Dutch designer Arjan Boekel has created a lush urban oasis for a new-build family home in Amsterdam, filtering out the surrounding city with a carefully curated palette of plants
WORDS ZIA ALLAWAY PHOTOGRAPHS SIETSKE DE VRIES
Lighting up an unforgiving landscape of brick and stone, Dutch designer Arjan Boekel’s lush city garden design wraps around his client’s glass-edged contemporary house like an embroidered blanket. Colourful flowers overlay an autumn backdrop of emerald and scarlet foliage, while gravel paths, grasses and a strip of velvety lawn provide textural contrasts.
Arjan’s clients Sandra and Earl live with their young children on the south side of Amsterdam, in an area designated for new-build homes. “The couple invited a top architecture firm to design their house and asked me to create a natural-looking garden to both contrast and harmonise with the modern building,” explains Arjan. “The challenge was to design a space that would offer something beautiful to look at year-round from the glass façade on the ground floor. The garden also had to provide a safe space for their children to play and explore.”
Sandra and Earl loved the designs of Piet Oudolf, so Arjan took some inspiration from his courtyard garden at Hauser & Wirth, Somerset, using a palette of grasses and perennials, but with more woody, structural plants to help filter the urban environment, so the family don’t feel completely overwhelmed by their surroundings. “I like the intimacy of enclosed courtyard gardens, too,” says Arjan, “and this style also influenced the design.”
He began by setting out the footprint for the L-shaped garden, designing planting beds close to the house and seating areas alongside the boundaries. “I wanted the atmosphere of the garden to roll out from the house, and for your eyes to be drawn to the trees and plants. You can also look through them to additional planting at the back of the garden, which creates the illusion of more depth in a small space.” Placing the functional areas next to the boundaries and screening the seating with trees and shrubs meant that Arjan was able to provide privacy for the family, out of sight of their neighbours’ windows, without having to make the walls too high.
“One boundary adjacent to the house is made fr
