Outdoor Landscape Design

Outdoor landscape design relies on more than one garden to create a realm of organic diversity in both the front and back yard. The function of a particular garden will often determine its style and location in the yard. If the garden is purely ornamental, it will often reflect the architectural style of the home as a historical, cultural, or thematic adjunct to exterior design. If it is a gathering spot that caters to specific types of events, its décor will reflect the activities that occur within the location. Care must be taken here to balance the amount of vegetation with the space needed to comfortably host a specific, anticipated number of guests.

Outdoor Fireplace Design
There is a tremendous creative freedom for the landscape designer who is in charge of building outdoor fireplaces. Because so many of these structures are stand alone landscape features, they can be built in any number of designs that interior wall design would not allow. Even when they are constructed as part of a wall in an outdoor room, outdoor fireplaces often feature uniquely shaped fireplaces and chimneys. This is because outdoor walls are normally built around the fireplace, rather than the fireplace being built into the wall as a secondary part of its structure.

Outdoor Living Design
Outdoor landscape design depends greatly on what professional landscapers refer to as a living design plan of outdoor space. This deals specifically with space management for activities. Forms can only be developed after we have first determined what people will be doing in their yards and how many guests they plan on inviting to their various events. The whole point here is to create support structures and room elements that support events from a veiled, practical perspective. Everything should look attractive and decorative, yet also fulfill a very functional role that is concealed under the surface of its beauty.

Outdoor Living Space
Living Space in outdoor landscape design is something of the inverse of outdoor living design. This deals with the development of specific areas, forms, rooms, and transitional spaces within the front and back yards. The key to success in this very complex aspect of residential landscape design is the generation of appropriate emotions in the various parts of the yard where people will be either standing, moving around, or sitting.

Outdoor Patio Design
Patio design is one of the most important components of outdoor landscape design. It is rare to find a homeowner that does not want some sort of patio in his or her back yard. Most, in fact, want several patios built throughout the landscape. Homes on larger lots go so far as to build small patios in the front yard as well.

While many companies offer basic patio construction services, our work is rather unique. Unless the homeowner absolutely insists to the contrary, we avoid building a patio right next to the exterior wall of the house. We want the hardscape to be pushed back from the home just far enough that green space can fill the area between. Even a few feet of organic presence of this sort can create a feeling of warmth and vitality in a setting that would otherwise be cold, brittle, and too rigid if the wall of the house simply made a sharp right angle to a patio below.

Space Matters
Space management and function are two major concerns that every landscape architect must always balance when undertaking outdoor patio design. No matter how large a yard is, there are only so many square feet to reasonably use for custom hardscape work. We do not want to build a patio too large or too small. The nature of the events that will transpire on its surface, along with the projected number of guests, provide our design team with vital information on setting the dimensions before the stones are laid or the concrete is poured.