9: Gardiner Road, Blackhall, Edinburgh

Brief

• Suburban garden for a family with two active children.
• The garden already accommodated a trampoline, five-a-side football pitch and a climbing frame. The brief was to create a garden area that would be both adult- and child-friendly.

Solution

• It was quite a challenge trying to make a crowded, moderately small garden into a cohesive space.
• The best way to deal with the overcrowding was to separate the garden into ‘rooms’ using high screens.
• The adult room is a sunken-circle sitting area surrounded by an area of planting. We used upright recycled railway sleepers to enclose the area.
• The sleepers were positioned slightly apart with gaps large enough to let the light through and small enough to keep the ball out. The sleepers are also positioned at different angles, with light casting an interesting shadow onto the area.
• A bamboo screen also serves as a second partition. The bamboo and sleepers separate the top half of the garden where the kids can quite happily play football.
• The sunken trampoline is a less imposing feature and also offers an enhanced safety factor when the kids are at play.