Teresa Turner

Architect and Landscape Architect Working in Tandem How do architects and landscape architects work together? Who steps up to the plate first? There are a lot of decisions that go into this relationship. For example, trees on the south side of the home for shade and cooling, creating complementary outdoor rooms coinciding with the architects interior rooms, a pergola to extend the architecture into the garden hence marrying the architecture and garden, reducing glare from the water on East or West facing rooms, buffering and screening unsightly views from the home, passive cooling/shading performance/sun angles/planting trees for temperature control to name a few. Both of these architects have to work hand-in-hand. As the structural architect contemplates their design, when do you bring in the landscape architect? The meeting of the two minds must exist. A landscape architect is consulted early in the design phase whenever architects and landscape architects work together. Early cooperation could lead to a successful merger between landscape and structure to provide the best result. Good architecture begins with the land. Both professions should be keener to develop an atmosphere in which they can learn from one another while building mutual knowledge. What exactly should landscape architects be sharing with their architect confrère? There is one difference between the two professions: While landscape architects mostly design landscapes that fit into their natural surroundings or try to retrieve a part of the original landscape, architects build over those natural landscapes to create something entirely new. As Frank Lloyd Wright stated, "The good building is not one that hurts the landscape, but one which makes the landscape more beautiful than it was before the building was built." A successful partnership is launched between an architect and a landscape architect: 1. An architect sees or hears about the landscape architect's work and calls a meeting. 2. All the project stakeholders collaborate, and all parties let their ideas soar. 3. Finally, bring the ideas together and start forming the essential aspects needed in the project. But Thomas Jones, Principal, and Director of Design of WDG Architecture state that landscape architect is usually brought in later in the process. In most scenarios. It's unfortunate because there are missed opportunities for synergy. It is often due to the client's perspective on what comes first and what they think about initially versus later on. And when it comes to doing a large custom home as we do and even many commercial projects, we also do the hardscape design, landscape design, plantings and trees, hardscape surfaces, and any site landscape feature. Those are schematically or conceptually thought about early on. So it benefits the project to have a landscape architect involved to do that. Mr. Jones goes on farther to say, "There is no synergy in communication, then they're just picking up pieces. And so, strategizing or complementing the architecture, if you will, is left up to the landscape architect's ability where the architect he or herself could steer that landscape architect in a direction stylistically or conceptually. So, there's always benefit with that early communication that way." Patrick Trefz, owner and landscape architect of OPI - Outside Productions Inc., said, "As the early concepts of the house are being developed, the architects already developed some schematics. Usually, it's not always the case, but most often. And we're getting involved as they're refining the house's concepts like the floor plans and the layout. The architecture has such an emphasis on indoor and outdoor relationships that we do get involved with the architect at different levels." "Most properties they're on some amenity like on the Gulf of Mexico or some water or golf course. So we're using landscape architecture to create like a focal point for the house." Patrick continues to say, "also, in my office, we try to focus on enhancing the architecture. Not only architects, but you're looking right through to the outside because outdoor living itself before, Southwest Florida so, so important. Apart from the property or the land, the two have to marry together, so this is where the architect and the landscape architect work together to make that happen. Then there are just the physical aspects to time; we're more speaking of planting material and landscaping. Sometimes we're introducing some landscaping to reduce glare if we have a home that's facing west. And of course, placing large trees or palms may be on the south side of the courtyard or a south side of the architecture to provide some shade onto the new cast or shade onto the architecture." As you can see, the relationship between a structural architect and landscape is significant. It might be best to have this relationship happen sooner than later. The marriage of the structure and landscape go hand-in-hand to create your dream property.