On 29 Mar, 09:46, Janet Tweedy wrote:
Do architects ever consider contemporary garden fashion when they design
houses?

Yes they do, but not all of them. Two great architects that I know off
do, Libeskind and Piano, both are very influence by the surrounding,
sometimes far too much in the case of Libeskind where emotions and
history is always very important to him but not necessarily to his
clients and the citizens. The third best practice to do this is us,
off course.

When I managed 5 environmental art projects on the first park to be
created in Manchester since Victoria, the environment was very
important, but more important were it's people and its history. Since
the housing was entirely new build, we were influenced by the new
designs. Your question is very interesting though, because this is
precisely what is missing at the moment - the practicalities of
gardens on new housing, and more to the point all the particulars of
the site, wind, temperature, water, orientation, size, design and the
soil!! The later is one of my biggest angst - I am so angered by
seeing the state of the new build gardens when the prices of houses do
not really reflect the state of the gardens when they are fill with
rubbles, rubbish top soil and left to the new owners/tenants to spend
a fortune on it's creation or in many many cases, just left as a sad
overgrown lifeless back yard.

This is what I am concentrating on and I look forward to the day when
we can offer interesting gardens on new built to people, at least some
kind of 'starter kit' gardens. If we do this, we can integrate new
communities with the natural fabric, their environment, offering some
sort of guidelines, some sort of ethic of care, using (historically
appropriate - perhaps) local materials, planting native plants,
respecting the local ecology so that we all can contribute towards
greener, healthier and happier communities.

When considering the outside view I wondered if the conifer years or the
bedding plant era had any influence on how the house might look in its
environment.

There were victorian guidelines for cemeteries and for housing too.
Thought the choice of plants were usually to show one's wealth rather
than for fashion as such. Hence the creation of so many arboratum and
follies.