Garden Dialogues 2016: San Francisco
On May 14 and 21 get exclusive access to private gardens in san Francisco and hear directly from the designers and their clients about their collaborative process.
How do clients and designers work together? What makes for a great, enduring collaboration? Garden Dialogues provides unique opportunities for small groups to visit some of today’s most beautiful gardens created by some of the most accomplished designers currently in practice.
Thanks to the generosity of our hosts and sponsors, tickets for Garden Dialogues are tax deductible and proceeds benefit the educational programs of The Cultural Landscape Foundation.
Saturday, May 14, 12:30 to 4:00pm | San Francisco
Striving for Zero and Tiburon Hillside Residence
Nicole Bemboom of Arterra Landscape Architects
Arterra Landscape Architects specialize in contemporary, sustainable design. In two residential projects – Striving for Zero and the Tiburon Hillside Residence – Garden Dialogues attendees will experience beautiful and innovative projects that wed artistry and technology – and have jaw-dropping views.
At Striving for Zero, an elegant mountain-view retreat, serenity and sustainability go hand-in-hand, the result of a team of nearly two-dozen experts that created a home that generates nearly as much energy as it consumes. What is evident on the surface is comfort and natural beauty. A gracious entry courtyard engages the house, followed by a seamless transition from house to courtyard to pool. A vanishing edge pool and garden were introduced to maximize the limited flat area of the ridgeline site. The 2000-square-foot garden, with a carefully orchestrated palette of indigenous plants and neutral materials, is the prime spot for gathering, with firepit and seating areas offering a full view of Mount Tamalpais. The garden also provides bird habitat. Beneath this sanctuary’s simple, calm appearance are intricate systems and design decisions that work to make its resource footprint as light on the land as possible. Included in the state-of-the-art green features are: passive solar design, geothermal heating, a 11-kilowatt photovoltaic solar panel array, a living roof and green wall that provide insulation to reduce energy demand, a hybrid system of greywater, rainwater catchment to optimize water resources, and stormwater management features to recharge the aquifer, solar thermal heating for the pool and LED lighting.
The richly detailed garden at the Tiburon Hillside Residence, with panoramic views of San Francisco Bay, is the perfect place to relax with a glass of wine. From the top of the property a stone and timber helix-shaped path descends to a pool area. The warm-toned planting palette saturates the hillside canvas with painterly sweeps of fiery color in contrast to the cool breezes that bathe the site. Drought tolerant, low-maintenance, Mediterranean plants attract hummingbirds and bees, providing nectar and habitat, and their varied texture, form and hue offer great visual appeal. Undulating landforms and a grassy swale integrate storm water management in an artful way as they divert surface water away from the house.
3.5 LA CES™ professional development hours will be available to attendees.
Thanks to the generosity of our hosts and sponsors, tickets for Garden Dialogues are tax deductible and proceeds benefit the educational programs of The Cultural Landscape Foundation.
Photo courtesy Surface Design
Saturday, May 21, 1:00 to 4:00pm | San Francisco
Lands End Lookout, Golden Gate Bridge 75th Anniversary Plaza, and The Barnacles at Pier 9
James A. Lord, Roderick Wyllie, Geoff di Girolamo of Surface Design, Inc.
Perched between the Bay and the Pacific Ocean, San Francisco is surrounded by—and in many ways defined by—its waterfront context. Surfacedesign will introduce three of their waterfront open space projects—The Lands End Lookout, The Golden Gate Bridge 75th Anniversary Plaza, and the Barnacles at Pier 9— that explore what it means to create waterfront space. In each project materials were used to reinforce sense of place and reveal the cultural, ecological and historic narratives inherent in the sites.
The Lands End Lookout, designed to frame the spectacular view of the ocean and ruins of the baths below, is the newest visitor center in the Golden Gate National Recreation Area. Home to a unique combination of outdoor exhibits, view terraces and gathering spaces, the Lands End Lookout recounts the many stories of Lands End and the Sutro Baths and provides an improved visitor experience to the countless people who visit every year. The project team went to great lengths to work with a limited set of building and plant materials for reasons of economy and sustainability, utilizing local plant material and reclaiming area Monterey Cypress for benches and screens.
The Golden Gate Bridge, a San Francisco icon, spans the foggy bay, connecting the city and the majestic Marin Headlands. A new plaza created for its 75th Anniversary enhances access and visibility of the breathtaking Golden Gate and San Francisco Bay. Once an afterthought to the automobile-dominated infrastructure adjacent to bridge tollbooths, the new site, which draws its design inspiration from the bridge itself, is a place of arrival, a destination for meeting, and a frame for a new spectrum of views of and from this historic place.
The Barnacles at Pier 9 was created from a former parking lot on the Embarcadero. Flanked by the bay trail with views to the Bay Bridge and beyond, this 7000-square-foot multi-purpose public space is inspired by and honors the local ecology. Clusters of benches derived from abstracted barnacle geometries create multiple rooms within the sites for people to sit, gather and play. Larger exhibition spaces allow for events and interactive exhibits to populate the site day or night.
3.0 LA CES™ professional development hours will be available to attendees.
Thanks to the generosity of our hosts and sponsors, tickets for Garden Dialogues are tax deductible and proceeds benefit the educational programs of The Cultural Landscape Foundation.
