Photo courtesy The Taunton Press from 'Outside the Not So Big House', 2006; Photography by Grey Crawford
Following the success of her first book, The Not So Big House, which was published in 1998 and has sold 50,000 copies to date, Sarah Susanka worked with landscaper Julie Moir Messervy to combine design in the garden as well as the home. In this new book, Outside the Not So Big House, the co-authors team up to consider the home as the Japanese do—a holistic integration of interior and exterior spaces.
“Architects are often, but not always, terrified of landscape,” Messervy says. She adds that, by combining their disciplines, the pair was able to consider how the inside and outside interconnect—“something that most design professionals either aren’t able to collaborate on properly because of the way the disciplines are or haven’t thought about all that much.” “We both know that our projects are improved dramatically by someone who really knows what they’re doing,” Susanka says.
FLOW: Journeys around a property include places to enter and exit, stop and appreciate. Getaways create pauses in a landscape without interrupting the continuous flow. This iron archway beckons to a brick path leading to the front entry.
For Messervy, landscaping is all about constructing paths. “Form follows feeling,” she says. “Function, for me, is second.” Her philosophy revolves around four main parts of personal journeys: the departure, destination, path between each point, and events that happen along the way. By combining manmade elements, like benches and fountains, with natural features of the outdoors, such as hills or arbors, Messervy encourages flow throughout the garden and creates an atmosphere that speaks to clients’ personalities.
Susanka exercises an economic approach to architectural design by emphasizing the importance of utility and space management over appearance alone. The author of five other books in the Not So Big series, her work has influenced readers as well as clients, who are shown how to increase the livability of their homes while maintaining unique design. Susanka arranges walls, windows, and other architectural elements to create areas of comfort for homeowners’ use.
Both Susanka and Messervy spent time studying in Japan, where they were taught design approaches considered unconventional by Western way of thought. “One of the most profound learnings is that they [Japanese designers] don’t stop with the building lines,” Susanka says. The concept of integrating inside and out is based on the Japanese symbol katei, meaning home, which includes a figure for house as well as another for garden. “That’s what this book is,” Susanka explains. “It’s the marriage of both [house and garden] to mean home.”
The backbone of Susanka’s and Messervy’s collaboration is that “the same design principles apply to both disciplines,” Messervy explains. To make the surrounding landscape a part of the home, Susanka encourages homeowners to take advantage of every inch of their land, including any inconvenient slopes and cramped spaces. A garden that is designed to suit homeowners’ lifestyles will, just like a home with proper interior design, provide the comfort to enhance everyday life. Messervy emphasizes her idea of the journey and flow between interior and exterior design. Coordinating your yard to complement your house brings the comfort and familiarity of home into the natural environment.
SITE: A distinctive landscape takes advantage of features that make the site special. An ornamental gate introduces this organically shaped pool and garden. Softened by pockets of plantings, flat fieldstones cantilevered over its edge, and small-leafed plants, the pool feels like a natural pond.
A well-framed and strategically placed window will offer a dramatic view of the landscape from the indoors, as well as a perspective into the house from the yard.
To make your garden or landscape your own, Susanka and Messervy also suggest choosing outdoor elements the same way you would choose art or other design materials for your house. Be sure to select trees, flowers, bushes, and other materials, such as stone, chairs, and benches, that not only work for the environment but also reflect your own personal style.
In what Messervy and Susanka call “outdoor rooms,” backyard furniture can be rearranged, as it would be found indoors, to bring the comforts of the house outside. Preferring privacy, many homeowners also look for ways to bring the structured, enclosed feeling of a house into their yard. By using screens, fences, and even small buildings such as sheds, Susanka and Messervy show readers how to create a private, personal area that will allow owners to feel more comfortable in their expanded living space.
In 'Outside the Not So Big House', architect Sarah Susanka and landscape designer Julie Moir Messervy explain through images how homeowners can fit their properties to their needs and lifestyles. The authors' advice is divided into four categories: FRAMES, linking the inside with the outside; FLOW, composing journeys; DETAILS, crafting natural elements; and SITE, embracing the home environment.
Homeowners are encouraged to maintain their design style by focusing on elements that are common both indoors and outdoors. For instance, if a gate or archway serves as the main entrance into the garden, the front doorway to your home would be its equivalent. By using lighting and decoration, the structures should be designed to offer a dramatic entrance to these areas. If the landscape is comprised of plants and materials in varying textures, colors, and sizes, this differing style should also be translated into the house. Objects within the home, such as decorative art, centerpieces, and even larger elements like staircases, should be set in their own separate space. The differences in color and space provide a sense of variation that gives character to both the landscape and the home’s interior.
Though Messervy describes Outside the Not So Big House as “a photographic dictionary of ideas,” it is really an introduction to a new concept of home, one that combines the house, the landscape, and the individuals who live there. By designing a home (landscape and house together), what is important to the way we live comes to the surface, and we are able to understand the environment we live in from a different perspective.
Brandy Keller is a former Editorial Intern of ChesapeakeHome who works as a freelance writer.
Contacts:
Julie Moir Messervy: juliemoirmesservy.com
Sarah Susanka: notsobighouse.com
The Taunton Press: taunton.com or 800-477-8727
