While common wisdom suggests that prediction is best left to those who are paid to get it wrong, I think if you stick with commenting on the familiar and don’t try gazing too far ahead it’s an enjoyable intellectual exercise.  I had crack late last year and looking back I think I was at least half right, there has been a definite increase in business activity that looks set to continue into the second half of the year. Unfortunately not enough developers read my blog so the increased integration of good landscape design principals into the early stages of residential development has yet to occur.

 

 

Having said this I think it’s inevitable that developers will soon begin showing more signs of catering to the market’s appetite for integrated landscapes. I might have to look a bit further ahead to see this happening but lets say in 3 to 5 years it will be standard for people to be looking at built in landscape elements as part of their home build package from major developers. It’s already a lot more evident in house designs being celebrated on the major design sites (Designboom, Notcot) with traditional residential architecture being peeled away to integrate the surrounding landscape. I’d go so far as to say one day soon we’ll see the emergence of a popular trend harking back to the style of ancient Roman Villas where the garden became the central feature of the home. Next step, the vomitorium.