ASIAN
INSPIRED

\ ARCHITECT

Dean Larkin Design for Rear Addition

\ LOCATION

Fairfax District, Los Angeles, CA

\ SCOPE

This garden has received a dramatic makeover. When I was first introduced to this project, the clients had a steep, rickety staircase that led from the cramped living room down 3' to the main rear patio. With a 4-year old toddler, they were obviously concerned. Dean Larkin was charged with creating a much larger family room for the family and my challenge was to create a large patio that transitioned gently down to the main garden below.

The clients requested an Asian influenced garden. The house is a traditional English style cottage so I was forced to create a hybrid garden that melded the traditional aspects of this home with some Asian influences.

I decided upon a traditional palette of bluestone for the patios and the seat walls. The garden is designed in a contemporary manner, with L-shaped seat walls wrapping around the stairs and main patio. Wide steps, featuring bluestone ledger on the risers, provide ample seating space for the couple’s young son and his playmates.

My clients requested a circular ‘track’ for their son to be able to ride his bike around, so I created a decomposed granite path that encircles the central lawn. The planting beds on the outside of this path feature Asian inspired plantings of Bamboo, Gingko trees, Japanese Maples and clusters of Granite boulders. I am in the process of clustering clumps of small California native grasses that resemble rushes around these boulders, to give this garden a sense of being close to a riverbank.

\ COMPLETION

December 2007