BIRD HOUSE

LOCATION: Wellesley, MA

PROJECT TIMELINE: 2022 - present

SCOPE OF WORK: site plan and schematic design, construction documentation, project oversight, phased naturalistic horticultural installation and maintenance

TEAM: Princess Pine LLC (landscape designer), August Ventimiglia (architect), RobertHanss Inc (site prep & hardscape installation), Andy Balon/Bartlett Tree (arborist) 

PROJECT OVERVIEW: Built on the footprint of a one room schoolhouse, this elegantly designed building is a private reading room and gallery within an existing woodland. The larger property, rich in horticultural history, includes established woodlands and gardens. The landscape design centers the experience of glimpsing and discovering something in the woods, and being drawn towards it.  We began with a sensitive editing of the existing canopy and shrub layer, to allow sun to reach the ground. Planting a test plot in one of these clearings allowed us to observe what plants would thrive in the proposed ground plane. We designed an approach that takes visitors through a newly installed meadow to the wood’s edge. Continuing into the woodland along a newly installed stone dust path, visitors travel through a newly planted woodland perennial ground plane and thickened understory. The path slowly curves to reveal the building; the curves are determined by the root zones of existing canopy trees.  Utility, maintenance, and art handling access to the building is via an alternate path of stone dust and aged granite steps.

Section showing canopy, understory & groundplane, existing & proposed, around the Bird House.

Proposed approach from the main house. Together with the curve of the path, the planting scheme screens the Bird House to enhance the sense of discovery as one is drawn into the woods.