The depths of winter are upon me. Cold snaps in the single digits and heavy snowfall force me inside - inside my home, inside my mind. The roads are icy here in the Front Range, so I cancel plans, and spend more time alone. I’ve read that loneliness is a significant stressor with a mortality risk comparable to smoking more than 15 cigarettes a day and more harmful than alcoholism, obesity, and lack of physical activity. This information DOES NOT HELP. Intimacy is what I crave. Short of warm, friendly bodies, the intimacy of crafting details for my clients gets me through the winter.
I’ve realized that we also find intimacy with places. We notice details and create memories and stories in our backyards, favorite trails and city parks. We pay attention to how they change season by season and over time. This attention can also be understood as love.
In my landscape architecture practice, residential gardens and farms of all sizes hold a special place in my heart. They require a deep and personal relationship between client and designer. To create a garden for someone, I must learn what matters to them, what they love, and what they want to cultivate in their lives, from plants to ways of living. I’m absorbing what my clients want to express and using my expertise to translate that into a place they will love and tend for many years to come.
Often, their desires can be expressed through sculptural details that tell a story about a particular piece of land or a client’s relationship with their garden.
In San Francisco, I designed a walled, urban garden that tells the story of a beloved, Persian Walnut tree in my clients’ front yard. Branches, leaves, nuts and even a dastardly squirrel that makes a mess with the nuts become the shapes that perforate white powder coated steel. The wall screens a patio and provides both privacy and the ability to peek out at the street. Black paving stones soak up warmth from the sun, creating a sheltered refuge from the Bay Area chill.
I’m currently designing a farm garden near Lyons, Colorado. The story of this property has been shaped by the dynamics of water politics in the West. I am designing a bridge with sculptural railings supported by branching forms that reference three stately, elm trees on site and the map the South St. Vrain River, which runs nearby, feeding water to the property via irrigation ditches.
Whether it is a metal gate detail that references the local prairie’s gentle undulations, a minimalist bench for a midcentury modern house, or a special arrangement of local stones, I love finding ways to capture a client’s unique story and the one-of-a-kind nature of the place itself. These customized, sculptural features create connection - intimacy - between clients and the places they call home.
My work is deeply satisfying, even thrilling, when I see that what I have created connects to my client’s heart, mind, and experience. Sometimes I feel that it's easier for me to design a perfectly intimate garden than to cultivate intimacy in my own relationships.
But in this letter, I declare that my heart is open! I am ready to see and be seen, and I’m taking the risk of sharing that with my community. Intimacy is everywhere, and I am growing it intentionally.
