This project endeavours to create an outdoor leisure area that integrates sculptural and practical components in a sympathetic rural estate style. The dam is an important element in rural landscape design and this structure brings it further into the client’s lifestyle.
The seating set around a movable fire pit make this a perfect setting to stay cool in summer and entertain in all seasons and all times of the day, with solar lighting and a storage box integrated for cushions and essentials, this area of the property is ready to use whenever the opportunity arises. Using undressed ironbark posts with traditional decking and coreten steel post caps, the jetty is anchored into bedrock and tied together with steel under the water out of the line of sight. The steel caps are both a sculptural and functional feature preventing water penetration at the top of the post, however, Ironbark is extremely durable in the water and will last for many many years without any maintenance.
On most holdings the dam sits beyond the house garden, in the managed zone described in how big an acreage is.
Where the dam is in view of the terrace, a ha-ha wall can keep stock off the lawn without fencing the water out of sight.
A jetty, its seating and the planting along the dam edge are best planned as part of the wider acreage garden design.
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About the author
Nicholas Bray, Registered Landscape Architect (RILA 958, AILA)
Nicholas Bray is the principal of Nicholas Bray Landscapes, a landscape architecture and construction business based in Moss Vale in the Southern Highlands. With 25 years of experience across landscape architecture, horticulture and environmental planning, he designs and builds gardens for large acreage estates, rural properties, vineyards, schools and commercial sites throughout the Southern Highlands, Central and Southern New South Wales.
Nicholas studied landscape architecture in Australia and Canada, and horticulture at the Royal Horticultural Society’s garden at Wisley in the United Kingdom. He has worked at the Hanbury Botanical Gardens in La Mortola, Italy, and completed projects in Spain, the United Kingdom, Singapore and Canada.
His work balances the built and natural environments with site specific planting, stonework, pools and water features, and he is well known for guiding complex landscape plans through council approval.