Tag Archives: SEATTLE LANDSCAPE ARCHITECT
The 50th Anniversary of The Century 21 Idea House By Seattle Landscape Architect Brooks Kolb, ASLA
In 2010 I had the opportunity to design a garden terrace for an intriguing mid-century modern house in Inverness, a north Seattle neighborhood. Designed in 1962 by renowned architect Jack Morse, who was a Fellow of the American Institute of Architects and a University of Washington professor of architecture, the house was sponsored by Georgia Pacific Corporation as the “Century 21 Idea House” for “House & Garden” magazine. Publishing in the August, 1962 edition of “House and Garden,” Georgia Pacific, Jack Morse and the magazine all clearly intended to ride the tide of publicity raised by “Century 21,” the 1962 Seattle World’s Fair. Now as Seattle celebrates the 50th anniversary of the fair, it’s timely to unveil the house and garden renovation.
The original house featured pyramidal skylights over four quadrants of the nearly square floor plan: the living room, bedroom wing, kitchen and garage. In subsequent years, the garage was converted to a family room and an independent garage was built near the southwest corner of the house. Moving the garage freed up the original driveway to be converted for landscape use, and the south garden area was created. By 2010, this space needed a sensitive landscape renovation. Working closely with the new owners, I created a design that embraced both the confident modernism of the house and the Northwest Japanese flavor of the existing garden.
One of the best features of Jack Morse’s original house design was a flush concrete perimeter band framing the entire structure, inset in places with a band of river rock. We kept this striking feature and introduced new paving of Abbottsford “Texada” pre-cast concrete pavers in a striped pattern with two colors. The garden features a Coral Bark Maple and a candle oil-fueled fire table from Restoration Hardware.
The landscape installation was by Performance Landscape Company.
Excer
House From the Garden Terrace (Photograph by Holly Johnson)
Garden Terrace viewed from the family room (photograph by Holly Johnson)
Detail of the garden terrace (photograph by Brooks Kolb)
Restoration Hardware Laguna Fire Table (photograph by Restoration Hardware; location shown is not in the Century 21 Idea House garden)
Brooks Kolb’s Sustainable Landscapes Highlighted in Alaska Airlines Magazine
In the July 13 issue of Alaska Airlines Magazine entitled “Home Green Home: the benefits of sustainable living,” Seattle Landscape Architect Brooks Kolb contributed his thoughts on “gardening with a sustainable thumb.” Accompanied by a photograph of Brooks Kolb’s Laurelhurst Hillside Garden, the article summarizes some of the leading principles of energy conservation in residential architectural design as well as landscape design.
Brooks was quoted saying, “There’s always a trade-off or conflict between the goal to be sustainable and the goal to meet your dream of what you want your landscape to be.” Actually, there doesn’t need to be a conflict. Often it’s a matter of communicating to a client how their dream landscape can be simultaneously designed to be sustainable. For example, if someone has their heart set on a stone path and steps and they’ve found a beautiful Chinese granite, it could be a matter of showing them how a locally sourced stone can be just as beautiful. The energy saved by eliminating the need for shipping from halfway around the world can be substantial.
As writer Lyna Bort Caruso summarized it, Brooks’ “design philosophy is to support what clients request, but to also nudge them in a greener direction that can help reduce watering and gardening bills, too. This may include using local materials wherever practical; reducing the size of lawns and leaving grass cuttings behind to serve as a natural fertilizer; installing a rain garden, which allows rainwater to collect and channel off into yards; and avoiding pesticides and herbicides to protect the groundwater from pollutants.”
Here’s a link to the full article: http://www.journalgraphicsdigitalpublications.com/epubs/PARADIGM%20COMMUNICATIONS%20GROUP/ParadigmAlaskaAirlinesJuly2013/#?page=86
Brooks Kolb’s Laurelhurst Hillside Garden, photograph published in Alaska Airlines Magazine
Brooks Kolb Landscape Featured in “Coastal Living” Magazine
“Growing Gracefully” – A Brooks Kolb North Capitol Hill Garden Featured in “Pacific NW” Magazine
The Entry Gates – all photos by Seattle Times Photographer, Mike Siegel
Seattle Landscape Architect Brooks Kolb was once again featured in the Seattle Times’ “Pacific NW” Magazine on September 7, 2014, in an article by the noted Times garden writer, Valerie Easton. Titled “Growing Gracefully, A Redesign mixes the best of old and new,” the column lead with the following paragraphs:
“It’s not often a landscape architect gets another shot at a garden he designed years ago. But when horticulturist Sue Nicol was hired to come up with a fresh plant palette for an aging Capitol Hill garden, she asked Brooks Kolb to collaborate with her on the project. And it turns out that Kolb, along with his partner, Bill Talley, had renovated the garden in 1997 for an earlier owner.” ….New owners Don and Marty Sands “remodeled the (1932 brick Tudor) inside and out, then turned their attention to updating the garden. The couple appreciated the dramatic entry gates, as well as the matuing Japanese maples, Korean dogwoods and Hinoki cypress from the earlier renovation. Marty loves how the garden wraps around the house ‘like a little haven.’ And she calls the majestic copper beech that dominates the scene ‘a Grandfather tree.’”
Since the house is located on the corner of a curving street near Interlaken Boulevard, Brooks loved the original opportunity to remove a scruffy lawn, replacing it with a path that curves parallel to the road, connecting several distinct garden rooms along the way.
All photos by Seattle Times Photographer, Mike Siegel: The House and Rockery from the Street; the Entry Gates
The Birdbath with Japanese Forest Grass; Owners Marty and Don Sands
The Fountain in 1997; The Fountain Today, with its Lily Bud Jet
Inteviewing Brooks, Valerie asked, “What was it like for Kolb to re-imagine a garden he designed long ago? ‘It’s a wonderful chance to come back in and retool a garden,’ he says. He planted a necklace of new daphnes around the old fountain and left alone the huge white wisteria growing on the hefty arbor at the side of the house.”
Brooks also relished the opportunity to work collaboratively with Sue Nicol, whose contributions to the jointly designed planting plan included the “intensely fragrant” Daphne bholua and ‘Korean Apricot’ chrysanthemums, among many other selections. Brooks has collaborated with Sue for her horticultural and arborist expertise on a number of Seattle area garden designs.
