent to allow for urban plazas to be created on the western and eastern sides of the building. From above, the dramatic steel folds of the residential tower create an inspired addition to the Lower Manhattan skyline. Below, the public space reflects the dynamism and movement to create an inviting space for ...Read More

A book review of the Walls: Elements of Garden and Landscape Architecture by Günter Mader and Elke Zimmerman. Everyone knows Pink Floyd’s hit song “Another Brick in the Wall”, and perhaps every person finds something true in the lyrics. Who wants to be just another brick in the wall? Don’t we all try to seek the different, the undiscovered, the unheard of and the untold? We chase singularity, individuality, and differentiation in our everyday lives. Artists and architects strive to make names for themselves, to develop their recognizable signatures, and, yes, to stand out among the other “bricks”. If you are a designer in pursuit of distinction, we offer you one intriguing matter that hasn’t been discussed profoundly yet, but is full of design potential. The book “Walls: Elements of Garden...Read More

Quzhou Luming Park by Turenscape, in Quzhou, Zhejiang, China. A sea of color greets visitors when they enter the new Quzhou Luming Park, and it is a color palette that changes with the seasons. Located along the west bank of Shiliang Creek west of the new district of Quzhou, the 31.3-hectare park is a place where agriculture meets healthy living. and the two combine to produce a spot that attracts people from all walks of life. Home to more than 2.5 million people, Quzhou features picturesque landscapes and abundant natural resources, both of which helped the city to be named a National Eco-Model City, National Garden City and to receive the title of Excellent National Tourism City. It was with this in mind that first-level design institute Turenscape set out to design the district’s newes...Read More

An AutoCAD tutorial on How to Create the Perfect Flow in Your Drawings from our resident AutoCAD expert UrbanLISP. Whether you are designing a path for a small garden or developing a master plan, chances are strong that you will draw a few lines that are curved. Creating these curves can be fairly easy, but there is more behind it than you might initially think. It’s good to know what to pay attention to, because it also easily can go wrong. And then things can get really awkward — if not disastrous. To prevent these situations, we are going to have a look at the science behind the curve. Before we talk about flows, we are going to have a quick look at two straight lines. When one straight line approaches another, both lines make an angle with each other. When this angle is exactly 9...Read More

Cemetery de Laroque des Albères, by Marti Franch (EMF), in Laroque des Albères, France. As a landscape architect, when you are working on a new project, you get the sense that you are molding the respective space with its distinct personality. The challenge is often related to finding the right angle in order come up with a final result that is as meaningful as it is possible. The project presented in this article demonstrates that cemetery architecture has changed tremendously in the past few years, with more and more designers focusing on blending elements of nature with the more abstract ones. The Laroque des Albères Cemetery Project was commissioned by the commune officials, and was completed by Marti Franch (EMF). Cemetery Architecture and Landscaping: A Vision into Tomorrow The class...Read More

Toppilansaari Park, by Atelier Dreiseitl, in Oulu, Finland. Do you happen to know what the word Toppilansaari means? Perhaps you can translate it, if you live in Finland, but for the rest of us wondering why a park would have such a name, Toppilansaari is Finnish for “Park of the Young Sailor.” As in most of the northern countries, the history of Finland and its people is closely connected with water – the Baltic Sea, the sailors, and the fishermen. Let yourself feel the ambience of the archipelago of the “land of a thousand lakes” as we take you to one of its most populous and economically hearty cities. About Oulu Located 160 kilometers south of the polar circle, the city of Oulu is sheltered away at the outermost parts of the Baltic Sea. Oulu is a hub for new technology business, with w...Read More

Velenje City Center Pedestrian Zone Promenada, by ENOTA, in Velenje, Slovenia. As a central axis to the fifth-largest town in Slovenia, the Velenje “Promenada” is quickly becoming an important space in the young garden city. Built in the 1950s on the Modernist’s ideal, the city is one of only a few modernistic cities in Europe, and this latest installation by ENOTA continues to follow these ideals and is representative of the city’s commitment to revitalizing the city center. After a fire destroyed the original city in 1801, it seemed that the remaining 364 inhabitants might be the last. But by the end of the 19th century, the town began to have hopes of revitalization after a coal mine opened on the city’s outskirts. But it wasn’t until after 1950, when there was an increased demand for c...Read More

Design for Healing Spaces. Therapeutic Gardens, by Daniel Winterbottom and Amy Wagenfeld.  Modern societies grow further and further away from nature. People tend to interact less and less with each other, instead spending their time locked in safe apartments and houses in front of their computer screens. At the same time, our old problems — sickness, disability, trauma, and loneliness — persist, while others, such as obesity, seem to become more common. We need to try to help the less fortunate among us – the sick, the lonely, the outcasts … the list goes on. Nature — particularly gardens — is a wonderful therapeutic tool for helping a variety of different people with a whole array of problems. Working, playing, or just spending time among plants has been proven to...Read More

Restructuring of Town Center and the District of La Fonderie, by Urbicus, in Inzinzac-Lochrist, France. The ability to bring together the elements of nature and those belonging to the urban world is one of the greatest gifts that landscape architecture has to offer. So many of the projects that bear the trademark signature of a reputable landscape architect are characterized by this blend. On the one hand, nature is brought closer to the people, its elements allowing for the natural soothing that one always yearns for. On the other hand, the urban elements allow for the exploration of nature. THIS PROJECT FOCUSES on the restructuring of Inzinzac-Lochrist’s town center, commissioned by the officials of the city. Completed in 2010 and covering an area of 40,000 square meters, the project dem...Read More