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Minimalist design

Minimalist design is a design style that takes a less is more approach to aesthetics. In landscaping, it refers to a subservience of content to form more than a specific style. Minimalism can be found in many different types of gardens and landscapes, including formal, French, Italian,Mediterranean, and small garden design. This is due to the fact that all of these styles originate with the Greeks and Romans designs, who were the first in Western Civilization to actively pursue minimalism in their civil engineering and landscaping projects. We could describe such minimalism as classical in the sense that it originated during classical times and was motivated by classical values.

One of the many reasons that the Romans adopted minimalist design in their cities and landscapes was to socially condition subject people into seeing the empire that taxed them as a safe, controlled environment that offered them a safer, more comfortable, and more predictable lifestyle than they would have living in their old villages and nomadic shelters. It was basically a subliminal message of sorts that said “Isn’t it great to be conquered by an empire that keeps you safe from all the bad stuff out there?” For the most part, the message worked extremely well.

Pliny the Younger had a garden whose minimalist design was distinguished by boxwoods that symmetrically balanced and divided his estate into different sections. He also had many topiaries shaped, as they are today, into the forms of wild animals. This had more than a decorative significance. During Pliny’s time, there were fewer people in the world–and far more predatory animals roaming about in the countryside. Lions, elephants, and leopards were not afraid of ancient people until guns were invented, so during ancient times, being ambushed by a predator was just as real of a threat as being ambushed by highwaymen. Shaping plants into animals was yet another way of showing that man had the power to not only overcome Nature, but directly manipulate its forms.

Of course, minimalist design was no longer needed for civil and social conditioning after the empire fell. European aristocracy continued the old traditions partly out of a love for posterity, and sometimes out of a megalomaniac desire to rebuild the Roman Empire. Such Humpty Dumpty politics never achieved their political goals, but they did lead to a diversification of classical garden and landscape designs into all of the many cultural forms we are familiar with today.

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Again, while none of these forms have to be minimalist by nature, all of them share common classical roots and can be applied to Houston landscapes with minimalist intentions similar to those of classical landowners. We may not be afraid of Nature like our progenitors were, but we want more than ever to still feel like we are in control of it.

This obsession with controlling Nature has always been present with humanity since we made a conscious, collective decision not to be eaten at some previous mid-point halfway up food chain. However, over the past 150 years since the Industrial Revolution, we have become obsessed with controlling virtually every aspect of Nature. No longer are we looking to simply control wildlife and ecosystems, but the very laws of Nature itself. Consequently, the mathematical, the scientific, and the abstract have now replaced the organic and the symbolic elements of art and spirituality.

Geometry is more important than ever to minimalist design for these and many other reasons. It is the one link between what remains of the organic world, the architecture of the home, and the vast, unknown parameters of the human mind. Unlike their classical equivalents, these gardens and yards do more than simply try to control and limit natural growth. They actively seek to replace natural elements with inorganic structures such as hardscapes, rocks, gravel, statuary, and outdoor art. This challenges the viewer’s sense of order and reality, and forces the viewer to draw conclusions on an exclusively subjective basis.

Minimalist Garden Design

Minimalist garden design is not a specific style of gardening, but rather an aesthetic principle based upon the perspective that less is more. In these gardens, plants are carefully selected, and unusual materials are integrated into the vegetation. Hardscapes are used to define geometric shapes and linear movements that correspond to the architecture of the house and to other structures on the landscape. In contemporary gardens, one will often find
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Minimalist Landscape Design

Minimalist landscape design is based upon the aesthetic principle of “less is more”. Currently, it is most commonly associated with contemporary landscape design due to the modernist reduction of vegetation and the emphasis of inorganic elements over organics. However, minimalism has been around since Classical times in one form or fashion and has continued to evolve and diversify over the past 2,000 years in all Western garden and landscape designs. As
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Minimal Landscape

The minimal landscape is an unyielding style of professional landscaping that offers us no validation of our assumptions or preconceptions. Many of the forms we expect to find on the Houston landscape are strangely absent. What forms are present are fewer in number, and they are not always in the places we would normally expect to find them. This is because their job is to establish challenging patterns that represent
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Minimal Garden

In a minimal garden, hardscapes are used to define geometric shapes and linear movements that correspond to home and landscape architectural motifs. One of the most common hardscapes used to create such boundaries is a custom patio. Because contemporary and modern design so heavily favor the inorganic as building blocks of décor, concrete and polished stone surfaces of many different varieties can be used to frame mixtures of gravel,
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Minimalist Front Yard

A minimalist front yard is dedicated to the principle of less-is-more It relies upon low-growth plants that suggest the conservation of organic energy are used to create a sense of conservatism. These species tend to also be very slow-growing in nature, so less basic maintenance like fertilization and trimming is needed to maintain their shapes. Trees have a lot more freedom in a minimalist yard than gardens do. Whereas gardens
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Minimalist Hardscape

A minimalist hardscape presents itself as a solid, clean surface that conveys its importance without resorting to ostentatiousness. The structure can be a horizontal surface area for sitting or walking, or it can be a vertical structure that makes a strong contribution to the landscape design plan as a whole. Minimalist hardscapes shape the landscape with solid forms that create relationships of geometry. Common elements include driveways, walkways, patios, courtyards,
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Minimalist Pool

A minimalist pool follows the principles of minimalism, contemporary design, and less is more. It reduces thepool design down to its most basic elements of water and geometry. Patios are common, but not mandatory, and some pools may not even have coping around their sides. Through size, geometry, and transitional position between the home and remainder of the landscape, the pool creates movement in both directions that draw people in
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Houston Landscaping for the Minimalist Lifestyle

Houston landscaping for the minimalist lifestyle expresses the dynamic energy of urban professionals. Through its clean presentation of form, it represents the busy lifestyle of the up and coming. Space is the defining feature of minimalism. Geometry is used to create perspectives. Lines and angles suggest a preference for pragmatism over decorative ornamentation. Softscapes are defined by the principle of less-is-more. With many contemporary homes being built around the city,
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Minimalist design

Minimalist design is a design style that takes a less is more approach to aesthetics. In landscaping, it refers to a subservience of content to form more than a specific style. Minimalism can be found in many different types of gardens and landscapes, including formal, French, Italian,Mediterranean, and small garden design. This is due to the fact that all of these styles originate with the Greeks and Romans designs,
more