The design of outdoor furniture has evolved in the last few years from being simple, functional pieces, to being the show pieces of the garden. No longer is choice restricted to civic-style picnic settings in either a painted or natural finish. Traditional sturdy timber benches and tables are making way for sculptural forms, woven polymer fabrics and delicate stainless steel frames.

Furniture is important to the mood of an outdoor space. A large quadrangle space can be softened by a visually lightweight circular table. Courtyards dressed in tones of muted grays and browns can be sharpened up with contemporary furniture pieces of stainless steel, polished stone and mesh.

The right choice of furniture gives strength and place to the design of that outdoor space. It can surprise or sooth but most importantly it should make the visitor feel as though they belong in that space.

It is a revelation to sit in a beautiful garden and be enveloped by a piece of beautiful garden furniture. – from Eckersley Garden Architecture

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Australia has such a hot and dry climate that water plays a huge role in our recreational lifestyle. Demand for swimming pools in the designed landscape is increasing as more and more people seek the pleasures of water in their own properties. There are many different options available in layout, style and materials – mosaic tiles, glass bead renders, solar and gas heating, saltwater chlorination, freshwater filtration – to name but a few. Swimming pools can be large and dominant, or more distant destinations within the landscape, lap pools or plunge pools – the choices are endless.

Swimming pools are a pivotal and expensive part of any landscape but surprisingly few are designed in a way that best suits the site or offers the client greatest amenity. Often pools are designed and sited by pool builders with the landscape seen as ancillary. A swimming pool should be considered objectively as one component of a garden design and should blend aesthetically into the style of the garden and the surrounding architecture. – from Eckersley Garden Architecture

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This garden is made up of a series of intimate, walled courtyards. Strongly architectural garden elements are softened by naturalistic plantings which lend the garden a casual lived in feel. The front entrance features a rounded steel pergola which floats over a heavily textured and patterned pavement. Verdant plantings separate this entrance from a pergola covered parking area to one side and a walled courtyard to the other. Breaks within the planting provide access and also give a sense of depth and discovery to the garden by restricting the vistas.

The main courtyard is bound by the house on three sides and is connected to the garden by a lofty steel pergola. Deciduous creepers run along wires on the pergola to form a shady canopy during summer and bare their branches through winter to let the sun back through. Jacaranda trees work their way through the steel beams to add a profusion of purple flowers to the leafy canopy. At ground level the planting is a simple blend of flowering grasses and shrubs which bleed through areas of hard surface and divide the space to designated areas for recreation, relaxation and entertainment.

The focal point of the main courtyard is a walled reflective pond dotted with designer ‘Balloon lights’. Mosaic pebble swirls installed by a local artist echo the shapes of these lights. In the centre of the courtyard, a round spa, lined with a the same pebble finish sits amongst flags of stone with planting that runs right up to the water’s edge. – from Eckersley Garden Architecture

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Architects McBride Charles Ryan have designed a cutting edge residence placed on a small allotment. Outdoor space and landscape was carefully considered as every square metre had to offer an amenity value to the clients. It was important to provide a design that did not compete with the striking architecture but still gave the sense of being in the garden space.

Street frontage planting sets a casual but vibrant tone to the property. Flowering grasses soften and spill over level changes, curtains of deep green creeper cascade over stone clad walls and the brilliant lilac of Jacaranda bloom splashes a hit of colour against the somber tone of the building.

Boundary walls and fences were draped with climbing plants to provide green backdrops to the texture pavements. Further layering was done by using espaliered plantings in front of the walls. The positioning and selection of trees was critical to allow ease of movement around the property and to avoid congestion at canopy height.

Interest at ground level was achieved in collaboration with the architects. Grey reconstituted stone pavers are flanked by vibrant, insitu pebble paving in high use areas. Large loose pebbles reflect foliage colours in lower traffic areas. The result is a harmonious but sometimes surprising outdoor space.

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Wrapping around a large Victorian era home, this romantically inspired garden is designed for family living. The garden has been laid out in series of separate spaces which cater for active recreation, entertainment and passive reflection. These garden rooms are linked with generous pathways and creeper draped arbors which draw users from space to space with the enticing vistas they create.

The plant selection of this garden deliberately focuses on flora which has longevity through the seasons and a strong green backbone all year ’round. Roses bloom for six months of the year in a walled parterre courtyard that has the strength of patterned topiary to carry it through the winter months. Large informal hedges provide seasonal flowers and berries as well as a sense of privacy. In less formalized parts of the garden, woodlands of deciduous Maples emerge through sweeping lawns in a parkland style. The planting then drifts to a relaxed Australian mood with a combination of native and exotic plants that weave a gentle tapestry around the large reflective pond.

This is a multifunction garden that is growing with its family. From cubby house to tennis court, formal paved terraces and casual timber deck dining areas – there is a place here for everyone. – from Eckersley Garden Architecture

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Up Country Swimming Pool

Since its conception twenty years ago, this five acre garden north of Melbourne has recieved less and less rain. And so with climate change in mind, recent renovations by new owners of the property have been based around drought tolerant plant design.

The garden wraps around a centrally placed homestead and is made up of many compartments that are linked by a double entry diveway, access roads and gravelled pathways. Within these spaces are a tennis court, a swimming pool and a series of floating timber decks which connect the house with the gardens and main entertaining area to the north.

The soft landscape is of hardier exotic trees, shrubs and ground covers. They roll through the property in amoeboid shaped beds that encircle inner lawns and buildings. The property also gives many beautiful vistas – mainly internal garden views but also some beautiful panoramas overlooking the Northern hills of Melbourne.

This is a property owned by passionate gardeners who generously open it for public and private viewings throughout the year. – from Eckersley Garden Architecture

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Going Green Swimming Pool

Climate change is having a real impact on the way people are approaching garden making in Australia. Our traditional approach of copying northern European gardens is failing as our country faces protracted drought, flood and fire. There needs to be a change in attitude toward gardens if they are to be successful in the future.

This garden, a personal project of Eckersley Garden Architecture, is an experimental attempt to create a fully sustainable garden. The primary motivation behind this garden is to change public attitude to sustainable, drought tolerant, native gardens. There is a long standing prejudice against the use of native plants – probably born of the 1970’s when many bad native garden were put in place. But horticulture has moved on since and there are many exciting, colourful, drought tolerant plants in the market place and they can be used in place of traditional exotic plants.

The swimming pool also follows sustainable design principles. It is a ‘Natural Pool’ laid out in a traditional rectangular design and built with traditional materials. What it does not have is any of the chemicals in the water that are traditionally used to keep water clean and healthy. Rather, it relies on a natural filtration system which runs the water through the roots of native water plants growing alongside the swimming area. The pool provides habitat wildlife and is like jumping into a crystal clear freshwater billabong.

On completion, this garden is proposed as a teaching tool to encourage lateral thinking about gardening in the driest inhabited continent on the Earth. – from Eckersley Garden Architecture

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Designer: Haugen/Zohar Arkitekter
Location: Trondheim, Norway
Client: Trondheim Municipality, Norway
Contractour: Pan Landskap AS
3d consultants: Scenarioarchitecture
Completed 2009
Photographers: Grethe Fredriksen & Jason Havneraas

Outdoor fireplace site plan

Together with the standard playground facilities we wished to combine an enclosed space for fire, storytelling and playing.

Given a very limited budget, reusing leftover materials (from a nearby construction site) was a starting point that led the design to be based on short wooden pieces. Inspired by the Norwegi an turf huts and old log construction, a 5,2×4,5 meters wooden construction was built and mounted on a lighted and brushed concrete base. The structure is made of 80-layered circles. The circles have varied radiuses and relative centre point in relation to each other. Every circle is made out of 28 pieces of naturally impregnated core of pine that are placed with varied spaces to assure chimney effect and natural light. Oak separators differentiate vertically between the pine pieces to assure airflow allowing easy drying of the pine pieces. A double curved sliding door was designed for locking the structure. -from Haugen/Zohar

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From Eckersley Garden Architecture:

Eckersley Garden Architecture offers our clients a revitalised approach to creating a landscape. Merging experience and creativity, our passion is crafting a unique garden that invites you to enjoy your outdoor space. Iconic designer Rick Eckersley is joined by recent partners Scott Leung and Myles Broad to offer a wealth of knowledge in aesthetics and practical form.

Toorak Residence Kitchen and Living Spaces

Toorak Residence Living Room

Toorak Residence Swimming Pool

The site and orientation of this property had a strong influence on how the garden and the useable spaces were laid out. The house sits in the centre of a long and narrow, steeply sloping rectangular block. With access to the garden at both ends of the house, the garden is divided into two halves and visible through large north facing windows.

Large sliding glass doors of the kitchen and living spaces open to an outdoor dining area at the high end of the site. This undercover section provides the family with a large entertaining space and built in cooking facilities with plenty of storage.

A large flat quadrangle of hardy lawn is retained by a three meter masonry wall which overlooks the generous swimming pool. Access to the pool is positioned off a family activities room, with a secondary path through the lower garden to encourage “a walk in the garden”.

Kids, family, friends and dogs use this outdoor space all year round, thus successfully fulfilling the client’s brief of easy care and usability. – from Eckersley Garden Architecture

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Suburban Retreat Swimming Pool

Suburban Retreat Swimming Pool

Laid out around a large inconspicuous period family home, this is a generous sized gracious garden of sensitivity and charm. All effort has been made to compliment foliage and flowers with finishes and facilities. This lush green garden is surprisingly drought tolerant but also backed up with a bore and holding tanks.

The compartmentalized design has a range of active and passive recreational areas to satisfy all moods and activities. Options include: swimming pool, in ground trampoline, herb and vegetable garden, hen house, undercover BBQ and dining area plus both sunny and shaded relaxation areas.

Soft landscape includes clipped green shards of hedge for screening, woodland plantings of seasonal foliage, contoured lawns, flows of mass ground covers, creepers to climb and drape and herb and vegies for the kitchen.

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