Garden Design Essentials: Shape and Mass

I'm reviewing elements and principles of design from my 1980s college textbook Design Through Discovery by Marjorie Elliott Bevlin, exploring these classic themes through garden projects.

Shape and mass are interrelated — shape as two-dimensional form, mass as its three-dimensional iteration. Bevlin illustrates shape with a line drawing of a square; turn it into a cube and mass appears.

In landscapes, both define spaces and guide navigation. The eye sees shapes as patterns in floors, walls, surfaces. It sees geometric, natural, or multidimensional forms as mass.

Sculptural Metalwork

House + House Architects: Organic, curved lines of a staircase railing and balcony screen infuse drama. Bent metal forms have pleasing sculptural quality beyond their functional safety and navigation roles. Open, transparent design makes metalwork less imposing.

Stone Mass in Meditation Garden

The Collins Group/JDP Design: Three rock formations add mass to this meditation garden. Man-made but built from native stone, they fit naturally with a calming, timeless presence suggesting protection. Visual stone mass balances the slender tree trunks' different mass.

Linear Wood Benches

Feldman Architecture, Inc.: Simple benches formed by linear wood shapes provide seating and dimensional interest at a patio's edge.

Iconic Shapes

Andrew Renn: Some shapes become iconic to design styles. This arched garden door with diamond-pattern lattice echoed by X-shaped bracing complements a Tudor-style cottage — utterly charming.

Harmonious Courtyard

Arterra Landscape Architects: Bird's-eye view of an intimate courtyard reveals shapes and masses in perfect harmony. Rectangular stepping stones and deck shapes, then 3D versions emerge in Cor-Ten planter box (left) and poured-concrete planter (right). Decorative fountain wall adds another mass. Small scale feels voluminous. Curved chaise adds a graceful footnote to the geometry.

Checkerboard Cubes

Ron Herman Landscape Architect: Checkerboard installation feels like Tetris. Two materials — soft green turf and slate-colored stone — stacked cubes framed in weathered steel bring energy and interest. Illustrates how a simple square becomes a 3D massed form. Shadow and light add factors depending on time and vantage point.

Cardboard Art Illustration

Studio Zerbey Architecture + Design: Leafy artwork from cardboard toilet paper tubes illustrates how repeating simple lines creates interest and volume. One strong leaf-inspired form, multiplied as mass, transforms into a verdant tree branch suggestion.

Spiral Planted Wall

Bright Green: Stunning outdoor room uses shapes and mass cleverly. Planted wall has a dominant spiral shape. Foreground mass comes from modern seating, symmetrical planting beds, and trees.

Traditional Elements, Sophisticated Shapes

Windsor Companies: Traditional ingredients — lawn, ground cover, flowering shrubs, specimen tree — but shape utilized beautifully. Strong rounded lawn continues to curved planting bands emanating from it, to arborvitae hedge providing perimeter mass. Sophisticated, harmonious, green garden.