In April 2022, we realized a self-contained retreat studio in the bedroom wing of ZeeVELD. Unexpectedly, many guests were having a great time by now. But as beautiful as it had become inside, a very last job awaited outside. An intervention to better separate the accommodation area of our group guests from that of our individual visitors. And no, we didn’t want a fence or hedge or anything else that would look like a partition. Because then what does man do? Indeed, who goes to investigate, what may well be seen back there….
What complicated the situation: because of its somewhat higher location, a lookout dune of the group guests offered additional good views of the studio terrace. Views for some, pale views for others.
The solution, as ingenious as it was simple, presented by the landscape architects of Landscape North Holland: to excavate the viewing dune to pasture level and, in turn, to raise the immediately adjacent yards of garden, formerly of pasture level, to the level of the former viewing dune.
A hefty excavator, two experienced landscape workers, three trucks with extra sand, new plantings and endless on-site modeling continued – a little higher here, a little lower there, a little more gradual here and a little steeper there – and the wait is only for the passage of years. That the now wounded landscape will begin to heal. So that in five years or so, one will not know any better or it always carried within it the fortunate possibility of separating two residential areas in a completely natural way.
