American Society of Landscape Architects

  2004 ASLA Professional Awards


Design Award of Honor

Tidewater Residence, Virginia Beach, VA
Nelson Byrd Woltz Landscape Architects, Charlottesville, VA

Simple elegance integrates building and site. Excellent use of materials to help engage the site. . . Very sensitive to the site. . . conscious effort of sustainable design. . . would love to be there now. . .
           2004 Professional Awards Jury Comments

The seven-acre site for this house and garden is set on Lynnhaven Bay, a tributary of the Chesapeake Bay-the largest and most biologically productive estuary in the United States. The site was abandoned and overgrown, the last available tract in a suburban development where houses dominate the waterfront and where riprap and bulkheads have typically replaced the natural shoreline stabilization provided by tidal marshes. The owners were determined to break the stereotypical mold for shoreline development by hiring a landscape architect whose philosophy was grounded in the principles of sustainable design. The subsequent dialogue began when the property was purchased and evolved into a fully realized interplay of house and garden that respects and responds to the setting and sensitive local ecology.

 

View of canal, freshwater pond, lap and swimming pools, and pool/exercise pavilion with Lynnhaven Bay in the distance. Looking east from garret in one of the children's bedrooms. (Photo: Nelson Byrd Woltz Landscape Architects)

Rendered site plan. (Photo: Nelson Byrd Woltz Landscape Architects)

Approach to house showing porous gravel entry drive, wax-myrtle hedge, and river birch in foreground. (Photo: Nelson Byrd Woltz Landscape Architects)

Looking through line of river birches towards front stoop, arrival court, and wax-myrtle hedge. (Photo: Nelson Byrd Woltz Landscape Architects)

View from within redbud arc looking east toward center of house—green roof is above central bay. (© William Abranowicz)

View across shallow lawn terraces looking south. (Photo: Nelson Byrd Woltz Landscape Architects)

Green roof looking north. Plants include bluestem, buffalo grass, and a variety of sedums. (Photo: Nelson Byrd Woltz Landscape Architects)

View from green roof looking east across meadow and remediated tidal cove to Lynnhaven Bay. Existing preserved trees in middle ground include live oaks and loblolly pine. (Photo: Nelson Byrd Woltz Landscape Architects)

View from tidal cove (low tide) west toward house. (Photo: Nelson Byrd Woltz Landscape Architects)

View from within meadow looking west toward house. Planted species include broom sedge, pink muhly grass, loblolly pines, and southern red oak. (Photo: Nelson Byrd Woltz Landscape Architects)

Early morning view looking west across freshwater pond and lap pool. (© William Abranowicz)
Detail of freshwater pond looking southwest. Plants include iris, horsetail, summersweet, pickerel weed, water lilies, sweetspire, and inkberry. (Photo: Nelson Byrd Woltz Landscape Architects)
Detail of swimming pool with freshwater pond on right and live oaks framing view to bay. (Photo: Nelson Byrd Woltz Landscape Architects)

Detail of freshwater pond with gregarious duck. (Photo: Nelson Byrd Woltz Landscape Architects)
View of corner of lap pool projecting into freshwater pond looking southeast across to bay. (Photo: Nelson Byrd Woltz Landscape Architects)

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