Contemporary Garden Design
Major new architectural landscapes + gardens buildings from around the world.
post updated 26 October 2026
Garden Design Projects
We choose key examples of Landscape Design. We aim to include significant design-led garden buildings / landscaping projects.
We cover completed landscape designs, new garden designs and landscape architecture competitions across the world. The focus is on contemporary gardens designs but information on traditional gardens are also welcome.
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Gardens Landscape – Latest Major Design
Union Terrace Gardens, Aberdeen, northeast Scotland, UK
Design: architects Diller Scofidio + Renfro ; architects Keppie ; landscape architects OLIN
image of winning design
Union Terrace Gardens
This remarkable project, which will transform the center of Aberdeen, is both a garden and a cultural center. The winning design concept will now be subject to a referendum. If the referendum reveals that the public is in support of the project, detailed designs will be produced for a planning application.
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Landscape Gardens Designs
Landscape Designs + Gardens, alphabetical:
Alnwick Castle – Gardens Garden, northeast England, UK
Design: Hopkins Architects
building photo © Adrian Welch
Alnwick Castle Garden
Hariri Memorial Garden, Beirut, Lebanon
Design: Vladimir Djurovic Landscape Architecture
photograph : Matteo Piazza
Hariri Memorial Garden
Singapore Waterfront Competition, Singapore
Design: Gustafson Porter
picture from Pergola
Singapore Gardens : architecture contest
King Abdullah Botanical Gardens, Beirut, Lebanon
Design: Barton Willmore
photograph : Matteo Piazza
King Abdullah Botanical Gardens
The $170 million project, which draws on expertise from the Natural History Museum, and specialist sustainable development design group Emergy was commissioned by the Mayor of Riyadh and funded by contributions from business and individuals in the city. The 160-hectare botanical garden scheme and leisure destination will be a cornerstone of the city’s growth and aims to provide a new visitor destination for both Saudis and international visitors.
More garden buildings / projects online soon.
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Gardens Projects – No Images
Dr. Evan Pierce Memorial Gardens – restoration, Denbighshire, Wales, UK
Date built: 2007
Design: Purcell Miller Tritton
Welsh gardens : Evan Pierce Gardens
Great Glasshouse – National Botanic Garden of Wales, Wales, UK
Date built: 2000
Design: Foster + Partners
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Landscape Architecture Projects
Auditoria Park, Diagonal Mar – Barcelona Forum, Catalunya, northeast Spain
Design: Foreign Office Architecture: Alejandro Zaera-Polo + Farshid Moussavi, Architects
photo © Adrian Welch
Auditoria Park
Architectural Grafts, Belo Horizonte, Brazil
Design: Carlos Teixeira (architecture), with Fernando Maculan (designer) and Leonardo Costa Braga (artist photographer)
image from Vazio S/A Arquitetura e Urbanismo
Architectural Grafts
Located at Vila del Rey house, “Grafts” is the garden as becoming; as a contradictory process where trees are pierced by an artificial element – a prosthesis – to, as time goes time, incorporate this aggression into their trunk. Awarded third place in a competition for built landscape design in Austria (Private Plots 2008), the jury thus (weirdly) considered the project: “Though an ethical understanding of plant treatment is irritating at first, the project communicates a new vocabulary for the investigation of gardens. The ideas are both innovative and controversial, and embody great poetry. A pink curtain instead of a hedge sets new accents; it plays on the contrast between natural and unnatural elements.”
Park at Diagonal Mar / Parc de Diagonal Mar, Diagonal Mar, Barcelona, Catalunya, northeast Spain
Design: Enric Miralles / Benedetta Tagliabue EMBT Architects
photo © Adrian Welch
Parc de Diagonal Mar
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Landscape Architecture Design
Landscape Architecture
photo : Tomas da Silva
Building with Roof Garden, Singapore Science Centre, Singapore
Design: TR Hamzah Yeang
image from architects
Singapore Science Centre
Grey Walls, Gullane, East Lothian, Scotland, UK
Lutyens-designed house, Gertrude Jekyll-designed gardens*
photograph © Isabelle Lomholt
The gardens are supposedly by Gertrude Jekyll but we understand there is a lack of documentary evidence. Gertrude worked with Lutyens on many projects, notably in the south of England, but as this project is in Scotland there may be a possibility that others were involved.
Grey Walls Hotel.
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Garden Architecture Symposium Austria
best private plots 08 – Die besten Gärten 2008, Österreich
2 Oct 2012
best private plots – Die besten Gärten 2012: International Garden Design Award Conferred
This year’s international garden design award “best private plots” was conferred on Saturday, September 29th , 2012. The winners were Mann Landschaftsarchitektur from Germany, Ewa Wagnerová from the Czech Republic, and Christine Rottenbacher from Austria for the community garden project Angerdorf in Unterretzbach, Lower Austria. Honorable mentions went to doxiadis+ (Greece) and to 1:1 Landskab (Denmark).
The international garden design award “best private plots – Die besten Gärten” – an award coveted around the globe – was conferred for the fifth time this year. While the main prizes went to Japan and the US last time, European competition entries carried the day this year. The award, endowed with 15,000 euros, recognizes excellence in the design of sustainable private outdoor spaces, and promotes quality in garden design as well as global networking between landscape architects and garden enthusiasts.
More than 150 participants from around the world attended the award ceremony for best private plots 2012, which took place last weekend at the Essl Museum in Klosterneuburg near Vienna. The event highlighted gardens combining architecture, ecology and landscape as well-designed, inspirational and productive spaces, and as habitats that tell stories. The prizes were awarded by the expert jury convened by the organizers, consisting of Stig L. Andersson (DK), Franziska Bark Hagen (CH), Teresa Moller (CL), Vladimir Sitta (CZ/AU) and Tom Stuart-Smith (GB). From among 104 competition entries hailing from 26 countries, the jury nominated 29 projects.
The final round of judging yielded the three winners and two honorable mentions, presented to the public on September 29th , 2012 by Lower Austrian Deputy Governor Wolfgang Sobotka during a festive ceremony moderated by Mercedes Echerer, with musical accompaniment by Bee Pop by Team Tool Time featuring Paul Divjak and Wolfgang Schlögl.
Catalogue
The catalog “best private plots – Die besten Gärten 2012: Internationale Beispiele zu Gartenarchitektur” profiles the 29 projects nominated for the award in English and German. It also features essays by the jury members and speakers at the symposium. Catalogs can be ordered at www.privateplots.at/katalogl
Criteria
The competition entries were judged on criteria including artistic and conceptual qualities, ecological use of plants and materials, delimitation of spaces and organization of outdoor spaces. Special attention was paid to variety of uses and sustainability.
Jury
The jury members are internationally renowned experts who pursue very varied and innovative approaches to questions of garden design and landscape architecture. The jury members also served as speakers at the international symposium on landscape design: Stig L. Andersson (DK), Franziska Bark Hagen (CH), Teresa Moller (CL), Vladimir Sitta (CZ/AU), Tom Stuart-Smith (GB).
1st prize
Mann Landschaftsarchitektur, Germany – Garden Labyrinth, Erfurt
photos : Jörg Behrens
The garden functions both as an image and as a physical, spatial experience. It offers great variety with a minimum of means, through a constant fluctuation of volumes and spaces.
It extracts a maximum from a difficult sloping space and incorporates important elements from its previous life. It is a very seductive and inviting interpretation of the archetypal idea of the labyrinth. Although it is a private space, it also gains much from being overlooked by the surrounding houses for which this becomes a territory of imaginative wandering.
2nd prize
Ewa Wagnerová, Czech Republic – Trnka Garden, Brno
photo : Ewa Wagnerová, Jiri Markevic
The project shows a clear spatial organization and carefully integrates the old and the new. It is a harmonious garden that seems exceptional and ordinary at the same time. It works well through the seasons, and the reflecting pond and long planks of paving form a poetic composition at the heart of the garden.
3rd prize
Christine Rottenbacher, Austria – Angerdorf, Unterretzbach
photo : Christine Rottenbacher, Wolfgang Gerzer
The “Allmende” (village common) has been reintroduced to the local people for their enjoyment and to involve them in a common social responsibility for the neighborhood. The idea of the garden is the process of changing people’s everyday life so that garden work becomes part of life and enriches health and pleasure. Beauty on its own is not enough.
Honorable mention
photo : Anders Sune Berg, 11 Landskab
doxiadis+, Greece – Landscapes of Cohabitation
It is a brave decision to work in healing a landscape, keeping the line of time in the place, and resisting the temptation to introduce obvious and novel marks and materials. The nature of the interventions remains a little obscure in the presentation.
Honorable mention
1:1 Landskab, Denmark – Courtyard Classensgade, Copenhagen
photo : Clive Nichols, Cathy Cunliffe
This is an exceptional treatment of a space that is public as well as private. A dark courtyard is transformed into a metaphor of paradise through the motif of the carpet and fountain. The intriguing paving pattern is not quite supported by the quality of the other materials
Die besten Gärten 2012 information received 021012
Garden Architecture Symposium, Austria
International Symposium and Award Ceremony for “best private plots 08 – Die besten Gärten 2008”
The contemporary design of private outdoor spaces dares to embark on new, unconventional paths: The international competition best private plots – Die besten Gärten is now in its third year. This year, 71 architects, garden designers, landscape architects and garden owners from 17 countries responded to our invitation to submit their garden projects to the competition. An international expert jury composed of five members has nominated 28 projects, from among which the top three contestants will be chosen during the final jury meeting in Langenlois. The projects nominated for best private plots 08 – Die besten Gärten 2008 were published at www.privateplots.at/en/nominationsl.
The award recognizes exemplary achievements in the design of private outdoor spaces and gardens, rating sophisticated design ideas and aesthetic solutions, the innovative use of plants and materials, and the consideration of the ecological context.
The winners of best private plots 08 – Die besten Gärten 2008 will be announced on September 27th at 7 p.m. at the award ceremony in the auditorium of Grafenegg Castle in Austria. We look forward to celebrating with you afterwards with a buffet and wine offered in the open-air pavilion “Cloud Tower”, designed by the architects of the next ENTERprise, and located in the castle’s 250-year old park. For our guests, a shuttle service from the Loisium Hotel in Langenlois to Grafenegg Castle will be available. Please make your reservations at:
www.privateplots.at/en/registrationl
As jury members, we have been able to enlist renowned experts from the fields of landscape architecture, architecture and design, who have investigated the topic of planning gardens and outdoor spaces in greatly varied and highly innovative ways. We expect their presentations at the symposium public spots on private plots to provide an exciting and productive impetus for discussion, as well as perspectives on gardens as aesthetic and cultural fields of experimentation – as open, varied and variable spaces.
The international symposium on garden architecture public spots on private plots
will take place on September 27th, 2008, from 9 am to 5 pm at the Loisium Hotel in Langenlois, Austria.
Jane Amidon (USA) – landscape architecture | Petra Blaisse (Netherlands) – design
Erik Dhont (Belgium) – landscape architecture | Edouard François (France) –
architecture
The participation fee for the symposium is EUR 50.00, and registration is required
at www.privateplots.at/en/registrationl.
All projects nominated will be published in the bilingual catalogue “best private
plots 08 – Die besten Gärten 2008 – Internationale Beispiele zur Gartenarchitektur”, which will be presented at the award ceremony. The catalogue can be pre-ordered at: www.privateplots.at/en/cataloguel
For help booking a room in Langenlois (only a limited number of rooms is available), please send an email to info(at)privateplots.at.
Die besten Gärten 2008 – Idea, planning and implementation:
Dr. Karin Standler, landscape architect
DI Robert Froschauer, architect
Seidengasse 13/3, A-1070 Vienna, Austria
Tel.: ++43 – 699 – 13554566
Awarding authority and host:
Verein für Lebensqualität – Natur im Garten, Landhausboulevard Haus 1, Top 1, Postfach 28, A-3109 St. Pölten, Austria
Die besten Gärten 2008 International Symposium Speakers
Jane Amidon
Jane Amidon is principal of Amidon design communication, a design and communication practice in Columbus, Ohio. The office is concerned with large-scale urban and natural systems. Jane Amidon writes articles and books on contemporary landscape architecture and is series editor of Source Books in Landscape Architecture. She teaches in the Landscape Section of the Knowlton School of Architecture, Ohio State University. Jane Amidon studied landscape architecture in Harvard und at Williams College in Williamstown, Massachusetts.
Jane Bihr-de Salis
Landscape architect Jane Bihr-de Salis has been running her own office in Kallern, Switzerland, since 1995 with a special focus on open space design, garden
architecture and the preservation of historic gardens. With her garden
Lukoschus-Dinter in Althäusern, Switzerland, she garnered first prize in the “best private plots 07 – Die besten Gärten 2007” competition. Jane Bihr-de Salis studied horticulture in Bath, Great Britain, and garden architecture in Rapperswil, Switzerland. Before setting up her own studio, she worked in various Swiss landscape architecture offices.
Petra Blaisse
Dutch designer Petra Blaisse has a special interest in textile design, landscape architecture and exhibition architecture. In her work, she combines interior and exterior design, architecture and landscape. She founded her studio Inside Outside in Amsterdam in 1991, winning acclaim with her golden stage curtain for the Netherlands Dance Theatre in The Hague, the sound curtain for the Kunsthal in Rotterdam and the Museum Park in Rotterdam, which she designed together with French landscape architect Yves Brunier. Petra Blaisse studied art in London and Groningen.
Erik Dhont
With his team of seven, landscape architect Erik Dhont of Brussels works on
contemporary and historical gardens and parks, as well as public open spaces. In his designs and projects, he endeavors to strike a balance between functionality, aesthetic quality and ecological integrity. His personal, distinctive style is just as important to him as his clients’ preferences. Erik Dhont studied graphic art in Brussels and landscape architecture in Vilvoorde. A study grant from the European Community allowed him to conduct field studies in the London Docklands.
Edouard François
In his studio – which he founded in Paris in 1998 – architect Edouard François works in the fields of architecture, urbanism, landscape and design. His projects explore the possibilities of sustainability and low-resource construction. As a result, he has become one of the protagonists of what is known as “green architecture”. His works can be found in various museums, including the Centre Pompidou in Paris, the Guggenheim Museum in New York or the Victoria & Albert Museum in London. François studied at the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux Arts in Paris.
Die besten Gärten 2008 International Symposium information received 180808
Location: Austria, central Europe.
Architecture Design
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Property Developments
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