Thoroughly Modern Living : A Geometric Landscape Takes Its Cue From the Architecture of the House

FOUNTAINS ARE OFTEN relegated to one corner of the garden. But this geometrically cascading fountain virtually is the garden. Designed to be viewed primarily from the ground-floor living room and the second-story master bedroom, this unusual back yard in Santa Cruz is equally intriguing when observed firsthand. Patchwork squares of concrete dead-end into a quiet canal, and a large, old dracaena--a souvenir from a previous owner--stands majestically to the side.

This garden has no soft edges: Its design takes its architectural cue from the house, which has curving walls and flat-roof terraces that recall the early European Modernist movement and this country’s Streamline Moderne era. Geometric patterns dominate everything in the garden, including the waterway. Beginning in a quiet pool at the top of the lot, the water drops three times, finally turning a sharp right angle to a long, narrow canal.

At each turn, the water does something different. “It’s been sectioned off and ordered and transformed to geometric movement,” says the designer, landscape architect Janet Pollock. A spillway of corrugated concrete creates “texture” as water flows between changes in level, dropping in ever-expanding streams until it is admitted to the canal through slots that match the slope of the canal’s beveled edges. The water flows right up to the top of the slot before it “oozes through,” as Pollock puts it. This bevel also gives the illusion of a razor-sharp edge, which emphasizes the flatness of the water in the canal. On an overcast day, the water grows dim, and on a sunny day it mirrors overhanging trees. When it’s cold, mist rises from the surface.

Originally, the garden site was level. Pollock was consulted when the house was still on the drawing table, so she was able to build a slope for the cascading fountain with soil excavated for the house’s foundation. The garden’s back wall serves as a structural retaining wall.

There aren’t many modern gardens today because most people, no matter what their taste in architecture, usually prefer a traditional-style landscape. So Pollock, who is based in Santa Cruz, was delighted when client Jay Schumann gave her a chance to design a modern garden. And Pollock’s artistic composition of water elements has transformed this garden into a uniquely modern environment. Flowers, lawn, hedges, trees and shrubbery have a role to play, but the garden’s strength lies in its geometric structure and in its changing water qualities.