Trust and good communication are essential, says Jack Hayes of Fifth Season Landscapes
How did you get your start?
Garden design and landscape construction has been a common interest between me and my business partner, Phil Antcliff, for many years. After attending TAFE at the same time, we discovered each other’s passions for landscaping and how we could achieve greater things as a team. We created Fifth Season Landscapes to deliver creative landscape architecture and high-quality landscape construction.
What is your design philosophy?
Our philosophy is to work with the client to create a space that reflects and enhances the way they want to live their lives and to deliver the design to an achievable construction budget. A well-designed garden should sit seamlessly within its surrounds, but still draw you out to enjoy all it has to offer. where does the process begin?
The consultation process is crucial. It allows us to get a complete understanding of the site requirements while listening to the client’s brief. The client may not always be
able to articulate exactly what they want but, more often than not, they can tell you how they want to use the space and what they don’t like about it at this stage. This
is a great starting point. Trying to get a realistic construction budget from the client is extremely important. This is not easy as most people don’t know what things cost but having a figure to work towards speeds up the process and avoids unnecessary revisions of the design and estimates.
Do you have a preferred style?
We create stylish, functional spaces that are great for year-round entertaining. We find that many of our clients have young families and are looking to maximise their weekend time by enhancing their outdoor areas. Many of our projects require us to incorporate a new pool, outdoor kitchen and shading options and, by achieving these three things, we can create an amazing space for the whole family.
What are some career highlights?
Some of the biggest highlights have come from being presented with a design challenge on a difficult site, whether it’s a pool being designed to make better use of a heavily sloping block or being asked to breathe new life into a small, inner-city courtyard. Also being invited back by happy clients to enjoy the place we designed and built for them is always a big highlight and a very rewarding experience.
How do you ensure a good result?
Communication and trust are keys to a great working relationship. Understanding the client’s brief, budget and timeframes also help lay a good foundation for the relationship. The next part is to deliver. We will work on bringing the brief to life through the design then delivering the project to the estimated budget. The connection and communication between design and construction is also very important. This part can be overlooked sometimes but if this works well, there is no loss of information and the project can run smoothly and be built to the original design vision.
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