ArchShowcase 
Sanjay Gangal
Sanjay Gangal is the President of IBSystems, the parent company of AECCafe.com, MCADCafe, EDACafe.Com, GISCafe.Com, and ShareCG.Com. Hilgard Garden in Berkeley, California by Mary Barensfeld ArchitectureAugust 4th, 2016 by Sanjay Gangal
Article source: Mary Barensfeld Architecture Hilgard Garden aims to provide the owners with an extended outdoor living space; a garden room. Due to the steeply sloping site, accessibility to an upper seating area requires navigating a considerable elevation change. To avoid taking up a large swathe of the smaller backyard square footage with a conventional stair, a ramping meandering path through aromatic groundcover and the outstretched limbs of sculptural Japanese maples was selected as a more experiential garden path.  Image Courtesy © Joe Fletcher
 Image Courtesy © Joe Fletcher Project Narrative: Sandwiched between the neighboring townhouses’ rear yards, this Berkeley, California site consists of a 23’ wide by 50’ plot of land with a 17’-0” elevation change. The owners’ desire for both outdoor seating and entertaining area close to their house, in addition to an accessible seating area at the top of the site, drove the project program.  Image Courtesy © Joe Fletcher  Image Courtesy © Joe Fletcher The neighboring lots solve the elevation change issue by using conventional level terracing and retaining walls of drab paving units. This technique obliterates any sense of place or uniqueness on the potentially seismic site. The concept of an angular walk through a Japanese maple sculpture park arose in response to the need to navigate the site elevation, and do so with intention and visual interest.  Image Courtesy © Joe Fletcher  Image Courtesy © Joe Fletcher The townhouse was built in 1964 as part of a 4 unit building, with each unit having a private yard. The townhouse style uniquely combines a cedar shingled roofline with exterior walls reminiscent of traditional Japanese residences (flat white planes with natural wood border details). The home interior fits the owners’ modernist aesthetic with clean sliding planes and abstract overhead light wells. Consideration was made to simplify building material and plant choices. The garden aims to use light and shadow, water reflection, material weathering and material texture as design elements. Ipe wood decking and benches, a floating white granite patio, a reflecting pool, board-form concrete retaining walls, and weathering steel combine with Japanese maples, aromatic lemon thyme, creeping jenny and Koi bamboo to form the garden’s material palette.  Image Courtesy © Joe Fletcher  Image Courtesy © Joe Fletcher The 400 sf lower patio area, located at the base of the site and on the same level as the living room, provides the clients with a seamless extension of their living space for relaxation and entertaining. It aspires, in the classic modernist sense, to be the new living room of the townhouse. Upon entering the home, one’s eye is drawn through the existing glass living room doors and out to the garden’s water reflecting pool and 3 sculptural Japanese maples. At night, the back-lit triangular steel panels’ LED lights further draws your attention out and upwards towards the 60 sf upper terrace seating area and its views over the East Bay and San Francisco.  Image Courtesy © Joe Fletcher  Image Courtesy © Joe Fletcher The owners are Bay Area natives with a three year old daughter, who loves to look at the bamboo leaves. One owner works in technology, the other is a graphic designer. They’ve both been very interested in architecture and design since they first met 15 years ago and wanted to embrace the modern design found in Berkeley, especially the use of concrete to make a strong impact. Following the Bay Area philosophy to embrace more sustainable building practices, the garden incorporates a greywater drainage and irrigation system that the owners are currently working to hook into their home’s greywater system. The weathering steel screens on either side of the garden are for privacy. The water jet cut patterns on the steel plates provide transparency while allowing the wind and green of the bamboo to filter into the space.  Image Courtesy © Joe Fletcher  Image Courtesy © Joe Fletcher  Image Courtesy © Joe Fletcher  Image Courtesy © Mary Barensfeld Architecture  Image Courtesy © Mary Barensfeld Architecture
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Tags: California, U.S.A. Category: Garden |
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