UNKAI-
OCEAN OF CLOUDS GARDEN
SANTA CRUZ MOUNTAINS, CA
Where clouds become garden
Perched above the Santa Cruz Mountains, the garden looks across a valley where clouds gather and dissolve like a shifting tide. The landscape is being designed in the aftermath of fire, bringing together the memory of what was lost with the possibility of renewal. Its setting, architecture and changing horizon provide the foundation for a garden shaped by movement, impermanence and the spaces between things.
Unkai—“ocean of clouds”—is the central idea. The clouds that form and disappear across the valley become a metaphor for the garden itself: something continually changing, never entirely fixed. The Japanese concept of ma, the meaningful space between things, further informs the composition. Rather than filling every space, the garden allows moments of openness and pause, moving between enclosure and release, geometry and organic form.
A native coast redwood forest is being restored across the site, enveloping the gardens and providing their vertical structure and atmosphere. Beneath the emerging canopy, a geometric framework of paving, paths, walls and fences establishes an architectural order around the house before gradually giving way to softer garden forms. An ichimatsu checkerboard pattern introduces rhythm and structure, while kasumi, a traditional motif suggesting mist, is abstracted through flowing masses of California lilac. Together, the forest and garden create layers of space that shift between enclosure and openness, foreground and distance.
Native and fire-conscious planting extends from the restored redwood forest into the gardens. Evergreen and deciduous trees, shrubs, groundcovers and meadow-like layers provide habitat, seasonal change and a varied understory, responding to the character and ecology of the Santa Cruz Mountains. California lilac carries the kasumi motif through the garden, its flowing forms creating a sense of movement between more structured spaces. Local granite gravel, Sonoma boulders, permeable paving, weathered brick, and simple metal and wood structures give the landscape a tactile, contemporary character. Existing sculptures and salvaged materials are woven into the new garden, carrying traces of the site's history into its renewal.
The garden is conceived as a sequence of framed experiences—arrival, welcome, retreat and reflection. Gates, fences and planting create thresholds between spaces, while openings toward the mountains bring the distant landscape into the garden as borrowed scenery. Moving through the property, the more architectural spaces gradually soften into garden and forest, creating moments of pause, discovery and connection to the changing landscape beyond. The redwoods give the garden a sense of enclosure and quiet, while the shifting light beneath their canopy echoes the movement of clouds across the valley.
The garden is currently in the final stages of design, with construction scheduled to begin in fall 2026. Its planting, materials and spaces are conceived with their future maturity in mind, allowing the garden to develop gradually through growth, weather, use and care.
Dobro Design
Landscape Architecture · Garden Design · Planting · Hands-on Construction · Stewardship
Project Team
Santa Cruz Green Architects · Stillwater Dwellings · Client