University Heights

This project is located in the Calgary neighbourhood of University Heights. Similar to a number of people who reach out to us, a major home renovation usually leads to a major renovation of the existing landscape. In this particular case, the landscape had been neglected for many years and had a number of issues regarding grades, over grown shrubs and was overall in dire condition. Please refer to the before pictures to get a true sense of this.

The wish list was to make as much of the landscape flat to allow for sitting areas, lawn, trampoline, fire pit and shed. Of course, they wanted it to be beautiful to entice the family to come outdoors but they were very clear they did not want high maintenance.  

The concepts provided were more time consuming to complete given the number of grade changes throughout the yard. This home sits considerably lower than the alley behind them and therefore the slope needed to be addressed with retaining walls to create the flat areas for all of the elements they requested.

The other challenge was the site was triangular shaped and the homeowner wanted it squared off. “I told the designer that I wanted it to feel more like a square, less like a triangle to nowhere. That when I walk in the backyard I know where the backyard is. Treva achieved it masterfully."

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In the end we believe these objectives were met. All of the elements the homeowner requested were included and they are very pleased with the result. The contractor stayed true to the design with the exception of the concrete patio which was reduced in size at the homeowner’s request. The other exception was the placement of a retaining wall at the patio as the utility lines were closer to the surface at the alley and a deeper retaining wall was not possible.  In spite of these changes the landscape maintains the integrity of the design.