Celebrazione
A Celebration of Place
After meeting with pool and landscape designer Kirk Bianchi, a Phoenix Home & Garden Masters of the Southwest award winner, Vance and Megan soon elected to go with a swimming pool with a built-in spa. A shade structure, two fire features, a barbecue island, sitting areas and outdoor storage were also added into the mix, as well as a shipping container that served not only for storage, but as a textural backdrop wall to define their expansive, outdoor room.
Although the property is mostly flat, several of its design elements are not.
“Because the backyard faces the southwest and is heavily exposed to the sun, it was in dire need of shade,” Bianchi says. “So I echoed the character of the home’s steel construction with a gravity defying shade structure that cantilevers over a portion of the patio adjacent to the pool.”
With its columns situated outside the patio wall, the view through the yard is seamless. In addition, a series of walls with long slot windows provides privacy and blocks unpleasant views, yet still allows a glimpse of the mountains at sunset.
“There is a subliminal orderliness to the landscape and every element of it aligns to some characteristic of the architecture,” Bianchi points out. “Also, there are ratios of proportioning used. For instance, the yard is two times as long as it is wide. So is the pool. This follows a system used by the Japanese in their architecture. Though the design layout is simple, everything is carefully synchronized.”
Throughout the front and back yards, sculptural desert vegetation, such as Yucca rostrada, senitas and artichoke agaves are often placed in rows, while lady slipper and candelilla plants provide a grassland effect. “I used ocotillos as a more airy but vertical form to disguise light posts within them so that we could get downlighting out in the space discreetly from above without having to add path lights.”
The couple said they chose to start with small plants, allowing them to grow in at their own rate. “Our yard looked like the surface of mars when we first moved in,” says Vance. “Now, five years later, we feel like we’re living in a resort out in the country. What we got in the end is the perfect mix of modern and great design.”
After meeting with pool and landscape designer Kirk Bianchi, a Phoenix Home & Garden Masters of the Southwest award winner, Vance and Megan soon elected to go with a swimming pool with a built-in spa. A shade structure, two fire features, a barbecue island, sitting areas and outdoor storage were also added into the mix, as well as a shipping container that served not only for storage, but as a textural backdrop wall to define their expansive, outdoor room.
Although the property is mostly flat, several of its design elements are not.
“Because the backyard faces the southwest and is heavily exposed to the sun, it was in dire need of shade,” Bianchi says. “So I echoed the character of the home’s steel construction with a gravity defying shade structure that cantilevers over a portion of the patio adjacent to the pool.”
With its columns situated outside the patio wall, the view through the yard is seamless. In addition, a series of walls with long slot windows provides privacy and blocks unpleasant views, yet still allows a glimpse of the mountains at sunset.
“There is a subliminal orderliness to the landscape and every element of it aligns to some characteristic of the architecture,” Bianchi points out. “Also, there are ratios of proportioning used. For instance, the yard is two times as long as it is wide. So is the pool. This follows a system used by the Japanese in their architecture. Though the design layout is simple, everything is carefully synchronized.”
Throughout the front and back yards, sculptural desert vegetation, such as Yucca rostrada, senitas and artichoke agaves are often placed in rows, while lady slipper and candelilla plants provide a grassland effect. “I used ocotillos as a more airy but vertical form to disguise light posts within them so that we could get downlighting out in the space discreetly from above without having to add path lights.”
The couple said they chose to start with small plants, allowing them to grow in at their own rate. “Our yard looked like the surface of mars when we first moved in,” says Vance. “Now, five years later, we feel like we’re living in a resort out in the country. What we got in the end is the perfect mix of modern and great design.”
Project Year: 2020
Project Cost: $200,001 - $500,000
Country: United States
Zip Code: 85119
