The project centred around a house built in an old quarry. The immediate problem the clients described when I visited the site, was the area immediately adjacent to the back door and kitchen, where the client designated they wanted to sit. ‘This was a dark, leafy, and quite damp area which lacked a sense of place. It was 3m in the ground, and the surrounding landscape was open and interesting and filled with mature trees. There was no easy ‘flowing’ way to get from the kitchen to these open upper areas. I proposed an open planted space, that was made of soft shimmering planting and hard surfaces. We designed the landscape to bring light into that lower space. The asymmetrical space seemed to call for sculptural shapes that beckoned you up to the higher levels of the garden, while also creating a soft lush space to live, in the low area.’
