Project Statement
In the summer of 2005, the designers were
commissioned by Mark Erman, an early-rising hedge-fund
manager, to design a backyard for his newly built home
in the Noe Valley neighborhood of San Francisco. Seeking
to transform the fairly typical, 25-foot wide by 50-foot
long rear space, the client, who lives alone in the
bottom flat of the two-condo building, had only two
programmatic requests: that the garden be easy to maintain,
and that it contain a hot tub for unwinding at the end
of the day.
At first glance, the lot's challenges
were easier to spot than its potential. The developer
had thoughtfully provided a carpet of sod (now gone
to seed) and a water feature (broken). More daunting
was that in order to maximize every square foot, he
had dug the garden into the existing grade. Defined
by a 14-foot retaining wall on the north side, a ten-foot
wall to the west, and the house itself — a four-story
elevation that fairly looms over the rear — the
garden felt far smaller and more constrained than it
actually was. Thus, the goal was to not simply insert
a prefab spa within the existing landscape, but to find
ways of creating movement and life in the garden and
to provide opportunities for experiencing nature with
carefully selected and placed plant materials.
In order to maximize the journey from
the house to the spa, the designers began by organizing
the garden into three primary zones. Immediately off
the rear of the house a stone patio was expanded to
create a place for outdoor dining that visually (and
practically) extends the interior, which opens fully
to the outdoors. From there one embarks along a path
comprised of parallelogram-shaped stone slabs to the
middle zone, a 20-foot tall grove of bamboo that has
been under-planted with a dense carpet of mondo grass,
an assortment of self-naturalizing spring flowering
bulbs, and winter-blooming hellebores. This zone also
acts as a delicate veil to the most secluded portion
of the garden. Defined at its threshold by a diagonal
Japanese boxwood hedge whose crisp edges mimic the geometry
of the paving, the back of the yard contains the hot
tub, which is flanked by three Japanese snowdrop trees
that rise sculpturally from a field of decomposed granite.
With the inclusion of the hot tub, often
considered something of an eyesore, the designers embraced
the challenge of putting "banal" elements
to new use. Encasing the prefab spa is an eight-foot
square, steel-framed cover made of eco-sourced ipe wood,
that appears almost to be inserted into the platform
extending from the rear fence. When the tub is in use,
this movable cover slides on tracks to become a waterside
deck for sunbathing and toe dangling. It then zips along
on stainless steel wheels forty feet through the garden
and up to the terrace, where it doubles as a dining
table — the literal interpretation of movement
in the garden. Pausing in the middle, it becomes a three-dimensional
frame for the plantings, which fit deftly within its
volume. Even when the hot tub is uncovered, the steel
plate that is fixed to its front continues to partially
screen the spa from view while reflecting the tonality
of dark fence.
Also imparting a sense of movement to
the space is the side fence, which conceals the original
concrete wall mass and its oppressive verticality while
adding a feeling of craftsmanship to the generally austere
space. Variously sized off-the-shelf redwood planks
were stained black and intermittently canted inward
— adding visual interest even as its inherent
horizontal quality lengthens the appearance of the garden.
As evening approaches, lights placed between the fence
and the wall glow like lanterns through the gaps, casting
interesting shadows and softly illuminating the space.
An outdoor grill embedded in the fence in the front
of the garden is used at al fresco gatherings in warmer
months.
Through a series of budget-conscious interventions,
the designers created a garden that met the programmatic
requirements of the client within a verdant space that
is as low maintenance as it is pleasurable — from
winter, when the hellebores are in bloom, to summer,
when the snowdrop trees are smothered in blossoms and
rain their circular patterns of petals onto the ground.
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