Do these 3 things before closing this tab:
1Repair Windows errors before they cause bigger problems2Fix the driver behind crashes, sound loss and screen glitches3Clear out junk files and repair common Windows errorsCity House in a Garden is a 2014 ASLA Professional Awards Honor Award winner for Residential Design: a new single-family home in Chicago’s Lincoln Park neighborhood that makes a compact urban site feel like a sequence of outdoor rooms. McKay Landscape Architects, led by Michele McKay, ASLA, worked with Wheeler Kearns Architects to set a modern house inside four distinct landscapes rather than treating planting as decoration around the building.
The project’s central lesson is spatial. Public and private, polished and raw, urban and verdant, and interior and exterior are deliberately placed beside one another. Copper, ipe, concrete, glass, sliding doors and continuous paving give the house a crisp city identity; trees, perennials, grasses, gravel, vegetable planters and a green roof supply the living counterpoint.
As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
Project facts at a glance
| Attribute | Documented project detail |
|---|---|
| Location | Lincoln Park, Chicago, Illinois |
| Project type | New-construction single-family residence for a family of four |
| Landscape architect | McKay Landscape Architects; Michele McKay, ASLA, lead designer |
| Architect | Wheeler Kearns Architects |
| Site | 50 by 125 feet |
| Ground-level outdoor area | 3,600 square feet |
| House coverage | 50 percent of the site |
| Green roof | 1,430 square feet, including vegetable-garden space and skyline views |
| Total permeable area | 53 percent of the site through the green roof, planting beds and gravel gardens |
| Award | 2014 ASLA Professional Awards, Honor Award, Residential Design |
Those figures explain why the project is useful to anyone planning a garden house on a city lot. The footprint is substantial, yet half of the property remains available for landscape and more usable area is lifted onto the roof. Permeable surfaces are distributed across several garden types instead of being confined to one stormwater feature.
Quick wins for a faster PC:
Clear out junk files and repair common Windows errorsFree Scan →Scan for outdated or missing drivers - takes under a minuteDriver Scan →“To create a beautiful small urban garden may be one of the hardest challenges of a landscape architect and this project excels.”
#1 Best Overall
Linda Oyama Bryan, ASLA jury comment reproduced by the American Society of Landscape Architects
Why the house feels larger than its lot
A narrow urban property usually has competing demands: an arrival route, privacy from neighbors, a place to eat outside, children’s space, service access and enough planting to soften the building. City House in a Garden resolves those demands by making movement itself the organizing device. The sequence begins at the public parkway, passes through a compressed garden walk, opens into a west-facing garden and then rises to a roof landscape.
Indoor and outdoor rooms extend one another rather than ending at the exterior wall. Glass, sliding doors and paving that continues across thresholds make the garden legible from inside and make the house usable from outside. The result is not a single “backyard” but a set of rooms with different degrees of exposure, enclosure and activity.
The visual contrast is equally deliberate. Board-formed concrete, copper, ipe and smooth paving are hard, manufactured surfaces. Rich planting, pea gravel, rough granite and weathered vegetation introduce irregular texture. Alternating those conditions prevents a modern façade from reading as a blank object and prevents the landscape from becoming an undifferentiated mass.
Rank #2
- Used Book in Good Condition
The four gardens and what each one does
1. Entry Garden: a public edge with a private threshold
The Entry Garden reaches toward the public parkway with boulevard lindens, perennials and wild grasses. That planting acknowledges the street instead of hiding the property behind a solid wall. Closer to the door, a raised bed, yew hedge, Royal Frost birches, rhododendrons and dwarf Japanese maples create a more sheltered layer.
This is a useful privacy strategy for a city house: place transparent or civic planting at the sidewalk, then build privacy in successive heights and textures as visitors approach the entrance. The door remains visible and welcoming, while the combination of hedge, raised soil and small trees blocks direct views into the home.
2. Garden Walk: a contemplative connector
The Garden Walk links the parkway to the West Garden. Rough granite stepping stones sit in pea gravel, with wild ginger, geranium, astilbe, epimedium, ferns and brunnera filling the spaces around them. Trumpet vine and hydrangea climb the concrete wall, turning a vertical boundary into part of the planting composition.
Free tools Windows power users keep installed
One-click scans. No signup required.
The walk is intentionally different from a conventional straight path. Irregular stones and loose gravel slow the pace and create a tactile change from the more formal arrival surface. Shade from Triumph elms in the adjacent school parking lot helps reduce summer solar gain, showing how neighboring trees can contribute to a garden’s comfort even when they are outside the property line.
Rank #3
- Used Book in Good Condition
3. West Garden: the working outdoor room
Board-formed concrete and ipe fencing define the West Garden’s edges. Inside that frame, a bluestone plane provides a durable setting for dining and entertaining. The planting is layered rather than uniform: katsura, fernleaf beech, Japanese stewartia, mugo pine, quince, tiger-eye sumac, perennials and ornamental grasses supply different heights, silhouettes and seasonal effects.
A low concrete seat wall performs several jobs without adding visual clutter. It is seating for adults, a balance beam for children, a counter during gatherings, a reading nook and a hiding place. This kind of multi-use edge is especially valuable on a small lot because one element supports social, recreational and everyday functions.
4. Rooftop Garden: food, habitat and a fifth elevation
The 1,430-square-foot Rooftop Garden combines vegetable planters with an intensive green roof. Indian grass, little bluestem, side-oats grama, agastache, pale coneflower and Summer Beauty allium form the planted roof palette. The vegetable area adds food production that cannot be accommodated entirely at ground level, while the planted roof changes how the house is experienced from neighboring buildings and from the city skyline.
ASLA describes the roof as softening the façade, adding insulation, reducing runoff, mitigating heat-island effects and attracting wildlife. Those benefits come from treating the roof as a functioning landscape system, not simply placing containers on an otherwise conventional roof. Any new project would still need a structural engineer, waterproofing specialist and code review before adopting an intensive roof assembly; the award record does not establish a generic load capacity or construction detail for other houses.
How the design balances urban and natural conditions
Public versus private
The parkway-facing Entry Garden participates in neighborhood life, while the yew hedge, raised bed and tree planting make the front door feel protected. Farther inside, the Garden Walk becomes quieter and more enclosed before opening to the West Garden. Privacy is therefore achieved through sequence and planting depth, not by treating every boundary as an opaque wall.
Formal versus informal
The bluestone dining plane and precise architectural edges provide order. Pea gravel, rough granite and masses of grasses and perennials provide looseness. Keeping both conditions in the same composition lets the house feel contemporary without requiring every plant bed or paving line to be geometrically rigid.
Inside versus outside
Large glazed openings, sliding doors and aligned paving make the garden visible from living spaces and make outdoor rooms easy to reach. The practical implication is that door locations, sightlines and paving levels must be resolved with the landscape plan rather than after the building is complete. A garden can only function as an extension of the house when circulation, drainage and thresholds are coordinated early.
City versus verdant landscape
Copper, concrete and ipe acknowledge the material language of an urban residence. Trees, vines, grasses, ferns and flowering perennials introduce changing color, movement and habitat. The project does not attempt to disguise its city setting; it makes the contrast part of the experience.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.Planning a garden house on a city lot: a transferable method
- Map the public-to-private sequence. Identify the sidewalk, entry, circulation route, principal outdoor room and any roof area. Give each zone a distinct degree of enclosure instead of using one treatment everywhere.
- Reserve usable ground space before detailing the house. On this project, the 50-by-125-foot lot still retains 3,600 square feet of ground-level outdoor space while the house occupies half the site. Establish the minimum area needed for dining, play, access and planting before finalizing the footprint.
- Assign a job to every landscape room. Arrival, passage, entertaining and food production are separate functions here. A small garden becomes more useful when each portion has a clear purpose.
- Design edges as active elements. A hedge can filter views, a seat wall can support several activities, and a planted wall can turn a boundary into habitat. Avoid adding isolated features that serve only one occasional use.
- Coordinate openings and paving with architecture. Align doors, interior views and continuous paving so that movement between rooms is direct. Resolve slopes, thresholds and drainage with the architect and builder before construction.
- Distribute permeability. Planting beds, gravel and green roof areas together account for 53 percent of the total site in this project. Using several permeable strategies can address runoff while preserving hard surfaces where people need stable footing.
- Evaluate the roof as infrastructure. Confirm structural capacity, waterproofing, guard requirements, irrigation access and maintenance routes before selecting an intensive green-roof system or permanent vegetable planters.
- Layer plants by height and exposure. Use larger trees and hedges where screening is needed, then add shrubs, perennials, grasses and groundcovers to occupy intermediate layers. The documented palette demonstrates this approach without relying on a single monoculture.
Materials and planting palette
| Design role | Materials or plants documented at City House in a Garden |
|---|---|
| Architectural structure and enclosure | Copper, board-formed concrete, concrete walls, ipe fencing and ipe elements |
| Primary walking and living surfaces | Continuous paving, bluestone and rough granite stepping stones |
| Loose connective surface | Pea gravel |
| Entry planting | Boulevard lindens, perennials, wild grasses, yew hedge, Royal Frost birches, rhododendrons and dwarf Japanese maples |
| Garden Walk planting | Wild ginger, geranium, astilbe, epimedium, ferns, brunnera, trumpet vine and hydrangea |
| West Garden planting | Katsura, fernleaf beech, Japanese stewartia, mugo pine, quince, tiger-eye sumac, perennials and ornamental grasses |
| Rooftop planting | Indian grass, little bluestem, side-oats grama, agastache, pale coneflower and Summer Beauty allium, plus vegetable planters |
The palette is varied, but it is not random. Trees establish scale and shade; hedges and shrubs shape privacy; perennials and grasses animate the middle and lower layers; gravel and stone provide visual and physical breaks between planted areas. For sourcing inspiration, metal vegetable planter boxes, garden stepping stones, pea gravel and Glacier Blue Devonian Sandstone bluestone are named in the project record. Availability, dimensions and current prices must be checked for the location and construction date of a new project.
Stormwater, heat and habitat benefits
The project makes environmental performance visible in everyday spaces. Green roof, planting beds and gravel gardens create the documented 53-percent permeable share, helping address runoff rather than sending every drop across hard paving. The planted roof also addresses heat-island effects and adds insulation, while trees and layered planting provide shade and habitat.
These outcomes should be treated as design objectives, not automatic guarantees for every roof or garden. Performance depends on assembly depth, drainage, plant establishment, maintenance and local weather. The City House example demonstrates how those goals can be integrated with dining, circulation, privacy and food production instead of being added as separate technical equipment.
The Tool Desk
Outbyte PC Repair FREEClear out junk files and repair common Windows errorsFree Scan →Outbyte Driver Updater FREEScan for outdated or missing drivers - takes under a minuteDriver Scan →What makes this project a useful benchmark
Many urban homes have either a highly finished building with leftover planting or a lush garden that does not connect well to daily life. City House in a Garden joins the two. Its four landscapes are legible as separate rooms, yet doors, views and materials keep them connected. The roof expands the site vertically; the seat wall and continuous paving expand the usefulness of the ground plane; and the entry sequence handles public exposure without sacrificing a welcoming front door.
For a builder or homeowner, the most important takeaway is coordination. The landscape is not a final layer applied after construction. Site coverage, roof use, wall locations, paving transitions, tree placement, drainage and privacy all influence one another. Resolve those relationships at concept stage, then protect them through detailing and construction so the finished house delivers the indoor-outdoor continuity that defines the award-winning design.
Quick Recap
Product prices and availability are accurate as of the date/time indicated and are subject to change. Any price and availability information displayed on Amazon at the time of purchase will apply.
