The landscape is held by the house at the centre which helps to define 3 key typologies;

1. SEQUENCED ARRIVAL

The presentation of the home from the drive is key both for passers-by with their oblique views of the house and for the sequence of arrival as the gates open revealing the new building, its garden setting and the rural landscape beyond. The entrance landscape is shaped around simple lines, swathes of ‘prairie’ type grasses amongst clipped lawns. Significant screen planting arcs round from the southern boundary provide privacy for the house and screening from the public footpaths and fields to the South of the plot.

2. RUSTIC TRANSITION

This is a transition zone between the controlled environment of the garden to the rusticity of the Upper Stour valley, it is both inward and outward looking as it frames the views south from the key living spaces and also presents the development to those looking in from the footpaths, fields and dwellings to the south. The existing hedgerow is composed of mainly non-native, ornamental species therefore it is proposed that this is replaced with a native mixed hedgerow forming the boundary supplemented by a mix of ornamental and native flowerings meadow species which soften the boundary between the rural and agricultural setting and the careful lines of the new home and its grounds. Along the southern edge of the lower ground threshold there is a strip of water that acts both as a reflection pool and enclosure to the external areas of the building.

3. INTIMATE COURTYARD

This is the part of the new landscape that is entirely private and inward looking, it indulges the resident and the visitor in a richly planted terrace environment with a black natural water feature that can be also used as a swimming pool at the centre. A structure of strong shrubs and hedgerows are pressed into rich perennial planting giving strong colour themes, various textures and fragrances to the terrace. Where trees have been retained they are incorporated into the new scheme with appropriate underplanting. The applicant brief was to minimise hard space which is limited to natural stone pathways which follow the taut lines of the new building. The paving material will be sourced from the same quarries as those in the architecture to bring the building and the garden indivisibly together.