NO-LAWN LANDSCAPES WIN AWARDS FOR STYLISH SPACES AND FEATURES
Chicago area landscape architects Heynssens + Grassman, Inc. recognized in elite industry competition for two innovative home-landscape renovations.
Park City (Chicago area), IL, April 27, 2012 - Two residential landscape projects by Heynssens and Grassman, Inc. have won top awards from the Illinois Landscape Contractors Association (ILCA), in the professional association's annual awards competition. The firm has earned 9 awards in the last 10 years for their high-caliber design, installation, and landscape maintenance services.
Winner of a 2012 ILCA Gold Award for landscape maintenance
Winner of a 2012 ILCA Gold Award for landscape construction
Both of the award-winning projects by Heynssens + Grassman showcase the growing trend toward no-lawn landscaping; taking out underused lawns in urban and suburban yards in order to develop interactive outdoor living areas and landscape amenities that can be used throughout the seasons.
The no-lawn landscaping trend is especially appealing to empty-nesters and other homeowners who see their landscapes as extensions of the home's living areas, but with enhanced durability, aesthetics, and lifestyle features built in. Because lawn areas usually comprise a good portion of a residential lot, re-claiming that space for other uses can offer many possibilities for outdoor entertaining or re-connecting with nature.
Although stylistically different, both award-winning projects were complete front-to-back renovations of suburban infill properties which required creative solutions for stormwater drainage, privacy concerns, tree preservation, as well as skillful arrangements of each homeowners' lists of amenities.
The project which won a Gold Award in the Residential Landscape Maintenance category has an international flair with clean, contemporary lines, textural planting schemes, and smooth stone paving in muted tones of grays and taupe. The home's panorama of windows look out to a raised pool and spa, cook station, firepit, and several outdoor art installations.
The project which won a Gold Award in the Residential Construction category began with the tear-down of the former house. The newly-built home completed in 2009 won a community Preservation Award for its compatibility with the neighborhood context; the site-specific design that takes advantage of light, views, and orientation; as well as its seamless integration with the outdoors. Among the many clever attributes, Heynssens + Grassman created a vintage two-track brick driveway with a mosaic of sedums planted in the center strip that would allow rain water to percolate down, instead of running off into municipal storm sewers. A large brick and stone patio, lush, colorful gardens, and a circular path around a decorative urn are other key features in the rear of the property.
Led by the husband and wife design team of Chris Heynssens and Rene (Grassman) Heynssens, the firm is also celebrating their 25th year in business as landscape architects and contractors on Chicago's northshore.
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The Company
Heynssens + Grassman is a full-service landscape company offering design, installation and maintenance of properties throughout Chicago's northshore communities. The firm is a long-standing member of the ILCA, the Illinois Chapter of the American Society of Landscape Architects, and the Lake Forest-Lake Bluff Chamber of Commerce. In addition to earning many awards, their work has been featured in the Garden Conservancy's Open Days summer tours, Architectural Digest magazine, Chicagoland Gardening magazine, West Suburban Living, and other publications.
The ILCA Awards
Judged by a diverse panel of landscape professionals and educators, the ILCA's award-winning projects showcase some of the Chicago area's most beautiful public and private gardens and outdoor spaces. The public is invited to view the traveling photo exhibition featuring all gold-award winning projects as it rotates between notable venues such as the Merchandise Mart, Morton Arboretum, Chicago Botanic Garden, Cantigny, Chicago Flower & Garden Show, Klehm Arboretum in Rockford, Oak Park Conservatory, as well as quality retail garden centers.
Woman-owned Landscape Firm Wins Top Honors
Heynssens + Grassman -
The landscape firm Heynssens + Grassman Inc., headed up by René Grassman Heynssens and Chris Heynssens received high honors recently for their outstanding work on two challenging North Shore properties. An annual competition hosted by the Illinois Landscape Contractors Association invites submittals from its members across Illinois, Wisconsin, Michigan, Indiana, Missouri, and Iowa to participate in the awards program that recognizes individual firms for their excellence in the landscape industry.
This makes three awards in three years for the firm, which specialize in high-end, unique, and design-driven projects. The competition peaks shortly before the holidays when the honorees are informed just in time for recognition at the industry’s annual winter convention called Mid-Am. Remarkable “before” and “after” photographs of the award-winning projects are blown-up to poster-size and put on display where the almost 13,000 Mid-Am attendees pass by and pay tribute.
Both of this year’s award-winning projects, a Winnetka and a Lake Forest residence, entailed the complexities of an historical restoration in tandem with modern feats of engineering to include luxury amenities like pools, outdoor kitchens, fireplaces, and plenty of garage and parking space, “…Complimentary to the architecture and surroundings”, remarked one of the ILCA judges. The actual awards ceremony takes place on February 25th at the Drury Lane Oakbrook where Heynssens + Grassman will share the accolades with the rest of their design team with whom they collaborate on the sixty or so projects they do a year, mainly on the North Shore. Earlier in 2004, another one of the firm’s projects was recognized with a plaque from the Lake Forest Historic Preservation Society for recycling the remnants of an old-time, wooden cold frame and reusing the materials to construct a plant pergola on an historic property.
Heynssens + Grassman, Inc. is one of only a handful of landscape companies that is female-owned and operated, with René Heynssens, a grad of the Harvard School of Design, holding the position of president of the company.
Besides her involvement in the day-to-day operations of her firm she lends her 25 years of industry experience to the board of the Illinois Landscape Contractor’s Association and mentors other women in the field through various workshops and seminars.
René Grassman Heynssens and Chris Heynssens met while they each worked at other firms and later combined their talents as landscape architects to found the firm that bears their names. They first set up shop from their own home in Libertyville, Illinois, geographically ideal to serve their target clientele along the North Shore. Now in a larger space further up the shore they continue to court challenging design projects, some of which last several years at a time, and have been featured on the cover of West Suburban Living Magazine as the new trend in “Patio-chic”.
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