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Tag: Flagstone

  • Lu La Studio Turns a Parking Lot Into a Multi-functional Rewilded Garden in Somerville, MA

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    The depaving movement has become something of a national sport in the Netherlands, with municipalities competing to see who can remove the most paving from their town each year. Stateside the crusade to replace concrete and asphalt with permeable landscapes (ideally: gardens) may be slower to take hold, but it’s been around for nearly two decades, starting with Depave Portland in Oregon and spreading to communities across the country.

    In Somerville, Massachusetts, Depave Somerville organizes “depaving parties” for homeowners. Landscape architect Sara Brunelle, one of the founders Lu La Studio, was selected for one of these volunteer-run events. So, one April day, an asphalt recycling dumpster and a crew of about 10 volunteers showed up to tear up the parking lot behind Brunelle’s house with crowbar and sledge hammers. 

    Brunelle and her business partner, landscape designer Katie Smith, had dreamed up a new permeable landscape for the yard, but they didn’t anticipate how gratifying the actual depaving would be. “It was truly joyful—like the best of a CrossFit gym and an awesome wild community,” says Brunelle. “It really was electric. Katie and I both have a background in urban gardening. This was an awesome moment of direct action.” It was also a little emotional: It began to rain right after the depaving was complete, and they realized the soil had not felt rain for at least 70 years. “That smell of rain on earth was so poignant,” Smith says. “That’s our responsibility as landscape architects to rehabilitate.”

    Brunelle and Smith’s goal was to create a multi-functional, re-wilded garden for all the residents of the multi-family building. They managed to fit in an eating area, a play lawn, a permeable parking space, and a vegetable garden on the 30 feet by 40 feet lot. 

    Photography by Haley Dando, courtesy of Lu La Studio.

    Before

    The gray-on-gray view of the parking lot from the street.
    Above: The gray-on-gray view of the parking lot from the street.
    The yard behind Brunelle’s home was nothing but asphalt and a few conifers.
    Above: The yard behind Brunelle’s home was nothing but asphalt and a few conifers.

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  • A Santa Monica Backyard by ORCA Inspired by Mediterrannean Landscapes

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    For those familiar with Los Angeles, the words “Santa Monica” will likely conjure up a very Californian version of the all-American idyll: an iconic pier and long stretches of boutiques surrounded by tree-lined streets and quaint homes with tidy lawns and the occasional shrub or agave. The scene is so picturesque that you can’t blame most homeowners for choosing to simply cut and paste these same elements onto their own landscapes.

    So when Molly Sedlacek, the founder of ORCA, was contacted by two prospective clients seeking a Mediterranean-inspired garden for their Santa Monica property, she was intrigued. And when they mentioned the idea of ripping up the existing driveway and replacing it with more garden, she knew immediately she would accept the job. In the world of landscape design, it’s typically the designer finding, and sometimes fighting for, more green space—not the other way around.

    What proved problematic was the site itself. A relatively small footprint meant that every square inch, including the aforementioned old driveway, had to be put to good use, especially since a new outdoor kitchen would also be required. So Sedlacek went about designing programmatic areas that would blur the lines between each other and the home’s interior. “The client needed a garden that is connected to their everyday lives: an art room that spills into the entry courtyard, a living room that opens up onto the dining patio, and a dining room that overlooks the pool.” To better define these areas, Sedlacek leaned heavily on the home’s existing white stucco and Spanish-influenced exterior to select hardscaping elements that would feel “naturally weathered” and right at home on a Balearic island.

    Her inspiration: Potter’s House Mallorca, the retreat made instagram-famous by European garden designer Luciano Guibbelei. “We studied it for plants colliding with the water’s edge, groundcovers feeling very effortless, and also the use of fruit trees, bees blossom, and Ligularia dentata.” But while the resulting garden may look just like an arid landscape pulled from the coast of Gibraltar, it is primarily composed of U.S. natives and nativars, with a sprinkling of Mediterranean species for effect. Sedlacek and team brought in deep-green species like Ceonathus ‘Snow Flurry’, Frangula californica and Dryopetris arguta to contrast with the lighter palette, while Oenothera lindheimeri and Carex pansa create languorous drifts in sunnier areas.

    The whole effect is of something wild and slightly forgotten. Sedlacek’s favorite element is tucked in the back corner of the garden, next to the site of a brand new pool, where the native Rosa californica clambers up a brick wall from the early 20th century to form a near-perfect simulacrum of an old European villa. “Seeing something built in 2025 that highlights something that has [already] lived here for a century is very special.”

    Photography by Justin Chung, courtesy of ORCA.

    Sedlacek carved out new beds and added permeable paving in what used to be the entry driveway. The new space functions as a courtyard where kids can play, and still has enough hard surfaces to squeeze in a car if necessary.
    Above: Sedlacek carved out new beds and added permeable paving in what used to be the entry driveway. The new space functions as a courtyard where kids can play, and still has enough hard surfaces to squeeze in a car if necessary.

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