The brief
The owners of this small, sloping and north-facing garden in San Francisco's Pacific Heights had few stipulations when they approached Surfacedesign during the pandemic. “Gardens in the city are often viewed rather than occupied, but during that time, there was more importance attached to enjoying our outdoor space,” says landscape architect Roderick Wyllie, who worked on the project with colleague Michal Kapitulnik.
The existing garden was not conducive to enjoyment. It was home to formal terraces that stepped down on to a struggling lawn – not suited to the Californian climate without extensive use of water – a large beech tree that took up more than half of the garden and a broken water
