The original idea for this, and all of our creations, came from three very important items for us: space & physical limitations, visitor needs, and design essence.
This garden is located in Tiana, an exclusive resort 10 minutes from Barcelona city. There are 150 m2 of garden surrounding the 75 m2 of living accommodation on three of its sides. The building has multiple openings to the outside, the main one includes a porch, used throughout the whole year, because of the temperate climate of the Mediterranean coast. To construct this outdoor room, we had to define one of its sides by a wooden bench supporting a mound used to add bulk to our design. We installed a wooden platform of pine from ecologically sustainable forest with FSC certification, for connecting the inside with the garden and gave a special touch, hanging on a mini vertical garden of succulent plants, in one of its columns. This makes the brick detailing stand out of the exterior walls of the building. The natural green vegetation achieves a great contrast to the orange colour of the walls.
It was very difficult to bring in the materials because this flat is surrounded by several buildings and it was impossible to bring in heavy equipment. Another drawback that we had to solve was the problem posed by constructing a garden on the ground floor of a building, partly located above the Community garage, for that we had to calculate weights carefully for adding mounds as a naturalized planters. These elevations were exploited to create volumes in order to break the linearity of the design, also completed with different plant textures that help soften hard lines style, contrasting their natural bearing with geometric patterns.
The owner of the flat is a clothing designer and gave us freedom to create what we wanted but, she asked us for it to be low maintenance without missing the exuberance of the garden. In addition to obtaining a lush result, leafy plants tested under xeriscaping concept, get privacy. Another important request was to preserve three trees planted by the builder. This fact inspired us to use the trio, as a fundamental part of the project.
The design is determined by the lined shape of the space, so we decided to adjust to it using repetitive patterns throughout the garden, honouring plant succession on the works of Roberto Burle Marx. The elements used through the garden design are: geometric rock formations, which frame different group of plants; black marble gravel; flagstones used in a “zipper effect” between wooden platform and gravel; distribution of three plants groups of each kind: Strelitzia alba, Howea forsteriana, Syagrus romanzoffiana, Citrus limon, Musa ‘Dwarf Cavendish’, Philodendron bipinnatifidum, Agave attenuata, Cordyline australis and garden accessories like potsherd and fountains.
We also consider nightly use of this space, and so the lighting was another important factor to complete the design. We installed a LED cord around the garden to emphasize the vegetation even at night and to provide the whole of certain theatricality thanks to the light and shadow play.
Simbiosi loves little suggestive details and in Tiana’s garden we achieved gorgeous views inside the house framing attractive scenes through doors (there are no windows), also supported by remarkable elements like a Buddha sculpture, a wooden bench decorated with plants and interesting water points.
PLANT LIST
Groundcovers
Kalanchoe luciae, Aloe variegata, Haworthia turgida, Echeveria ‘Pink Frills’, Echeveria ‘Perle von Nurnberg’, Senecio mandraliscae, Sedum dasyphyllum, Ficus pumila, Soleirolia soleirolii, Tradescantia zebrina, Phormium cookianum ‘Atropurpurea’, Carex morrowii ‘Ice Dance’,
To hide walls
Nephrolepis cordata, Nephrolepis cordata ‘Duffii’, Adiantum capillus-veneris, Humata tyermannii, Phlebodium aureum, Phormium tenax ‘Atropurpurea’, Philodendron deliciosa, Philodendron ‘Xanadu’, Strelitzia reginae, Phyllostachys aurea, Tillandsia usneoides, Asparagus densiflorus ‘Myersii’
Architecture & Luxuriance
Strelitzia alba, Howea forsteriana, Syagrus romanzoffiana, Cordyline australis, Philodendron bipinnatifidum, Musa ‘Dwarf Cavendish’, Dypsis lutescens
IMAGE & TEXT CREDIT | Simbiosi Estudi de Paisatgisme
