At one with the setting

Landscape installation: Onlandscapes

Designed by Ben McMaster, Inside Out Design

The homeowners are busy professionals with three children and their desire was to create a usable and functional space for the whole family to enjoy.

There were existing elements they wanted retained but many spaces were uninviting and inadequate for their style of living.

Their big focus was to inject play spaces – an artificial turf basketball area, swimming pool and large lawn space below – as well as entertaining spaces like a morning courtyard and outdoor fire.

Plus, at the time the owners were totally renovating their home which also needed new foundations and in turn required bringing the ground level paving up by 400mm, which required a lot of foundation and retaining walls to be signed off by the Council.

The site has existing large trees that needed to be worked around and highlighted.

The bottom of the site backs onto the Heathcote river and a naturalised planting strip and the balance of planting was to merge into and complement the larger wooded backdrop.

Due to the renovated house being raised higher than its prior finished floor levels due to flood plain requirements, hard landscaping elements needed to seamlessly flow outwards from the interior spaces and comfortably settle the house into the site anew.

Designed by: Inside Out Design

Story by: Trendsideas