The garden design firm of SMI Landscape Architecture is known for
its estate masterplanning, its public gardens and streetscapes, and
its thoughtful private gardens for clients across the United
States, particularly in Florida, and in the Bahamas. The firm's
philosophy incorporates a `botanic garden' approach with exotic
planting and elements of classical European design to create
beautiful, usable spaces, and it is also known for its preservation
and restoration of old landscapes. This book presents 15 new
gardens, never before published in any book, that show the range of
the firm's work. Each client has different requirements, and so
each garden turns out differently - but each shows the firm's
hallmarks of lush planting, luxurious garden `rooms' and immaculate
hardscaping. As Jorge Sánchez puts it in the Preface, `This book
shows how not one individual but many make a firm successful.' For
each garden, practical information about the design approach and
details of the planting are combined with an account of the
process, the firm's relationship with the client and the reasons
for the design decisions. Through the narrative - often personal,
always descriptive, always detailed - a picture builds up of the
approach to each set of circumstances. Many of the projects are in
Palm Beach, where a boom in the building of new houses and their
attached estates in the early twentieth century has left a legacy
of stunning - if sometimes neglected - homes and landscapes ripe
for restoration. Local architects such as Addison Mizner and
Maurice Fatio designed houses that are now being rejuvenated and
sympathetically modernized to fit the requirements of
twenty-first-century families, and firms such as SMI are at the
forefront of the re-creation of their gardens. The Weisfisch Garden
in Palm Beach, for example, was carefully restored and given the
surroundings its architecture and its owners deserved, and the
whole project was recognized with a prestigious award from the Palm
Beach Preservation Foundation. The firm of SMI also works in
temperate planting zones, and projects in more northerly states
provide an opportunity to work with an entirely different palette
of plants. For the Plumb Garden in Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania, for
example, the firm was commissioned to remodel a small estate
attached to an old pleasure house. The landscape here is much
wilder and more temperate than in Florida, and the firm's job was
to work with the natural flora and contours of the land while
quietly intervening to personalize the areas nearest the house.
Simple manipulations of form and slope along with water features
and some much more intimate spaces have created a garden that fits
impeccably into its wider context and yet is capable of being used
and enjoyed by the family. Throughout the book there is a strong
sense of participation - with the climate, with the local flora,
with the clients and with other designers, whether architects,
artisans or interior designers. To be part of such collaborative
efforts is hugely satisfying for Sánchez and the members of his
team, Claudia Visconti, John Lubischer and Brian Vertesch, as well
as producing the best possible result for each set of clients. This
beautiful book will appeal to garden lovers everywhere, as well as
to design aficionados seeking a deeper understanding of the
creative process behind making a garden. It will also appeal to
garden designers and horticultural students.
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