In beautiful Czech Canada, we were invited to a project to renovate a country garden. The cottage, intended for weekend living, is greeted at regular intervals by a tour train passing just outside the fence. It was immediately clear to us that the basic task would be to design how to connect the garden with the landscape and awaken the genius loci hidden among the aging spruces. The inspiration that suggested how this garden story would be written was not only the surrounding landscape, but also the gradually growing art collection, which is a great passion of the owner, and the cottage itself. During the renovation, the architect combined the simple lines of contemporary architecture with the traditional morphology of a country house. The roughly 1,500 m2 plot rises up a gentle slope and the generous seating under the pergola adjacent to the house suggested how the couple and their grown-up children like to spend their free time.
Our number one principle was not to overdo it with more expressive architecture. The main thing to look for in a country house is honest materials. You might be able to get away with a bland interlocking paving slab in a city house, but it’s downright damaging in a country cottage. You need solid wood, stone and possibly brick, and if you want concrete, then only in its purest form. The original canvas fence was exactly the detail we wanted to keep, of course, to give the place its original character and flavour of memories. We supplemented the stones we found in the garden with others that the owners sourced from local tractor drivers. It is particularly difficult within rural buildings to come up with a new second-rate practical structure that looks good and doesn’t feel alien to the place. Therefore, together with the architect, we designed the shed (bicycle storage) as unobtrusively as possible, with a green roof. The simplicity and architectural humility of these little buildings will pay off in the context of virtually any architectural style.
