OUTDOOR SPACES FOR LIVING:
The Art of Creating Outdoor Rooms
By Howard Supnik
In April of 2006, I was asked by Lime Spring Partnership LP, to create a landscape Master Plan for the Lime Spring Farm on Marietta Avenue in Lancaster. The plan was to focus on the immediate area around the existing historic structures for the 2006 Decorator Show House, sponsored by the United Auxiliaries to the Lancaster General Hospital. Their goal was to raise funds for equipment used to treat cancer. Several contractors were already on board to install the work, and my role was to make the landscape work programmatically and aesthetically for both the Show House event and whal it would become after the Show House was finished.
This past month, many of you had the opportunity to visit Lime Spring Farm while it was open to the public. For those who did not get there, not only did you miss the renovations to some of the historic structures and the newly decorated rooms by noted interior designers, but also a dramatic transformation to the surrounding landscape. Lime Spring Farm is rich with history. It is a family farm dating back to 1720, when Peter Lehman built the original house. Since then there have been several buildings that have been built which, along with the original 1720 house, reflect the nine generations who have occupied the farm. Like many traditional homesteads, villages and towns, this property grew and new structures were added to meet farming and other traditional needs. As the number of structures grew, it became more of a complex, each structure relating to each other in a different way. Designers are constantly challenged to transition a design from traditional to future use, relevant to a totally different purpose and lifestyle.
Two people who lived at the farm in recent years - Mike Lovell and Pamela Haines of LifeReloaded in Manheim, now publish books and graciously and skillfully put together a handsome book about my approach to creating outdoor spaces for living, or as I like to refer to them .. "Outdoor rooms', using Lime Spring Farm as a case study.
Outdoor Rooms for Outdoor Living
Outdoor rooms are not a new concept but it takes a bit of skill and vision to create them with success. As a landscape architect, I tell my clients they can add significant value to their home by doing something to their outside space. At the very least, plantings and furnishings can be added, but the creation of outdoor rooms will have the most benefit when they become extensions of the house. At the same time, they provide places of comfort and escape. Both indoor and outdoor rooms are composed of floors, walls, ceilings, doors and often windows. Many people find it difficult to transtale the commonplace elements of indoor rooms to outdoor spaces, but it need not be such a challenge. Outdoors, the floor may be grass or flagstone for example. Walls may be fences, hedges or stone walls. Ceilings may be a tree canopy or pergola. Doors may be gates or arbors. Windows may be openings in a hedge or simply a view between two trees.
Like indoor rooms, outdoor rooms can be decorated with plantings and natural materials, and furnished with chairs, benches, umbrellas, and pots. Outdoor rooms can add subtle to dramatic gestures which are often difficult or impractical indoors such as fragrance, sound, and water. While indoor rooms are generally restricted to views out, outdoor rooms can be a place to view as well as a place to be viewed.
Landscapes evolve - they are always changing. The adventure of seeing plantings change with time and through the seasons is what makes landscapes and outdoor rooms so oompelling. In addition to natural changes, property owners may choose to redecorate their outdoor space as they do with their indoor space... they have acquired new tastes, their lifestyles may be different, or they simply need a change.
Master Plan
My goal in designing the landscape at Lime Spring Farm was to respect its rich historical context, but not to let its history hold back the design for use in today's world. The Landscape Master Plan starts with the entry drive and dropoff and creates several new outdoor rooms, each very different in character, composition, and views, but all linked together by a series of flagstone paths. It is the views from these outdoor rooms. and the details unique to each room that bring the spaces to life.
The book, which illustrates the process of the Landscape Master Plan at Lime Spring Farm, shows how the concept of 'Outdoor Rooms' can transform the outdoor space and revitalize it for future living. It also conveys to property owners how they can add value to the property by adding outdoor rooms into their own landscape.
Howard Supnik is a registered Landscape Architect in Lititz, Pennsylvania. His work can be found at www.howardjaysupnik.com
back | printer-friendly version
