BOOKS

BERNARD TRAINOR / GROUND STUDIO LANDSCAPES

Published 2019

Ground Studio is proud to announce the launch of our new monograph Bernard Trainor / Ground Studio Landscapes.

Ground Studio’s newest book celebrates the wild and elemental landscapes of California, from the craggy coasts of Big Sur to the fertile hills of Sonoma wine country. Their award-winning work combines an awareness of regional context with materials, collaboration, and deep connection to the land. Beautifully photographed and documented with full-color plans, the projects in this survey of their recent work include a range of scale, from compact urban gardens to expansive rural sites. Ground Studio’s regional, sustainable approach inspires wonder and respect for nature as it aims to preserve and restore it.

LANDPRINTS

Published 2013

We are pleased to share news that Princeton Architectural Press has published a monograph featuring our landscapes. Landprints showcases ten of the most ambitious and inspiring landscapes through gorgeous photography and a critical analysis of the firm and these individual projects by author Susan Heeger.

“If you’ve hiked the wilderness of California, following trails through the state’s Coast Range or climbing rocky bluffs above the beach, you’ve seen the enormity of its reach, the force of the heaving, twisting land, the fuzzy meadows and sharp ridges; you’ve heard the ocean’s crashing tides and the land’s sleepy, sun-drunk silence. In these places, the light can be hard and pitiless, and the heat crippling. But when the Pacific fog seeps inland from the ocean, the views become soft, and the cold is stunning. It’s not always a gentle world, but it’s exhilarating and elemental.

This elemental charge sparks the landscapes of Bernard Trainor, an Australian-born designer who has made it his life’s work to honor California’s spirit in gardens across the state. Neither a naturalist nor an architect, he uses the tools of both professions to create places that are at home on hilltops and craggy seasides, but hospitable to the people living there too. He’s an observer of the land, not only of what exists now but what has been and might have been—rolling grasslands shot with wildflowers in the spring; or sprawling acres around tile-roofed ranchos, where cattle once grazed.”

RECOGNITION

Villegiardini Feature

Un giardino virtuoso Un mix di graminacee, erbacee e arbusti autoctoni o provenienti dal Mediterraneo, dal Sud Africa e dalla Nuova Zelanda e di succulente caratterizza un giardino progettato da Bernard Trainor a Big Sur per contrastare la siccità Un approccio progettuale che tiene conto del clima e del suo cambiamento e delle logiche del luogo si è fatto strada de tempo negli studi di progettazione del paesaggio e del giardino del mondo. In California, come in altre regioni dove il clima arido (e inaridente) e i cicli di siccità sono una realtà, i paesaggisti stanno reinventando il modo di […]

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Villegiardini Feature

Dove volano le farfalle Bernard Trainor è l’autore di un grande giardino in sintonia con l’architettura moderna di Feldman Architecture e lo spirito del paesaggio naturale dell’entroterra californiano Apochi chilometri nell’entroterra di Carmel-by-the- Sea, in California, Santa Lucia Preserve è un complesso privato di poco più di 8.000 ettari di natura incontaminata all’interno di una riserva. Un paesaggio quanto mai vario, attraversato da colline, torrenti, vallate e pianure con una vegetazione autoctona ricca e variegate e una fauna selvatica, che la comunità si impegna a preservare e valorizzare: solo il 10 per cento della Preserve è edificabile, il resto è […]

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Martha Stewart Living Feature

A Fresh Point of View When a talented Southern California landscape designer was tasked with creating a garden for this jaw-dropping setting in Big Sur, he knew there was no competing with its beauty. Instead, he complemented it, taking cues from the coastal home’s natural surroundings and selecting a mix of natives and hardy plants originating from similar ecosystems around the world that would enhance, not overtake, the rugged locale. The result is a textural feast of billowy grasses, pert succulents, and occasional vivid blooms that look like they’ve flourished here all along. West Coast landscape designer Bernard Trainor doesn’t […]

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Architectural Digest Feature

POINT BREAK Feldman Architecture and Commune Design collaborate on a soulful Santa Cruz beach house for a family with surfing in their blood. At the heart of this tale about a serene, sophisticated family getaway in Santa Cruz, California, there’s a tree. Actually, a kind of tree—the Monterey cypress, a species native to the state’s central and northern coast. First, and most obviously, there’s the lovely specimen that presides over the home’s clifftop site, hovering above a stretch of world-class surf breaks and scenic beaches. And then there are the various cypresses that were marshaled into service by Feldman Architecture […]

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