2014 APSP International Awards of Excellence

Water has its own logic, and its own power. There are no easy ways to keep it from going where it wants to; short of expensive and drastic solutions, water always wins over any effort to control it. So when we were asked to help create an outdoor space to complement a planned home on the edge of a lake, we decided to invite the lake into channel it, that is, so that it extended eastward onto the property in a stream that passed below a walkway connecting two wings of the house. To emphasize the impression that the stream had split naturally around the structure, we built two multitier waterfalls. The overall construction was of stonea mixture of native limestone and other rocks in a design theme that extended from outdoors to indoors and vice versa, giving a seamless feel to the built environment and its natural surroundings. The landscaping utilizes only native plants, though the blue spruces edging the stonework are less common here than the deciduous oak-dominated forest that lies beyond it. The owner of the property says that it gives the feel of Colorado, one of the familys favorite getaways, to the home.