ARTICLE SERIES: Garden Components. No.1 Garden Buildings.

GARDEN COMPONENTS. No.1 Garden Buildings.

Garden buildings present a unique design challenge and a unique opportunity to add integrated structure to a garden. Unlike architects who often have to work in situatuions where surrounding buildings or street plans place constraints on their work, garden designers usually have much more flexibility. In a garden space we can control the approaches to and from the building, the views of it and from it, we can make the building part of the overall structural layout of the garden. This is something that town planners, architects and landscape architects do not do very well. We feel that a garden designers input should be sought during town planning, or that garden design should be taught as part of the training of the above three disciplines. The oportunity to work with buildings presents us with the chance to integrate architecture with gardens in a way that gives equal consideration and understanding to both arts, creating a harmonious composition of the two elements.  

THE FAIRY TALE SUMMER HOUSE

1. The verandah on this summerhouse is built to look out accross the best views and face the sunniest direction, it is designed to be wide enough so that you can stretch your legs out or so that you can sit and someone can walk past you without having to step off the verandah, see also photo 9. This simple matter of fitting the building to the human form, making it practical and comfortable to use is called ergonomics. All aspects of garden design need to be given ergonomic consideration from the width of a path to the height of a step or handrail.

2. Elm wainy lap cladding gives this building a style many people (up to 750 a day visit this garden when it is open to the public), have called 'Gingerbread', or 'Fairy tale'. See also picture 10. This style of cladding is the traditional vernacular in Oxfordshire particularly but is also a typical English rustic building style in general. Elm was wiped out as a timber crop in England but is still grown in Scotland where it is too cold for the beetle to thrive and damage th trees. The boards are sawn from the trunk of the tree to include the outer edge - even the bark. The boards are then hung from the bottom of the building upwards so that rain is forced to run down the facia. Elm is a dense heavy timber and requires no treatment to protect it from the elements, these boards should last as long as the entire building. 

3. We wanted to give this building a steep 'pointy' roof to enhance the fairy tale style of its' setting - lost deep in the exotic woodland of this part of the garden. The angles of the roof were made steeper by giving the roof 'hips', two smaller pitches on each side. One of these hips continues out to form the roof over the verandah. You can also see in this photo some of the stud work between the vertical beams, insulation was fitted between these and the floor joists, which together with building paper, interior and exterior cladding makes a very well insulated space. 

4. From this view you can see how this summer house was built in the same way as 'normal' houses, making a very robust structure that will last many years. The width of the verandah is also apparent fromthis view, showing how it adds to the capacity of the building to accomodate large numbers of people. The interior space is approximately 3x4m (10x12') which gives space for about 6 people sitting around a table, or four people reclining on sofas and armchairs at the very most, with minimal furniture. Really this is designed as a personal space for one person and the occassional visitor. However there are frequent garden showings and open days where 6 or more people may come into the building where tea is served and as many as another 8 can sit (or more standing) on the verandah. We have certainly seen 15 people accomodated in this small building. 

5. This photo shows the church like effect of the steeply pitched roof. The sharp angles make the limited interior space feel much bigger and airy. If we had used the standard set of angles for the roof the building would have looked more like a garage or functional out building - despite the wainy lap cladding, and the interior would have felt much smaller too. Althought the 'hipped' roof was complicated to achieve in design and construction terms we feel it has achieved a significant effect, justifying the extra work. This photo and no.6 show the beauty of Sweet Chestnut wood. The rich buttery gold colour of this timber has been treated with linseed oil to preserve it and ensure that the colour does not fade. Our clients' budget was unable to stretch to afford timber framed windows and doors in this building so we chose a UPVC finish that imitated wood very well. We were able to get the 3 church styled mitre shapes you can see in these windows added to all of the windows and doors, they provide continuity with the main 400 year old house on this property. Architectural details such as mitred windows are vital to give a garden building its' own personality and make it distinctive from purely functional or mass produced buildings. 

 6. The irregular edges of the wainy lap boards are usually seen on the exterior of buildings, so it was a bit of a risk to decide to use them inside also. We feel that this interior design decision was the right one, although the finished effect does have a very strong style; a cross between an African hunting lodge (you almost expect to see big game trophies heads on the walls), a Swedish log cabin and fairytale house. Our client has put some South East Asian style funiture and art inside which we feel works very well with the finish, particularly the pair of yellow Chinese cabinets. The detail in the organic shapes of the boards, their varying widths and differing angles (where they overlap each other), make the space inside the building feel smaller and more intimate as opposed to cladding the walls in a uniformly flat and evenly sized board. Clean lines, sharp edges and uniformity make spaces feel bigger, but are less interesting and absorbing to look at.

7. After finishing the exterior cladding we realised that we had almost enough Elm left over to lay the floor using it. We bought some more boards from the yard and sent them away to a sawmill to have tongue and groove profiles machined into their edges. When we bought the Elm it was weathered and grey - as you can see in the photos of the exterior of the summer house. After being planed by machine (a process that strips several millimetres of timber off of the outsides of the board) we could see the true beauty of Elm for the first time, it has so many different colours and grains in it and also a very strong smell. Each floor board is different with a basic variation from rich red-brown to paler blond colours, but within each board there is green, very dark red and pink and different grains from long wavy lines to intense rippling swirls. To augment the rich detail in this floor we laid the boards in varying widths and grouped the colours of boards so that the paler blond ones were to the outside with the red colours and the best grains taking centre stage.

8. This is the photo used on the front cover of 'Inspirational Gardens' a new book published by the AA. It shows how good lighting can pick out the architectural shapes of plants and how the lighting inside buildings can make a big impact from outside at night. Part of the reason for putting an elctricity supply into this building was so that it could be used at night, especially in the winter when daylight hours are short. Once inside a lit building it is not possible to look through glass out into the dark and see anything at all, s lighting the garden around the summer house was essential. Lighting the garden brings it 'right inside' because features lit up in the dark stand out and catch the eye, making it clear that there is space outside in the dark.

9. Here we can see the amount of space the verandahs contribute to the useable space of this building. We like to use verandahs as much as possible in our designs as they are an interface between the interior and exterior. If undercover they really extend the time it is possible to spend in the garden when the weather is not dry or when the midday sun is too hot. They make it possible for groups of people to 'spread out' and still be in one group when using the building, e.g. at a party or small gathering, holding conversations between inside and out, congregating, strolling round the building etc.

10. This photo shows one of the hardest aspects of applying wainy lap cladding; the corners. Every board has to be hung, marked, taken down, cut and then re hung in order to get matching angles so that both boards join seemlessly. Each set of angles is different and each piece of board must be selected with care to match the width and colour of its adjoining board. These are the joys of working with raw materials in their natural states as opposed to uniform mass produced products. The materials require labour intensive working, but after you learn the methods for shaping and applying them your productivity increases and the aesthetic benefits and sense of achievement in using them make them by far the most attractive option. 

11. We built the summer house from the ground level upwards starting with the posts that you can see in this photo, then building the floor around them so that we had a flat base to work from. The Elm deck boards of the verandah meet on the corner here with mitre joints, making their linear pattern flow around the corner. 

12. THE THAI PAVILION

Originally designed as a viewing platform this building is situated at the highest point of the garden and provides panoramic views over all of the planting and over to the summer house. In keeping with the style of the garden the ascending decking platforms lead through the huge leaves of Gunnera manicata on one side and a bamboo hedge on the other. The seat that you can see inside the pavilion has a high angled back allowing you to comfortably recline, oposite this there is anther seat with a lower back which does not obscure the views out over it.

13. As well as providing views the Thai Pavilion must also look good, being at the highest point of the garden its' roof is visible from many places and particularly from the patio (where this photo was taken), that is in the centre of the circular composition. The angles of the roof are based on Thai architecture but the building is variously described as Japanese, Chinese or South East Asian.

14. The different angles in the rafters and gables of this roof were a complete nightmare to figure out and make! After much head scratching and the odd curse we managed to complete the frame work. We were particularly pleased with the 'lightness' of its structure, as we hoped from the design stages that the roof would  float without too much heavy timber or apparent fixings. We like the appearance of heavy timber like the four corner posts seen here, which are 20cm or 8' square and part of the secret of its lightness is that it is able to sit on these four posts alone.

15. We believe in the worth of original creative design and all of the complex technical design and construction that this entails. As a completely bespoke structure with unique dimensions, angles and joints, we hope this building brings its own personality and style to the garden and the many visitors to this garden seem to confirm that it has achieved this.

 16. This is the view from the Pavilion over to the summer house in the distance, in the middle distance you can see a patio with a star pattern in it (for a better look at this shot see Tropic of Henstead), the centre point of this star is the compass point to which the Pavilion is orientated. The whole compostion of the back part of the garden is determined from this point and when we put in the first posts for this building they were done by taking a string line from the centre point of the patio. The line was positioned in the centre of each decking platform and the pavilion, and a line was marked a right angles to this line. This determined the changing angles of each section of the building. You can also see in this photo how high up the pavilion is overlooking the rest of the garden, you can see the ends of the roof beams in the top of the photo. 

17. This photo shows the seat brackets along the back of the platform before they had the sitting and back back supporting boards fitted. Each bracket has a tapering shape to make the angle of the back rest comfortable so that you can recline and enjoy the view. You can also see some of the ancient woodland in the background here which makes a fantastic backdrop to the whole garden. 

18. The orientation of this structure to the central compass point as described in no.16 is an example of integrating a building into the the structure of a garden, as mentioned at the begining of this article. The Thai Pavilion is situated on a circular walk that goes from one side of the garden to the other. You can see in this photo the curve of the stepping stone path leading to the pavilion and each decking platform changing angle to match the circle. 

19. Many gardens benefit from an elevated viewpoint and rather than make a simple viewing platform we can see here that this can be an opportunity to build more creativity and style into a garden environment.  

20. An open pavilion like this is still technically a building but rather than creating an indoor environment the design strives to enhance your experience of the external environment. Here a stream emerges from below the pavilion and when sitting on the front seat as you can see in photo 22, you can hear the sound of the stream rushing beneath you and see the movement of the water through the dense foliage. This building is a destination on a journey around the garden, it makes visitors want to walk into the farthest corner of the garden, where it is situated, so it is important that there is a rich experience for them when they arrive. The aspect of being above a rushing stream adds to the views and makes people more inclined to stay.
 

 
 
 
 
 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 21. In this photo you can see the effect of a curving apex to the roof was achieved only superficially by applying curving timber cappings to the ridge. Also visible here are the lead cappings on the projecting ends of the roof beams. They are important in evoking an oriental building but were being soaked by water running off the roof and needed their own protection from constant wetting. We feel that the solution of these individual peaked cappings is an added detail that augments the character of the building in a positive way.
 
 
 

 
 
 
 

 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
22. With a rushing stream beneath the pavilion we were careful not to put any un necessary barriers between visitors and the view of it, and indeed from any of the garden, especially when sitting on the opposite seat. The ergonomics of the seat were very important and the way we hoped it would be used is demostrated here by our client from London; the owner of the Carribean Home From Home, Mr. Marsh. The backrest is still angled to make a comfortable support for the lower back and the top of it has a wide sill making a comfortable arm rest when leaning side ways to view the garden. This photo also shows the pattern of the roof beams and the lightness of the whole roof structure resting on only two 'wall plates' above each seat, keeping the structure open and views in all directions. 
 
 

23. This view shows the approach to the pavilion from the opposite direction to the one you have seen before. When approaching from this anti clockwise direction of the circular path you will just have left the Tree Fern Valley where you descend into a shady rock lined walk, overhung with jungle like foliage. This means that the pavilion is providing you with a greater contrast to other experiences in the garden, by elevating you after your descent. The steps ahead are at an angle to the pavilion, once again reflecting the curvature of the path.