Sokoloff Rakatansky Garden

Providence, RI | 2005

Collaboration Ron Henderson, Brendan Riley

Trees (1) Cladrastis kentuckea

Recognition Honor Award for Design, American Society of Landscape Architects-Rhode Island

A lively geometric screen encloses a small, narrow, urban garden for a mid-century house by the early New England modernist, Ira Rakatansky, built in 1952. The poorly shaped backyard space was transformed into a sharply defined linear space framed by a new garden screen that was designed, fabricated, and installed by LIRIO.

A new bluestone terrace extends the living areas of the house into the garden. Beds of lilyturf and black and green mondo grass provide strongly delineated edges and geometric boldness to a simple panel of lawn. The bedded plants are bridged at the east and west corners of the garden by planks of black and white granite.