February Update
It's been a busy and successful start to the new year with increased determination from home owners interested in developing their properties. As more people work from home there is a need for residential spaces to play host to new programs of use, whether that be a dedicated office-type space for work, or relaxation focused spaces for decompression.
Here's a quick look at some of our current projects where we are dealing with these new programs of use, please do get in touch if you feel any of these property development ideas would work for you!
This in-progress Sonoma landscaping plan aims to create a significant amount of experiences outside of the house. Bocce ball, the pool and hot tub create opportunities for relaxation and play while the cabana can be utilized as an outdoor office which creates distance between 'home' and 'work' life.
We like to design some harder-to-reach and more out of sight components in our landscape proposals to create the perception of 'leaving' one place to journey to another. This helps in the psychological separation of spaces, even if in reality they aren't that far apart. For example there is a visual axis from the French doors on the deck to the bocce ball court, but we create the circuitous journey to increase the feeling of distance and separation.
In the same vein we use plantings of different heights and volumes to create a visual layering effect, which not only creates opportunities for privacy or seclusion, but artificially extends the visual distance. These are just some of our drought tolerant selections for this particular project.
In this Redwood City project we designed a new-build guest house with it's own bathroom. At only 180sqft this separate unit will function primarily as a detached office while still bringing the increased property value of an additional bedroom and bathroom.
However this is not just a detached office creating a departure for work. We designed an exterior spa partition with soaking hot tub and outdoor shower to return to in the evening after dinner. Privacy screens that shield the view of neighboring houses and a feature wall sconce both work to create a space you want to journey towards.