Custom Metal Retaining Wall & Front Yard — North Vancouver, BC | 2022
A fully custom-designed metal retaining wall system created to resolve a significant grade change in a North Vancouver front yard. Quant designed, detailed, fabricated, and installed this flowing terraced structure, transforming a difficult slope into a distinctive, functional landscape.
Client Needs
The homeowner wanted more than a conventional retaining wall. The goal was to resolve the significant grade difference in the front yard while creating a highly customized landscape feature that felt distinctive, contemporary, and specifically designed for the property.
Rather than using standard concrete blocks or timber walls, the client wanted a solution with its own architectural character—something tailored to the site and unlike a typical retaining wall installation.
Garden Conditions & Challenges
The property had a steep and visually dominant grade change between the upper garden and the street.
A conventional straight retaining wall would have solved the technical problem, but it would have created a heavy visual barrier at the property's front. The challenge was therefore to manage the elevation change while keeping the landscape open, sculptural, and connected to the architecture of the home.
The design also required careful coordination between the wall geometry, fabrication details, soil retention, drainage, planting areas, and final landscape levels.
Our Solution
Quant developed a completely custom terraced retaining system using fabricated metal edging.
Instead of treating the slope as one single level change, we divided it into a sequence of flowing terraces. The curved metal walls follow the site's natural movement, gradually stepping down toward the street and turning the original slope into a strong landscape feature.
We developed every curve, transition, height, and connection specifically for this property. We custom-fabricated the metal components based on our design and installed them on site as part of the complete landscape construction.
The terraces were finished with green groundcover and integrated planting, while natural boulders and gravel softened the transition between the contemporary metal structure and the surrounding landscape.
The Project
Details
