Ways to Landscape With Pavers

A Bay Area landscape designer works her yard like a jigsaw puzzle, packing a bevy of distinctive destinations into a steep and diminutive plot. Photo by: Morgan Rachel Levy Read the entire article here.

Landscape architect Tait Moring installed pavers around the structure’s perimeter and kept the tree cover intact. Photo by: Kimberly Davis

B&B Italia Outdoor’s Canasta sofa, by Patricia Urquiola, shares a shady patch in the ground-floor Carnegie Hill garden with three ginkgo biloba trees, an existing fountain with an Italian marble spout designed by Thomas Woltz, and bluestone pavers. The terrace is filled with woodland greenery: Leucothoe, ostrich ferns, and lady ferns.

Stepstone's narrow concrete pavers add a graphic touch to the garden in the Mill Valley home of Dwell founder Lara Hedberg Deam and architect Chris Deam. Photo by Dustin Aksland.

Rather than resist the natural slope of the Buena Vista Heights backyard, landscape architect Eric Blasen composed a well-considered, minimal, multiterraced space. Accent details, like the flat handrail and stone stairs, mirror those repeated both inside the home and out front, respectively; Blasen worked directly with architect Tim Gemmill to ensure a cohesive feel between the spaces. Photo by Marion Brenner.

Instead of installing a typical cement slab driveway, Waechter and Crymes opted for concrete pavers mixed with patches of Corsican mint that let rainwater permeate into the ground.

Red Head fountain grass and Aoba Jo and Beni Ubi Gohon dwarf Japanese maples—from the Merrifield Garden Center surround the fountain. “The house I grew up in had a similar maple tree,” says Meejin. “It grows slowly over time, and it was one of the special trees that we had on our property.” Eventually, the fountain will hold koi. In the event that either of Meejin’s parents, Hannah or Jason, needs a wheelchair later in life, the firm created a side walkway with a gentle slope. The path is lined with Silver Lake quartzite flagstone pavers Hannah selected from the Charles Luck Stone Center.

Mint Plaza in San Francisco used to be a highly sketchy back alley. Today it's a vibrant public pedestrian plaza and festival space lined with restaurants and cafes, filled with dozens of movable bright orange chairs and shaded by a vine-covered steel trellis.

Residence and Atelier of Patrick Y Wong Copyright Case # 1-266025680 Filed October 27, 2009