Landscape Design
Ideas for Contemporary Garden Paths
Clean lines and modern materials shine in these 11 sleek walkway designs
Garden paths serve a practical purpose in a landscape, but they also offer an opportunity for style and imagination in their design. If your style leans toward contemporary, turn to straight lines rather than meandering ones, smooth textures instead of patterns, and modern building materials such as concrete, gravel and metal. From a zigzagged desert walkway to a floating boardwalk through a woodland backyard, these 10 ideas can help you get a contemporary look in any garden.
1. Staggered pavers. A good rule of thumb for high-traffic walkways, such as the path from the driveway to the front door, is to keep the route as direct as possible. This rule is consistent with the modern design principle “form follows function,” but, in practice, there is still plenty of room for design creativity. In this front yard, for example, the path of travel is a straight line, but offset concrete pavers provide more visual interest.
2. Edgy steps. Steps edged with wood treads are a classic way to navigate a grade change in a property. Swapping wood treads for strips of Cor-Ten steel placed vertically to contain gray gravel updates the design for a more contemporary look. Soften the edges with swirls of ornamental grasses.
This pathway in Santa Barbara, California, also uses Cor-Ten steel edging to define steps filled with gravel. The design is just as contemporary as the previous example, but the gold gravel gives more warmth.
3. Floating boardwalk. A wooden walkway laid diagonally across the property gives both a contemporary and Asian-inspired feel to this woodland garden. Rather than adding a curve to the path, which would distract from the geometric design, the boardwalk hinges on a slightly raised deck platform built around an existing tree.
4. Geometric pavers. Varying the size of square and rectangular pavers set in gravel gives a graphic pattern to a walkway. Given that it’s easier to find footing on a bigger paver, setting large rectangular pavers at fairly regular intervals between narrower ones creates a more efficient path of travel.
5. Subtle texture. Exposed aggregate concrete, a popular building material since the 1960s, can look outdated in contemporary landscapes. The designer of this garden in San Luis Obispo, California, gave the material a modern update by mixing exposed aggregate steps with smooth concrete landings. The pairing shows off the understated textural difference between the two materials.
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6. Desert zigzag. Adding a geometric zigzag instead of a soft curve gives the front yard of this Phoenix home a lot more tension. Where straight lines intersect at odd angles, keep the angle consistent throughout a landscape and in the architecture of the home for a more integrated look. Here, the angle created by the zigzag of the path is echoed in the lines of the stucco wall.
Create Garden Mystery With a Zigzag Path
Create Garden Mystery With a Zigzag Path
7. Contemporary-traditional blend. The path to the front door of this house in Atherton, California, uses a subtler zigzag. Just as the architecture of the home marries traditional farmhouse style on the left with a boxy, contemporary shape on the right, the garden path also balances traditional and modern. The low rock walls have a more traditional feel, but the poured concrete slab pathway updates the look.
8. Color contrast. High contrast between materials, such as light-colored concrete pavers set in dark river stones, makes a pathway stand out as a contemporary landscape feature. This works particularly well in an all-green garden where the pathway provides just as much — if not more — interest than the planting.
9. Floating paths. For routes of travel that transect water, floating steps made of square concrete pavers give a strong geometric feature to the landscape. To create the illusion that the steps float, keep the base of each step smaller than the stepping surface to allow water to conceal the structure beneath.
In a garden in Austin, Texas, concrete steps linking a gravel courtyard to a lawn use the same technique to create the appearance that the steps are floating. The contrast of dark gravel beneath the pale concrete slabs amplifies the effect.
10. Concrete landing pads. The designer of this Eichler home’s front yard chose to slow the path of travel by incorporating two large raised steps within the path. While not necessary for a grade change, the raised landing pads alter the experience of reaching the front door in a creative way.
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