The house had been remodeled into something wonderful, but the exterior spaces needed some love. They’ll be getting it soon. The main themes are swimming, vegetables and living spaces for people, and habitat for hummingbirds and butterflies for nature. The problems are leaking pipes from an irrigation station and possibly from the water supply to a demolished pool. But first, a concept…
The pool
The pool will nestle along the side where it’s visible from the house, without following a formal axis. A raised planter overflowing with lush grassy plants will back the pool, allowing placement of ornamental scuppers.
The gardens
Although there will be raised beds to produce abundant crops of heirloom tomatoes, peppers, squash and other produce, edible plants will weave through the design. A row of citrus trees will screen views, perennial herbs will mingle with water conserving plants.
Front yard
The driveway is wide, and as things are now it almost invites visitors to drive up to the front door: everything is gray concrete, with no sense of arrival as people reach the front door.
The new design modulates the width of the driveway, still allowing one car to be parked to the side and full access to the garage.
We added a new node and path to the front door, toned down the doors to the water heater, and added screen walls so waste receptacles will be hidden yet accessible (right now they park in front of the garage door).
Theme
The house has a kind of staggered geometric pattern, with lots of zigzags. So, let’s have fun with the landscape design and echo these progressions. We propose cutting the existing concrete slabs into four pieces each, then doing a kind of gradient between the slabs and some lawn.
Recovering the slabs is a bit experimental, since some are slippery when wet and all have some degree of reddish stain or paint. Hopefully both these issues can be mitigated by sandblasting. If all goes well, we’ll have non-slip concrete pads with an interesting finish. If not, they’ll still be ugly and we’ll have to find another solution.