2009 VA ASLA Awards

General Design Profesional - Western Albemarle Garden

Merit Award 

Project: Western Albemarle Garden

Landscape Architect: Nelson Byrd Woltz
Architect: Voorsanger Architects
Client : Dan and Nan Brody
General Contractor: Ivy Nursery
Other Consultants: Siska Aurand (fountain)

Situated within a 200-acre Albemarle County farm, this site plan and garden respond to the clients' desire to have a landscape commensurate with their dramatic contemporary house. the primary design intent of the site plan was to take the fullest advantage of panoramic views across the pasture and hayfields to the Blue Ridge Mountains, while simultaneously nestling the house between an upper pasture clearing and a second growth deciduous forest. It was also very much the intention of the client and landscape architect to extend the spatial character of parts of the house into the immediate site.

This project highlights the value of successful engagement early on and collaboration with the project architect on issues of siting and access. With sustainability in mind, material choices (plants and stone) were made to fit the immediate context - thus a reliance on regionally and site appropriate native plants, granitic and greenstone boulders, as well as bluestones and sandstones from within a 500 mile radius.  The project seeks to mediate between two distinct design languages -the forceful parallel and angled geometry of the architecture, and the sloping, texturally rich and complex "naturalness" of the existing, mostly wooded site.

Unusual aspects of this project: a contemporary house and garden in a more typically traditional estate/farm context; efforts to keep the rainwater off the roof on‐site by designing a visible bluestone and coarse gravel infiltration basin; using landscape design - in this instance primarily through the recirculated water course -as a means of transformation (from a natural context into a constructed context).

Jury comments for this project included:
- Overall Excellent design and execution of hardscape and landscape details,
- Great example of collaboration with the architect and homeowner,
- Adds even more beauty to the natural setting