About the job Leading busy lives led the client to desire a low-maintenance garden: no lawn, with outdoor living done mainly on a balcony on the 1st floor above. Plenty of outdoor seating areas ensure a summer garden party could accommodate plenty. High screens were used to cut down the traffic and neighbourhood intrusion. To satisfy this brief and a few points of own we designed it as follows- the wide but shallow garden is not particularly in balance with the tall building it belongs to so the space has been made to feel larger by setting the main lines of the design at 45 degree angles to the house. This takes the eye to corners of the garden which is the longest distances in the space and makes the garden feel larger. Circles keep the eye within a space and deter it from leading to a boundary and a dead end to the visual corridor so to speak and thus also lend a an exagerated feeling of space to an area hence the semi circular design in one corner. The water feature in the form of two 600mm wide sheer descent waterfalls cascading 1m into a 150mm deep pool effectively drowns out the traffic noise. The waterfalls are positioned so they are focal points directly centred on the doorways in the ground floor wall. Planting was chosen to be low maintenance and to have pleasing display from above such as tree ferns. Specimen palms were planted on the rear boundary for the same reasons. The paving slabs are honed 'concrete terrazzo'.