Creating a garden oasis in just 120 m² is no small feat—yet landscape designer Dominic Lindenberg of Gartentyp in Sprockhövel has done exactly that in northern Essen. His challenge: to design a compact garden space for a terraced house near the historic Zollverein Coal Mine Industrial Complex. From the start, he knew that Essen's mining heritage and riverside location along the Ruhr would be essential to the design—informing both the material palette and the spatial experience that would ultimately serve as a restorative retreat while offering compelling views throughout.

The initial assessment revealed what the designer describes as "a long, narrow towel of lawn"—flanked by industrial-style fencing topped with plastic privacy screens. "Structure was essential," Lindenberg explains. His clients granted him creative freedom to reimagine the space entirely. The result is a carefully orchestrated composition: plants, water, stone, Corten steel, and shifting elevation planes merge into a dialogue of materials and experience. Zones of calm and contemplation interweave with surprising vistas, tucked corners, and intimate niches. The lawn has vanished—yet neighboring gardens seamlessly extend the design, their trees and shrubs now integral to the garden's layered composition, lending depth and natural enclosure. Corten steel edges a narrow watercourse, a subtle nod to the region's historic mining towers. Locally quarried Ruhr sandstone defines the raised planting beds that vary in height—a respectful reference to regional building traditions. A covered terrace extends from the house, leading into a green realm where a winding path, deliberately angular, guides visitors through raised beds framed in the same warm stone. A fountain and cascade—water tumbling merrily across the path into a small channel—anchors this middle section. The garden's final chapter belongs to an elevated timber deck and seating area. A wine-red glass panel orchestrates an enchanting interplay of light and shadow with the leaves of a mature copper beech, which simultaneously screens the neighbors' fencing from view. The planting scheme ensures year-round presence: ornamental foliage plants and grasses maintain visual interest through the seasons, while summer bloomers ignite the space with luminous oranges and golds at peak flowering.

www.gartentyp.com

Photography:
Gartentyp / Fotostudio Frege
www.fotostudio-frege.de

(Published in CUBE Ruhrgebiet 01|25)