Garden Rooms: Examples Shown From Morinda Gardens, Provo UT (Tahitian Noni International)

Garden Rooms hold a special place in the world of landscape architecture.  Recently Deseret News ran an article I wrote on Garden Rooms.

Hickman Garden - Sketch by Jake Young

This week, we invited Jake Young to be guest columnist to discuss possibilities to be explored and developed in your own outside living spaces. If we keep talking about spring, maybe it will finally come.

Perhaps there is not a more enchanting place than a mid-summer botanical garden full of color, natural fragrance and vegetation. You can bring this same beauty to your back yard by applying some of the same design principles used in your home to create a garden room or an exterior gathering place.

The garden room can serve as a place for outdoor entertaining, a space for growing delicious fruits and vegetables or a sanctuary busy with humming birds or bees spreading pollen. If created and maintained properly, the garden room can be the treasure of any residential landscape.  

http://www.deseretnews.com/article/700123539/Garden-rooms-bring-floral-beauty-to-your-home.html?pg=1


Morinda Gardens in Provo, UT (Tahitian Noni International) offer great examples of Garden Rooms (as described in my article).  The overall design of Morinda Gardens was done by MHTN.  The photos below of Morinda Gardens were taken by Jake Young.  FYI you have to have permission ahead of time to take photos of the gardens.  So call ahead and be prepared to pay a fee (if you must take photos), if not just enjoy.

Tree House from the past/ old fort style

With spring on the way I'm excited to finish our tree house, so I decided to dig up some old archive tree house photos. This was a tree house I designed a number of years ago.  It features two platforms, a roof, slide, a step ladder and my favorite the wooden rope bridge.  We used straight timber logs with the bark still on them and it wasn't too hard to build (of course I was only there for the start of the construction).  If you don't have good tree house trees, build your tree house around the trees or plant trees near the structure.

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Photos by Ben Young.

Young entrepreneurs turn garbage into green - ksl.com

Here is some interesting news about a Utah business called Ecoscraps that takes food waste from restaurants and makes compost fertilizer for gardens to be sold at nurseries.  I'm sure places like Chuckarama make a lot of fertilizer.

Video Courtesy of KSL.com

Young entrepreneurs turn garbage into green - ksl.com or www.ecoscraps.net

backyard patio remodel project

Its always a pleasure to return to your projects (post construction) and see them looking good.  This is a Logan (area) project and a fun backyard remodel design.  I really enjoyed working with the clients on the design and seeing the project built.  Prior to the remodel the backyard had a 20 year + dilapidated deck, brick patio and grass.  The design features a two level stamped and colored concrete patio which is large enough for two good size outdoor dining tables, small planter bed, pots (on drip irrigation) and a grill.  Other features of the design include flagstone patio with lemon thyme ground cover (side yard), flagstone pathway with lemon thyme ground cover, small retaining block wall, garden boxes and new planting beds.  One reminder lesson is that often colored and stamped concrete patio will require some touch up maintenance on the surface.  A colored and stamped concrete patio requires sealing and maintenance (touching up the surface) to keep looking good.  The interior stamp pattern was ashler and the band stamp pattern was slate.

In this case we started with smaller plants for the grasses and perennials, but they've matured to full size in less than 1 year.  The owner has done a great job in maintaining the landscape.

Calamagrostis x acutiflora 'Karl Foerster' - Feather Reed Grass

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The landscape design, site layout and construction administration was done by Landscape Architect Jake Young, the concrete patio by Ryan Hoth, and the landscaping by Three Men & A Shovel.  

Conference Center Detail

There may be few individuals or professionals that would call a storm water drain inlet art and I think I'm about to join that group.  A week ago I was taking time to stop and smell the rain while I checked out this classy storm drain on a plaza at the Conference Center in Salt Lake City.  The design is simple, repetitive and after more than 10 years + from the install it still looks great.  I did notice that there were plenty of leaves down in the inlet, but you would have to look closely to see them and water was moving just fine.  I love the repetition of the basic geometry, simple shapes tied together make a nice detail for the granite paver plaza.

SLC City Creek Center is coming alive

While the grand opening for the City Creek Center in Salt Lake City is not set until 2012, the year 2011 is going to be exciting for the 1 billion dollar + project.  We are already seeing finished phases of the project with a new water feature, residential apartment towers, and retail shops open on South Temple.

Looking south on Main Street at the future "convertible" sky bridge which will connect the two main blocks.

New City Creek Center water feature on the north end of block 76, on South Temple.

This corridor will connect to a large plaza to the south (the circular metal work in the background).

The arrow shows where the city creek water fall and water feature will start.  The concept is to show a city creek representation, as though it were the real creek being day lighted.

Intelligent Cities: Makeshift Metropolis

This is a fantastic video lecture by Witold Rybczynski he goes through a brief history of city planning and design.  He discusses the city beautiful movement, garden city movement, modernism, auto-mobile issues, new urbanism and the future.  I really appreciate his pragmatic approach to difficult issues.  It is well worth the 1 hour, but I recommend fast forwarding through the preliminary talking by the National Building museum and sponsors.


Intelligent Cities: Makeshift Metropolis from National Building Museum on Vimeo.