Living with the desert: smart design in Arizona's homes and gardens

Sunset, May, 2003 by Nora Burba Trulsson

At first glance, it may seem that Arizona's take on desert living features sprawling, air-conditioned Tuscan-style villas, a sea of red-tile roofs, and miles of characterless block garden wails. But look closer and you'll find that the desert here has always inspired innovative architecture and landscape design. It began, of course, with Native Americans, who utilized local materials and cultivated hardy plants, and continued with Frank Lloyd Wright and contemporaries such as architects Eddie Jones and Will Bruder and landscape architect Steve Martino. In fact, an increasing cadre of design professionals is building homes and creating gardens that embrace the desert and its harsh conditions. On the following pages you'll find the key elements of desert living at its smartest--ideas to inspire your own fantasy or to help you feel right at home in your own piece of the hot, dry West.

Desert architecture

The meeting of indoors and out

RELATED ARTICLE: Frank Lloyd Wright was one of the first modern designers to make the surrounding landscape a full partner in the building process. The architect's tour de force, Taliesin West, was designed to blend into the desert above Scottsdale in form and material. The collection of buildings, which is open to the public, was Wright's winter home and studio from 1937 until his death in 1959. The low, ground-hugging structures of native stone and concrete are sited to capture breezes and block summer sun from the south and west; they're linked by patios, pathways, and pergolas. As Wright intended, the layout gently nudges visitors outdoors as they travel between living quarters, studio, dining room, and theater.

Wright continues to be the touchstone for many of today's architects. In Tucson, Paul Weiner likes to connect rooms and sections with covered breezeways or shaded patios. At his own home, he's blurred the line between indoors and out by furnishing patios as a living area, a dining room, and even a sleeping space.

Les Wallach, whose most visible public project is the restaurant complex for Tucson's ArizonaSonora Desert Museum, outfits his desert homes with broad, overhanging roofs. "I try to have the roof area double the indoor floor area," Wallach says. The formula works to establish shade next to the house, keeping hot summer sun off windows and walls.

Weiner, Wallach, and other desert architects use materials that stand up to the harsh climate and are energy efficient--adobe, rammed earth, cast earth, Integra blocks, and Rastra. Metal, rock, stone, and concrete are often used for architectural details. Weiner used scored, colored concrete for his home's flooring, both indoors and out. Says architect Will Bruder: "A desert home needs to be built of tougher, textured materials, such as concrete and masonry, that anchor it to the landscape."

Lessons for the home

START WITH SITING

Position a new home to take advantage of breezes and views and to block the sun's rays. Keep the structure low, and cantilever the roof overhangs to cool the house and create shady outdoor areas.

CREATE TRANSITIONS

To merge indoors and outdoors, use covered breezeways or shaded patios to link rooms. Furnish patios as living spaces--even as dining and sleeping areas.

THINK NATURAL

Use energy-efficient building materials: adobe, cast earth, rammed earth, straw bale, Rastra.

Desert gardens

Colors and textures of nature

Landscape architects design gardens for outdoor living, in the spirit of the way Wright enjoyed picnics in the desert at Taliesin West. "I like to think of a house as a pavilion in the garden," says landscape architect Steve Martino. "The garden should be regarded as the biggest room of the house."

"So many people just look at the desert from their windows," says Phoenix landscape architect Christine Ten Eyck. "I like to get people immersed in the landscape." To that end, Ten Eyck creates spaces for outdoor dining and relaxing in side yards, at the front entrance, and at the perimeter of the property, and she places swimming pools right in the middle of the garden, away from the house. "It makes it seem like you're swimming in the garden, especially if you plant trees nearby," she says.

"As much as I like to create outdoor rooms next to the house," says Phoenix landscape architect Greg Trutza, "it's sometimes more comfortable to be away from the building. You can catch breezes and don't have the heat radiating back at you from the home's walls."

Desert landscape architects have been experimenting with new materials or using standbys in unexpected ways. Trutza uses new plaster and clay finishes for walls, which add either a patina of age or a splash of color. Ten Eyck has recycled old concrete driveways by taking the jackhammered chunks and forming them into footpaths and patios. She's also been experimenting with gabions, rectangular wire-mesh baskets filled with rocks that are used to shore up riverbanks in the West and beyond. Ten Eyck installs them as retaining walls instead of using masonry block. Requiring no footings, the gabions are stable and add a rustic texture to gardens.