The new opera house in Oslo, Norway has a plaza that slopes right into the water. The plaza also slopes up to the roof of the building.

In Amsterdam there are people who choose to live on the water's edge.

A simple non-cluttered definition between turf and water.

With an afternoon of hard work I tranformed the planter into a drought tolerant flower bed. I will follow up with an image in a month when the lavander starts taking off.

This shot was taken approx. one month after installation. The lavander has doubled in size and is in full bloom.

A new vegetable garden. Six tomato plants, two green pepper, two zucchini, two cucumber. This project took 1 shovel and five hours of labor (sod removal, soil amendment, Planting, Staking. Do you have a heavily irrigated turf area that can be turned into a productive vegetable garden?

The veggie garden is now 1 month old. The tomato is really starting to take off.

This is what the existing wooden fence panels look like.

The flagstone has been laid and our fire pit is complete. A fountain has been selected to help anchor the corner of the site.

The forming of the concrete pit and the flagstone installation in progress.

Concrete steppers after pouring concrete and applying a hand seeded aggregate finish.

Hand seeded aggregate will be used to add interest to our concrete steppers. The colors will help make a transition from the chocolate flagstone to the gray of the pool deck.

This is the formwork for our concrete steppers. The steppers act as a transition from the sideyard garden to the concrete pool deck.

While clearing away the Juniper, we ran across an unused irrigation line. Instead of throwing away the line, I fabricated a custom fountain that shoots water into the pool. The fountain does not re-circulate so it will be used as an interesting way to fill the pool when the water level gets low. The spray jets are very accurate, leaving no wasted water.

We saved all of the block from the old BBQ pit that we demolished. The blocks will be set into a couple inches of soil and used as an informal pathway.

We now have the concrete poured and we are ready to add some flagstone and our concrete steppers.

We lay the formwork for a concrete pour.

Formwork for the concrete pour - Firepit area

Good bye turf! This project will not have a single square foot of water thirsty turf. The plan is to add several small mounds and create a perennial garden.

This is where the artistry starts to come to life. The soil is the canvas and the shovel is the paintbrush.

The pool deck after we made our cuts and removed the concrete. All of the concrete was disposed of at a concrete recycling facility.

We came up with a design that would allow us remove a large crack in the existing pool deck. The design also allows for a new planter bed adjacent to the block wall.

The existing sideyard is cluttered with a bbq pit, pool slide, and random plantings. Our goal is to open up the space so that it will flow into the backyard.

Designing on the fly. Using slatted panels for the fence further enhances the view to the park. The plan is to also include a gate for direct access to the park.

Removing the pool slide further enhances the view into the park.

Three large juniper trees are blocking the view to the adjacent park. The design calls for elements that will help visually enlarge our client's backyard.