272 pages
13 1/4 x 9 1/4 inches
350 color illustrations
ISBN 978-1-58093-199-1
$60 hardcover
($69 Canada)
North American rights
Outdoors
The Garden Design Book for the Twenty-first Century
Terence Conran and Diarmuid Gavin
The contemporary garden carries a profound connection both to the environment and to the range of activities—relaxing, entertaining, working—that characterize today's lifestyle. A collaboration between a distinguished style setter and a noted garden designer, Outdoors presents the principles of imaginitive and innovative landscape design, providing readers with useful knowledge and also with inspiration from diverse sources: history, media, fashion, architecture.
Thematic chapters present a wide variety of successful gardens developed for specific purposes. Formal urban gardens on rooftops are explored, as are free-form rural landscapes, backyards devised to encourage children's imaginations, and spaces planned primarily for al fresco entertaining. Extensively illustrated case studies demonstrate inventive design on a grand scale as well as the creative detailing that sets one garden apart from another. In these sections, professionally designed gardens are explored methodically to reveal techniques behind planning and layout, planting choices, intended uses, and relation to the larger landscape. A special focus on conservation philosophies addresses wildlife, recycling, and water-wise gardening. Also included are a step-by-step guide to planning a garden, advice on selecting and working with a garden designer, and an extensive catalogue of plants, with scientific names, foliage and bloom descriptions, and planting suggestions.
At once practical and provocative, Outdoors is an essential guide to the journey garden design will take over the course of the twenty-first century.
Terence Conran is one of the world's best-known designers and restaurateurs. In 1964 he founded the chain of Habitat stores in the United Kingdom to bring affordable modern design to the general public. He has also established an architecture and design practice and design-driven restaurants, shops, and hotels in cities worldwide. In addition, Conran founded the Design Museum in London. He is the author of numerous books on interior design, cooking, gardening, and crafts.
Diarmuid Gavin has spent his twenty-year career successfully challenging the traditional conventions of garden design. He has been awarded several medals at the Chelsea Flower show. He runs a garden design business based in Dublin and London with clients in the United Kingdom and abroad, and he lectures widely on landscape design and the development of the modern garden.