“The landscape is minimalist and of the place. It treads lightly on the site, particularly in how it bridges over the flood plain. It takes great skill to make it look so effortless.”

—2013 Professional Awards Jury

“轻踏沼泽上的极简景观。看起来毫不费力，实际这需要非常努力和高超的技巧才能达成。”

–2013年专业奖评审委员会

Combs Point Residence By

Michael Vergason Landscape Architects, Ltd., Alexandria, VA

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这个家庭住宅位于纽约北部几个手指湖之一的塞内卡湖边上，项目轻轻的落在狭窄的冰川峡谷间，与丰富的森林以及清洌的湖水相伴。这里的地形倾斜复杂，因此与大地的结合十分重要，景观设计师空灵的解决了这个难题。

Lightly touching down in a narrow glacial ravine is a family residence that responds boldly to its site on Seneca Lake in New York’s northern Finger Lakes. A perennial stream laces through a rich forested glen, from a waterfall at its head to the fanning delta at the lake’s edge. The robust woodland runs down the slopes and slips through the chain of wracked buildings, hugging the house, and tying it to the land in practical and ethereal ways.

▼总平 Site Plan

客户希望享受湖泊的原始之美，因此场地的寻找主要集中在东部暴露的湖岸线。场地曾经有一个狩猎小屋，不过很多年被夷为平地，直到后来在场地周围发现瀑布和美丽多种的植物，提升观景戏剧性和价值，才确定该地为建设场地。

这个房屋主要为喜欢湖泊和出行的一家四口周末度假使用，建筑包括三间卧室，独立办公区，运动区，客房，船库和车库。建筑师和景观师密切配合，修复和提升了场所的生态环境。

方案把建筑分为独立的零散体量布置在场地中，各部分间通过狭窄的通道联系。因此植物景观渗透入房间中。其中最主要的起居生活空间探出林缘线，裸露的探向湖泊，获得开放的视野和空间。卧室处于缓坡的保护之中。住户需要跨过小溪到达船库。而车库还远在船库的北方。之所以把车库安排得这样远，乃是希望打造出宁静的住宅。

景观师，建筑师，客户一直认为这个场地中的风景才是作重要的，因此介入场地中的路径都选择了最小的和最窄的，他们穿梭在丰富的植物群中，陷入自然的美丽怀抱！

景观师调参现场后发现场地中的植物多样性在这个地区堪称了不起，其中主要有四大生态群落：干燥高山森林群落，湿润高山森林群落，滩涂森林群落和季节性淹没湿地。通过五个新种植区让场地与原有植物群落形成新平衡。植物的生长与海拔，坡度，朝向息息相关。也同场地内的微环境有关，比如谷顶的PH值要比谷底低，同时其他条件也因为环境差距千差万别。要让新植物不着痕迹的融入老植物群中乃是非常有挑战的一件事情。

景观设计师力求让子女植物群看起来是场地自然繁衍的一部分，精心布置的百合，草本植物和蕨类植物在生长几年后成为场地中的亮点。

场地的气候在全年都变化无常比较极端。因此景观设计师研究场地暴雨径流，躲开斜坡水土流失和风蚀。让洪水狂风暴雨对场地中侵害减少到最低。

种植的养护管理工作进行了两年，在这里通常的管理计划是行不通的，为此景观设计师制定了不同的职务管理计划，并聘请顾问和志愿者进行长期监督。其中一位，来自康奈尔大学的植物学家在场地上发现了一个濒危植物品种。

这个住宅建立在对场地细致入微的考察和适应基础上，是一个尊重土地的可持续性项目，显示出各学科高度协作的完美成果。大胆，轻盈，独特，环保。

▼塞内卡湖夜光

Perched on the point, the living room becomes a light house on Seneca Lake at night.

▼面向水景，三面玻璃窗的起居空间。即便在寒冷的季节，这个光亮的“大门廊”也充满了正能量。

The glass walls of the living room frame water views on three sides and slide open to extend the space outdoors. Even in the colder months, this family space feels like a large porch reaching toward the light.

▼在山谷中，临着小溪的建筑有着独一无二的环境，它与这里强风，植物，岩石地形还有阳光共生。

The residence is surrounded by a formidable and unforgiving environment that is subject to high winds, cold temperatures, rocky terrain and harsh sun. The site is defined by the ravine’s earthen walls and the creek, which cuts through it.

▼窄窄的房屋轻触林间，一头面向湖泊。

As it slips through existing trees and vegetation toward the lake, the narrow footprint of the house touches lightly on the land and mimics the path of the nearby stream.

▼生态种植五区域（通过高层，坡度和坡向界定）

Great care was taken to identify existing ecological communities on site and to curate planting groups within them. Within the five distinct zones, plant groupings reflect variations in elevation, slope and aspect. The mosaic of color and texture extends across the property from the forest to the house.

▼办公室朝外看到的美国梧桐，三角叶杨和糖枫，椴木，水曲柳林地。木栈道联系各个建筑。

The Sycamore-Cottonwood and Sugar Maple-Basswood-Ash woodland communities meet at the office to form a verdant corridor separating the meadows of the guest house and main house. New plantings augment and repair the connection.

▼客房。融入林地。

As seen prior to the guest house meadow installation, the streamside plants, trees and the steep ravine provide a feeling of enclosure and connection to the existing woodland communities surrounding the house.

▼现状树木与紫色开花树莓以及本地羊茅草本组成的宜人室外。

Purple-flowering raspberry and existing canopy trees frame the custom mix of native fescues at the guest house meadow, creating an outdoor room.

▼临湖处，景观开放，这里分布着适应水位波动涨幅的河岸草，杂草，蒲草等植物。

After winding its way through the farmland of Upstate New York, Sixteen Falls Creek empties into Seneca Lake. The riparian grasses, rushes and forbs are adapted to withstand the seasonally-fluctuating water levels and stabilize the banks.

▼临湖处，景观开放，这里分布着适应水位波动涨幅的河岸草，杂草，蒲草等植物。

After winding its way through the farmland of Upstate New York, Sixteen Falls Creek empties into Seneca Lake. The riparian grasses, rushes and forbs are adapted to withstand the seasonally-fluctuating water levels and stabilize the banks.

▼糖枫，椴木，水曲柳森林在秋天以美丽的色彩包围住房屋。

The vibrant autumn color of the Sugar Maple-Basswood-Ash forest canopy envelops the house.

▼向南窗外那稳定的坡。

Looking south from the guest house, the changing nature of the site’s steep ravine is brought inside with full window walls. Fallen trees stabilize the soil and the slope’s base functions as a drainage swale.

▼景观建筑师力求建设对场地影响降至最小，并获得保护和应有的开放。这个家在四季都有不同的面貌。

The LA worked closely with the architect to site the building with minimal disruption of existing soil and vegetation to optimize sun exposed and protection from the elements. The result is a home that exhibits a distinct mood in each season.

▼人们停车后必须步行一段距离到主体建筑，建筑轻栖场地，空灵美丽。

Visitors approach the house on foot and see the silhouette of the northern elevation from the bridge over the creek. Vehicles remain at the garage up the hill.

▼船库外超凡脱俗的夕阳美景。

Nestled at the base of a forested cliff, the utilitarian boathouse is transcendent at sunset.

Existing Site

This property had a wildness that captured the client’s interest immediately. They understood the raw beauty of Seneca Lake when they began looking for a site on the exposed eastern shoreline. A hunting lodge once sat on the site, but burned to the ground many years ago. It wasn’t until they hiked upstream, into the 100-plus acre property’s deep cut ravine that they found a waterfall, hidden within the site’s botanically diverse plant palette. It was the site’s inherent drama and ephemeral delicacy that bound the owners to this place and ultimately defined the design direction for the house and landscape.

Project Program

The project scope included a four-season weekend retreat for a family of four that supported their active life on the lake and love of the out-of-doors. In addition to three bedrooms for the main house, the architect was asked to create areas for office, exercise, and guests, in addition to a boathouse and garage. From the beginning, the Landscape Architect (LA) worked closely with the design team towards a strategy that would repair and enhance the site’s ecological function.

Site Planning

The design decision to break the program down into separate but connected structures came from the need to respond to the narrow site, the solar orientation, and the disturbed area of the old hunting lodge. The extrusion of the parts along a line of circulation, the site’s outdoor hallway, created opportunities for outdoor rooms formed by the interplay of existing trees and the framing of the space by the building walls.The design resolution locates the primary family room on the point, like a boat, with its prow forward, exposed, and open to the drama of the seasons and the prevailing eastern winds at the water’s edge. The more private rooms of the house gather behind this front room, and are more protected, nestled in the ravine. A bridge for pedestrians and the family’s all-terrain vehicle spans the creek and connects the main house to the boathouse, which sits at the water’s edge. Further still is a three-car garage on the bluff above the main building site. All cars remain high on the bluff at the garage, thereby limiting the primary circulation around the house to foot-traffic.

Landscape Strategy

The LA, the architect, and the client agreed that the site’s inherent natural beauty and ecological diversity needed to be prioritized over all other site decisions. The client stressed the desire to be responsible ecological stewards so grading was minimized to pathways and roads and the diverse plant palette carefully edited to allow the house to slip into the existing landscape.

Planting

The charge of making the site appear untouched was far more difficult to achieve than it might seem. The LA began with a comprehensive survey of the existing plants and determined that the diversity of the herbaceous groundcover was both remarkable and unusual, even in the Finger Lakes. The LA, with a staff trained in landscape architecture, arboriculture and horticulture, determined that the project sat within four existing ecological communities: Dry Upland Forest, Moist Upland Forest, Floodplain Forest, and Seasonally Inundated Wetland. The project planting plan mixed these communities into five planting zones (See Planting Zones Diagram). The plant list is composed of plants that fall within a mix of vegetation communities (See Plant List).Plant groupings within each zone reflect variations in elevation, slope and aspect. The most interesting lesson learned was that the shale soils change pH radically as they degrade. The tops of the relatively shallow ravine have much lower pH than the bottom. The result is extreme diversity in a small area because of the dramatic changes in soil pH, light, and weather (Seneca Lake’s deep waters moderate the temperatures on the site, so it can be snowing at the garage when there is no snow at the main house).There was not an analog upon which to model this project. Finding the appropriate plant material in nurseries proved challenging and it was difficult to find trees that blended seamlessly into the forest. The layout of the plants mimicked existing conditions so that the plants looked to be the result natural propagation in the microenvironments where they occur naturally. The careful culling or retention of existing material was an integral part of the project. Three years later, the site is healthier than ever, with bursts of trout lilies, trillium and ferns in the early spring.

Site Forces

This is a highly volatile site and the weather extremes are felt throughout the seasons. The builder and the LA discussed in detail site drainage and water flow to save existing trees. The LA planted the slopes and pinned down dead trees to provide slope and wind erosion control during seasonal storms and to trap organic material so seedlings could grow rather than wash out. Vegetation grows easily in the fertile soils of the flatland with its high water table at 18” deep. The stream run can be violent in the spring and after heavy rains, with water elevation changing from flood stage to nearly dry throughout the year. Rather than guarding against these conditions, the design team saw these ephemeral shifts as an essential part of the experience of the place.

Maintenance

During the two year planting process, it became apparent that a traditional approach to landscape management would not work. The LA wrote a meadow management plan for the different meadow areas but the plantings would require constant editing by someone who understood the plants over time and could choose which volunteers to keep and which to pull. The LA and client searched for the right person and found a botanist from Cornell University, who became so attached to the property that he now serves as a consultant that supervises the on-going site work. His discovery of a threatened New York State species on-site, Agastache nepetoides- Yellow Giant Hyssop, deepened his commitment to the place.

Materials and Site Details

All aspects of this project were carefully adapted to the site and considered for their regenerative results. The house design has a respectful relationship to the land and site, using sustainably harvested tropical wood for the boardwalk, a beach shale gravel path excavated from the shore edge of the site, New York granite paths, and beach shale splash blocks and drip lines.Through careful siting and thoughtful interplay of architectural elements, this project shows the result of a highly collaborative design process where the role of each discipline is blurred to create a simultaneously bold and ethereal composition, unique to its place and time.

English text and photos via

ASLA