A young family bought a 600м2 plot of land south of Novosibirsk on the shore of Berdsky Bay. I must say that this place is wonderful in terms of climate (it is much warmer here than in other locations around the city). In addition, the plot has a beautiful view of the distant forest and the river. The land is rich, fat and has never been used for building or crops. I got involved in the project at the planning stage of planting. The guys built the house from modular structures in the Barnhouse style. These houses are easily recognisable – the asceticism of the lines makes the buildings close to minimalism. The building is rectangular, without protruding elements. An open terrace adjoins the house. The colour of the finishing planks is graphite, large floor-to-ceiling windows open up the view on two sides of the plot and allow light to penetrate inside the house throughout the day. One of the advantages of this house is the speed of construction and the main thing for me as a landscape designer is the gentle attitude to the soil – the house is on stilts, which means that the land is not spoilt by concrete and construction rubbish.
The request from the owners was that there should not be too many ornamental plantings and all of them should be low maintenance. The owner wanted to be able to grow some herbs for the table and strawberries. Therefore, space for vegetable garden beds had to be found. Also a barbecue place next to the terrace and a place by the fire for a large company of friends were a must.
The first thing I proposed to do was to keep the view of the river and the forest as much as possible. Therefore, on the southern side we decided to install a low fence made of thin metal bars with a gate in the middle, so that it would be possible to go directly from the terrace to the wild meadow in front of the plot.
As for the site itself, my decisions were to support the minimalist style of the house and use modern, simple materials for the pavement. I chose large-format cement slabs for the path from the gate to the house and the same slabs in the layout for the barbecue area with the portable outdoor grill. The same tile layout is repeated for the fire pit area.
As for the plantings, the project includes two flowerbeds – at the entrance and on the opposite side by the barbecue area. Here there is a mix of nepeta, rudbeckia, perovskia and echinacea. Long-lived, very ornamental and sun-loving plants. Muscari are the first to appear in spring, then alliums take the initiative and the blue fragrant nepeta blooms all summer long. Two ornamental trees with colourful foliage on both sides of the terrace are red-leaved bird cherry and apple tree ‘Rudolf’. Along the back fence there is a row of linden trees, and along the far wall – Hinnala maples, which light up brightly in autumn and create a cosy corner especially at sunset, when the company gathers around the fire. The vegetable beds are placed along the fence by the gate. The red impregnation of the wood of the tall beds made them bright accents against the background of the black fence and house.