Ground 08 – Winter 2009 – Residential

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Residential Landscape Architect Quarterly 10/

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Features Landscape as Narrative Round Table Bringing It All Home

Publication # 40026106

Winter 2009 Issue 08

Letters

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Letters to the Editor

President’s Message

As a member of the City of Toronto’s volunteer committee responsible for the award-winning Bird-Friendly Development Guidelines, part of the City’s Green Development Standards, I was pleased to see Ground’s mention of and support for these policies. Which makes it all the more difficult to stomach the stock photo used to illustrate “Walk the Talk: Green office practices in landscape architecture firms” [Ground 07].

Ground is one of many programs and services delivered by volunteers from the OALA membership. Each year, hundreds of volunteer hours are given on many committees, boards, task forces, and juries to meet the needs and desires of the OALA membership; to ensure the OALA meets its legislated responsibilities; to function as a regulatory agency; to advance the profession of landscape architecture; and to ensure the association is relevant.

I know that the membership greatly appreciates the work that volunteers do. You’re doing a great job and I thank you very much.

This photo is the perfect example of a bird-killer. Why was it chosen?

What editorial policy governs the selection of photos accompanying articles? The use of this picture negates a thousand words; this picture certainly doesn’t “walk the talk.”

JOHN ROBERT CARLEY, MRAIC TORONTO

Authors respond: As you rightly point out, the image accompanying our article is an example of design that negates Nature—indeed, design that is deadly. Our deliberate selection of this particular image was based on the irony that reflected Nature is not the real thing, no matter how beautiful the view. The slightly open mirrored window seemed apropos given the need to bring our Nature values to our workplaces, to start at home, even if only small steps can be taken initially.

NATHAN PERKINS, PHD, FASLA ENVIRONMENTAL DESIGN AND RURAL DEVELOPMENT, UNIVERSITY OF GUELPH JOANNE ADAIR WORLD WILDLIFE FUND

Editorial Board responds: The editorial policy related to images published in Ground is that the images are supplied by author(s) to illustrate the points made within the accompanying article. It is important to note that the inclusion of news items announcing various policies is not an indication of support for those policies, just as the views expressed in articles are those of the writers and not necessarily the views of the OALA or the Editorial Board.

Erratum For the full text of Toronto’s new Green Roof Bylaw, visit www.toronto.ca/greenroofs. A less direct website to access the bylaw was included in the Notes section of Ground 07.

In this issue, I’d like to highlight the efforts of three committees.

The Editorial Board has once again delivered another fine edition of Ground: Landscape Architect Quarterly. The articles inform, educate, and generate discussion and debate. The Editorial Board, co-chaired by Fung Lee, OALA, and Nancy Chater, OALA, is primarily comprised of volunteers from our membership who give tirelessly of their time, talent, and passion to maintain this journal and to “give back” to the association. The membership has responded that it is proud to have such a high-quality publication.

As a regulatory body and a member board of CLARB, the OALA bears a responsibility that many other associations do not. We are fortunate to have a great Examining Board chaired by Nick Miele, OALA. This group not only reviews and makes recommendations on all applications for membership, but also runs a study program to help candidates prepare for their Landscape Architecture Registration Examination. Average pass rates have increased from 52% to 72% over the past five years, testament to the success of this program. We have seen a steady growth in our membership numbers and conversion to full member status with a significant increase this year. No doubt the combined efforts of the Examining Board and the other programs are contributing to this success.

One region that has experienced an increase in activity is the Ottawa Chapter, with its continuing education and other event programming. I’m pleased to announce that the OALA Annual General Meeting returns to Ottawa on June 5, 2010, where it will be held in the newly renovated Museum of Nature. The OALA 2010 AGM Committee, with chair Diane Matichuk, OALA, is planning a wonderful program and invites everyone to attend.

Details will be rolled out and posted on the OALA website.

And finally to you, the membership of the OALA and readers of Ground, I wish you and your families all the best during the holiday season and the New Year.

LAWRENCE STASIUK, OALA PRESIDENT PRESIDENT@OALA.CA

Up Front

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Vivian Reiss's boulevard garden features edible plants such as chard.

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Lorraine Johnson

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The courtyard of P.S.1 in Queens, New York, was transformed into an urban farm by WORK Architecture Company in the summer of 2008.

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Elizabeth Felicella, courtesy P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center

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A quirky detail in Reiss's backyard garden highlights the textile theme.

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Lorraine Johnson

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Student/alumni entries to Ryerson University's open space design competition

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Courtesy Margery Winkler

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I was startled by the sheer playfulness and joy in Reiss's garden. During the summer of 2008, I had volunteered for a day in the construction of a highly programmed and highly unusual urban farm installation called Public Farm 1 (P.F.1) at P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center in Queens, New York. WORK Architecture Company designed this temporary outdoor social space for the courtyard as an urban farm. The vegetables were elevated in sonotube planters that sloped skyward—unfortunately, out of reach. Walking between the chard, corn, peas, roses, and eggplants in Reiss's garden, on the other hand, I could touch the plants and truly experience their exuberance and beauty.

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DESIGN

more is more

As you approach Vivian Reiss’s Victorian residence in the Yorkville area of Toronto, you are first confronted with the extravagantly tall broom corn and the bold magenta amaranth flower heads growing on the boulevard. Thick yellow and pink stems of rainbow chard burst forth from the ground and playfully call your attention. Facing the 12-foot-tall waving corn, you then notice the more delicate plants—cotton and flax— interspersed within the crop row arrangement of the boulevard.

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Up Front: Information on the Ground

I first met Vivian Reiss this spring as she was planning this year’s boulevard planting.

A wild array of eggplants, peas, fennel, nasturtium, taro, and roses greeted me as I walked through the ornate wrought-iron front gate. As a painter, Reiss revels in the changing colour and form of vegetable and grain plants. In the front garden, they make a bold entry, standing in stark contrast to the conservative plantings on this Yorkville street. The front garden attracts passersby and neighbours and also provides fresh vegetables over the growing season. With this eclectic mix jammed into a very small urban frontage, Reiss's credo is “more is more.” Aesthetic pleasure is celebrated above and beyond the functionality—the edibility—of her garden.

Likewise, Reiss’s back garden plays less to a design program and more to painterly issues of the two-dimensional surface.

Reiss asked me to help brainstorm ideas for a “textile” garden this spring. She already had cotton seedlings sprouting indoors by the large sunny windows of her house. I suggested willow-weave fencing and asked about seating areas, focal points, drainage, and lighting, to which she responded, “Don’t take this too seriously!” I visited again in late summer when the garden was complete, and found the back yard magically altered.

From the elevated patio, the back yard slopes down into a “textile” garden. A pair of 10-foot-tall scissors, cut out of sheet lumber, stands against a black walnut tree and appears to cut a bolt of stone tile moiré “fabric.” You immediately feel miniature in this larger-than-life plane of textiles. A paisley pattern carpets one side, while a checker pattern blankets the other. A “river” of granite pavers in herringbone pattern, blue glass mosaic tiles, and a braid of crocheted garden hose cut through the paisley and checkered “cloths.” The braid leads up to the branches of a Norway maple at the garden’s edge: a ball of kiwi vine “yarn” is pierced with 10-foot-long wooden knitting needles. The garden curves up to the third dimension. A 15-foot-tall Indian ceremonial elephant sculpture stands in the centre within the paisley pattern and an Asian gazebo marks the edge of the checkered ground. Plantings pop up from the paisleyshaped beds and checkered voids.

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Circular stone pavers lead the eye as dots through the space.

The primacy of the ground plane and the “textiling” of the landscape brought to mind, for me, the Museum of Modern Art’s roof garden by Ken Smith. At that garden, a camouflage pattern composed of black and white artificial rocks, black recycled rubber, white stones, crushed glass, and artificial shrubs blanket an inaccessible rooftop.

Through this textile pattern, Smith questions the concept of landscape as camouflage, as cover, as simulation, and the use of planting to mask and conceal. Reiss's textile patterns, on the other hand, work compositionally as she plays with flatness, dimension, and scale to entice and delight.

The private garden offers fertile ground for experimentation. Vivian Reiss’s gardens boldly challenge conventional notions of residential garden design in their celebration of aesthetic pleasure.

TEXT BY CLARA KWON, ASSOCIATE MEMBER, OALA, WHO WAS PREVIOUSLY EMPLOYED AT KEN SMITH LANDSCAPE ARCHITECT IN NEW YORK.

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OPEN SPACE

ryerson design competition

In 2006, Ryerson University’s President Sheldon Levy announced a bold undertaking, the development of the RU The Future Master Plan. The plan has a flexible framework to revitalize the campus and act as a catalyst for change and renewal in the unique downtown Toronto community surrounding the university. According to Bruce Kuwabara of the Master Planning Team, “What Ryerson is embarking on is a transformation of its campus that is really about city-building far beyond the property it owns, to leverage the public benefit, the public value of Ryerson as a great university.”

The three goals of the master plan include: urban intensification; pedestrianization of the urban environment; commitment to design excellence. Embracing the challenge, Professor Margery Winkler, OALA, of Ryerson’s Department of Architectural Science developed a design competition, RU GREEN: Student/Alumni Sustainable Open Space Design Competition. The competition was open to all students and alumni of Ryerson’s Architectural Science program and Certificate in Landscape Design program. Young designers were challenged to create a dynamic, multi-functional open space in Ryerson’s East Quad—the campus’s largest open space—that reflects the goals and principles of the university’s master plan and demonstrates a commit-

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ment to sustainability and design excellence. Entrants were encouraged to explore ideas such as outdoor classrooms, urban character, student needs, public art, urban farming and forestry, living walls and green roofs, research opportunities, convertible architecture, and storm-water management.

Over a four-month period, teams developed large site models, graphic presentation panels, and detailed technical reports.

In April, an exhibition of thirty entries was displayed in the architecture building’s atrium. A panel of eight judges representing Ryerson University campus planning, the City of Toronto, landscape architects, and architects reviewed the submissions.

The jury selected the winning entries and presented $3000 to the top three, and five honourable mentions, at an awards ceremony. First place went to the team of Darryl Rahim, Jessica Stanford, Perry Low, Ashley Biren, Jordan So, and Jason Baker, whose submission, Green Heart: Rejuvenate, Refresh, Revive, included key elements such as a greenhouse, a latticelike canopy extending from the student residence, and many different types of trees.

TEXT BY MARGERY WINKLER, OALA, SUE MACAULAY, OALA, AND SHAWN GALLAUGHER, ASSOCIATE MEMBER, OALA.

Up Front

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URBAN AGRCIULTURE

the edible city

When I decided to buy a house in Guelph, I first checked the soil map for the city. With a mental McHarg-ian overlay map of the neighbourhoods, I targeted where there might be a property with suitable soil for the garden I intended to create. The neighbourhood I finally settled on had never experienced heavy industry, so I was fairly certain I would find uncontaminated and fertile soil. I later learned that this part of the city had once been the farm that supplied food to Guelph’s first hospital. You can still find remnant trees from the farm orchard, and in the fall my neighbours set out baskets of surplus fragrant Bartlett pears for sale at the end of their driveways.

The property I finally settled on was a 1950s bungalow on a lot almost entirely in lawn. I was now free to create my own garden from scratch rather than adapt to someone else’s creation. I have since learned how devastating 50 years of poor lawn management can be to organic matter and soil microbial life but, with a steady addition of manure and compost, I am beginning to harvest enough food and cut flowers to satisfy my compulsive gardening habit. I also have a garden at my Ottawa Valley cabin, but the lean, acidic soil there is better at growing lofty pines. I’m grateful for the fertility of my little pocket of Guelph loam.

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This is starting to change. Will Allen’s farm project, Growing Power, is an exciting example of urban agriculture. Set in an economically depressed “food desert” in Milwaukee, Allen has developed a 2acre demonstration farm that produces greens, herbs, goats’ milk, ducks, chickens, turkeys, tilapia, perch, worms, and honey. The farm offers tours every day but Sunday, and people from around the world appear to learn how this jampacked site raises food not only for highend restaurants but also for people who live in the neighbourhood, and at affordable prices. The farm bustles with shoppers at the retail store, full-time workers, interns from around the world, volunteers from the neighbourhood, and children who come to see a farm animal for the first time in their lives. I heard a young boy declare that he was glad to see that the chickens’ roosts were hidden from general view, so that they had some privacy when they needed to lay an egg!

Statistics Canada tells us that only five percent of our country does not have major agricultural constraints; 46 percent of our urban landscapes are located on good agricultural land; more than half of Canada’s Class 1 soil is found in southern Ontario; and more than 11 percent of Ontario’s best agricultural land has been used for urban development. While our cavalier attitude to valuable and limited soil resources will no doubt cause problems in the future, this settlement pattern presents an opportunity—the possibility of urban agriculture.

When I mention that I am researching urban agriculture, I usually get puzzled looks. “Urban” and “agriculture” are not typically conjoined in North America, although a search of the academic literature reveals that it is well understood in developing countries. Here in Canada it is often treated as a novel idea, and usually one that has yet to receive much credibility as a serious source of food. We all know about the Victory Gardens created to support the war effort, “ethnic” urban neighbourhoods where food production is a part of everyday life, and guerrilla gardens that are as much a political statement as they are about food production. But urban agriculture at a scale that can offer a reasonable livelihood to an urban farmer— that is still new to us.

Last year, Allen was awarded the prestigious MacArthur Foundation’s “Genius Grant,” which is essentially a gift of $500,000 to keep doing what he’s doing.

Allen has established other urban farms throughout Milwaukee and Chicago.

When I chatted with him in June, he told me that the City of Milwaukee was offering him a larger land base to grow more food within the city boundaries; one of his goals is to grow 10 percent of the food consumed in the city. His primary goal is community development through something we all have in common—the culture of food.

There are urban agriculture projects happening in Ontario as well. Last fall, Backyard Bounty, a Guelph organization that aims to grow food commercially within the city boundaries, set up a table at the farmers' markets to recruit residential properties for conversion to mini market gardens. They received more than forty

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Shannon Lee Stirling of Backyard Bounty at a Guelph front yard where food crops have replaced lawn

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Karen Landman

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collection, cleaning, and storage of indigenous local wild-type seed; native plant nursery production; planting and direct seeding of native trees, shrubs, forbs, and graminoids; removal of invasive species; and maintenance and monitoring of evolving ecological conditions on site.

The project is currently in its third year.

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offers from Guelph homeowners. This season they have been selling their harvest through farmers' markets, supplying households with vegetables through a CSA (community-shared agriculture) model, and providing produce to chefs who feature local food menus.

This style of urban agriculture is known as SPIN (Small Plot INtensive) farming, a term coined by Wally Saztewich of Saskatoon.

Saztewich has found that, compared to his rural farm, farming in Saskatoon’s residential areas provides him with production advantages: he has year-round access to municipal water, the urban heat sink extends his growing season, there is better shelter from the wind, and his market is literally on his doorstep. Saztewich states his approach to food production is based on “minimal mechanization and maximum fiscal discipline and planning.”

Research on best practices for urban agriculture is happening in some jurisdictions.

Somerton Tanks Farm in Philadelphia is a prototype urban farm that is a SPIN farming method test site for the Institute for Innovation in Local Farming, which has received support from the U.S. Department of Agriculture and many other interested parties. Since 2003, Somerton Tanks Farm claims to have “achieved levels of productivity and financial success that many agricultural professionals claimed was impossible.” As well as the economic viability of urban agriculture, we need to know more about the suitability of urban soils for food production, how to protect relatively undisturbed soil profiles, how to design and plan for this land use more proactively, what urban agriculture can offer in terms of community development not just for the

urban population but also in forging links to rural communities, and what creative land tenure arrangements are possible.

Young people who wish to get into farming without leaving the city can access arable land through various avenues— SPIN farming in residential neighbourhoods and Growing Power are but two examples. Me? I’m growing my own.

TEXT BY KAREN LANDMAN, AN ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE IN THE SCHOOL OF ENVIRONMENTAL DESIGN AND RURAL PLANNING AT THE UNIVERSITY OF GUELPH.

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ECOLOGICAL RESTORATION

a first nations approach

Kayanase, based on the Six Nations Reserve near Brantford, Ontario, is an ecological restoration company that is currently restoring the Red Hill Valley Parkway corridor in Hamilton. I have had the fortunate opportunity of working at Kayanase.

The Red Hill Valley Parkway corridor is a five-year project that has involved detailed site planning of approximately 100 hectares of the valley watershed; the

The goal of the Red Hill Valley Parkway corridor is the restoration of the valley watershed through the planting and seeding of approximately one million native plants. One of the largest and most ambitious restorations in Ontario, this project also has deep cultural significance for the Six Nations people in particular.

Grand River Employment and Training Inc. (GRETI) and its subsidiary Six Nations Economic Opportunities Group (SNEOG) administer, manage, and execute this project through the Kayanase company.

The Red Hill Valley ecological restoration project was first proposed by GRETI as an alternative in response to the City of Hamilton’s tender for traditional landscape design and installation for the highway corridor. Winning the five-year contract has improved relations between the Six Nations of the Grand River Territory and the City of Hamilton. The Six Nations had protested construction of the highway in 2003 because, they argue, it violates ancestral burial grounds and the Nanfan Treaty signed by the North American representative of the English Crown, John Nanfan, and Iroquois Chiefs in Albany, New York, in 1701.

Kayanase’s goal is to help restore Mother Earth and to develop a sustainable ecological restoration industry on the Six Nations Reserve for future generations.

The objectives include hands-on training in all aspects of ecological restoration and the dissemination of knowledge and

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SPIN farm plot in Saskatoon

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Karen Landman

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Kayanase worker with oak seedling in Kayanase greenhouse

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Kayanase

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expertise from ecologists and nursery growers to First Nations people, so that First Nations people can manage and grow the business on their own. Infused in Kayanase’s operations is a traditional spiritual and environmental ethos. Kayanase employees celebrate and inaugurate the planting season each year with a traditional ceremony, including the recitation and the burning of sacred tobacco at the nursery and seed warehouse.

struction to ensure that the contractor executes the plan as outlined in the drawings and specifications. This is quite different from the work of ecologists who, instead, map out ecological zones of planting and seeding regimes that are implemented over time by restoration crews; the schemes are often modified in response to ecosystem changes. While landscape architects work linearly with a defined and crystallized end product, restoration ecologists fashion matrices with general target species counts, densities, and diversity, gauging conditions to ensure energy flows through the ecosystem. For Kayanase’s work on the Red Hill Valley Parkway corridor, ecologists fine-tune the scheme as the new ecosystem develops.

Working for an ecological restoration company owned and operated by First Nations people, not only have I learned the cultural and spiritual significance of restoration work, but I have also learned restoration ecology’s philosophy and analytical and planning methods towards contract site work. They differ significantly from landscape architecture. Landscape architects are trained to treat plants as specimens and groupings in an aesthetic arrangement with consideration to soil, light, growth rate, height, spread, and intended human use. Ecologists, on the other hand, are trained to manage plantings as habitat with consideration to species densities, biodiversity, size ranges, and habitat structure. Landscape architects produce planting plans and specifications that describe plant species, quantities, locations, and site preparation requirements so that a contractor can install according to these instructions.

Conversely, ecologists prepare adaptive management strategies, a process that involves periodic management, maintenance, and monitoring that spans years.

Landscape architects translate their design ideas into a sequential framework of stepby-step instructions through the contract document package so that this can be handed off to the contractor for installation; landscape architects also supervise con-

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Byron Bay wastewater treatment facility in Australia

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Victoria Lister Carley

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An aerial view of the Brighton treatment wetland system

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CH2M HILL

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Virginia Rail, a species drawn to treatment wetlands

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Keith Lee

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Landscape architects could learn a lot from the open and process-oriented nature of restoration ecologists’ contract site work. During my time with Kayanase, I witnessed the greater flexibility and responsiveness that this working method creates. Not only do new habitats evolve over time, but new approaches do, too.

Kayanase offers ecological restoration planning, nursery sales, installation, and contract management. For more information, see www.kayanase.ca.

TEXT BY CLARA KWON, ASSOCIATE MEMBER, OALA, OF TORONTO, NEW YORK, AND SIX NATIONS.

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WETLANDS

wastewater and the community

Keith Lee volunteers on weekends leading tours around the wetlands just south of the town of Brighton, Ontario. The Brighton wetlands have become a bird-watching hot spot over the past year. Several interesting birds, including a Black-necked Stilt, have been spotted there, and a nest of Osprey has become an annual presence. Ever since people started noticing these rare visitors, there has been a steady stream of interest from local birdwatchers, schools, and even out-of-town tourists.

Yet these wetlands are not found in a protected park or a pristine natural area.

The Brighton wetlands are in fact the final “polishing” stage of treatment for the

Up Front

town’s municipal wastewater. The wastewater flows through two shallow basins planted with emergent vegetation, where pollutants are dealt with through multiple pathways including microbial action, adsorption/settling out, and predation of pathogens.

Over the past 40 years in Canada, treatment wetland systems have developed good and predictable records of performance for a variety of pollutants, yet only recently have they been given broad regulatory acceptance in Ontario to treat more than suspended solids and BOD reduction.

Brighton was an early adopter of this technology. What initially attracted the town to the idea was cost savings. While a conventional system was estimated to cost approximately $12 million, the treatment wetland designed by John Pries at CH2M HILL had a capital investment of only $500,000. The town realized that by using treatment wetland technology, they would be saving money and creating habitat at the same time.

Many people argue that treatment wetlands are not appropriate sites for wildlife, due to the potential for disruptions to water treatment operations. Yet removing wildlife from treatment wetlands may not be an option.

Birds are inevitably drawn to treatment wetlands because of the nutrient-rich waters which foster elevated levels of micro- and macro-invertebrates. Birds also nest within the vegetation and benefit from the stable water levels associated with dependable wastewater flows. For many wetland species, treatment wetlands create habitat that is sorely lacking in and around developed parts of the country. In fact, some of Ontario’s rarest shorebirds and waterfowl, including the Ruddy Duck, Western Phalarope, Black-necked Stilt, and Cinnamon Teal, have been documented nesting at wastewater treatment sites.

South of Sarnia and just a couple of kilometres from the St. Clair River is another project by Pries for Imperial Chemical Industries PLC (ICI) at a decommissioned phosphate fertilizer plant. This project demonstrates how far clients can be willing

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to go to encourage wildlife at their sites.

Nestled around 100 hectares of pre-treatment lagoons, the 15-hectare polishing pond and wetland at ICI attract a large population of nesting birds, including many species such as the American Bittern and Ruddy Duck which are usually limited to wetlands of at least 50 to 100 hectares.

This success can be attributed to several design features. The wetland and pond have been integrated through a naturalistic border that creates a 1:1 ratio of open water to emergent vegetation. This ratio is often associated with a successful wetland environment. Wetland edges have been graded into gentle slopes that provide an extensive diversity of microclimates. The water holding capacity of the pretreatment lagoons and seasonal operation allow the wetland system to use water level drawdowns, an important management technique for discouraging nuisance wildlife such as muskrats, which can cause short circuiting of the treatment process, while encouraging migrating shorebirds. Diverse naturalistic plantings have been installed to create habitat for species that make use of both wetland and upland ecosystems.

Finally, structures such as snags and perches for raptors, shoreline debris for basking turtles, and nesting boxes and platforms for a variety of birds have been set up to mimic natural habitat structures.

For wildlife and visitors alike, the wetland at ICI is a pleasant surprise. When viewed at a distance, it appears to be an industrial wasteland, but seen from the perspective of the viewing shelters, it is revealed as a refreshing wetland ecosystem.

The ICI wetland has many features specifically designed for wildlife attraction. The Brighton wetlands, on the other hand, had less investment in habitat structures in the initial stages and do not have the same degree of flexibility to draw-down water levels in the winter or to encourage a more equal ratio of open water to emergent vegetation. Yet the Brighton wetlands have been a terrific site for bird-watchers and nature lovers. Where the Brighton wetlands succeed is in their location. The wetlands

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are separated by a 100-foot forested slope from a large natural wetland along the shores of Lake Ontario. As an element of this larger wetland complex, wetland birds make use of the relatively productive waters of the treatment facility.

As the ecological value of this site has become clear, the management team has been very effective at using adaptive management techniques to enhance the site’s features. Careful monitoring of water quality and muskrat activity helps the team determine how best to manage water levels to achieve the most effective and balanced results, both for treatment efficiency and habitat success.

The results are getting noticed, and volunteer Keith Lee is quickly becoming as much of a specialist in tourism as he is in wetland management. As Lee explains, “People wanted to get in here to see birds and I said I’ll see what I can do. . . Now I’ve had photographers, I’ve had tour groups from all over Ontario and from as far away as Australia, Russia, and Florida.”

As we continue to reconcile engineered landscapes with environmental goals, it is inevitable that treatment wetlands will play a larger role in our overall water infrastructure. And where public access and habitat creation help build support for these systems, landscape architects will have a central role to play in that transition.

TEXT BY JON WOODSIDE, A RECENT MLA GRADUATE FROM THE UNIVERSITY OF GUELPH AND LEED AP.

The Designed Landscape as Narrative

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The Designed Landscape as Narrative Novel writing and filmmaking are art forms based on storytelling. The narrative possibilities of landscape design, however, are often overlooked

TEXT BY VICTORIA LISTER CARLEY, OALA

For this large country property in rural Ontario, I based my design on a story. This story guided all of my decisions and tied the various built forms together in the landscape. The land itself started the story, which narrates the settlement patterns of the region and the adversities that had to be overcome by settlers and farmers.

There is a long history of pioneers and farmers in the area, and most of the land continues to be actively used for agriculture.

However, modern farming practices have led to the amalgamation of the most productive farms and the abandonment of the less productive ones. Dotting the landscape are many vestiges of farms, mostly abandoned orchards, stone fence rows, and stone building foundations.

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When I began site planning, the property was in agricultural use.

The land had been cleared of all trees except along the boundaries, in areas too wet to work, and around the existing farm buildings. Most of the water courses had been filled in, and the existing pond (which is partially a storm water pond and partially spring fed) had been banked with fill to reduce the wetland areas adjacent to the pond.

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This project included the construction of many of the features expected in a country vacation home, such as a tennis court. Less immediately obvious is that this landscape has also been designed to buffer harsh prevailing winds, control snow deposits, improve the flow and use of surface and subsurface water, rebuild the natural forest, and increase the use of the property by wildlife.

Chapter 1 The gates and walls are the first elements to introduce the narrative themes: the history of settlement and the strength of natural elements to reassert their course.

The gates are set well into the property, adjacent to the location of the original house and the only old trees left on the site. Set within these old trees are the “Vestige Walls.” These four sections of apparently old and crumbling walls are remnants from the past. The columns that frame the gates are in good repair, with stone caps. As the walls extend away from the columns, the stone coping is tooled to appear as if it had been broken and the wall abandoned. The secondary set of walls, located to allow people to wander in and out without operating the gates, are also semi-ruined in appearance. The gate columns have a cairn-like shape, with a longer face parallel to the driveway. This shape

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Black willows beside the "willow pattern" bridge

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Yvonne Duivenvoordern

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View of the house from across the playing field

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Yvonne Duivenvoordern

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The "vestige walls"

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Yvonne Duivenvoordern

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Daylillies planted in masses along the driveway

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Victoria Lister Carley

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The gates

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Yvonne Duivenvoordern

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The Designed Landscape as Narrative

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immediately adds depth to the narrative because there are two possible interpretations. The columns are a reference to the Scottish roots of most of the original pioneering farm families and they can also be seen as part of a wall which has been removed.

Chapter 2 The centrepiece of the story is the barn garden. This garden is built on the exact footprint of the original derelict barn. The stone and timbers from the original building were salvaged and used to construct the walls, arbours, and steps of the new garden.

The walls have been designed to appear as if they are the last remaining sections of the original barn foundation. As you approach the house and garden along the driveway, the garden is hidden and the walls appear to be quite low and inconsequential, but as you arrive at the house, the garden is revealed.

The garden fits into the slope of the property. At the north end, the rubble stone walls are substantial retaining walls, while downhill the south wall is just an outline on the ground. You can thus read the story of how the barn fell into disrepair and was abandoned.

A spring broke through the wall built into the hill and eroded the floor of the barn. The watercourse then undermined the other walls and washed away the south wall before continuing down the hill towards the pond. The spring gradually ebbed, and the river filled with reeds and grasses until there was just a meandering bed of grasses and perennials.

This is a good story, but not a true story. There never was a river.

The bed has actually been planted with drought-tolerant grasses and perennials to mimic the look of wetland plants.

Chapter 3 In the past, many real streams did flow down the hill to the pond, making a large marshy area that was agriculturally unproductive.

The previous owners of the property farmed the land and regularly disposed of trees, rocks, and other debris to fill in the marsh in order to increase the acreage they could plough, and reshaped the pond into an unnatural oval. This oval pond was functional but lacked romance. The work of generations was removed in hours with modern machinery, and the pond returned to a more natural form.

The built forms at the pond continue the dialogue between the past and present. The bridge over the wetland is a whimsical take on the traditional willow china pattern. The bridge has rusticated railings, and the willows beside the bridge are native black willow.

This alludes to the popularity of the willow china pattern in the early and mid twentieth century, when it was so often the “good china” on Ontario farms.

The bridge is part of a curving boardwalk that leads to a large semicircular dock, which is clearly modern in form and use. The dock is in direct conversation with the house. However, within this view are ambiguous elements that create tension in the story.

For example, there is a large dry-stone retaining wall beside the house. The wall was built using large boulders from the site with sections of quarried stone matching the house facade worked in to give the appearance of an old wall repaired and expanded over time. The wall construction required skilful masonry to interweave sections of carefully tooled joints, mixed boulders, and roughly organized cut stone apparently inserted due to immediate necessity. The wall is a short story about the transition from mere survival to the desire for ornamentation—the transition from a functional object to a thing of beauty. This desire is expressed when there is the time and energy, not in the first seasons of clearing the land.

The arbours reinforce this story of time, function, and beauty, and they tell their own sub-story of the hierarchy of the buildings and places. The arbours in the old barn are simple, almost severe, while the large arbours at the tennis court and playing field, by their design, clearly indicate that this is an area of sophistication and frivolity.

Chapter 4 The history of orchards in the area is referenced in small orchards of ornamental fruit trees near the house. These trees are located to serve a number of purposes, particularly to either screen or frame views, but they are also set out in rows to take advantage of the site as a real apple grower would. These new orchards are planted with ornamental rather than edible fruit, and the trees have been pruned to bring out the beauty of the low, wide canopy. Beside the entry gate and drive shed, young apple and cherry trees have been interplanted in order to extend the lines of the original orchard, and tie the two plantings together.

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The Designed Landscape as Narrative

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Tennis court

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Yvonne Duivenvoordern

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View from the playing field

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Yvonne Duivenvoordern

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The wall by the pond utilizes large boulders from the site.

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Victoria Lister Carley

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The boundaries are planted with native trees and dense shrubs to provide windbreaks and shelter for wildlife. A few crabapples add to the story: these are plants which might have spread from the old orchards. Where the hayfields are being returned to woods, the reforestation planting is a combination of caliper-sized trees and whips. Tough, tall pioneer species shelter the younger trees and, in time, natural succession will lead to a healthy woodlot. Mass plantings of shrubs have been selected for their fall colour, winter look, and attraction for wildlife, both as food and shelter. Historic reference was also an important consideration. For example, every abandoned farm has an old lilac patch; thus, the planting includes massing of old lilac varieties interspersed with modern Canadian hybrids. Along the driveway are mass plantings of daylilies, another plant which immediately makes us think of Ontario farms. Close by is the last remaining American Elm on the property, which stands like a beacon of the past towering over the house.

Epilogue The story told in my design has a lot of truth in it. There was a barn, and the farmers did plant lilacs and an orchard. To a large extent, the farmers did give up on this land because the springs, the rolling hills, and the wind and snow made it a hard place to live and work. Even on land as beautiful as this, there were adversities.

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Happily, the number of bird species on the property has been steadily increasing and the native wildflowers are reappearing.

In a few short years, nature has started to appropriate my story.

BIO/ VICTORIA LISTER CARLEY, OALA, SPECIALIZES IN RESIDENTIAL DESIGN, WHICH SHE BELIEVES PROVIDES THE LANDSCAPE ARCHITECT WITH THE GREATEST OPPORTUNITY FOR PHILOSOPHICAL AND ARTISTIC EXPRESSION.

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MODERATED BY VICTORIA TAYLOR, ASSOCIATE MEMBER, OALA

Bringing It All Home The role of residential design in contemporary landscape architecture

VIRGINIA BURT, OALA, PRINCIPAL OF VISIONSCAPES LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTS INC., SPECIALIZES IN THERAPEUTIC HEALING GARDENS, LABYRINTHS, AND SACRED SPACES FOR BOTH PRIVATE RESIDENTIAL CLIENTS AND PUBLIC HEALTH CARE CLIENTS. THE APPROACH THAT VIRGINIA TAKES TOWARDS DESIGN OF HEALING GARDENS AND LANDSCAPES IS A HOLISTIC ONE. HER WORK ENCOMPASSES BODY, MIND, EMOTION, AND SPIRIT. EACH PROJECT IS A JOURNEY OF WONDER AND DISCOVERY. IT IS VIRGINIA’S BELIEF THAT THE SPIRIT AND HEALING OF THE LAND IS DIRECTLY RELATED TO THE SPIRIT AND HEALING OF HUMANS. OUR MISSION IS TO HEAL THE EARTH....ONE GARDEN AT A TIME. VICTORIA LISTER CARLEY, OALA, ESTABLISHED HER FIRM IN 1983. TRAINED AS A VISUAL ARTIST AND AS A LANDSCAPE ARCHITECT, HER WORK COMBINES THE EVOCATIVE AND EMOTIONAL QUALITIES OF A PAINTING WITH A SENSITIVITY TO THE ENVIRONMENT. VICTORIA BELIEVES THAT ALL GARDENS, WHETHER A SMALL COURTYARD OR A LARGE RURAL ACREAGE, ARE A REFLECTION OF THE OWNER AND THE LANDSCAPE ARCHITECT. SHE BELIEVES THAT RESIDENTIAL DESIGN PROVIDES THE LANDSCAPE ARCHITECT WITH THE GREATEST OPPORTUNITY FOR PHILOSOPHICAL AND ARTISTIC EXPRESSION. AS SHE OFTEN REMINDS PEOPLE, "NO ONE SAYS, 'CAPABILITY BROWN, DIDN'T HE JUST DO RESIDENTIAL?'" REAL EGUCHI, OALA, IS A PRINCIPAL OF EGUCHI ASSOCIATES LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTS AND bREAL ART + DESIGN. HE BELIEVES THAT MINDFULLY DESIGNED, VISCERAL LANDSCAPES ARE ESSENTIAL TO RE-ALIGNING OUR CULTURAL AESTHETIC WITH PERSONAL, SOCIAL, AND ENVIRONMENTAL WELLNESS. WITH A FOCUS ON SUSTAINABLE BEAUTY, REAL BELIEVES IN THE RESTORATIVE POTENTIAL OF GARDENS THAT ENCOURAGE US TO BE ATTENTIVE AND TO EMBRACE TRANSIENCE, DIVERSITY, INTERCONNECTEDNESS, AND ECOLOGICAL PROCESSES. FOR REAL, EACH PROJECT IS A UNIQUE DESIGN PROCESS; A COLLABORATIVE, CREATIVE JOURNEY; AN UNREHEARSED DIALOGUE OF DISCOVERY AND RESOLUTION THAT BALANCES BOLD INITIATIVES WITH REVERENCE AND HUMILITY. MARK HARTLEY, OALA, FOUNDED MHLA INC. IN 1994. HIS WORK FOCUSES ON PRIVATE RESIDENTIAL, PLANNING, DESIGN, AND PROJECT MANAGEMENT. MARK WAS EDUCATED IN ENGLAND AND VANCOUVER AND THE UNIVERSITY OF GUELPH, SCHOOL OF LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE. HE HAS DESIGNED AND PROJECT MANAGED NUMEROUS RESIDENTIAL, INSTITUTIONAL, AND COMMERCIAL LANDSCAPE PROJECTS. MARK HAS BEEN A BOARD MEMBER AT THE FORMER CIVIC GARDEN CENTRE, NOW THE TORONTO BOTANIC GARDEN, AND IS A COMMITTEE MEMBER AT THE ART GALLERY OF ONTARIO. HE HAS SAT ON SEVERAL DESIGN JURIES OVER THE YEARS AND HIS WORK IS REGULARLY PUBLISHED IN MAGAZINES. SHEILA MURRAY-BÉLISLE, OALA, OF BÉLISLE/MURRAY LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTS IS BASED ON THE TORONTO ISLAND AND SPECIALIZES IN RESIDENTIAL WORK. THE COMPANY, A PARTNERSHIP WITH JIM BÉLISLE, OAA AND OALA, CREATES A FULL BOOK FOR EACH PROJECT WITH A MINIMUM OF FIVE ALTERNATIVE SCHEMES, EACH ILLUSTRATED WITH PERSPECTIVES, WATERCOLOURS, MODELS, AND DRAWINGS. THE PARTNERS PERSONALLY PICK ALL THE PLANT MATERIAL AND STONE FOR EACH PROJECT AND SUPERVISE INSTALLATION. THEY LOVE WHAT THEY DO AND FEEL VERY LUCKY TO BE PART OF THE PROFESSION. TOM SPARLING, OALA, OF SPARLING LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTS SPECIALIZES IN CREATING ELEGANT RESIDENTIAL SPACES, TRANQUIL COUNTRY GARDENS, AND URBANE INSTITUTIONAL LANDSCAPES. THE AESTHETIC INSPIRED AND DIRECTED BY TOM SPARLING INCLUDES A FOCUS ON SPATIAL STRUCTURE, A KEEN ATTENTION TO DETAILED RESOLUTION, AND A COMMITMENT TO USING MATERIALS APPROPRIATE TO THE SITE CONTEXT AND SUSTAINABILITY, ALL IN COLLABORATION WITH THE CLIENT. VICTORIA TAYLOR, ASSOCIATE MEMBER, OALA, IS A MEMBER OF THE GROUND EDITORIAL BOARD. SHE WORKED AS A FREELANCE RESIDENTIAL LANDSCAPE DESIGNER BEFORE RETURNING TO SCHOOL TO COMPLETE HER MASTERS DEGREE IN LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE. CURRENTLY, SHE IS WORKING FOR TORONTO-BASED BROOK MCILROY INC. ON THE IMPLEMENTATION OF THE FIRM'S WATERFRONT MASTER PLAN FOR THE CITY OF THUNDER BAY. MARTIN WADE, OALA, FOUNDED HIS FIRM, MARTIN WADE LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTS, IN 1984. THE COMPANY PROVIDES A FULL RANGE OF PROFESSIONAL LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURAL SERVICES AND HAS GAINED EXTENSIVE EXPERIENCE IN A BROAD RANGE OF PROJECTS INCLUDING RESIDENTIAL GARDENS AND CONDOMINIUM TERRACES, COUNTRY ESTATES, CORPORATE AND GOVERNMENT OFFICES, HEALTH CARE FACILITIES, PUBLIC AND BOTANICAL GARDENS, AND URBAN PARKS. THE DESIGN OF THE HELEN M. KIPPAX GARDEN AT THE ROYAL BOTANICAL GARDENS WAS THE COMPANY’S SECOND FORAY INTO DESIGNING BOTANICAL GARDENS. IN 2005, IN COLLABORATION WITH PIET OUDOLF, MWLA DESIGNED THE ENTRY GARDEN WALKWAY AND ARRIVAL COURTYARD PORTIONS OF THE TORONTO BOTANICAL GARDEN FOR THE GARDEN CLUB OF TORONTO.

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The quote speaks to Steele’s particular design motivations, and I’m wondering what are the important motivations for contemporary designers. Perhaps we could talk about ecology and the role it plays in your practice.

How do resource use, sustainability, and the idea of ecology factor into the residential design process? What are clients asking for?

Is there an educational aspect to our role as professionals working with the limited resources of the land, water, and soil?

Mark Hartley (MH): I’ve had a few clients who wanted heated driveways to melt the snow. For the price of the driveway installation they could pay to have a few local kids shovel their driveway for a lifetime.

Sometimes you can’t win, but mostly I try to at least suggest alternatives.

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Victoria Taylor (VT): Thank you everyone for joining us to talk about residential design and the role of this practice in the broader field of landscape architecture. Each of you has a well-established residential practice and therefore a unique perspective on the state of the profession.

Victoria Lister Carley (VLC): I won that one time by telling a client that if she had a heated driveway she wouldn’t be able to have Al Gore over for cocktails. But I don’t win every time.

Martin Wade (MW): A lot of clients ask for a “natural” garden. I get a bit nervous when I hear the term “natural” because it doesn’t necessarily have a lot to do with sustainabil-

I’d like to start our conversation with a quotation from Fletcher Steele, an American landscape architect who played an important role in the history of residential garden design: “I want all my places to seem the home of children and lovers.

I want them to be comfortable and if possible slightly mysterious by day, with vistas and compositions appealing to the painter. I want them to be delirious in the moonlight... I believe that there is no beauty without ugliness and that it should not be otherwise. Both are capable of stinging us to live. Contrast is more true to me than undeviating smugness. The chief vice in gardens... is to be merely pretty.”

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Davis residence, designed

by MHLA Inc.

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Mark Hartley

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Residential design by Victoria Lister Carley

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Yvonne Duivenvoordern

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Green residence, designed

by MHLA Inc.

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Jackson Wong

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Residential design by Sparling Landscape Architects

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Sparling Landscape Architects

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ity and ecology. However, more and more people are curious about which native plants can work in their space. They want to attract birds and butterflies and are interested in teaching their children about nature. At the end of the day for virtually all clients, the garden must not only satisfy the “natural” requirement but also look good and function well.

Virginia Burt (VB): Whether or not we always win may not be the point. Our job is to keep ideas of our relationship to the Earth, sustainability, and responsibility in mind. In our firm we work to create a relationship to Nature—emphasizing the natural site and creating a sense of connection between our clients as part of the natural world. This can be as simple as naturalizing

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sunshine (or shade), a place to take their coffee in the morning on a lovely day, a place to draw them into the present moment, to take a breath and leave our full busy lives aside for a minute.

Sheila Murray (SM): This topic touches on a couple of things. Most children know what an architect and an engineer do, but few people, old or young, understand what a landscape architect does. Thinking about design and how we want to design the world around us is not part of our socializing in the way it is for children who aspire to be doctors or lawyers. It’s not built into our educational system.

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in swales and ditches depending on the site, and then plantings can be more relaxed. Each site is different, each client is different—the common denominator is deepening their connection to one another whenever possible. This is where we create places to “re-create” and rejuvenate in the private realm.

Real Eguchi (RE): Notions of sustainability must be central to residential design in order to encourage our clients in the essential shift toward an ecological paradigm. It almost seems like the number of leaves that a client is willing to keep as mulch in the garden is indirectly proportional to the size of the budget of the project—that is, the bigger the budget, the more manicured the garden. So there’s lots of room for education. What better opportunity is there than to start where it matters, at a client’s home?

We’ve all worked on gardens in which hundreds of annuals are planted each year.

The need of many clients for a sense of order and permanence (with minor gestures toward a shift in perennial colours throughout the seasons) must be balanced with the beauty of the impermanent and the

transient that is found in ecological processes. Some clients are asking for vegetable gardens and native plants, an indication of their willingness to embrace the local landscape. That’s one opportunity to teach them about the beauty of ecological relationships and processes that they can experience in their garden and in so doing, understand their own role in the positive flow of healthy cultural change. It’s kind of nifty in Toronto when a client realizes they don’t really own the trees on their property that are over 300 mm in diameter...

Tom Sparling (TS): One of the areas I try to educate clients about is the use/misuse of water—collection, recycling for irrigation, not using potable water for irrigation systems, etc. It is not always successful, partly because there are few companies that do these installations and maintain them.

CHANGE VT: Ecology is definitely a new ingredient in the design process. What are some of the major changes in the profession that you have witnessed over the years?

MW: Native plants are very popular, and a garden like the Helen Kippax Garden at the Royal Botanical Gardens in Hamilton has had an influence on my clients. I think this is a good indication that large-scale institutional/corporate/municipal gardens can have a direct impact on how the public views this issue and how members of our profession who practise non-residential design can have an impact on the residential sector.

VB: It’s the ability on our part to draw people outside. Our work is a success if our client is pulled outside by a beautiful place in the

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Round Table

VB: I specialize in healing gardens, sacred spaces, and labyrinths, and larger landscape firms have become interested in my work and hired me as a consultant. Often, they are not able to have such specialized people on staff. Canadian architectural firms are beginning to hire us sooner. My experience has been that in the residential realm, architects and clients are becoming more sensitive to the role the site and garden play with their home and connections from inside to outside. Regulations affecting the sitework are now playing a bigger role at the residential level.

VLC: Another big change is the point at which we enter the design process. We are coming in much closer to the beginning. We are working closely with architects on the siting of the house. We bring an understanding of the land, the soil, the trees, where to make the lowest impact, the views, etc. This is all starting to be valued because the architecture you end with works so much more completely with its surroundings. There is a relationship between inside and outside that you don’t get with gardens that are an obvious afterthought.

TS: One of my clients from a recent project talked about this in Canadian House and Home magazine. They recognized the value of the landscape architect’s involvement at the level of siting their new cottage, whereas this had not been the case with their previous cottage. When I became involved after the fact, they realized how much additional landscape work was necessary to resolve the siting issues.

Another aspect that is changing is how designers are becoming more interested in developing the “production” aspect that supports the work of the profession—the suppliers, the contractors. It is often the residential component that fosters the new young contractors, allowing them to hone their skills in order to expand to the level of undertaking larger projects at the commercial and institutional level.

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RE: Most clients now seem to talk about garden “rooms” but I think it has become too literal rather than metaphorical. Most of us started out with a formalistic, architectural approach that the public has appropriated, but we now tend to focus more on the experiential and/or ecological. Many clients want elaborate outdoor kitchens and covered lounging spaces that truly are extensions of their house. Unfortunately, this seems to just promote a very controlled and structured way of engaging with the world.

We have the opportunity, through garden design, to help clients engage more intimately with nature, to understand gardens as process, diversity, and transience and to embrace a structure not strictly of our or their own making.

TS: I find sometimes the understanding of our work is reduced to hard landscape paving and structures and tree planting, lacking the “garden” aspect.

CLIENT RELATIONSHIP VT: There seem to be real differences between your approach and the work of design related to public space. What are some of the differences in the design process between the private residential client and more commercial design work?

MH: With residential clients you have the time to visit and revisit the site, spending the time you need to let the conditions of the site sink in.

MW: The relationship between landscape architect and the residential client is much more intimate than that of corporate/institutional clients. We often have an opportunity to work to a much higher level of design and push the envelope. There will always be inevitable conflicts or times of frustration. This is when I emphasize how good design takes time—it is through looking and relooking at a spatial problem that good results come.

TS: There is a constant learning of how people move through and interact with space. This is the amazing part of the business. You never get bored with seeing how plants grow in certain soils, in certain light conditions. It is always changing. One of the aspects for me is the process of educating the client, helping them understand what we do and conveying the “design” aspect rather than just the planting aspect.

Although many clients are quite sophisticated, they don’t necessarily understand the process of achieving the result. I do a lot of work to convey the three-dimensional aspect of design through perspective sketches, computer modeling, etc. Some of the work of conveying the “process” can be

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Residential design by Visionscapes Landscape Architects Inc.

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Visionscapes Landscape Architects Inc.

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Reisman residence, designed

by MHLA Inc.

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Mark Hartley

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Landscape design by Martin Wade Landscape Architects

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Tom Arban

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fast-tracked when working with a public client/agency as they already have that experience, and often have in-house professionals as part of the process. But in residential design, there’s usually a lot of work educating the client about process.

SM: One way I try to build up a legitimacy of design is to start the project off with an indepth questionnaire. Not only does it give me a starting point for the design work but it also shows me that the client is serious about the process. It emphasizes that this is the beginning of a relationship that could last from one to twenty years. It’s not something to be taken lightly. In medicine, for instance, patients arrive at the Mayo Clinic ready to spend thousands of dollars on their health. They start with a four- or five-hour assessment. I do something similar with my clients. I start with a 12-page questionnaire—asking everything that would impact how they use the exterior space, how they interact, what stage of life they’re at, etc. A garden touches on all of these things.

People are sometimes puzzled by this detail, but then they realize that you are being thorough and that all of these things build the garden narrative. It’s not about coming in and doing a cookie-cutter gar-

den. We are not interested in that. We produce a lot of perspective drawings of all major views to help clients understand the space before it is built.

MW: So many gardens are formulaic. I find the challenge is to educate each client to go beyond their preconceptions of “what I do” or what their preconceived idea of what they want is.

VLC: But people do come to you because they like your style. However specific the garden is to the space, it still has the stamp of the specific designer. I buy a John Hartman painting because I like John Hartman’s painting. It’s the same for how people choose the person who will design their garden.

MH: The design process is more interesting and the end product is much more successful when there is a real commitment from the client to enter into a dialogue with you about their outdoor space. One may think that a carte blanche contract is ideal, but these commissions rarely work well. For one, the client is not interested and so there is little feedback from them about the type of space they want. Also, without parameters the design has no core, there is no excitement in the development of an idea—pushing it and pulling it to its limit.

MW: Still, it is a leap of faith, as many people don’t understand the process or how to read a drawing. They rely on you, and we need to make it clear that it is their space, that they need to spend time thinking about what they want, and that a good design takes time.

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TS: I agree, if they don’t make it a priority it doesn’t work. We emphasize that the garden is for them; it’s about their lives. You have to make it clear to them that it is their garden, they will be using it, so they should think about what they want to do. This also reflects their “style” ideas, as we can’t always be as “creative” as we may like to be—for example, creating a more contem-

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porary space—as it may not fit their lifestyle, or sense of style, or the architecture.

VB: Clients trust us with our expertise and have faith that their gardens will reflect them. There is a degree of freedom with a private client where the design process can evolve with fewer players and be enriched with closer input by the client. There is also an intimacy that develops between you and your private client. I had dinner with one client quite far into the actual construction process and they admitted that it was only recently that they actually began to understand what was proposed in concept, design development, and working drawings. They hadn’t been able to “see” it and yet, based on the close relationship, they trusted that the garden would reflect them.

This is our sacred trust with our clients, to steward their relationship to their garden.

VLC: It’s also an opportunity to live in a work of art. It must function or it fails. But it must also be a thing of beauty.

TS: The skills learned as a residential designer are very valuable and transferable into larger-scale work. But the reverse isn’t always true. Residential designers have considerably more knowledge of plant material, experience with hardscape detailing and grading in a small space. As well, the experience of being on site, working through the construction process along with the contractor, is rare in a larger design office when the designer rarely sees their design implemented, let alone sees how it is built.

MH: I came out of construction before going into design. If you don’t know about construction, how can you design?

MW: In some of the larger non-residential firms, one person does the grading layer and another person puts the planting layer over it. Also, it is not uncommon for there to be one site inspection/contract administration person handling all aspects of the onsite construction. This means that those back

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RE: I like Martin’s use of the word intimate, and others spoke about commitment and in-depth dialogue. An intimate relationship suggests that it stems from one’s deepest nature. In many respects, an intimate relationship with the client as well as with the site and the implemented design are integral to gardens and the garden design process. With a successful garden, the intimate journey the client has taken with us continues and results in the same intimate, ongoing relationship between their inside world and their outside world through their garden. I’m sure Virginia would agree that these are healing, sacred relationships. In these relationships, it’s the holistic approach to design that Martin speaks of that makes garden design a true art. It’s all about growth.

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in the office who produced the drawings are not likely gaining any opportunity for feedback as to what worked (or didn’t) in terms of design resolution, detailing, etc. In residential design, you typically do all of the design and detailing and oversee all aspects of the construction, as well as interacting with the client along the way. I believe it’s this holistic approach to design that ultimately results in a better product. Our firm’s practice encompasses many sectors, from private residential to institutional, corporate, and municipal work. In many cases, residential landscape architecture demands a much higher level of detailing than that of non-residential projects.

Additionally, the smaller the space, the more important how it all comes together is. I love the challenge of detailing a small space well.

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Residential design by Sparling Landscape Architects

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Sparling Landscape Architects

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Residential design by Visionscapes Landscape Architects Inc.

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Visionscapes Landscape Architects Inc.

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Residential design by Visionscapes Landscape Architects Inc.

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Visionscapes Landscape Architects Inc.

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A country property designed by Victoria Lister Carley

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Victoria Lister Carley

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through magazines, other clients, garden tours, etc.—and therefore we can sometimes be put into a niche “design style.”

That is what particular clients are looking for, not necessarily a style that we would like to create.

MH: Having your garden published in a home decor or garden magazine can be good for business but the content usually falls flat. The editors tend to focus mostly on close-ups of plants or garden furniture.

Apparently this is what their readers want even though it takes away from the work as a holistic design. One magazine included a garden I designed, and instead of arranging the shoot to take advantage of the incredible view over the Don River valley, the final photos featured the garden furniture.

AWARDS VT: How do you like to get recognition for your work? Are awards programs a motivator and do they offer any credibility to the winners?

VB: It is my clients who recognize our work.

For clients, being published seems to be more important than awards. My firm has entered the OALA awards with several projects. It costs many thousands of dollars to submit and yet there seems to be no category that our work really fits under. So we are left somewhere in between with the criteria and therefore the judging. The result is that we have found the awards to be a low priority motivator for credibility.

MW: One of the purposes of the OALA awards is to recognize firms whose calibre of work warrants it and to let other OALA members know who is doing that quality work. I am not sure how many OALA members are fully interested in and understand the nature and complexity of residential design. I believe part of this stems from a lack of communication about what exactly residential landscape architects contribute to the overall profession. This may explain, in part, the reluctance of some residential landscape architects to take the time and

VLC: There is a residential category in the OALA awards, but I would probably not enter. It is very expensive and, as you said, to what point? To impress other landscape architects? I am a single practitioner and it would take too much of my time.

TS: I noticed recently in the [US-based] Garden Design magazine’s residential design competition, all the winners were of a particular “contemporary” style, obviously what the jury was geared toward. As designers, our clients selected us because of what they have seen of our work—

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MW: Ongoing maintenance is a huge problem.

People accept poor horticultural work because they don’t know the difference and the skills aren’t out there. I actually started my own maintenance side of the business because I couldn’t find enough good people to recommend to my clients. There is usually some element of maintenance required, and many people don’t have the time. The people I hire come as trained horticulturists—no grass cutting or leaf blowing. This is a specialized service that serves to protect the value of the garden, treating it like an investment.

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make the effort to submit for awards. My sense is that residential design is still not recognized as a legitimate part of the profession. I would be interested to know what percentage of OALA members are listed as residential designers and what percentage of OALA member fees is contributed by this sector. [Editor’s Note: According to the OALA, 10 percent of the membership lists “residential” as a sub-specialization in the self-identified categories.]

TS: It would help if the awards entry requirements were not so geared to big offices.

Resources are required to put a submission together, and it’s staff time that I can’t spare in my business. I don’t see the point of entering. It really doesn’t make a difference to my clients or influence winning new business. Many of the residential garden entries end up looking the same. It is not inspiring.

RE: Our focus is on doing good work and if it is recognized, then that’s the icing on the cake. We look at marketing as being separate from recognition. Peer recognition is important to the profession. Awards programs and articles in Ground help to maintain the criticality of our work and by that I mean the continued effort toward raising our design standards and a commitment to rigorously researched, theoretical principles as the foundation for our work. Forms of recognition outside our profession are also important so that we maintain our connection and relevance to the public as a profession.

MH: The OALA does have the potential to represent residential designers in a real way.

VB: The public sector of our profession has the perception that residential design is a superficial side of landscape architecture: “It is not where the real work happens.” About five years ago, one of the head people at the OALA asked me why I was doing residential design, as if it was beneath my capabilities. It was a shocking revelation. If someone in that position didn’t realize the value of residential design, how can we expect the broader public to understand?

SM: Where will the young people come from if the profession and the schools don’t encourage residential design as a legitimate part of the profession? The University of Toronto certainly does not encourage this. Both at Uof T and Harvard it was clear you only did residential work if you were not good enough for other projects. Tommy Church is an ironic example in that he was not allowed to join the American Society of Landscape Architects because he did residential work, yet after fifty years he was awarded an ASLA gold medal for a lifetime of excellence.

POST-DESIGN VT: Unlike other designed work, an inherent aspect of landscape design is its dynamic nature. It is constantly in flux—seasonally and from year to year. An important component of landscape design is, therefore, a commitment to maintenance over time. In your experience, what happens to the relationship with the garden when the construction is complete?

VLC: Our work is very ephemeral. It can be lost through bad maintenance or because the owners move. Brad Johnson did a beautiful entry court for George Gardiner in Forest Hill. Now there are huge gates across it because the security company has more influence on the new owner than an appreciation of design.

TS: I think this is also a problem in most design. Many times in public work, there has not been consideration of what it takes to look after the soft landscape. Sometimes, it appears that a decision has been made to increase the level of the hard landscape to preclude the need for maintenance. In residential design, it is important to help clients understand the ongoing need for maintenance, especially if they are not experienced gardeners. They see it, they want it, but they aren’t necessarily aware of the ongoing requirements.

RE: Sometimes we are lucky and get to return to the garden on an ongoing basis to assist with the management of it. If we have designed a garden properly, the design anticipates the maintenance that will take place because that should be a central programmatic factor. More than for most other designed landscapes, the focus of a garden is the plants, and an understanding of their needs, habits, and relationships requires patience and an intimate involvement with their growth and care.

With every garden we all want the plants to grow. For a successful post-construction relationship, everyone quickly learns about the natural forces that act upon the plants and the relationships that exist in the garden. This is perhaps the reason why I think gardens are essential: we learn so much about life from them.

Round Table

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INSPIRATION VT: Could you talk about who/what inspires your work? As designers we constantly try to inspire our clients, but who/what inspires us?

TS: My work is largely inspired by the site, the inherent features of the context, and the client’s requirements. It is largely about the creation of a spatial experience.

MW: I have learned a great deal and been inspired by working with other consultants, architects, interior designers, metalworkers, artists, etc. over the years. Searching out individuals to partner with, often on our firm’s non-residential work, is critical to keeping our work fresh and new. In terms of plant design and knowledge, my greatest inspiration has come from working with Piet Oudolf at the Toronto Botanical Garden.

I also keep abreast of new materials and try to see how they might be applicable to landscape even if that is not their purpose. Over the years that we exhibited our work at Canada Blooms, we had a great opportunity to try new things and think outside the box.

picking trees at the nursery to pruning while visiting his clients. At graduate school, Frank Gehry taught me to appreciate all materials—even chain link, which he made look like lace. For the most part, probably art is my biggest influence. And my husband, Jim Bélisle, who has the ability to look at everything with a fresh and artistic eye.

Thoughts such as those conveyed in the Fletcher Steele quote we started with are inspiring. It is the potential of gardens that compels us to keep exploring, that inspires us to embrace new challenges. By default we give our clients “prettiness,” but that’s okay because it gives us access to sharing much more. With every garden we have the potential to help realign our clients’ personal wellness, the health of the environment, and ultimately societal health with each other and with a different understanding of beauty. We can challenge them with a wellgrounded renewed ethic and a locally grown, relaxed sense of joy that is being lost to celebrity culture and on-line social utilities. Many of our gardens are just another possession, objects of consumption and display. But everyone understands that gardens are about growth, and from there it’s just one step, albeit a big one, for clients to be able to experience the beauty in the continuum of ecological, delightful, and sometimes unwanted change that gardens embody. In the rotting log, we discover life.

In the decomposing leaves, we experience renewal. We need to teach our clients to embrace the apparent chaos in the order.

VB: Inspiration comes from so many places and faces. For me this includes: exploration of our ethereal and spiritual relationship to Nature using movement slowly through the landscape; reading children’s books and poetry on Nature and such works as The Pattern Language by Christopher Alexander and Re-visioning the Earth by Paul Devereaux; studying work by such great landscape architects as Thomas Church, Fletcher Steele; travel and seeing gardens, spaces, and places around the world; collaborating with other professionals in organizational development, fellow landscape architects, artists, and architects; reflection and meditation, walking the labyrinth, painting and sketching outside, finding the spaces in between to fill our cup overflowing with the joy of our creative abilities. To be able to create places for people to be delirious and to be quiet, rambunctious and reflective—connected to ourselves, to our family, to our community, to our Earth.

SM: I am inspired by other designers like André Le Nôtre whose sense of balance is unmatched, and Tommy Church who said it was okay to do everything from drawings to

RE: What inspires me is the wonderful potential of private residential landscapes.

They are quite likely the type of landscape that clients experience the most on a regular basis and throughout the seasons. It is a place that they can calmly experience through all their senses for a great length of time and they can engage with it physically, meaningfully, and purposefully.

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Landscape design by Martin Wade Landscape Architects

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Tom Arban

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Residential project designed by Eguchi Associates Landscape Architects

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bREAL art + design

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Labyrinth designed by Visionscapes Landscape Architects Inc.

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Visionscapes Landscape Architects Inc.

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Sheila Murray's home garden

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Bélisle/Murray Landscape Architects

The WIMBY Challenge

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You’ve heard of the “busman’s holiday” and the “cobbler’s shoes.” Well, Ground put the “What’s In My Back Yard?” challenge out to landscape architects, asking for photos and text describing their own home gardens. Many thanks to those who responded to our slightly nosy enquiries with good grace, a bit of bravery, justifiable pride, and full disclosure.

The WIMBY Challenge Peeking into landscape architects’ own home gardens

PHOTO 01.

“My garden, for me, is a peaceful retreat, achieved by lush monotone planting, several honey locust trees, and euonymus groundcover. I installed a patio some distance from the house to make maximum use of light that comes through the trees and also create a sense of destination. It’s made up of two-by-three precast concrete pavers and gives the space a very clean and modern look. Some of the furniture pieces are actually leftover artifacts from garden shows we’ve done in the past, such as the grey Frank Gehry sofa or the linear wooden bench tucked away in the back.”

—JANET ROSENBERG, OALA

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The WIMBY Challenge

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PHOTO 04.

“Gardens are for people. Here, black cedars, the canopy of a catalpa, and a permeable scree surface create an all-season garden at the end of an alley in downtown Toronto. A 12-foot carved limestone and steel table by castordesign emphasizes the linear form.”

—VICTORIA TAYLOR, ASSOCIATE MEMBER, OALA PHOTO 05.

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“Our front garden has been through a number of iterations. This included an alternative landscape in 1985 with the total removal of turfgrass, a return to turfgrass in the 1990s for children to play on, and then the removal again of the grass last year since it all died from neglect and our kids grew up. With the goal of creating a backyard “habitat,” we removed hostas, daylilies, and periwinkle that had “naturalized” there. Due to low funds, we decided to use the alien species as our front lawn in a pattern of straight rows. We also included a gabion basket full of recycled “urbanite” concrete from our back garden, a tribute to the gabions that prevent our house from sliding into a ravine.”

—BARBARA FLANAGAN-EGUCHI, OALA, AND REAL EGUCHI, OALA PHOTO 03.

“When we bought our house, the property, at 50 feet wide, seemed huge to me.

Because the “left over” side yard was only 4 feet narrower and just as long as the garden we had moved from, I designed it almost immediately. It took me many years to decide that having a lovely space for dinner parties was what I really wanted in the back garden. The garden is designed to make one feel comfortably enclosed while opening up the space to the vista— one of the most wonderful views in the city [Toronto].”

—VICTORIA LISTER CARLEY, OALA

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“My front yard is on a busy street in Toronto.

Inside the concrete street wall: sometimes a driveway, sometimes a hockey rink, sometimes a patio…(I wish I knew a good landscape architect who could help me.)

—DONNA HINDE, OALA

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PHOTO 06.

“I bought my first house at 27, and was excited about the little one-bedroom bungalow with a 20’x105’ lot. The backyard was covered with raspberry bushes and thighhigh weeds; the soil could only be broken with a pickax! New soil had to be brought in by bags, as the alley between the houses measured 50cm at the narrowest point.

Apparently, nine children had been raised in the house from the 1950s onwards, so I found little treasures, marbles, and toy soldiers as I turned the soil. With my small budget I had to ration where I spent my money and really make it stretch. I did the work myself along with the help of family and friends for larger projects. I also took many plant donations from friends dividing perennials. I wanted a larger deck, a little piece of lawn, some foundation planting to give shape to the yard in the winter months, and as many perennials as the garden would hold. I worked on the garden for five years and enjoyed it more and more as the seasons passed.”

—YVONNE BATTISTA, ASSOCIATE MEMBER, OALA

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Janet Rosenberg's home garden in Toronto

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Janet Rosenberg

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Barbara Flanagan-Eguchi and Real Eguchi's garden, Toronto

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bREAL art + design

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Victoria Lister Carley's Toronto back garden

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Victoria Lister Carley

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Victoria Taylor's Toronto backyard garden

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Victoria Taylor

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Donna Hinde's Toronto garden

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Donna Hinde

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Yvonne Battista's front garden in Toronto

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Yvonne Battista

The WIMBY Challenge

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PHOTO 07.

“A year ago my wife and I bought our first house; we were very excited by the prospect of revamping our own yard. We’d been waiting a long time for this. However, now that we finally have some land, we also happen to have an infant and a toddler. Young children are delightful and, ultimately, they do perpetuate our species, but at the end of each day it is clear that they bring the complete demise of productivity.

The small, mulched bed in the foreground was one of our monumental efforts for 2009. It’s a humble start.”

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—RYAN JAMES, OALA PHOTO 08.

“Our small garden was designed as a series of zones. The site, a long and linear Toronto lot, was subdivided into three distinct areas responding to use, desired privacy, and sun exposure. The contemporary design with a minimal material palette, simple lines and details, allows the garden to function on multiple levels. Areas closest to the house use pea gravel and lawn to create multi-use outdoor spaces, while areas farther from the house use vegetation to provide shade, privacy, and wildlife habitat. Many of the garden’s materials were recycled from the site or were donated by family and neighbours.”

—ALISSA NORTH AND PETER NORTH, OALA

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Ryan James's home garden in Peterborough

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Ryan James

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Alissa and Peter North's garden in Toronto

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Peter and Alissa North

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Mark Hartley's Toronto garden

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Mark Hartley

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The WIMBY Challenge

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homeowners that, with the right techniques and a modest budget, anyone can create a garden paradise that is relatively low maintenance and is a visual delight of sounds, colours, textures, and patterns.”

PHOTO 09.

“My garden is my laboratory. I plant and watch how plants thrive. Over the past twenty years the dynamic garden system has changed: more sun, less sun. I really have learned how to garden here. My yard was originally a parking lot with a brokeback garage and rusting refrigerators. We transformed it twenty years ago using many found objects. The frame behind the pond is art deco cast iron from Paris, the waterspout was an olive oil mill. The sculpture is by John McEwen, ‘put your ear to the stone and open your heart to the sky ’.”

PHOTO 12.

“This is my blank canvas where winter labyrinths get made, summer celebrations (with tents, water slides of plastic, fireworks, and musicians) are held, and a 40-footwide daffodil heart comes up in spring. It is actually our septic field, used as a wondrous multi-use space framed by the hedge with views to the Niagara Escarpment—a place for all seasons (and all reasons!).”

—LINDA IRVINE, OALA PHOTO 11.

“We view our garden as a series of experiments where we “play” with ideas and dimensions and recycle everything. When we needed a new roof, we buried our old shingles and created a perennial garden.

With some inexpensive plumbing pipe, we built an outdoor room of wisteria. Years later, we designed a limestone pergola for clients with the same dimensions. A statue is named “Hernia” because she came close to giving several men who carried her a hernia. This garden is truly “our” garden because the most important thing that grows in it is love. We eat, laugh, hug, and discuss everything in these spaces. The garden never looks better than those times when our family and friends are in it.”

—MARK HARTLEY, OALA PHOTO 10.

“I live in Cornell in Markham, which is a tenyear-old new urbanist subdivision. In the spring of 2008, I renovated my garden, hiring out only the deck, fountain, and walkway construction, in preparation for planting by me. Much effort on my part went into appropriate soil preparation (to combat horrible clay soils), plant selection, and planting. I am hoping that my garden will teach new

—VIRGINIA BURT, OALA PHOTO 13.

“At the risk of exposing the cobbler’s shoes, this is what’s in my back yard. Also, and perhaps of more interest, is my “new” tractor (50s Ferguson) in the backyard of our new family getaway at Creemore.”

—JOHN HILLIER, OALA

—JIM BÉLISLE, OALA, AND SHELIA MURRAY-BÉLISLE, OALA

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Linda Irvine's garden in Markham

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Linda Irvine

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Toronto Island garden of Jim Bélisle and Sheila Murray-Bélisle

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Jim Bélisle and Sheila Murray-Bélisle

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Virginia Burt's Campbellville home garden

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Virginia Burt

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John Hillier's Etobicoke garden

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John Hillier

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Letter From…

Dublin

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Plantscape Architecture in an Irish Garden

A visit with garden writer and plantswoman Helen Dillon TEXT BY ANDREW B. ANDERSON

Having recently moved to Dublin, Ireland, I discovered that house hunting in this city is not for the faint of heart. However, not only did I manage to find a decent place to live, but I inadvertently (or, perhaps, subconsciously) elected to live around the corner from one of Dublin’s—if not all of Ireland’s—most beautiful private gardens. Tucked behind a handsome 1830s late Georgian home in the neighbourhood of Ranelagh, just south of the Grand Canal, lies the garden of the esteemed and much-loved garden writer, plantswoman, and Irish national treasure, Helen Dillon.

On a rare sunny afternoon in early October, I was fortunate enough to spend a few hours with Helen, wandering around her back garden and discussing all that she has learned from her garden over nearly forty years of tending to it. One of the first things I learned was that this “Irish” garden is not Irish at all. While it may be situated in Ireland, it is not representative of typical Irish gardens. The climate here is drier (a relative statement if ever I heard one) than other parts of Ireland, and the garden contains a variety of rare and unusual plants from all corners of the globe.

This is a plant collector’s garden and an outdoor classroom for landscape architecture.

Set on half an acre on the south side of the house and surrounded on the remaining three sides by high walls, the garden was designed to take full advantage of that most elusive Irish feature: sunshine. When I was in the garden, the inimitably descendent, horizontal October light illuminated the plants, casting long shadows and bouncing off the central water feature.

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The garden is thoughtfully arranged into a series of garden rooms, all revolving around a long, elegant rectangular pool that is flanked on both sides by smooth limestone pavers. The reference to Moorish water features is elegant and convincing, with a perfect balance between hardscape and water. A small, simple waterfall descends into a lower pool adjacent to the house; the far end of the pond is punctuated by a circular pool and bubbler fountain. The pool is on axis with the main view from the living room, framed by an enormous Regency window that overlooks the entire back garden.

Letter From…

Dublin

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The various outdoor rooms are connected by gravel pathways that define spaces on the ground plane, assisted by sculptural plants, a few carefully sited and pruned understorey trees, and garden statuary, pots, and ornamentation. A mastery of landscape architectural theory is evident: this garden is a study of line, texture, hierarchy, balance, perspective, axis, and restraint. However, it is the use and understanding of plants that make this garden stand out. The plants take centre stage. Two enormous and effusive mixed perennial borders mirror the central water feature, and they remain full of unashamed colour even into October. Helen explained nonchalantly that the delphiniums—magnificent in full bloom—were in fact blooming for the second time this year.

Some things just aren’t fair.

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An heirloom hen provides eggs and entertainment value.

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Andrew B. Anderson

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Apples and future plantings sit atop the colourful compost heap.

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Andrew B. Anderson

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The lower pool is surrounded by exotic plants from all corners of the globe.

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Andrew B. Anderson

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Succulents are clustered in a sunny corner.

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Andrew B. Anderson

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Elegant central water feature in Dillon’s garden

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Helen Dillon

I found myself surrounded by a diverse collection of plants from all over the world, all simultaneously contributing to the overall striking effect of the garden while showcasing their own unique characteristics. Helen knew each one, and delighted in describing their attributes or lineage with me. The various nutrient requirements of the plants are satisfied with rich, dark compost that is produced on site in a beautiful brick-walled courtyard adjacent to the side of the house. I’ve never seen such colourful compost piles.

Having visited the garden in 2005, my first glimpse of the garden on my second visit was like seeing an old friend again. It was immediately recognizable, but also different. Helen’s enthusiasm and energy ensure that her garden is an ever-changing experiment, and the latest additions to the family include four hens and a henhouse. These fortunate birds have found themselves in the most elegant chicken surroundings that I have ever seen: boxwood and gravel dominate the space. Helen explained that while hens don’t necessarily eat all plants, they certainly do their best to “wreck” everything. In keeping with the urban agriculture theme, seven newly planted raised vegetable beds are also discretely nestled into the back garden, out of sight but easily accessible.

I felt a twinge of envy when Helen pointed out the various vegetables, including a beautiful species of kale, which grow in the garden all winter long. Must be the luck of the Irish.

My tour of Helen Dillon’s masterpiece ended the way it began— with a final gaze across the garden through a window from the elevated perspective of the living room. As Helen Dillon has said, “Visiting other gardens is an essential occupation for a good gardener. There is no garden in which there is nothing to learn.”

After a cup of tea and a lively conversation in the kitchen, I walked through the front garden and down the street to my new corner of the world.

For more information on the garden, visit www.dillongarden.com.

Helen Dillon’s most recent book is Helen Dillon’s Garden Book.

She will be speaking at the Toronto Botanical Garden in 2010.

BIO/ ANDREW B. ANDERSON, ROVING REPORTER FOR GROUND, CURRENTLY LIVES IN DUBLIN, UNDER AN UMBRELLA, WHERE HE IS PURSUING A MASTER OF SCIENCE IN WORLD HERITAGE MANAGEMENT.

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Technical Corner

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Privacy Screens The power of colour and light

TEXT BY NANCY CHATER, OALA

The trend in residential design of blurring the boundaries between indoor and outdoor space shows no sign of slowing any time soon.

The cross-over potential of materials that work both inside and out is beautifully represented by a versatile suite of resin panel and sheet products made in the U.S. by 3form. Originally an interior product line, the 3form Varia Ecoresin materials are quietly gaining ground as a viable exterior application thanks to UV stabilizers applied with heat and pressure. Treat yourself to even a brief journey through the 3form website and I’m convinced you will understand my enthusiasm about the myriad possibilities of the vertical panel (Varia Ecoresin, Koda), horizontal surface (Chroma), twin-wall vertical panel (Duo) and curvy, sculptural form (Shapes) product lines suitable for exterior use. Look for “XT” in the name to indicate exterior grade.

As landscape architects, we often need to create privacy and screen views, and 3form offers a sleek, contemporary look with a complex play of light and colour. The Varia Ecoresin vertical panel line (with a minimum of 40 percent recycled content) is available in either 4-foot x 8-foot or 4-foot x 10-foot panels, ranging from 1/16-inch to 1-inch

thick, in a gorgeous palette of colours, with a selection of nine finishes from super-matte to high gloss patent. The finishes also determine the degree of opacity, from transparent to opaque. You can select a different finish on the front and back of the panel to fine-tune the desired degree of opacity.

The real fun begins in selecting from the sophisticated selection of optional interlayers, which include natural materials embedded in resin such as grasses, bamboo, shells, and stones, as well as textiles, threads, and crocheted yarn. Colour layers can be combined with the interlayer material. Embossed textures, pop-art graphic patterns, and metallic finishes are other options. What sets 3form apart from its competitors—aside from the greater degree of choices it offers—is the quality of the design of the interlayers, which consistently bring a modern sensibility to earthy or traditional craft materials. These are miles away from the “lavender flowers pressed in glass” look. For example, Unravel is a silk crochet diamond pattern created in collaboration with a women’s artisan group in Mali, Africa, and then worked with a modern, deconstructionist sensibility into a looser, organic pattern.

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After lingering many times over the 3form sample box, I finally got the opportunity to work with the Varia Ecoresin panel line in a couple of residential designs a few years ago. It’s not inexpensive. At about $1,200 per 4-foot x 8-foot sheet, and about $1,500 per 4-foot x 10-foot sheet, plus shipping, hardware, and installation, you can count on an average cost of about $2,000 per panel. If the budget allows, it’s worth it for the beautiful effects of colour and light. One of my projects, pictured here (with Martin Wade Landscape Architects), involved mounting a series of ¼-inch gauge, 4-foot x 8-foot panels at the end of a condominium terrace to cover an unattractive, existing metal divider and create a focal point. The panels were mounted to a custom-fabricated, simple steel frame that ran horizontally near the top and bottom of the 8-foot panels. The steel frame was attached to the building wall and the existing metal divider. Stainless steel standoff hardware bolted the 3form panels to the frame. Low-voltage landscape lights were placed in a tight space behind the resin panels to create a soft back-lit glow at night. After two years, the panels have survived Toronto winters and summers on an exposed 8th-storey terrace and, according to the client, “look like new.” The material can be ordered pre-cut to custom sizes (working within the sheet module sizes) or it can be cut with a table saw. The cut edges need to be treated with UV protection and moisture barrier, which the company sells with an application gun. Allow three to four weeks for manufacture and one to two weeks for shipping to Ontario.

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New York terrace with Varia Ecoresin "Courier"

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3form

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Leaves constructed out of Chroma line of materials, at Chicago Quincy Court

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Heather Lindquist

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Bench utilizing Chroma, Chicago Quincy Court

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Heather Lindquist

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Project designer Nancy Chater included Varia Ecoresin "Bear Grass Fade" in this Toronto terrace, a project by Martin Wade Landscape Architects.

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Tom Arban

In addition to the Varia Ecoresin line, 3form also offers Koda for vertical designs. Koda is a recycled-content polycarbonate material for exterior applications. Another option is Chroma, a thicker monolithic material that comes in ½-inch, 1-inch, and 2-inch gauges, suitable for tabletops, counters, and other horizontal surfaces. Chroma can be formed into radial curves. A local example of Chroma can be seen in the coloured table tops designed by Frank Gehry International for the Café AGO. A newer material is Duo (part of the Struttura line), a light-weight structural, twin wall system with a hammered texture that refracts light and is suitable for vertical applications such as sliding screens or doors. Finally, 3form Shapes, a threedimensional product, offers Varia Ecoresin in sculptural forms and continuous patterns. While 3form offers hardware systems, they are not exterior grade so stainless steel standoff, cable, or other mounting hardware needs to be sourced.

3form espouses a social responsibility component in its production, partly by developing relationships with artisan groups in Africa, Nepal, Indonesia, China, and Columbia who produce interlayer materials. The website includes detailed information about where the various materials are made.

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Links: http://www.3-form.com/ Other resin panel manufacturers: www.lumicor.com www.veritasideas.com Stainless steel, standoff hardware for 3form screens:, Stand off hardware for 3-form screens: http://www.mogg.ca/ss/standoffs.htm BIO/ NANCY CHATER, OALA, IS GROUND’S TECHNICAL COLUMNIST AND CO-CHAIR OF THE EDITORIAL BOARD.

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Professional Practice

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The Art of Client Relations Ryan James and John Szczepaniak discuss the particularities of residential design practice

Ryan James (RJ): In working with residential clients, how do you deal with the issue of ongoing maintenance? Let’s say you have a great project, a great design, great installation, and it all comes together beautifully. How do you ensure that the project doesn’t decline? Speaking from my own experience, I have seen jobs that came together really well, but you go back a couple of years later and…ugh!

John Szczepaniak (JS): I have absolutely no hesitation to quite carefully recommend maintenance services. As I’m getting to know a client, I ask, “Would you consider having a garden maintenance company?”

I test the waters when getting into the design phase. With a certain calibre of projects, it’s automatically assumed they’ll do it, but with the medium to small types of residential projects, I make a very definite point of testing the waters on that.

commenting throughout the process to make sure that what’s proposed really meets their requirements. And you need a good match with the contractor, too, because they bring great ideas to the table and suggestions of doing things certain ways. A successful project involves all of these parties.

RJ: So, if you’ve got a good contractor, you’re open to exploring things with the contractor, even though you’ve finished your set of drawings?

JS: Yes, I’m open to learning new things all of the time—better ways of doing things, different products. I think that’s an important part of being a professional.

RJ: There certainly is an art to getting the responses you want out of a client…

JS: Working with residential clients is a very, very specialized area. I don’t think it’s a matter of just being a great designer.

The people aspect of getting to know your clients and really reading them well is very important. Successful projects are about more than good design; they happen when the client gets actively involved in

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Professional Practice

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RJ: Are there certain ways that you go out and seek fresh, new, innovative ideas?

How do you keep things from becoming a little routine?

JS: Well, I travel a fair bit. I am always keeping my eyes open and I am inspired by things I see elsewhere. I use them as inspiration to develop my own particular style. And the internet is an amazing information base. I spend a lot of time looking at images on the net. My clients do, too.

Twenty years ago, it would not be uncommon to show up to meet with someone, and it basically would be, “whatever you think, John, you’re the professional.” Now, it’s not uncommon for residential clients to come up with a list of websites they like and very specific requirements. Clients are much better educated now. I think the whole industry across the board has evolved wonderfully; it’s quite exciting.

RJ: I suppose part of this has been because, in the last decade or so, there has been a great rise of interest in gardening amongst the public. This has added some interest and some challenge to our job; clients are bringing some of those new ideas and new challenges to the table. I find that working in residential design there’s a certain amount of educating of the client that is involved in the

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design process. But as with all education, it goes both ways; you can learn a great deal from whoever is on the other side of the table. Are there lessons that your clients have taught you along the way?

JS: I’ve learned that being on top of budget projections is crucial. When the numbers come in on the tender results and the contractors are way over a certain budget range, the client can be quite irate. So I think the important thing is to talk money.

What was important twenty-five years ago is still important today: a happy client brings more clients. The best clients are word-of-mouth referrals. This is a very important way of maintaining practice.

RJ: Right, and it’s difficult to find the time to push for publicity…

JS: I think that a lot of people don’t have a true understanding of residential projects.

I think residential design is along the same lines as an exquisite piece of music, a magnificent sculpture. There are different constraints to residential projects—they’re so tied in with the individual requirements of the user. It’s a whole different sphere.

BIO/ RYAN JAMES, OALA, A MEMBER OF THE GROUND EDITORIAL BOARD, IS ROUNDING OUT HIS FIRST YEAR AFTER MOVING HIS FAMILY TO PETERBOROUGH AND JOINING THE CREW AT BASTERFIELD & ASSOCIATES. BIO/ JOHN SZCZEPANIAK, OALA, IS PRINCIPAL OF THE OTTAWA-BASED FIRM JOHN K. SZCZEPANIAK LANDSCAPE ARCHITECT. MANY THANKS TO ANNA LEE GUNN, ASSOCIATE MEMBER, OALA, FOR TRANSCRIBING THIS INTERVIEW.

RJ: Is there anything you would like to see from the OALA, something that would support people like yourself who have a practice specialized in residential design?

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Residential designs by John K. Szczepaniak Landscape Architect

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Roy Grogan

JS: I think we need to find a way to promote the garden design being done by landscape architects. There are a lot more landscape designers out on the scene and we need to help educate the public about hiring a landscape architect versus a landscape designer, and about what a landscape architect brings to the table.

There’s amazing work being done by landscape architects who specialize in residential design across the country and I don’t think it’s being promoted enough.

We don’t really have the best venue—in glossy magazines, for example—to really promote that.

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Notes

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Notes: A Miscellany of News and Events

books

members

The award-winning Toronto Music Garden celebrated its tenth anniversary in 2009, and to honour the occasion, a new book was recently published. Written by Julie Moir Messervy, who designed the garden in collaboration with cellist Yo-Yo Ma, the 58page book tells the story of this unique garden’s development, outlines the concepts and planting plans for the garden’s various sections, and include dozens of beautiful, colour photographs. Available for $15 plus tax, the book can be purchased online from the Toronto Parks and Trees Foundation (www.torontoparksandtrees.org), by phone at (416) 397-5178, or via e-mail (vcroswe@toronto.ca).

The Ontario Association of Landscape Architects is proud to recognize and welcome the following new full members to the association:

symposium

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milestones A delegation of landscape architects, including OALA President Lawrence Stasiuk, and OALA Past President (and current Canadian Society of Landscape Architects President) Linda Irvine, were at Rideau Hall in Ottawa for the commemorative planting of an oak tree by The Prince of Wales and The Duchess of Cornwall. A number of OALA members participated as invited guests. The Prince of Wales is an honourary member of the CSLA, in recognition of his interest in sustainability, preservation of communities, land stewardship, and livable communities.

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CSLA President Linda Irvine with the Prince of Wales

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Nelson Edwards

The Royal Botanical Gardens in Burlington is hosting a multidisciplinary symposium on sustainability and horticulture, “Living Plants, Liveable Communities: Exploring Sustainable Horticulture for the 21st Century,” from February 17 to 19, 2010. Themes include, among others, human psychology and landscape elements/design, productive gardens in urban spaces, water consumption and management, invasive species issues, horticultural therapy, pesticide reduction and elimination, and green roof applications. For more information or to register, visit www.rbg.ca.

biodiversity Birds of Toronto: A Guide to their Remarkable World is a new publication from the City of Toronto, available for free at local libraries. The first in the City of Toronto’s Biodiversity Series, this 45-page booklet is intended to introduce the general public to the diversity of birds inhabiting the city.

Along with gorgeous photographs, descriptions of Toronto’s natural habitats, and tips on bird-viewing locations, the booklet also outlines the city’s bird-related policies and details the many ways that designers and those who manage landscapes and buildings can make the city safer for birds.

Henry Byma Nancy Chater * Sandra Cooke * Ashley DeWitt * Van Thi Diep Jane Hutton Andrew Johnson * Gillian Jurkow * Isabelle Lalonde * Scott Mason Jennifer Mazenauer Joseph McLeod Peter North Jeffrey Staates Sara Taylor * Daniel Wood * Asterisk (*) denotes a Full Member not having custody and use of the Association seal.

As at October 19, 2009, the following persons are no longer landscape architects nor members of the OALA due to their non-payment of dues: Martina Gardiner Vincent Gibbens Astrid Hood George Smith Marc Thiebaud Frank Vivacqua

events Now in its 14th year, Canada Blooms will take place from March 17 to 21, 2010, at a new location—the Direct Energy Centre in Toronto. Along with educational events and a marketplace, Canada Blooms also features display gardens. For tickets and information, visit www.canadablooms.com.

Artifact

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Tree Listening The headphones dangling from a magnificent old beech tree at the Oakville Galleries in Gairloch Gardens, in the autumn of 2009, promised aural access to an enticing mystery: what does the inner life of a tree sound like?

The answer, surprising and deeply mesmerizing, resides in rhythmic pops and thrums, the sounds of water being drawn up through the tree’s xylem tubes and the reverberations of swaying limbs.

British artist Alex Metcalf has installed his tree-listening artwork throughout the U.K., Europe, and Canada. Using a specially designed device that amplifies the tree’s interior sounds, Metcalf’s recordings offer the almost musical voice that rumbles deep within cells and molecules—arboreal acoustics made manifest.

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British artist Alex Metcalf's inventive device allows participants to hear the interior sounds of a tree.

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Kristina Trogrlic

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