Highlights From the 2008 Workshop

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18 Main Street
P.O. Box 629
Saxtons River, VT
05154
P: 802.869.1470
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Suzanne Fedoruk

For speaking engagement, workshop or media inquiries, contact:
Fedoruk & Assoc., Inc.
612-861-7807
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Visit our blog for news and Julie's current speaking schedule.

HOME OUTSIDE: Creating the Landscape You Love

In this inspiring lecture, award-winning landscape designer and author Julie Moir Messervy demystifies the art and practice of landscape design for homeowners and professionals alike. Using beautiful images, together with helpful tips, case studies, befores and afters, diagrams, and plans, she walks you through the process of turning any property into the "home outside" you've always dreamed of. Julie highlights many of the ideas introduced in her newest book, Home Outside: Creating the Landscape You Love, illustrating that good landscape design does not have to be overwhelming or expensive. (1-1.5 hours)

OUTSIDE THE NOT SO BIG HOUSE: Creating the Landscape of Home

This stimulating presentation by author and noted landscape designer Julie Moir Messervy is based on the book of the same name that she wrote with Not So Big author and architect Sarah Susanka. In it, Julie reveals how to bring house and garden into perfect harmony by giving you the design principles needed to extend the presence of home onto the land. She divides the talk into four parts:  embracing the habitat of home; composing journeys; linking the inside with the out; and crafting the elements of nature. Her talk is full of fascinating ideas and images of beautiful and doable landscapes. (1-1.5 hours)

HEARING THE STREAM…WITH OPEN EYES:  The Evolution of a Designer

Author, lecturer, and designer Julie Moir Messervy leads you on her thirty-year journey as a landscape designer, lecturer and author of five books. She shares her landscape experiences growing up in the States, working with a garden master in Kyoto, Japan, writing about garden realms around the world, and creating the Toronto Music Garden with eminent cellist Yo-Yo Ma. She also explores her design philosophy, including her theory of spatial archetypes, her concept of the “inward garden,” and ends with her thoughts about crafting the ideas in her latest book, Home Outside: Creating the Landscape You Love. (1-1.5 hours)

INSPIRED BY BACH:  The Music Garden

Celebrated landscape designer Julie Moir Messervy completed the award-winning Toronto Music Garden in 1999--a collaboration with renowned cellist Yo-Yo Ma and the City of Toronto.   A three-acre public park based on the “First Suite for Unaccompanied Cello” by Johann Sebastian Bach, curving paths move visitors through six garden “movements” that flow from the different moods evoked by the music.  In this inspiring lecture, Julie explores the relationship between music and garden design, and how the aesthetic and structural elements in the music influenced her garden vision and her ultimate design choices. (1-1.5 hours)

Messervy and the Toronto Music Garden are the subject of the Emmy award-winning PBS film, "Yo-Yo Ma: Inspired by Bach: The Music Garden."  In 2005, the Toronto Music Garden received a Leonardo Da Vinci award for innovation and creativity.

GARDENS AND SPIRITUALITY

Contemplate the transcendent power of landscape as seen through the eyes of an award-winning landscape designer and author, Julie Moir Messervy.  Julie explores the deeply personal process of designing a beautiful landscape and reveals how spirituality can inform garden design and the landscapes we create on the earth. (1-1.5 hours)

JULIE’S DESIGN WORKSHOP

CREATING HOME OUTSIDE

To see a short video with highlights from the 2008 workshop, click here.

To register for this year’s Vermont workshop on Saturday, August 22, click here.

Description
As the difficulties in the housing market have homeowners renovating rather than relocating, Americans are working harder than ever to make their houses a place of comfort and beauty. Yet through this process, one of the most important aspects of creating a sense of home is often overlooked – the home we create outside our house.

In this fun, informative, and stimulating workshop, landscape designer, author, and lecturer Julie Moir Messervy guides homeowners and professionals through an easy-to-follow, six-step process to make any landscape a personal and pleasurable "home outside." She combines insightful ideas with beautiful photographs, before and after images, diagrams, green tips and case studies, to illustrate that good landscape design is affordable, approachable, and attainable.

Learning Outcomes
Participants will learn the following six-step process:

1. Lay of The Land – Examine the current situation and existing elements of the land including sun, wind, soil, vegetation, views and budget, then discuss ideas for what an ideal site would look like. Aesthetic preferences, activity options and favorite vantage points help determine important design decisions.
2. Big Moves – Organize the spaces around a house using four basic layout choices and three different aesthetic arrangements. To add a more cohesive feel, identify a theme or "big idea" that pulls together the vision for the end result.
3. Comfort Zones – Tackle the design by examining the four separate zones around a house:  the surrounding zone, welcoming zone, neighboring zone, and living zone. Each of these areas features different activities and amenities that relate to outdoor activities.
4. Making it Flow – Explore ways to enhance the flow of a property through three different types of motion: moving, pausing and stopping. Landscape elements such as gateways, paths, landings and seating areas all can be choreographed for coherence and flow.
5. Placing the Pieces – Conduct an "energy audit" to determine where the energy flows naturally on a property and where it is blocked. Learn to place or frame focal points to disperse and concentrate energy throughout the property according to personal preferences.
6. Sensory Pleasures – Discover how to bring beauty and harmony to a landscape by organizing a "home outside" by the natural elements of earth (planting design), water (water gardens), fire (thermal delight and lighting) and air (air quality and wellbeing outdoors).