Contemporary Landscape with Patio and Fountain

The owners of a 1960s-era home asked us to come out and design a very unique landscape for them comprised of mostly inorganic elements. It was to feature angular geometry and a minimalist approach to greenery and decoration. The rear of the home was made almost entirely of made glass, so from almost any vantage point within the house you could see the lawn coming all the way up to the windows. The residents had decided to have a patio built in this space that would be highlighted by a lit fountain that would also function as a play area for their children.

The house had been built in two linear wings that converged in a right angle. This enabled us to pour a concrete patio in the shape of a perfect rectangle that extended the basic form of the house into the landscape. To add texture to the patio surface, we made saw cuts in the concrete to a depth of ¼”. These intersected at right angles, further emphasizing both the pattern and the linear movement of the architecture. In the corner where the two wings of the home intersected, we completely removed a rectangular portion of the patio and laid down black and white gravel in a checkerboard of squares that continued the saw cut pattern. We planted a single palm tree in the center to add a small touch of greenery, and we placed a Frank Lloyd Wright planter under a grouping of windows to serve as a counterpoint to the palm tree. Then, in the grass just beyond both wings of the house, we used stainless edging to create patterns of squares that further extended architectural movement into the lawn. We filled these squares with alternating segments of mondo and moonstone that reinforced the minimalist look characteristic of contemporary landscape design.

We then turned our attention to the second phase of the landscaping project—the creation of a fountain that would be the centerpiece of decoration and also serve a special function. Our clients had children who loved to play in the water, but they did not want a swimming pool in the yard. Instead, they wanted a contemporary fountain that would center their landscape, and give their kids a place to safe place to play in the water. We would have to build a special platform that would support their weight, but not cut their feet. We decided that the best way to do this would be to construct a rectangular frame made from stainless steel bars, and to then overlay this with a very special fabric made from fine, shredded steel wire that would support a human being, but also allow water to pass through. The wire mesh was shredded to a very fine consistency, and turned in on itself to eliminate sharp edges. When we were through mounting it to the frame, it felt more like a sea grass rug than a piece of metal. Lights were installed underneath this frame to illuminate the fountain at night, and the pumps were remotely located to allow it to run silently.

This was a very unique contemporary landscaping project for Exterior Worlds because it involved planting so little vegetation. We deliberately avoided doing so to remain consistent with the 1960s “space age” look of the house. Homes of this time period were deliberately inorganic in their design because they were built to look toward a future that anticipated less greenery, where human innovation was anticipated to increasingly encroach upon Nature in the attempt to create a technologically perfect world.