Sausalito Landscape Designer and Sausalito Landscape Architect - Mystical Landscapes, Sausalito
http://www.mysticallandscapes.com/ - Mystical Landscapes in Sausalito. Mystical Landscapes is a Marin based design and installation company that assists clie...
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Sausalito Landscape Designer and Sausalito Landscape Architect - Mystical Landscapes, Sausalito - Video
Echo Canyon Public Interaction Process- Chris Ewell, 3/27/2014
In January 2013, City of Phoenix closed one of its most popular trails for what would be a $4.34 million renovation. Chris Ewell, Landscape Architect at City of Phoenix, discusses the Echo...
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Echo Canyon Public Interaction Process- Chris Ewell, 3/27/2014 - Video
on September 12, 2014 - 12:01 AM
The word garden evokes many images. Almost universally the word produces positive responses, causing smiles or warm thoughts. But exactly what does the hearer envision as a garden? The answers may be as varied as gardeners themselves, with even broader definitions based on historical, cultural and national contexts.
I first became aware of two clearly different British and American meanings of the garden when I was reading my daughter a storybook written by a British author. In it, the childs beloved stuffed bunny was left out in the rain in the garden. What garden? our 5- and 45-year-old brains wondered. The illustration showed a yard with a swing set, bench and some landscaping but no garden. Bunny was on the grass!
Soon I had my own British friend who talked about his garden, and I knew: They mean the yard! Their garden is everything out there! But when an American says she has several gardens, she means she has some vegetable or flower beds in her yard.
In American usage today we may see the definition of gardens getting even blurrier: A Garden Walk Buffalo person with a densely packed yard, brimming with flowers, shrubs, garden art, koi pond and furnishings may well call the whole thing the garden British style merged with American urban.
On the other hand, an Orchard Park homeowner with a 2-acre lot may still call it his yard, refer to his landscape as the shrubs against the house and mention a garden out there. No wonder, when Im asked about my own garden Im linguistically flummoxed: I have some country acres kept as woods and fields and a big yard with some flower and shrub beds ... Its the best I can do.
Estate gardens
Captains of industry, land barons and wealthy families in America, Europe and beyond have chosen many kinds of gardens around their homes. In the 19th and early 20th centuries, formal estate gardens often reflected the cultures that most impressed those traveling Americans. Today we can tour those preserved or restored Italianate-, English- and French-style gardens, often overlaid with furnishings or design elements from Chinese or Japanese influences.
Wethersfield, in Amenia, N.Y., is described in a brochure as a 10-acre formal garden ... arranged in the classical style, like the Italian villas of the 17th century. One surprise for some of us visiting the Vanderbilt Mansion in Hyde Park, N.Y., was the distance from the mansion to what many considered the real garden, a formal terraced garden with symmetrically spaced beds of roses, traditional perennials and bedding plants (annuals). The family referred to the grounds as a strolling garden, so the long paths and vistas en route to a gazebo or terrace for sitting were part of the point. The other motive: In an elegant lifestyle one did not wish to see the labor behind the scenes, whether laundry, cooking or gardening.
After the Civil War, rising fortunes (as in the Rockefeller, Vanderbilt and Astor families) permitted millionaires to build country places with formal gardens, typically laid out in symmetrical patterns. Old Westbury Gardens on Long Island is a frequently visited example. From 1880 to about 1940, such gardens emerged in Newport, the Hudson River Valley, the Brandywine Valley near Philadelphia, in Southern states or wherever the wealthy chose to relax, play and celebrate their bounty.
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Great Gardening by Sally Cunningham
The Sieferts are the kind of environmentally conscious family who attend local sustainability workshops and have solar panels atop their Mar Vista home. They use timers on their kids' showers and have planted drought-tolerant landscaping.
But they feel a twinge of guilt over their beloved 52-foot-long swimming pool.
"I haven't thought about the pool as much as I probably should," said Annette Siefert, 50. "But I think we've done everything we can do not to be wasters."
As California's drought worsens, swimming pools have become a target for those who think the classic backyard oasis wastes water. Some water districts have prohibited new pools from being filled and have limited how much water existing pools can use.
But some of those agencies are walking back the rules as they make a surprising discovery: Pools aren't the water wasters some have made them out to be.
Analyses by various water districts, along with scientific studies, conclude that pools and their surrounding hardscapes use about the same amount of water as a lawn of the same size. Over time, pools might even use less water. With pool covers, experts say water evaporation can be cut by almost half, making pools significantly less wasteful than grass and about as efficient as drought-tolerant landscaping.
Facing complaints over a recent ban on filling pools, the Santa Margarita Water District conducted its own water-use analysis. It found that pools require thousands of gallons of water to fill initially, but they use about 8,000 gallons less water than a traditional landscape after that. By the third year, the analysis found, the savings add up, and a pool's cumulative water use falls below that of a lawn.
Water agencies such as the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power have come to similar conclusions.
Armed with new information, Santa Margarita Water District officials will reconsider their ban next week.
"We want to respect the people's rights to use their property. There are many families we know that have saved for pools," said Jonathan Volzke, spokesman for the 155,000-customer district. "But at the same time, the reality around us is that we're in the third year of a serious drought, and we don't know if we're in the third year of a three-year drought or the third year of a 10-year drought."
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Water agencies are learning pools aren't a big factor during drought
If you were thinking about swimming laps next to Pier 62 and 63 any time soon, forget about it. The barge could resurface in the future though.
The city has decided to nix a floating barge with a swimming pool from plans for a vast new public space along Seattle's downtown waterfront.
At least for now.
The elimination of the much-discussed barge is one of several recent changes to the design of the space. Major delays with Highway 99 tunnel construction and questions over financing have created an air of uncertainty about the project's timeline and budget. But city officials say work is progressing and that the latest version of the design has incorporated a range of citizen criticism and feedback.
"We're keeping the momentum that we had," said city planning director Marshall Foster on Wednesday.
The main corridor of planned parks and other public spaces would extend 26-blocks between Pioneer Square and Belltown and sprawl across roughly 20 acres of the waterfront.Aconceptual design is currently about 30 percent complete, according to Foster. This city is moving toward 60 percent design completion, a stage that will include more information about landscape details, materials and surface finishes.
The city contracted with James Corner Field Operations to lead the design effort. Corner, a landscape architect, is well known for his work on the High Line park in New York City. Since 2010, Seattle has paid Corner's firm nearly $7.5 million. The waterfront program budget includes about $8 million for the firm's services, an expense Foster believes is worthwhile. "That money, in my mind, is pretty well spent," Foster said.
"The scale of the design and engineering effort, I don't want to say it is unprecedented," he added, "but this rivals the biggest projects Seattle has done."
The pool barge, which would have been moored at Pier 62 and Pier 63 west of the Pike Place Market, could eventually resurface. Foster said that while the city is not including it in the basic waterfront design, it might be a good candidate for future philanthropic financing.
Just kidding: The proposed pool barge has been deep-sixed from the Seattle waterfront's basic redesign, but could reappear in the future. Imagecourtesy of City of Seattle and James Corner Field Operations.
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Sunk: City cuts swimming pool barge from waterfront design plan
Everything you grow in your yard can be eaten.
Edible landscaping not to be confused with traditional vegetable or herb gardens is one of the growing trends in residential yard design according to local landscape designers. Edible plants, bushes and trees can be picked for food or be added to drinks.
Plantings have to be aesthetic and gorgeous, but they can also be productive, said landscape architect Kate Kennen, owner of Charlestown-based Offshoots. You could be growing something that you could use.
Kennen says she is creating a lot of edible landscapes with plantings such as juneberry trees that provide sweet berries, an attractive option to traditional fruit trees that attract a lot of bugs. Another favorite are basswood trees, also known as salad trees, whose leaves, buds and flowers can be eaten.
We did a mint and mojito garden for a Jamaica Plain apartment project to appeal to younger people who love craft cocktails, said Kennen, who says cocktail gardens include mints, oregano, lavender, chives and sage.
Shes created tea plant gardens as well as an edible garden geared to children with tags on a ring binder to help them identify when edible plants can be eaten.
Another growing residential landscaping trend is low-mow or no-mow lawns, said Andrea Nilsen of Bostons Nilsen Landscape Design.
Traditional lawns are intensely needy water, fertilizing, chemicals, mowing, Nilsen said.
Nilsen uses clumping grasses that look like lawn but dont grow and groundcover plantings in lieu of grass. In one Belmont project, Nilsen used huge beds of creeping thyme and barren strawberry as a lawn substitute.
Kennen added that custom-blended seed can provide an attractive lawn that only has to be mowed every 4 to 6 weeks.
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Hot Property: Designers uproot tradition
DESIGN LIFE: Day In the Life of an Interior Designer | Daily Vlog!
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Interior Designer Brisbane | Interior Design In Brisbane That Will Fit Your Life Style
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Woodworking retailer Grace & Salt joined Mr. B's Luminaries and Rais Case in a shared retail space at Flower Hill Promenade last month.
A woodworker, leather designer and interior designer have joined Flower Hill Promenade's growing collection of local craftsmen.
The three shops soft opened at the Del Mar mall in August, but all are celebrating their grand openings Friday evening from 5-9 p.m with champagne, snacks and other goodies.
Here's the lineup:
Grace & Salt: Grace & Salt, specializing in handcrafted tables made on site. Grace & Salt joins the mall's The Row Collective section of curated boutiques and shares a 900-square-foot space wtih Rais Case and Mr. B's Luminaries, which opened in November last year with custom shelving and tables made by Grace & Salt.
Van Galder Design for a Living: Interior designer Jennifer Van Galder has been featured in design magazines across the country for her residential interiors. She has had a shop in La Jolla, but relocated her design library and meetings last month, and opened a separate retail store at Flower Hill, where she will sell customized upholstery and furniture, drapery and light fixtures.
boutonn: boutonn is a local San Diego company designing and making ruggedly stylish leather goods including hand bags, diaper bags, totes, laptop cases, wallets and more.
Know of a store opening or closing? Let me know! Tweet me @ktpoy or email katherine.harvey@utsandiego.com
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Three new boutiques at Flower Hill mall
Family home: Sandringham House collaboratively designed and styled by Doherty Design Studio and Techne Architecture + Interior. Photo: Derek Swalwell
Collaboration between an architectural firm and an interior designer effected a really neat extension to a medium-sized late Victorian Hampton cottage.
For this project for the young family of hoteliers Doug and Jenny Maskiell, "neat" is a compliment, because the outcome of Techne Architecture and interior designer Mardi Doherty colluding from the planning stage resulted in a home that masterfully negotiates the line of being not too big or too small, too minimalist or too fussy.
With Techne doing the bones and raising the formerly single-level weatherboard structure to a light-flooded but contained double-storey home of four bedrooms and three bathrooms, and with Doherty finessing appointments so there is entertaining detail in every aspect, the house came out just right.
Sleek kitchen: Sandringham House collaboratively designed and styled by Doherty Design Studio and Techne Architecture + Interior. Photo: Derek Swalwell
It also embodies an odd request in the brief the Maskiells outlined for a "rickety" structure that had descended to "becoming a knock-down job"."We wanted," Doug Maskiell says, "a beautiful old house with character to also be interesting, open-plan, functional and fun."
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He reckons he got all that. "There's something to look at everywhere. It's not claustrophobic, and every wall and surface has something interesting going on." Ditto that! In a shape, a texture, a quirky key colouration (blue, orange and pops of pink), and in the confident variety of the decor detailing, (different tiles on every tiled surface), there is always something to notice.
Justin Northrop, director of Techne, protests "the shell [of the house] is not complicated". "Geometrically, it is simple. The whole design process was to get the volumetric composition to work, so that it goes together. But, so that it also allowed Mardi to put in all those details, without being over the top."
Anything but ordinary: Sandringham House collaboratively designed and styled by Doherty Design Studio and Techne Architecture + Interior. Photo: Derek Swalwell
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Creative teamwork pays big dividends
