Commercial Hardscape Work
When it comes to outdoor design, landscaping takes the focus. You know that you need beautiful bushes, trees, and plants to make your space look nice and welcoming. However, by keeping your focus on the landscaping, you overlook an important element that can make a big impact in your space: Hardscaping.
Hardscaping refers to any design element that uses materials like stone, concrete, or metal. Hardscaping can include elements like walkways, patios, parking areas, columns, and much more.
Using hardscaping on your commercial property can transform the space, making it more inviting for customers and employees and improving your business’ overall reputation. The expert designers at Triad Associates can help you determine what hardscaping elements would best serve your space, giving you amazing results that will change the way people feel when they visit your property. Our designers have been elevating residential and commercial spaces for decades, and they can help you realize the full potential of your property.
Benefits of Commercial Hardscaping
There are many reasons why you should consider adding hardscaping to your commercial property – or upgrading the hardscaping that you currently have.
The most obvious benefit of hardscaping is that it will make your property look more beautiful. Imagine an apartment complex with a gorgeous pool with a stone deck, a pergola draped in vibrant blooms, and surrounded by a stone wall with ambient lighting. People who visit that apartment complex are going to be more impressed, and they are going to be more likely to want to sign a lease. Residents who live in that apartment complex are going to be happier, leading them to renew their leases more often and to recommend the complex to others.
Creating a beautiful property isn’t just about vanity. A beautiful space can make a big impression on clients, which will make them feel better about your company and make them more likely to want to do business with you. There are dozens of ways you can use hardscaping to this effect, depending on the elements and the materials you choose. The designers at Triad Associates will help you make the choices that will make the greatest impact.
Not only will great hardscaping impress your clients and make them want to visit your property more, but it will also increase morale and improve impressions with employees. A beautiful work place will certainly make employees want to show up each day. Iit will also make them believe that they are working for a successful company that cares about the details, and that will make them more excited about coming to work each day.
Another benefit of hardscaping is that it can help you to better manage the land, including the proper flow of stormwater runoff, controlling erosion, and more. For example, using permeable pavers will allow stormwater to flow through and absorb into the land, rather than running across it and creating problems with erosion or ponding. Installing retaining walls can prevent erosion and create more usable areas of sloped land. Better controlling the land in these ways can not only have benefits for the environment, but can also reduce problems on your property, saving you time and money in the long run.
The right hardscaping can also reduce your property maintenance. Consider the difference between having a gravel parking lot and a paved parking lot. With the former, you’ll spend a lot of time and money spraying weeds and keeping the borders intact. There are many more examples of how different hardscaping choices can impact your maintenance, making it better or worse. The designers at Triad Associates can evaluate your space and give you tailored recommendations that will meet your goals for look and functionality while also keeping your maintenance requirements at a minimum.
Finally, good hardscaping can make a property safer. Rip up that old sidewalk that is buckling and cracked and replace it with a smooth pathway made of flagstone or another attractive stone and you’ve reduced the likelihood of trips (and associated injuries) and upgraded the look of your property at the same time. Put in a retaining wall and stop that one area of your property from pooling water, and you’ve reduced the chances of slips and falls. Making your property safer makes it more inviting, and it reduces your liability (and your potential financial risk).
Putting in great hardscaping has a variety of benefits. You will end up enjoying returns on your investment for many years to come.
Ideas for Adding Hardscaping to Your Commercial Property
There are many ways that you can add hardscaping to your commercial property, depending on the layout of the property and the look or functionality that you want to achieve.
Most commercial properties can benefit from hardscape paths for walking. The paths can lead from the parking lot to the door, or they can create special walkways around the building and throughout other spots on the property. The pathways create safe trails for walking, and they help clients discover other parts of your property.
A variety of materials can be used for creating pathways. More rustic pathways can be created with flagstone or fieldstone, and more contemporary pathways can be created with manufactured paver blocks. Borders can be added to the pathways for decorative accent.
Similarly, you can create a patio or parking area using hardscaping materials. With the larger space, you have more design options. You can use a variety of stones or pavers together to create contrasting elements with different textures, shapes, or colors. Or you can opt for concrete, which requires less maintenance and which can be decorated with stamping or staining. Concrete can even be made to look like natural stone.
Consider adding a shaded patio where your employees can eat or relax on their breaks. The shade can be added with hardscape features like a pergola or gazebo or with landscaping like trees. You can also add an unshaded patio with some benches where passersby can rest and reflect.
Retaining walls can be added to your property strategically to manage the land while also creating usable segments of land. For example, you can add retaining walls to sloped areas, level out those spaces, and then add decorative plantings or grass. You could even add paved areas to the new tiers, creating usable space.
Think about combining different hardscaping elements for a unique and interesting look. For example, you can create a terrace with water features, turning part of the space into a pseudo waterfall. Adding lighting and fire features can also create some interesting designs for a variety of hardscaping projects.
Of course, if you have a residential property – like an apartment complex or a housing community – a pool is the ultimate hardscaping feature. You can put in a simple pool deck, or you can go all out, adding features like fire pits, columns, a hardscape deck, and more.
Know the full list of features that are available to you, and consult with one of the expert designers at Triad Associates to explore the full potential of your space. You can create some stunning designs and transform your property with the right combination of hardscaping elements and materials.
Working with a Designer to Create Your New Hardscaping
Understanding what’s possible with hardscaping is just one part of the process. Understanding how all the pieces can fit together in your space is what will bring the right design to life. The designers at Triad Associates understand this, and they will work closely with you to create exactly what your property needs to look amazing and to offer all the functionality your business needs.
We start the design process with a thorough discussion about what you want from the space, including what kind of look you would like to achieve and what kind of problems you would like to solve. We then perform a site evaluation to determine the unique needs and challenges of the space, such as issues with drainage, the interplay of other landscaping or hardscaping elements, and any property constraints.
Once we have a complete understanding of the space and your vision for it, we will make tailored recommendations for what would look best on your property and be the easiest to maintain with time. We’ll review material options, explaining how the different choices can impact look, performance, safety, maintenance, and overall cost. We will use 3D design software and sketches to help you visualize the different options in the space.
We’ll work closely with you throughout the entire design and installation to ensure that you will get a finished product that you will love. We’ll answer all your questions and make sure that you are empowered to get the most out of the design process. Our goal is your complete satisfaction throughout the design process and with the finished product.
Call us in Haverhill today to schedule a consultation with one of our design specialists and get started. We’re ready to transform your commercial property so you can make the best impact with your customers.
