Our Architects Deftly Handle a Diverse Set of Elements to Make Private Green Spaces and Other Landscape Architecture Concepts Work
By Katie Martinovic, Principal Landscape Architect / Vice President
Nature, outdoor amenities, building design and a sense of community seamlessly incorporated into any single project is seemingly a study in contrasts. Indeed, these concepts taken on their own or even as binaries are easy to square with one another. Considering them all at once takes far more ingenuity.
Contradiction, however, can lead to the most engaging design concepts. The aforementioned concepts are essential elements that NSPJ Architects brings to clients. Each must deliver its important functions, while also exuding the associations that come with them.
Outdoor amenities, like pools, boathouses, entertaining spaces and more, are associated with luxury. The built environment is our haven, safeguard and private space. Conversely, community is a place for gathering and connection. The natural world is full of contrasts in itself, as it calls to mind peace and calm, but is also known as wilderness. Nature suggests openness and also mystery.
The featured projects create a singular disposition that masterfully evokes a diverse range of themes and tones: the open and the exclusive, the tranquil and the untamed, the private and the public, the natural and the built, to generate highly desirable and enduring landscape architecture and design.
The Appealing Confluence of Wide-Ranging Elements
A garden’s privacy and playfulness merges with contemporary, casual entertaining. A lake home artfully unites its private resort atmosphere with access to the wilds of the Ozarks. A private park finds its place among a new neighborhood’s communal warmth.
These three landscape architecture projects from NSPJ speak to the ways that our team cohesively foregrounds varied elements that are important to our clients:
1. Private Pocket Park: In a newly built gated community with homes in close proximity, our clients requested a space for gathering outdoors in all seasons. The biggest challenge posed to our team was how to make this space exclusive without being overly vigilant about privacy. A partial, low stone wall flanked by local flora achieved a delineation from homes nearby, yet its winding path and circular fire-pit seating suggest openness, playfulness and good will.
2. Lake of the Ozarks Outdoors: This stately family vacation home exudes luxury with the inclusion of multi-level outdoor space, complete with terraces, a fire pit, pool, bar, sun deck and grill area. Outdoor and indoor living flow seamlessly into one another, creating opportunities for enjoyment throughout the year. Although the design is expansive and well appointed, the property is still connected to the lake and its environs, including wooded areas that frame each side and stone along the water’s edge that blends with the natural landscape. Even the property’s grading, which was formerly a steep slope, is now more tastefully aligned with the water.
3. Secret Garden: Our clients were looking for a private green space design that felt fairy-tale-like and dream-inspired with a waterfall, creek and water well, while remaining grounded in contemporary outdoor living concepts. The space lends itself perfectly to solitude and quiet enjoyment, as well as garden parties, cookouts or cocktails around the fire pit. Natural plantings and the client’s private art collection accent each other’s aesthetic strengths. This project was also designed with grandchildren in mind, featuring a play set only accessible by bridge. However, the overall demeanor and hidden details of this whimsical private garden have the power to transform any adult into a delighted child.
Extraordinary landscape architecture contains a multitude of resonances, each of which elevate a project’s value for residents and visitors alike.
NSPJ Architects’ Approach to Landscape Architecture, Including Private Green Space Design
One of our core values is a responsive, client-focused approach. Although many architecture firms value hearing out their clients’ ideas, we approach projects with active listening to fully grasp a clients’ vision and expertly realize it.
A clients’ vision may, in fact, include uncertainties, challenges or contrasts they haven’t yet determined how to untangle. The NSPJ approach is radically responsive, in that we understand how to resolve our client’s needs artfully, tastefully and carefully, as evidenced by our projects.
Explore our portfolio of landscape architecture, including private gardens, multi-level outdoor living, private parks and many other outdoor concepts. For inquiries, contact us online or by phone at (913) 831-1415.
