Going Green: 11 Ways to Design with Plants

“There’s no right answer except to play and experiment,” Adler says about furnishing the interior. He reupholstered vintage Warren Platner chairs with velvet from Kravet. Drawings by Eva Hesse inspired the custom ceramic wall tile. Adler also created the coffee table, rug, planters, and gold stool. The pendant lamp is from Rewire in Los Angeles and the artwork is by Jean-Pierre Clément.

Architects Simone Carneiro and Alexandre Skaff transformed a cramped São Paulo apartment into a mid-city refuge for Simone Santos. On the terrace, plants, vines, and pergolas form a barrier against the city’s notorious noise and pollution.

In an effort to keep the rooms as pure and spare as possible, Atherton and Keener forewent traditional moldings in favor of a subtle reveal at the top and bottom of the wall. They sprayed the ceiling with silver Ralph Lauren metallic paint, selected to tonally match the concrete floors and reflect light deeper into the room. As a result, says Keener, “the walls feel more sculptural.”

The living room, dining room, and kitchen are arranged in a 60-foot-long enfilade. The pendant light above the table is Nemo by Franco Albini for Cassina. A grouping of succulents and Monstera deliciosa plants act as a natural room divider.

According to Gaultier, "My imagination comes from the cinema...I love the idea that nature is capable of trumping concrete."

For Paul and Shoko Shozi, a pair of retiring Angelenos, the goal was to shut out the neighborhood but bring in the sunny skies. Their new prefab home, the Tatami House, designed by Swiss architect Roger Kurath of Design*21, makes a central courtyard the physical, and maybe even the spiritual, center of the home. Because the Japanese maple in the courtyard had to be planted before the ipe deck was laid, Kurath designed a small removable panel to allow access to the tree’s base. The Shozis can pull up the bit of decking to tend to the tree and replace it when they’re through. And because the boards line up perfectly, only the gardener need know it’s there. From the kitchen and living room you’re well connected to the courtyard and the rest of the house.

The more planning you do and the fewer changes you make, the higher chance you have of staying within your budget. Take the time to figure out what the scope of the project is and get a sense of how much work is needed so that you can make educated decisions when presented with options.

A guest bedroom, with furniture from Room & Board, overlooks the bridge above the dining courtyard. The home’s landscape architecture is by Ventura, California–based Jack Kiesel. Photo by Coral von Zumwalt.

How a highly productive collaboration among a trio of creative Angelenas—and a good dose of Barragán—turned a dark and beleaguered mid-century house into a family home for the ages.

The Charles Forberg-designed LongHouse, Larsen’s estate in East Hampton, was inspired in equal parts by Japanese Shinto shrines and Larsen’s old New York City loft. A glass ceiling is embedded along the spine of the peaked roof, and allows for such remarkable rooms as the entryway-turned-greenhouse. Larsen says, “It’s remarkable that there aren’t more glass-ceilinged rooms. It didn’t cost more than a real ceiling, and it doesn’t lose or gain more heat, but if you can’t be outdoors, it’s very pleasant and the plants like it.” The beams and trusswork were made from Douglas fir in Minnesota.