Rotterdam!

Our study tour to Rotterdam, Holland, 24th November - 27th November really opened my eyes to the wider world of Landscape Architecture. The city itself inspired me in so many different ways. There were so many different buildings that had something about them that just made me want to go ‘wow’. Everywhere you looked in Rotterdam there was something to view with amazement and whether that was because I’m new to the world of looking at the landscape in the way that I now do, or whether it was the fact I liked the culture differences between England and Holland?

Definatly Not English?

Kew Gardens Through Time Project.

Coming to the module late i had to catch up on the first assignment, and i choose an area of Kew Gardens, I found this assignment pretty difficult, and picking Kew was maybe not the greatest idea considering there is soooooo much info on it! i was over welmed with information and trying to pick out the important points and not so important point was pretty tricky! The area i picked was the grounds surrounding Kew Palace.

Kew Palace at its current state.

There area i choose to research as it stands today!

Using Digimap in the Project.

Hand drawn image of the Site.

Admirals Park, Chelmsford

Assignment 2 - Earthworks: Parks & Topography

Site Visit to Admiral's Park, Chelmsford.

A series of views of the Park.

So our brief:

• Site Survey - including a topographic analysis of Admiral's Park.
• Site Context.
• Surroundings in Contour Drawings.
• 3D digital renderingings of the site.
• Research work of a Land Artist with compellingly exhibits.
• Think about the human relationship with the topography. 
• Work the surface and depth of Admirals Park.
• Using your land artist personal philosophies and explorations.
• Presentation in Powerpoint.
• And to use Terra Firma, Piranesi, Photoshop.
• Show clear conceptual links and our process.
• And try to show as much info graphically rather than verbally.

Question 1: Preparing for Rotterdam. The wider Context.

Excited about the study tour decided to get some background knowledge on the city and the surrounding dutch landscape before visiting.

Google Results: Dutch Landscapes from the air. Grid systems?

Images from Multimap - Wow I do love these map programmes.

Just a sworm of Glasshouses and production fields is the Netherlands.

It's completely mad, I'm amazed by this difference of it and that's just from the air. Googling images on multimap and google earth etc. Opens your eyes so much to the world around us.

Moonlight Garden Project Finale!

Hooray! Finally got there first Design Project of the 2nd Year..

Finally feel like im getting somewhere - infact i feel that to whole class is getting somewhere! I was impressed with everyone progess from the 1st year, im very proud of my class!! :)

My Final Design and Contemporary design for my client 'Michelle Wood' and her communal garden in Pembridge Square, London. The design was based around the main observatory in the centre of the space mainly gravel pathways and patchs of law. With raised blocks with planting to soften them in the style of Christopher Bradley-Hole. The entrance (shown to the bottom of this image) starts off with very formal straight lines and then as you pass through the observatory and out the other side your brought to a more mixed up space with a selection of different areas. These 3 different spaces representing life the entrance being 1. The past, and the fact you can't change it and it is how it is! 2. Now the observatory a place to relax and reflect of the present time. and 3. Not really sure where your heading in the future for definate so its mixed up and at the same time a easy and safe space to be.

Contemporary Garden Design that expresses planes????

Both Laurie Olin and Peter Walker discuss the genius of Andre Le Notre. Simo and Walker say of him, via a discussion of Roberto Burle Marx, that he "... places objects on a plane not to glorify the object but to express the plane itself. And however enriched with patterning and planting, the plane remains taut."


What is meant by this? Can you find examples in contemporary garden design or landscape architecture that expresses this?
To me this question is really about the landscape in the wider sense; Coastlines and mountain ranges. And relating back to previous blog thinking about the enclosed garden and how that only works in context with surrounding areas. In the same way in which this question says ‘places objects on a plane not to glorify the object but to express the plan itself’ the same way a garden designed in a way the works slides into it context along the plane, relating this to vistas and views from the garden and along the context plane, then enriched with patterning and planting. The use of landscape brings me to some of the designs of Antony Paul and when i went to an SGD Conference last year, he shwed us images of his designs and i really felt the fitted in with the landscape surrounding the design.

Below are some of the images to show the plane of landscape and background..

Moonlight Gardens & Theories within Landscape..

Working towards my first design of the second year I've began to understand concepts a lot more, in the first year I struggled to get to grips with this but I do feel I’m finally getting somewhere and having a strong concept really helps the design process!


With our assignment brief being a moonlight garden and having to have an observatory of a nocturnal natural phenomena I was quite a mouthy start! I wanted my observatory to be somewhere in which the client could reflect after a long days work. I did some research into reflective space some of which are shown below.

Finding images that related to Reflection and and the thorght of being Peaceful was retively hard but to me personally these images linked quite well.

I also took a lot of my influences from Christopher Bradley-Hole a designer I did my Influential Designers assignment on.

This next paragraph was taken from that essay on Badley-Hole.

Bradley-Hole got a lot of his influence from designers who have come out of the twentieth century and their thoughts towards design, Christopher Lloyd being one of them. Court explained that influences to Bradley-Hole have been the planting styles in Europe, especially those in Germany, Holland and Sweden. And then going on to say… He has never been interested in shrub and mixed borders, and the use of perennials allows a new freedom to combine plants in a more modern way, (1999). Court also expresses Bradley-Holes influence from Christopher Lloyd in the book ‘The Modern Garden Makers’ by saying Christopher Lloyd’s garden at Great Dixter was the greatest influence on him as he was able to appreciate that the informal style of planting can still retain a definite structure (1999). The image to the right is the garden Bradley-Hole designed in his 1997 Chelsea Flower Show Garden, called the ‘The Latin Garden’ and shows his perennial planting schemes, Court also talks about how the use of polished plaster and steel combined with gravel beds and mirror-smooth water was incredibly disciplined. It was very far removed from the standard gardens normally seen at the Show. The whole setting was immensely stimulating with its use of oblongs and squares influencing the three different sections of the layout, (1999).

Lots of this influence I've took and started to use in my design process for Pembridge Square.

Below includes some on Bradley-Hole's work which inspired me.

 

“Walls must have clean lines, pure form, and a sharp finish.”

Spatial laboratory for Landscape Design!

If the enclosed garden has "the character of an interior," How is it possible that it can also serve as a "spatial laboratory for landscape design?"


Reading - The Enclosed Garden (Rob Aben & Saskia de Wit)
A garden is enclosed in the fact that it has its own individual surroundings and elements that make it a garden in its self. And I suppose this does make it have its own interior. Again there will always be the outside design, where ever the garden is in the world it will always have a context - landscape design. Referring to the reading the quote ‘Just this compactness and scale makes the enclosed garden suitable for an outdoor room where one can engage with nature.’ - A spatial laboratory perhaps.
I’m not sure I completely understand the author of this reading and to me most of it is opinion because all gardens of cause are different and therefore his points don’t relate to everywhere, although a very interesting thought to think this way. However i not keen and dont feel i could speak on relationship with the landscape and garden in this much depth, we could say, to have a say in quotes like this.

Me personaly i do think the words interior and laboratory do in some ways relate to the landscape and surroundings almost definatly.