Click the image above to watch the video.
Once you have evaluated your site and chosen a layout (or a combination of layouts), it’s time to select an aesthetic arrangement for your property. See the Aesthetic Pairings test in Home Outside (pp. 44-45) for help identifying your own preferences. Then determine which of the three basic arrangements best suits you. In this video, Julie gives an overview of the arrangements and explains “All Lined Up” in some detail. Next week, check back for our follow-up video on “Voluptuous Curves” and “On the Angle.”
From the Video:
“This is Selecting an Arrangement, I call it. This is where you already have your site, which is really where most of us are. We’ve got a house, we’ve got a site, but how do we start to do something with the site such as we’ve got it. We Select an Arrangement. There are really three as I see them. There’s All Lined Up, where everything is lined up of the house. Those of us who are formal people, and like things symmetrical, will tend to like this arrangement, where here’s the house and here’s the landscape lined up behind it.
Voluptuous Curves is always a good one. Anyone who likes curves … I like curves, and it’s hard not to like curves, isn’t it? Curves are important. You can’t see this very well. This is one of my gardens on Beacon Hill. You can see that I was literally thinking of a circular space for the terrace and a waist. The last type is On the Angle, and this is a fun one to work with because it’s a little more interesting in some ways, and I’ll talk about that in a second.
This is really a great one to work off of because it’s pretty easy. You take your queues from the architecture, and you expand the architecture out onto the land. You could line up your front walk. You can line up things and make them symmetrical all the way around. You can put a pool at the back of your space and look back onto the terrace. Everything goes into its place really smoothly and well with All Lined Up.
Here’s that condition. Not all of us want this by the way. Some of us will and some of us won’t.”
Prior videos in our Design Concepts for Your Landscape series:
- Choosing a Layout
- Sloped vs. Level Site
- Your Daydreaming Place: Discovering Your Ideal Landscape
- Evaluating Your Site
