White Stone Garden by Jianan landscape design office

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Thanks Jianan landscape design office for authorizing the publication of the project on mooool, Text description provided by Jianan landscape design office.

北京甲南园林设计事务所：开始设计这个花园的时候，我们脑子里只有一件事：把它清空。

接手时，院子里全是抬高的花池，密集而拥挤，将原本就不宽裕的300平米切割得支离破碎。业主的需求很明确，也很朴素——孩子要有地方骑车，要有篮球框，要有一个能养鱼的池子。孩子喜欢鱼，每天都要去看。

这些需求不需要诠释，只需要空间。于是设计的第一步，是拆掉所有不必要的东西，把场地还给场地。

Jianan landscape design office：When we started designing this garden, we had only one thing in mind: empty it out.

When we took on the project, the courtyard was packed with raised planting beds — dense and cluttered, cutting the 300-square-meter space into fragments. The client’s needs were clear and straightforward: children need room to ride bikes, a basketball hoop, and a pond for fish. The kids love fish and check on them every day.

These needs required no interpretation — only space. So the first step in the design was to strip away everything unnecessary, and return the site to itself.

▽入口夜景

▽街道视角·黄昏

从”条件”到”材料”

场地有两个客观条件，我们一开始都把它们当成麻烦。

第一个：入口与室外道路之间存在超过一米的高差。台阶是必须的，但只是台阶，太普通。

第二个：大门正对客厅的窗户。需要遮挡，但只是一堵墙，太死板。

到后来，我们发现这两件事恰恰是设计最好的切入点。高差可以成为空间的节奏，墙可以有更复杂的存在方式。我们停止把它们当作问题去解决，开始把它们当作材料去使用。

From Constraints to Material

The site came with two given conditions — both of which we initially treated as problems.

First: a drop of over one meter between the entrance and the street. Steps were inevitable. But just steps felt too ordinary.

Second: the front gate faced directly toward the living room window. A screen was needed. But just a wall felt too blunt.

Eventually we realized these two things were the best entry points the design had. The height difference could become spatial rhythm. The wall could have a more complex existence. We stopped treating them as problems to solve and started treating them as material to work with.

▽悬挑景墙落于黑色巨石·日景

入口：一块石头托起一面墙

芝麻白花岗岩的台阶一级一级地往上走，景墙从墙体悬挑出来，末端没有落柱，而是搭在一块黑色天然巨石上。这块石头是用吊车吊装进来的，重达数吨。

这不是一个隐喻，是一个物理事实：墙真的搭在石头上。石头的重量与粗粝的肌理，和景墙、铺装的白色平整形成了直接的张力。它解决了视线问题，但它更重要的作用，是给整个入口空间一个重心——一个让眼睛可以停下来的地方。

入口的顶部是木格栅顶盖，光从栅格间落下来，在白色地面和墙面上形成移动的阴影。这个细节不是装饰，是空间时间感的一部分——同一个入口，早上和下午、晴天和阴天，体验完全不同。

双扇木门是入口叙事的最后一章。门关着，外面的人什么都看不见。门开着，也只露出一条缝——透过门缝，是里面的绿植和漫射的光。推开门的瞬间，空间展开。这个”先藏后放”的节奏是刻意设计的，让归家这件日常的事，每一次都还留有一点意外。

Entrance: A Stone Carrying a Wall

Steps of Sesame White granite rise one by one. The feature wall cantilevers out from the main structure, its far end resting — without any column — on a massive black natural boulder. The boulder was crane-lifted into position, weighing several tons.

This is not a metaphor. It is a physical fact: the wall rests on the stone. The weight and coarse texture of the boulder creates direct tension with the white flatness of the wall and paving. It solves the privacy problem, but its more important role is to give the entire entrance a center of gravity — a place where the eye can stop.

A timber louvre canopy covers the entrance above. Light falls between the slats and casts shifting shadows across the white surfaces below. This is not ornament — it is part of the temporal quality of the space. The same entrance reads completely differently in the morning versus the afternoon, on a sunny day versus overcast.

The double wooden doors are the final chapter of the entrance sequence. When closed, nothing inside is visible. When open, only a sliver is revealed — a glimpse of greenery and diffused light through the gap. The moment of pushing the doors open and space unfolding is designed. This rhythm of concealment then release gives the daily act of coming home a small, persistent sense of surprise.

▽入口日景

▽夜景·透过门缝的一瞥

▽入口内侧·格栅光影

▽入口内侧·横构图

▽台阶夜景

黑石头

这块黑色巨石不只出现在入口。

在设计深化的过程中，我们发现同一块石头的逻辑可以贯穿整个花园：在入口，它是景墙的落脚点，是空间的锚；在后院的花池之间，它被置于植物丛中，成为一块重物，让植物的轻盈有了对比；在休憩台地一角，同样质地的黑石用作水景的出水口，细流从石面淌下，有声音，有动态。

三个位置，三种使用方式，一种材料逻辑。这条暗线让花园不同区域之间有了呼应，不是靠形式的重复，而是靠一种材料性格的延续。

The Black Stone

The black boulder does not appear only at the entrance.

As the design developed, we found that the logic of this single stone could run through the entire garden: at the entrance, it is the landing point of the feature wall — the spatial anchor; among the planting beds in the rear, it sits within the greenery as a heavy counterpoint to the lightness of the plants; at the terrace corner, a stone of the same character is used as the outlet for the water feature — a thin stream running down its surface, introducing sound and movement.

Three locations. Three uses. One material logic. This quiet thread connects the different areas of the garden — not through repeated form, but through the persistence of a material personality.

▽花池间的黑色巨石

▽石头与植物的对话

材料：退后的语言

整个花园的材料选择有一个原则：材料越少、越克制，使用者本身越向前。

主铺装用芝麻白花岗岩，选白色有一个现实的理由——北京光线偏冷偏灰，白色地面可以最大程度地反射光线，让整个院子显得明亮而开阔。种植池、景墙同样以芝麻白为基调，整体构成一个干净的中性底色。

木材用在门扇、格栅顶盖和种植池的坐凳面上，引入温度感，和冷灰的石材形成平衡。后院的种植箱使用耐候钢，初期亮橙，时间久了自然变成深棕锈色，是花园里唯一随时间变化明显的材料，也是空间里最温暖的一个音符。

这三种材料——白石、木、耐候钢——构成了这个花园全部的材料语汇。没有更多了。

Materials: A Language That Steps Back

The material selection across this garden followed one principle: the more restrained the materials, the more the people using the space come forward.
The main paving is Sesame White granite. White was chosen for a practical reason — Beijing light tends toward cold grey tones, and white paving reflects light maximally, making the whole courtyard feel bright and open. The planters and feature wall share the same base tone: a clean, neutral ground.

Timber appears in the gate panels, the louvre canopy, and the bench faces on the planters — introducing warmth and balancing the cooler stone. In the rear garden, the planting box is weathering steel: vivid orange at first, deepening naturally to dark rust over time. It is the only material in the garden that changes obvious with time, and the warmest note in the composition.

Three materials — white stone, timber, weathering steel — constitute the entire material vocabulary of this garden. Nothing more.

▽材料细节：芝麻白与防腐木

院子：功能本身就是景观

花池清空之后，院子回到了它应该有的状态：一大片连续的地面。

芝麻白石板铺满，没有划区，没有特别标注哪里是骑车区、哪里是篮球场。孩子不需要被告知在哪里玩——开阔本身就是一种自由。篮球框竖在那里，但这片地不只属于它。

鱼池做成薄壁，尽可能让水面接近地面。设计时考虑的是孩子趴在池边的姿势——水面离地越近，观察鱼的体验越直接、越亲密。这个池的高度不是凭感觉定的，是推演过的。

南侧原来紧邻市政道路，路面高于庭院，雨水有倒灌风险。我们沿南侧设计了台地式种植池，一方面抬升了视线的内部边界，消解了路面高于花园的压迫感，另一方面配合排水坡度彻底解决了积水问题。这个台地的剖面关系同时也成为了植物展示最好的舞台。

The Courtyard: Function as Landscape

Once the raised beds were cleared, the courtyard returned to what it should be: a continuous expanse of ground.

Sesame White granite slabs cover it entirely, with no zones marked out, no signage indicating where cycling ends and basketball begins. Children do not need to be told where to play — openness itself is a form of freedom. The basketball hoop stands there, but this ground belongs to no single use.

The fish pond is thin-walled, bringing the water surface as close to the ground as possible. The design thought was about the posture of a child lying at the edge — the closer the water is to eye level, the more direct and intimate the experience of watching the fish. The pond height was not set by intuition. It was worked out.
The south edge of the site originally bordered a municipal road, with the road surface sitting higher than the garden — creating both visual pressure and the risk of flooding. We designed a terraced planting bed along the south edge: it raises the internal horizon, eliminating the oppressive feeling of being overlooked, while the drainage gradient permanently resolves the flooding risk. The resulting sectional relationship also became the best possible stage for the planting.

植物：不刻意的野生

植物的选择遵循一个方向：自然生长的状态，而不是”庭院感”。

以多年生宿根花卉和观赏草为主——薰衣草、鼠尾草、绣球、矢车菊、银叶草、狼尾草——这些植物不需要频繁修剪，随季节自然消长，有时凌乱，有时饱满。这种不确定性是我们想要的，它让花园不像一个被维护的产品，更像一个有生命节奏的地方。

台地花池为植物提供了高差上的展示层次，不同生长习性的植物分层排列，高草在后，宿根在前，匍匐植物悬于池壁边缘。在芝麻白花岗岩的中性背景下，植物的颜色和形态获得了最大的表达空间。

Planting: Deliberate Wildness

The planting follows a single direction: the appearance of natural growth, rather than the appearance of a “garden.”

The palette centres on perennial flowering plants and ornamental grasses — lavender, salvia, hydrangea, cornflower, silver artemisia, fountain grass. These plants require minimal maintenance, growing and fading with the seasons, sometimes sparse, sometimes full. This unpredictability is intentional. It makes the garden feel less like a maintained product and more like a place with a biological rhythm of its own.

The terraced planters give the planting a layered display across different heights: tall grasses to the back, perennials in the middle, trailing plants spilling over the planter edges. Against the neutral backdrop of Sesame White granite, the colours and forms of the plants have maximum room to express themselves.

▽台地种植池·自然风格植物

后院：另一种性格

越过入口的白色系，后院说的是另一种语言。

木平台铺开，一株日本枫树种在其中，几张白色户外椅随意摆放，耐候钢的种植箱安静地生锈。和前院的开阔、明亮不同，这里尺度更收拢，材料更温暖，氛围更静。

这是给大人坐着看孩子玩的地方。两个区域之间没有硬性隔断，视线可以穿过去，声音也可以穿过去，但两边的气氛截然不同。一个属于运动，一个属于停留。花园用材料和尺度完成了分区，而不是用一道墙。

The Back Garden: Another Character

Beyond the white grammar of the entrance, the rear garden speaks a different language.

A timber deck extends across the space. A Japanese maple grows through it. A few white outdoor chairs are placed without ceremony. A weathering steel planter box quietly rusts. Unlike the openness and brightness of the main courtyard, this area is more contained in scale, warmer in material, quieter in atmosphere.

This is where parents sit and watch their children play. There is no hard division between the two zones — sight lines pass through, as does sound — but the character of the two sides is entirely different. One belongs to movement, the other to stillness. The garden uses material and scale to create the separation, not a wall.

▽后院·水景与日本枫

▽木平台俯视

这个花园里没有一个先入为主的形式语言。

入口的高差决定了台阶的节奏；大门对着窗户，决定了景墙必须在那里；景墙需要一个落点，决定了石头在哪个位置；院子里的孩子需要骑车和打球，决定了地面必须是连续的整片；薄壁鱼池的高度，是根据孩子趴在旁边时的视线高度推演出来的。

每一个形式决定都有一个来自场地和使用者的理由。没有一个形式是为了好看而存在的，但合在一起，它们构成了一个有辨识度的空间。

场地的功能决定了形式，形式完全服从和服务于场地。空间自己会说话。

There is no preconceived formal language in this garden.

The height difference at the entrance determined the rhythm of the steps. The gate facing the window determined that the feature wall had to be there. The feature wall needed a landing point — that determined where the stone sits. The children in the courtyard need to cycle and play basketball — that determined the ground had to be one continuous surface. The height of the thin-walled fish pond was worked out from the sight line of a child lying at its edge.

Every formal decision has a reason that came from the site and the people using it. Not one form exists for the sake of appearance — yet together, they produce a space with a distinct character.

Function determines form. Form serves the site entirely. Space speaks for itself.

▽总平面图