ground work

Looking Forward

2011-11-18T01:19:00.006Z

The work of New Zealand garden designer Ted Smyth has garnered a certain amount of international acclaim over the past decade. Much attention has been afforded to the sparkling sheen of his techno tinged landscapes studded with the sculptural simplicity of planting schemes consisting largely of cycads such as Dracaena draco and palms. Something of a self taught maverick Smyth has often found his work gracing the pages of many a coffee table tome, lumped together with modernist masters such as Luis Barragan and Roberto Burle Marx, a situation he finds perplexing given that he has developed his practice over the past forty years largely unaffected by any such external influences and ideologies. Indeed the only tag with which he feels comfortable describing his work is 'contemporary', in the sense that it is always developing and is responsive to the time in which it is produced.

As a consequence there has always been a close association between his aesthetic and a pioneering approach to the use of materials, in particular with stainless steel in the 1970's and neon in the 1980's. Yet it is his eye for spatial arrangement, informed by an earlier career as an artist, that really defines and distinguishes his output. And although the horticultural elements of his projects may seem to have played second fiddle to the distinctly defined hardscape, he has certainly made each plant count in it's structural effect. For whilst he may have had no formal horticultural training, he has developed a formidable expertise and incomparable ability to employ native and sub-tropical exotic plants and trees to maximum effect. Indeed his own garden in the Waitakere Ranges area of Auckland, boasts an impressive collection of such species including Macrozamia communis, Caryota gigas and Chorisia speciosa.

In recent years a significant shift has developed in his modus operandi, with a move towards a more organic style, imbued with references to Maori mythology, and employing a sensitive integration with the site through the considered combination of natural and constructed elements. As a cross cultural synthesis it draws upon the close relationships and affinities of Maori with landscape, as evidenced through their rich oral history. It creates an unique consolidation of meaning, narrative and materials with the physical aspects of each place, in an approach Smyth refers to as 'Landscape Poetry'.

The early manifestations of these tendencies in his work were evidenced in the public realm. Whilst parks have long been an important part of Auckland's geographic fabric, Smyth's design of Quay Park (Mahuhu ki Te Rangi) in 2004 was something of an artistic milestone, setting a new benchmark for urban development. Smyth managed to create a pocket of tranquil breathing space in the Central Business District, despite being surrounded by the density of tall buildings and the bustle of nearby docks.

A landscape of rough natural stones, steel and concrete, contrasts with the sharply defined architectural surrounds, whilst grass and trees add a verdant counterfoil. A large pool and stream utilise an interplay of hard edged geometry and organic shapes in an innovative manner. The incorporation of stylised Maori symbolism into the hardscape involved a respectful process of negotiation with local iwi (tribe), eventually resulting in a design which confronts the conflicted colonial past of its inhabitants, both Maori and Pakeha (New Zealanders of European descent), with an eye to a more positive future. It is this intertwined narrative fusion of the symbolic with the material landscape that has increasingly become a defining feature of Smyth's personal vernacular design.

His light handed 2006 design for Basque Park in Newton, again drew upon Maori mythology and symbolism, with it's employment of stone circles set around a central focal point of split stone sculptures and water jets. A masterwork of minimal land-forming the design subtly accentuates the existing amphitheatre nature of the site to an impressive effect. An understated planting scheme consisting of rings of Nikau palms around the sloping banks of the park neatly compliments the natural topography creating a dynamic form of vertical enclosure.

Two significant residential works in this vein are situated on Waiheke Island in Auckland's picturesque Hauraki Gulf. As a setting it provides a magnificent backdrop in which sea, land and sky intersect to an almost sublime effect, something which Smyth harnesses effectively without ever overplaying it, a skill which has been recognised with two gold medal awards for residential projects from the New Zealand Institute of Landscape Architects.

One garden for realtor Deborah Kelland, presents a minimal approach to earthworks with a well considered native planting palette. An impressive extended catwalk amidst a swathe of Poa grasses effortlessly gives an appearance of reaching out from the hilltop to the sea beyond. The project became something of a collaborative and creatively fertile endeavour, with design input from both Smyth and his client, effecting a result much to both parties satisfaction.

The other project, Pie Melon Farm, was the second commission Smyth has completed for freight magnate, Bruce Plested. This ongoing relationship instilling a sense of confidence in the client whose only brief was "Do what you think is right". Such instruction provided ample scope for Smyth to flex his creative muscle in a sensitive and subtle manner.

Sitting in seclusion in a sheltered bay (Roro Hara) on the northern side of the island, the site is a 243 hectare working farm with a contemporary homestead at it's centre around which Smyth has arranged a landscape, sweeping between the cove headlands, encompassing rough farmland, manicured lawns and a fine array of sculptural planting.

Situated 1km away from the road the site is completely hidden from public view, and only reveals itself after descending a winding driveway. From above the house sits nestled at the foot of the surrounding hills, facing north confronting the harbour. Upon approach it's doorway is obscured by a thicket of palms, cycads, tree aloes (Aloe bainesii), giant bromeliades (Alcantarea imperialis), and rain lilies (Zephyranthes candida) clustered in the entry courtyard. Woven through the planting is a spiral arrangement of stones suggesting the Maori koru (unfolding fern leaf) symbol.The carefully arranged architectural effect of the planing is neatly set off against the rough hewn stone of the building designed by Lyle Porter.

The front of the house provides the site's most exposed aspect, opening out towards the sea. As its principle orientation embraces such a magnificent vista, Smyth has been careful not only to avoid distracting from it, but has managed to actually enhance it. The immediate surround of the house sports a selection of inlaid stones which not only echo the rocky coastline, but provide a discreet drainage solution to the rain which falls directly from the gutter-less roof (the owner wishing to enjoy the sound). Finely cut lawns drop down to the foreshore, interrupted by an swathe of grasses, through which cuts a line of large stones forming a physical and metaphorical protective barrier between the sea and the house, and which neatly insinuate themselves into a paved terrace promontory. Smyth employs the stones to deliberately invoke Maori guardians kaitiaki, drawing upon their reassuring presence, and referencing the cultural history of the island.

The visual interplay of the garden rests upon a minimal use of colours and textural contrast. The grey stone of the architecture and the various shades of green foliage and lawn, echo the surrounding coastline and farmland, and are dispersed in an almost tidal fashion, approaching wavelike from the beach to the hillside. The project is ongoing with development of an area to the west of the house scheduled next, whilst an extensive 40 hectare reforestation programme of native species is incrementally underway at the rate of 4 hectares per annum.

The garden is a fitting intervention into an impressive landscape, which defines itself from its surroundings in a distinct manner whilst also managing to intensify it in a gracious way, which surely must be the highest accolade a garden can achieve. It stands not only as a testament of Smyth's unique vision, but also as a exemplary illustration of a formidable new design language.

Garden Design Journal, November 2011

Bilbao Jardin 2011

2011-11-18T00:56:00.011Z

Over the past 15 years the Basque city of Bilbao has been involved in a comprehensive and well considered design driven overhaul of it's post-industrial landscape. The arrival of the Frank Gehry's Guggenheim Museum and Santiago Calatrava's Zubizuri bridge in 1997 set the scene for a regenerated riverscape along the banks of the Nervion, and placed the city on the international architectural map. But more important to the process has been the local council's recognition of the roles which green spaces play in creating well being and an engaged citizenship, and the implementation of initiatives which seek to place parks and gardens at the heart of civic life.

As a consequence Bilbao Council's commitment to creating such areas has been nothing short of impressive. The statistics speak for themselves, with 1m² green space per city inhabitant 10 years ago, the council now boasts 18m² available for local residents, exceeding the EU recommendation of 12m². The result is a user friendly urban realm where design of the highest standard has been employed, with an eye for detail and quality of finish as essential ingredients of every project.

In keeping with such green aspirations, Bilbao Jardin 2011, organised by Bilbao council and local arts body Fundación Bilbao 700, marks the third appearance of the biennial citywide garden festival. Following the success of the previous two excursions into the interface of art, design and gardens, the festival presents a variety of garden installations embedded into the urban fabric at various locations around the city.

Inspired by the conceptually based International Festival of Gardens at Chaumont-sur-Loire and the Gardens at Cornerstone Sonoma, the festival organisers transferred the idea of temporary garden installations into the city's streets and parks, in an attempt to engage the public with ideas about gardens and the important roles they play, in a very direct and visual way.

The show runs over six weeks from late May until early July and features installations in every district of the city, designed by landscape architects, garden designers, architects and multidisciplinary teams. Selection of twenty works is via an international competition, and whilst the majority of participants are Basque or Spanish, the international mix is increasing with entrants from Italy, France, Portugal, Denmark and even as far afield as Costa Rica.

An invitation is also extended to three celebrity practitioners from various artistic disciplines to participate. This year guest exhibits include 'Hands', a visually concise but surreal installation by actor and theatre director Angel Pavlovsky, Landscape architect Benedetta Tagliabue's parterre of bedding plants 'Metal Rabbit 2011 Rainbow' situated outside the Guggenheim creating a dialogue with Jeff Koons' nearby floral dog, and 'Alice's Burrow', a tableau take on Lewis Carroll by Basque author Kimen Uribe.

Once the works are completed a judging process takes place to determine the top three exhibits, the first place winner being bestowed with an opportunity to create or revamp an existing public space. The best in show accolade this year went to 'HaziheziHasi (GrowEducateStart)' by the Basque team of MEI. Naroa Oleaga, Ula Iuretagoiena, Lurkoi, Maite Barandika and Sabina Arteta. The tabletop garden design featuring edible plants and incorporating a semi-enclosed wooden seated areas had an educational purpose drawing parallels between the micro society of companion planting and the macro realm of social relationships.

[(Graffiti) Garden]³ by another Basque collective featuring Urtzi Arteagoitia, Mikel Sarriegi and Igor Rezola were runners up with their intriguing foray into living graffiti and political sloganeering. Incorporating a infamous controversial statement made by a local politician during the Franco era, painted onto a whitewashed willow wall. The work reflected on the role of memory in the interplay of past and present, and the ephemeral nature of social discourse, graffiti and gardens. This is all given a real-time dynamic as the willow stakes sprout shoots and start to grow, covering the graffiti over the course of the show.

Third place went to 'In Praise of Shadows' by Valencia duo Sergio Garcia-Gascó & Ann Santacreu, who drew inspiration from Japanese author Junichiro Tamizaki's classic titular paean to the subtle details of everyday Japanese life. The installation featured a self contained wooden room in which was housed a horticultural tableau, subtly lit by penetrating rays from outside, entering through a skylight and pierced holes in the structure's walls. The result was a meditative work of interspersed light and shade, reflecting upon the relationships between interiors and exteriors, and Eastern and Western garden cultures.

'pixel[Green] ' attempted to transform the virtual into the real, by drawing a parallel between the manner in which the primary digital unit is given value only in relation to the other pixels around it, a the way that the constituent elements of a landscape work together to create a unified whole. Andalusian David Pérez Roca's installation utilised a minimal palette of green shades juxtaposing horizontally layered squares of grass with the vertical stems of centrally planted trees, and a ground plane of grey slate, to construct a well defined work which sat nicely in contrast with it's streetscape surroundings.

Forstudio from Portugal delivered minimalist simplicity recalling the sculptures of Donald Judd. Reflecting upon the transitory nature of gardens, 'Purple Daedalus' played upon the Greek myth of the Minotaur's labyrinth in Crete. The installation employed a geometric placement of a series of plastic construction bags, each one containing modular plantings of lavender. The play of repetition in the structure of the garden opened up myriad avenues of circulation, creating a multiplicity of personal pathways and perspectives for visitors to experience, in a similar manner to which they traverse and explore the city itself.

Perhaps the most effective use of public space which integrated the existing with the transitory installation was 'Plant Cave' by TallerDe2, neatly framing a street bench within a stage set of crimson carpeting and ceiling of suspended air plants (Tillandsia Usneoides). The simple contrast of colour and form combined with the displacement of horticulture from ground plan to canopy, neatly offset the utilitarian street features making it an immediately arresting intervention.

A more frivolous note was struck by ' 'Uncork the Landscape' by Basque team Lorena Torres, Gaizka Zuazo and LASUMA Paisajistas which created a fine bottlescape divided by cork partitions. Whilst the garden brought to the fore the Dionysian aspects of gardens, closer inspection revealed the more serious manner in which the idea of' 'the good life' is entangled in the relationship between agriculture and urban lifestyles. Whilst issues of sustainability were also addressed by playfully suggesting a new vernacular of recycled design.

Monika Anaut, Arantza and Ainara Sertutxa's piece 'In the Background, The City', did just what the title suggested by putting Bilbao squarely in the picture. Three structural frames of black metal and tape, were planted with bright orange and purple Crysthanthemums, making a striking visual contrast. The installation's pictorial portals encouraged the viewer to view the everyday aspects of the city from a new perspective and to reflect upon the relationship between natural and built environments, and their permanent or temporary natures. The work most succinctly encapsulated the ethos of the festival and the council's vision for the future, in which gardens are viewed as essential elements of a contemporary city, and the important roles which garden designers and artists can play in creating them.

Garden Design Journal, November 2011

The Bad Tempered Gardener

2011-07-10T15:32:00.010+01:00

Anne Wareham

Francis Lincoln

ISBN 978-0771231504

For some time now, garden maker and writer Anne Wareham had been a thorn in the gardening world's glove, constantly pricking at matters generally considered unsuitable for polite discussion, But quiescence is not her forte, and as editor of thinkinGardens website she has managed to air some degree of discontent, whilst this debut publication lets her loose with an engaging series of personal polemics and self analytical reflections on gardening and the media.

Perhaps the title is a slight misnomer as the book is less bad tempered than well considered, as a passionate plea to consider gardens more honestly, seriously and critically. Interweaving narratives mix musings upon gardening chores, plants, show gardens, and social networking. A central theme contextualises these reflections within the process of making her garden at the Veddw in Monmouthshire with photographer Charles Hawes, whose work illustrates the book. Recalling Margery Fish's classic 'We Made a Garden' from 1956, it provides fascinating insights into the dynamics of domestic partnerships within the garden.

But also it importantly investigates the role gardens play in the larger landscape. Language, communities, history and geography are discussed in a manner which transcends the usual quasi-mystical invocations of 'a sense of place', instead locating gardens as essential elements in the constantly evolving relationships between personal, local and national identities.

Perhaps most cutting to the conservative status quo is the assertion that the gardening world is based upon a form of infantilism, which induces in the public an unquestioning subservience to a horticultural hierarchy, formed of TV celebrities, garden writers, owners, and designers. Professionals and 'experts' are duly drubbed for too often dispensing contradictory words of wisdom in school-masterly manner, which serve to confuse rather than enlighten. Whilst garden magazines are castigated for their role in promoting glossy idealised notions of over planted pretty gardens, divorced from their actual uses and surroundings. All of which fuels a childlike consumerism in which garden centres become sweetshops, providing a nectar rush to satiate horticultural addictions.

Such an analysis of the social psyche exposes much about the public's understanding of gardens, and goes some way to explaining the gulf between designers and green fingered grumblers who feel compelled to disparage the profession for thinking too much. Breaking down such barriers, and creating a more mature dialogue around gardens must surely be of benefit to all who work and play in them. As such 'The Bad Tempered Gardener' is certainly an entertaining attempt at generating one.

Garden Design Journal, August 2011

Gardening - Philosophy for Everyone

2011-03-30T00:09:00.008+01:00

Edited by Dan O'Brien

Wiley Blackwell

£11.99, p/b, 249pp

ISBN 978 1 444 33021 2

Stephen Hawking has lately been proclaiming philosophy to be dead, laid low by advances in physics, which he suggests explain the world around us. But whilst the jury is out awaiting proof for such a headline seeking claim, the quest for knowledge about how we live our lives, and the choices we make when relating to each other and the world at large, will continue to afford philosophical enquiry a raison d'etre.

And it is in gardens that such enquiry has often found a fitting home, given that gardens embody physical manifestations of the varied ways in which we organise both our immediate habitats and the wider environment. With this in mind, editor Dan O'Brien has assembled a collection of essays to investigate these relationships through the ethical, aesthetic, political and metaphysical pathways of philosophy.

The subtitle 'Philosophy for Everyone' is perhaps a slight misnomer, given that some of the contributions more correctly fall into the discipline of History, and also because many exhibit academic tendencies which tend to be off-putting to more general readers. These points aside, when the book does dally with matters truly philosophical it merits its brief in a satisfying and stimulating manner. Mara Miller's reflections upon the many layers of time and change inherent in gardens, and the ways in which they affect personal experiences, illuminate how these may play into design considerations. Matthew Hall's analysis of the Eden myth in shaping our anthropocentric separation from the organic world, and the ways in which we have created horticultural taxonomies of desirable and undesirable plants, suggests the need to redress such restricting modes of thinking.

Throughout the book runs an Epicurean theme of garden stewardship and cultivation as a means to personal and social well being, a simplistic relationship between the health of the land and the hand that tends it. Gardens are considered as seedbeds for nurturing human potential and growing knowledge, in an attempt to create the mythical 'good life'. The question of just how to live such a life is indeed as relevant today as it was to the Greeks over two millennia ago, particularly in light of recent environmental and economic pressures. But appeal to trans-historical 'human truths' embodied in the classics, is somewhat problematic from a contemporary perspective. It confronts the nub of Hawking's challenge to philosophy. For whilst the world is still not reducible to a single theory, the manner in which science and technology have reinterpreted and reshaped it, calls for an expanded field of philosophy. One which can face the challenges, and encompass the insights from physics, evolutionary science, biology and neuroscience, in order to interpret the world today, and determine the best ways to live in it.

With this in mind, growing a philosophical debate around gardens should be an important issue for all those involved in the design, making and maintenance of our cultural landscapes. Dan O'Brien's seedlings are a fine start, but without doubt, more diversity, and a certain degree of modification, is needed in the harvest.

Garden Design Journal, April 2011

SGD Autumn Conference - From Concept to Canopy: Trees in Time, Space and Place

2011-03-29T01:59:00.009+01:00

9^th October 2010

Imperial College London

The majestic presence of trees in a garden evokes a sense of nature untamed within a manicured landscape. For designers they provide a key structural element which sets the stage for the other drama enacted in a garden plot. Silently enduring various degrees of trimming and training, they maintain a sense of dignity and independence, provoking reflection on our dependence upon them as a valuable resources for food and materials, and also as carbon capturers ensuring a planetary balance. Such cultural considerations of the importance of trees provided a fitting subject for SGD's autumnal event.

Conference chair Mike Calnan, who in his role as Head of Parks and Gardens for the National Trust, is charged with the care of no fewer than 800 arboreal avenues, highlighted the ethical and aesthetic values associated with trees within British landscape heritage, from Charles Bridgeman to the present. He outlined the NT's current campaign to conserve 40,000 ancient trees, alongside continued planting programmes at their properties, emphasising the sense of social continuum they provide as investments for future generations.

Head of Arboretum at Kew, Tony Kirkham, was equally qualified to elevate the importance of trees, being responsible for no fewer than 14,000 specimens at the Royal Botanic Gardens. He injected a sense of adventure into his talk when describing his role as a veritable 21^st century plant hunter, recalling feats of endurance suffered whilst searching for elusive horticulture in Russia and China. His passion for trees was clearly evident in his entertaining discussion of the creation of The Rhizotron & Xstrata Treetop Walkway at Kew, designed by Marks Barfield (the architects responsible for London Eye) based on the Fibonacci numerical sequence. Kirkham employed a hands-on approach to sourcing and installing the 450 tonnes of weathering steel, chosen to replicate redwood bark, nurturing his project to fruition in 2008. A venture justifiably rewarded by the million visitors who have experienced the crowns of limes, sweet chestnuts and oaks on the 18m high, 200m long structure.

The plant hunting theme carried over into Landscape architect and RHS President Elizabeth Banks' presentation, which traced her family history through the woodland planting at Hergest Croft in Herefordshire. Described by Banks as a garden unfashionable for contemporary tastes, she recounted it's genesis by her husbands' grandfather William Banks in 1912, and his relationship with Veitch nurseries and intrepid plant hunter Ernest Wilson. The consequent growth of the garden's impressive tree collection, including 50 trophy specimens, faltered for a period mid last century, but has since resumed in recent years with the introduction of an Azalea garden and Maple grove. She attributed the large wild garden to the influence of William Robinson, an acquaintance of William's botanist wife Dorothy, although the overall impression of the garden appeared more a period product of obsessive collecting rather than experiments in ecological naturalism.

Robinson's legacy also haunted the presentation by American writer and horticulturist Rick Darke, who provided photos and new chapters for the republished classic 'The Wild Garden'. Darke's statement that “wildness is a renewable resource, wilderness is a memory” reflected this British influence, setting him apart from many of his compatriots whose adoration of Thoreau's romanticism shape their ideas of the natural environment.

He dazzled the audience and upped the ante for presentations with a 55 minute technical tour de force featuring 350 of his own photos. His seductive onslaught of images, delivered with an intellectually rigorous and engaging narrative, illuminated clearly his ideas on wild gardens and woodlands.

For Darke the landscape is multi-layered, imbued with cultural significance and forgotten signs to be uncovered. Drawing upon the psychogeography of Iain Sinclair, and cultural studies of Raymond Williams, he suggested ways to both interpret and inhabit landscapes, inscribing them with meaning for both now and the future. With particular reference to trees, he described design as a time based project, involving watching ecosystems develop, noting daily and seasonal light changes. He advocated a design literacy in order to construct a temporal lexicon, to be utilised in enhancing these effects through incremental improvements rather than enforced interventions upon the environment.

Following Darke was no mean feat, as the final speaker of the day, long standing SGD member Julie Toll conceded. Whilst not strictly focused on trees, her portfolio presentation of contemporary natural style gardens provided an insight into her methodology, with discussions of her work in Britain, the Caribbean, and Europe neatly rounding off the day.

Whilst the conference's intended tree theme was suitably addressed, it was perhaps the subtext it uprooted in each of the presentations which defined the day. The ideas of naturalism and wildness which surfaced, reflected the relationship between nature and culture, the unpredictable and the controlled, which have confronted designers from Robinson to the present, and without doubt will continue to do so in the future.

Garden Design Journal, March 2011

Fourteen Gardens

2011-01-24T17:07:00.006Z

Ulf Nordfjell

Frances Lincoln

ISBN 978 0 7112 3109 2

Gardens are global indicators of cultural difference, embodying the myriad ways in which we adapt to the idiosyncrasies of local environments, and reflecting the languages and methods we employ to shape them. Consequently garden design expresses a relationship to place, not in terms of some transcendental 'sense', but rather as a mediation between a site and the society in which it exists. It encapsulates traits which exemplify national characteristics and attitudes towards Nature, and the ways in which it is used and abused.

As such the designs of Ulf Nordjfell represent a particularly Swedish idea of Nature, one which distinguishes itself from British attitudes, ideologically in romantic terms of reverence, and manifestly through a lighter touch in landscape management. This national sensibility of respect for his native land pervades and defines Nordfjell's designs, both as a source of inspiration and through his choices of local natural materials.

This has been best revealed to date through the two Chelsea show gardens which have established his reputation in this country. 'A Tribute to Linnaeus' (2007) created a trans-historic bond with his fellow countryman by drawing a parallel between the ways in which botany and design arrange the natural world, whilst the green modernism of 'The Daily Telegraph Garden' (2009) revealed a confident maturity, winning him the Best in Show accolade. The making and ideas behind both gardens are elaborated upon towards the end of this well illustrated, self penned monograph.

But it is his work on home ground which goes far beyond those temporary installations in revealing a masterful engagement with the environment. Through the other twelve case studies, all Swedish gardens, he presents a useful insight into his thinking and methodology, which combines a sense of Italian formality in the organisation of space with an affinity for local flora, and a New Perennial style approach to planting. The results manifesting themselves as clean and colourful expressions of a relaxed modernism, at one with their surroundings.

The projects are addressed in terms of their setting, client briefs, and arrangement, with planting lists to accompany Jerry Harpur's fine photography to keep hortiphiliac readers satisfied. A minimal amount of plans and drawings slightly lessens the book's gravitas and appeal to a design minded readership, tilting it more in a coffee table direction - something the publishers should probably have addressed, given Nordfjell's standing in this field.

As an endnote Nordfjell provides a personal reflection on the role of the Swedish gardening world in nurturing his progress, with particular reference to influential writer and designer Ulla Molin. But perhaps by also providing a general overview of other Swedish art and craft forms he could have afforded a contextualisation of his work in relation to the wider national design culture, which has uniquely fused form and function, tradition and modernity, and the global with the local. For such distinct cultural characteristics are discernibly deployed in Nordfjell's gardens, and are vividly apparent throughout this fine portrayal of his oeuvre, which will no doubt serve well in propagating his work to a growing international audience.

Garden Design Journal, February 2011

Hybrid The History & Science of Plant Breeding

2010-10-13T22:40:00.006+01:00

Noel Kingsbury

The University of Chicago Press

ISBN 978 0 226 43704 0

The mention of genetically engineered plants often induces apoplexy in traditional green fingered gardeners as well as green minded converts, despite the fact that their activities inevitably involve a direct engagement with manipulated horticulture. This manipulation is part of a fascinating historical process of deliberate selection and modification which has transformed our gardens, environment and supermarket shelves, but is unfortunately still shrouded in ignorance.

Addressing this knowledge gap, Hybrid charts plant breeding's development from the beginnings of agriculture 10,000 years ago to the current genetic age, in a concise lineage. Each stage of the process of improving plant characteristics, such as yield and reliability, is contextualised in an interplay with social factors. Over this period our species has experienced an accelerated development hitherto unknown, and as a corollary the planet has been mapped out according to political, economic and ideological determinants. The role that plant breeding with it's colourful cast of characters and forgotten mavericks has played in this tumultuous trajectory may seem rather marginal, but the book reveals in a thoroughly researched yet accessible manner, how key it's role has actually been.

A pivotal point in this history occurs with the agricultural revolution germinated in the intellectual fervour of the 17th century European Enlightenment, which not only marked the birth of modernity, but also set the seeds for the book's most important figure, Gregor Mendel, whose work with pea plants shaped innovations in breeding thereafter. It also provides Kingsbury with the model for the symbiotic relationship between horticultural and social improvement, which lies at the book's core.

An important thread throughout the book is the geopolitical dynamics evident in each stage of development, from the challenge of rationalist science to church sovereignty, through the age of Empire with it's twin headed hydra of colonialism and global commerce, to the industrial production strategies of Ford and Taylor in early 20th century USA, and the Green Revolution of the 1950's. Politics can be seen mediating the equation between production values, population growth, and power, giving the contemporary link between international agriculture and capitalism a solid grounding.

The impact of GM in this history marks not only the pinnacle of precision in breeding, but also opens up contested grounds over ideas of nature, intellectual property rights, and the changing relationship between the global North and South. Kingsbury counters the objections of GM detractors informed by an ideological hybrid of Romanticism and Leftism, which finds expression in anti-globalist/capitalist rhetoric, as fuelled by unscientific hysteria and misinformation. Within the scientific community, the complexities of private and public funded research are discussed, whilst a cursory glance is given to the power held by large corporations regarding the legal ownership of genetic code.

The consequent importance of DNA to the way we understand the world around us, marks a change from the nuclear world of the 20th century to the biotechnological one of the 21st, one which cannot be rolled back but must be addressed squarely through informed debate set within a larger historical context . Faced with unprecedented social and environmental change, the history of plant breeding is not simply important for understanding what we have done in the past, but also for what we need to do for the future.

Garden Design Journal, November 2010

Society of Garden Designers Spring Conference – splash!

2010-07-12T17:17:00.004+01:00

Imperial College, London

17 April 2010

The SGD's spring conference aimed to explore the aesthetic, cultural and sensual facets of water in contemporary design. Drawing on a hydraulic history, from the tranquility of Islamic formalism to Villa d'Estes's idiosyncratic exuberance, water's continued fascination was succinctly summed up in the event's introduction by Annabel Downs, referring to it's importance, not only for design but for our very existence on this planet, aptly quoting Leonardo da Vinci's maxim “Water is the driving force of all nature...”

Unfortunately after such an assured plunge into the topic, the day's proceedings were slightly tempered by technical difficulties, resulting in a series of intermittent drips rather than the promised splash. The first interruption to the flow was a consequence of elemental intervention, but by fire rather than water, with the Icelandic volcanic eruption preventing Miami based designer Raymond Jungles from attending the event, leaving the conference one speaker short.

Luckily Wolfram Kircher undaunted by the flight-free skies, employed an alternate travel strategy, driving overnight from Bernberg in Germany to attend. A fellow traveller of Sheffield school luminaries Nigel Dunnett and James Hitchmouth, Kircher's approach to design incorporates a scientific attitude to horticulture with an ecological aesthetic.

Through academic research at Anhalt University he has developed a theoretical and practical methodology for the construction of chemical-free, low maintenance, naturalistic swimming pools, their pond-like visual appeal complimenting their green credentials. For the data doting members of the audience, Kircher provided ample measure of facts and figures, as well as running through a selection of appropriate plants for such pools. Yet the idea of naturalism embodied in his works seemed to reflect a particularly German sensibility imbued with robust ideas of outdoor health, a perspective rather anathema to British attitudes toward the environment.

This cultural difference was made explicit by the swimming pools displayed by conference sponsors Biotop, with their modern hard edged designs evoking a tastefully aspirational appeal for the leisured classes. But perhaps more than any cross-channel loss in translation, the value of swimming pools, naturalistic or not, as a contemporary garden design element was questionable. Considering the expense involved, designers must surely have to assess their viability in a grey-skied temperate, yet rather inclement climate, in which outdoor swimming days are sorely numbered.

Whilst British sculptor and aqua-architect William Pye's many major works, including those at Alnwick Garden, Anthony House and Salisbury Cathedral, have redefined ideas of fountains and water features, his presentation was unfortunately less than fluid. Plagued by a randomly skipping DVD player which created a lack of synchronicity between the visuals and his voice-over, he illustrated as best as possible his R&D process and repertoire, despite the omission of a great number of images, including dramatic incidents such as an explosion of ice from one of his frozen works during winter. Yet despite the fragmentary flow, Pye's discussion of the materials and physics employed in his investigations of vortices and the Coanda effect, were met with great enthusiasm, and his insights into the tranquil and reflective aspects of water invoked an inspired sense of awe for the aquatic alchemy of his oeuvre. Perhaps frustration made him wary of stepping twice into the same river, but his disappearance from the conference during lunch, creating an embarrassing absence for the Q&A, proved prescient in light of the session's failing microphones.

Landscape and garden designer Sarah Eberle suggested her affinity with water, confidently expressed in her designs, was rooted in a psychological make-up born of a West Country childhood by the sea. She revealed an awareness of the reflective nature of water, and it's symbiotic relationship to the sky and landscape, explaining this insight in the context of in her show gardens and residential projects. Chelsea show gardens 'Walking Barefoot' (2006) and the controversial Best in Show '600 Days' (2007) combined ideas of tidal ebb and flow, and sustainability, with a brutalist aesthetic inspired by the architectural forms of Antonio Gaudi and César Manrique. Through these gardens, Eberle has developed a fruitful partnership with architect Andrew Herring, consequently producing a series of gardens for his houses which fuse modernism with an eastern appreciation. The sensitivity of her response to the buildings, and the use of water as an essential exterior ingredient, elevating them into a seamless synthesis of indoors and outdoors.

Throughout the day much was made of water's importance, whilst it's commodity status was denied or disregarded, something which should have roused the elephant in the room. For whilst water may be natural, it is nonetheless an economically valued resource, and one which is becoming increasingly scarce. At a time when a majority of international scientists consider water scarcity to be one of the most important issues we are facing, the use of water for decorative purposes can appear a rather decadent folly. The conference went some way to towards dipping it's toes into these matters by showing how, with imagination, water can be utilised to captivate our species sense of awe with the elemental, in aesthetically and ecologically sensitive ways. It would good to see develop from this a scientifically informed and critically rigorous debate, to push the relationship between water and design forward into an uncertain future.

Garden Design Journal, July 2010

Transforming Uncommon Ground - The Gardens of Vladimir Sitta

2010-04-17T20:33:00.010+01:00

Tempe Brown

Francis Lincoln

ISBN 9 780 711 2 3128 3

Australian based landscape maverick Vladimir Sitta, has a reputation for being something of a contrarian visionary. He proclaims an offhand disdain for commercial work, suggesting instead that conceptual abstract ideas are what are really representative of his practice. But the inherent paradox of his position is that the funding to realise his more abstruse ideas is limited, whereas residential design work is available and pays the bills. Yet as this monograph of his city and suburban garden designs makes clear, he has more than occasionally managed to create a unique synthesis of his Jekyll and Hyde persona.

Sitta's anti-bourgeois attitude finds a surprising form of expression in his work for the Australian upper middle class, as revealed by his work on gardens, courtyards and pools, in comfortable Sydney suburbs. His twist on the garden pornography of affluence and it's typical expression of tasteful exterior lifestyle décor, is bold and innovative, fulfilling the clients aspirational inclinations whilst retaining a personal design integrity.

The book presents case studies which reveal Sitta's true mastery in his manipulation of form. Colour, texture, geometry are technically and poetically deployed in varying degrees of disarray, to construct a unique and provocatively eye-catching landscape syntax. Perhaps it would be hard not to be impressed by the elemental Australian environment with it's sense of space and light, but Sitta manages to refract this through displaced sculptural forms and reflections from pools and the harbour, borrowing views of sea and sky in an almost proprietorial manner, to add to the grandeur. The hardscaping contrasts the mineral ruggedness of materials with clean sharp, lines in gardens which are certainly more sculptural rather than horticultural.

Many of the designs such as the Bamboo Garden, Sky Pool and the Red Garden are familiar, if not even iconic, from their appearances in the increasing stream of garden design books published over the last decade, giving credence to Sitta's international standing. For despite his protestations and reluctance to play by the rules of the design world, it is manifestly obvious, that he is a canny business practitioner in his ability to create an imaginative balance between the conservative tastes of his leisured clients with his signature style of intriguing novelty.

In contrast to the commercial work, Sitta's conceptual world makes a brief appearance in the guise of his well-regarded installation 'Nihilium' at the International Festival of Gardens at Chaumont sur Loire in 1995. Here the sense of displacement is more extreme than in his conventional gardens, with the symbolic significance of the ground made more explicit through the effect of uprooted trees, reflecting Sitta's sense of immigrant unease and cultural roots, which discreetly nod to the work of fellow Czech countrymen. Akin to the surreal sense of the Gothic of Jan Svankmeyer. or the existential suspension of Kafka, Sitta's parallel universe transforms nature, upends gravity and distorts space, creating an unheimlich sense of unease, in which certainty can take no root. The idea of uncommon ground reflects not only Sitta's idiosyncratically displaced physical landscapes but also the sense of a lack of a shared language to comprehend the spaces they create.

These ideas are articulated most coherently through his drawings and sketches, rough abstracts of possible worlds, a far cry from professional working images. Unfortunately these are only presented in miniature form to compliment the prologue by Julian Raxworthy, who sites their importance as central to Sitta's modus operandi. Understandably the book's coffee table tendencies sway the balance of photos to text in favour of the former, focusing on the photogenic nature of the residential gardens, but in doing so possibly ironically undermining the importance of the drawings. A more integrated accommodation of these haunting black and white images at a larger scale with descriptions and elaborations would have introduced an interesting dialectic to the book. A dynamic graphic interplay between the realms of the imaginary and the realised, the conceptual and the practical could go some way to truly revealing the uneasy balance in Sitta's practice of the poetic and the pragmatic. Although unrealised as such, there perhaps lies the possibility of a future volume.

The Venetian City Garden Place, Typology, and Perception

2010-02-03T00:07:00.019Z

John Dixon Hunt

Birkhauser

ISBN 978 3 7643 8943 7

Gardens play an important role in mediating between people and their surroundings. They reflect the establishment of a secure habitat through utilising and adapting to local conditions, often in the face of extreme circumstances. Perhaps this is nowhere more apparent than in Venice, a city which is in essence an act of urban defiance against its surrounding lagoon landscape. Given the city's uniqueness and the historical role it played in developing cross-continental mercantile capitalism, it is unsurprising that it has developed it's own specific garden vernacular, a sense of 'Venicity'. Something which has not only been influenced by social and political developments, but has also played a role in determining them.

Yet the lack of recognition accorded the importance of this garden culture is something that strikes garden historian John Dixon Hunt as rather confounding. For whilst the 19th century produced belletristic travelogues, and recent times have spawned coffee table books featuring Venice's gardens, there is a distinct lack of researched history - a situation this book aims to redress.

Drawing upon visual and literary sources, Hunt discovers an emergent wealth of material in the 15th century allowing insight into the nascent garden culture. His primary focus is upon a woodcut panorama 'Bird's-Eye view of Venice' by painter and printmaker Jacopo de' Barbari, which provides evidence of a fully fledged cityscape in which gardens are an important part of the layout. Another rich mine of information is a survey of Venetian gardens published by Sansovino in 1581, which is discussed alongside fictional works such as the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili.

Much of Hunt's research reveals an important interplay between private and public spaces in a city where land and resources are at a premium. The power balances between classes, the state and the church, have played an important role in creating a civic fabric of courtyards, squares and cloisters. The use of garden spaces for botanical, pharmaceutical and agricultural purposes are duly investigated within this context, as well as those for leisure activities, spectacles and festivities. Whilst the legacy of the expansion of the public realm by Napoleonic intervention in the early 19th century, which created large parks such as the Giardini Pubblici (site of the Biennale pavilions since 1887), is made apparent in contemporary sites by Carlo Scarpa and Katherine Gustaffson.

An analysis of garden layout reveals that despite its uniqueness, Venice was not immune to the 18th century spread of European design sensibilities. Ruminating on ruins, Hunt traces the affects of the picturesque and the grand tour, noting the garden on the Giudecca, created by the appropriately named ex-pat Brit, Frederic Eden (brother-in-law of Gertrude Jekyll). It's original glory having unfortunately suffered from the vicissitudes of changing ownership now languishes behind locked doors.

Whilst historical evidence forms the basis of the book, it also includes a gazetteer listing current Venetian gardens as a reference for the contemporary touring gardenist. This mapping of the present frames Hunt's meditations on the future, advocating a form of landscape ecology opening up the green spaces of the city to address the environmental challenges it faces, and to avoid the commercial inclinations to reify it as a sterile urban museum. In a time when the the afterlife of gardens is intrinsically tied to that of the societies who inhabit them, it is obvious that complementary adaptive strategies are essential for both, something which the gardens of Venice make most apparent.

Garden Design Journal, February 2010

Garden Painters

2009-08-24T14:31:00.007+01:00

Ariel Luke

A & C Black
ISBN 9780713682069

A welcome and overdue review of the contemporary garden painting genre.

Throughout history paintings have provided sources of information and
inspiration for those interested in the development of gardens and
their relationship to art. In Britain a true flowering of garden
artists emerged in the Victorian era with George Elgood depicting
stately formality, whilst Helen Allingham illustrated the gardens of
the nascent middle class. However the revolutionary zeal of modernism
uprooted realism and romanticism in favour of conceptual abstraction,
leaving garden painting somewhat unfashionable.

Thus it is with an eye towards rehabilitating the genre that garden
painter Ariel Luke aims to provide a contemporary overview through
the works of 21 artists, featuring well presented reproductions from
established figures David Inshaw and John Pearce alongside younger
artists Jennifer Bartlett and Natasha Morland.

The strength of Luke's research lies in revealing relationships
between hitherto disparate practitioners whilst avoiding implying
they constitute a 'movement'. The predominantly British selection
bears striking biographical similarities, with recurrent mention of
the Royal Academy and London art schools, suggesting a generational
Zeitgeist of post-abstract artists who have independently developed a
neo-realism befitting the diversity of contemporary gardens.

The different approaches and mediums employed illuminate the often
blurred distinctions between aspirational commissioned works and
those picturing imaginary gardens. Luke lucidly presents the double
dose of idealism and artifice at play, nature re-ordered by both the
garden maker and then the artist, revealing to anyone interested in
gardens and art, the ways each interprets and arranges the world
around us as expressions of our social and personal identities.

The Garden, September 2009

A New Art of the Garden

2009-08-24T14:30:00.005+01:00

Tate Britain's 2004 exhibition 'Art of the Garden' posed the question
'What is the place of the garden in British art?'. Recognising the
cultural importance of gardens to the nation, it presented a
formidable overview of their representation in different mediums by
artists from the early nineteenth century through to the beginning of
the twenty-first. The exhibition's focus was not gardens themselves
but rather how artists creatively interpreted ideas and concerns
associated with them. The artworks utilised gardens as a tool to
express the varied cultural means of domesticating the natural world,
reflecting idealised notions of paradise as sites of pleasure and
abundance, and expressions of national and personal identity,
embodying ethnicity, aspiration and affluence.

These ideas of gardens were presented in the works through
traditional forms of representation, employing metaphor and
symbolism, from which the viewer interpreted and constructed the
artists intended meaning. This form of representation has dominated
artistic production since the Renaissance, and is as evident in 18th
century landscape painting as it is in 20th century land art.
Likewise it is a thread which links the British landscape garden with
recent conceptual gardens at shows such as Chaumont and Future Gardens.

But a paradigm shift has been apparent in the art world in recent
years marking a social turn in the type of works created, not merely
in subject matter, but in the very manner in which they are made.
These developments were recognised by French curator and theorist
Nicholas Bourriaud in work emerging in the post-conceptual practices
of artists in the 1990's, to which he applied the term 'Relational
Aesthetics'. He identified artistic activity which "strives to
achieve modest connections, open up (one or two) obstructed passages,
and connect levels of reality kept apart from one another." Such
levels of reality which were separated previously by the distances
between the artist, the object and the viewer.

Moving beyond traditional mediums such as painting, sculpture and
performance, with their focus on art objects and events, these new
works are to be understood as social spaces and forms of
collaborative or interactive situations. They activate, illuminate
and investigate the lifestyle bonds between citizens, media and
technology,
effectively changing the role of an artist from a producer of
aesthetic objects or theatrical spectacle to a cultural service
provider. Embeded and engaged in different real life situations, the
artist's role is to provide, facilitate and encourage interactions.
In this manner, such activities render previously held distinctions
between form and content redundant.

Curating this year's Tate triennial exhibition 'Altermodern',
Bourriaud further investigated the developments taking place in this
expanded field of artistic practice and their relationships to social
and technological progress. In an increasingly global,
interconnected, omni-cultural world, relationships are accelerated,
distances reduced, and behaviour modified by new forms of networking
and mobile communications. Ever more levels of interaction offer ever
more opportunities for artworks, traversing cultures, languages,
times and places. He suggests "our globalised perception calls for
new types of representation: our daily lives are played out against a
more enormous backdrop than ever before, and depend now on trans-
national entities, short or long-distance journeys in a chaotic and
teeming universe."

Whilst the exhibition did not feature any works which dealt with
gardens in this manner, it nonetheless provides an opportunity to
rethink the relationship between art and gardens in a new way.
Opening up everyday interactions as a context for artistic production
breaks down the barriers between objects and situations traditionally
considered art, and those that have previously been excluded from
such aesthetic consideration. This mode of artistic production
involves not simply the artist and the viewer, as in traditional
practices, but also as many other players as are engaged in the
activities which define the artwork. The art site becomes no longer a
fixed precondition of meaning but rather one generative element in an
interrelated network of relationships. The site of a work can be as
varied as a community, an institutional structure, a commercial
transaction or a street corner.

Consequently, as gardens are defined by our relationships to both the
natural and social realms, the potential for exploring these are
ideal within such an artistic practice. Whilst a garden is quite
obviously a specific site in material terms, the meanings derived
from it are culturally relative and evasive of one definitive
meaning. A 'sense of place' is no longer a fixed immutable truth but
rather a product of contextual factors. As Bourriaud suggests
"artists translate and transcode information from one format to
another, and wander in geography as well as in history. This gives
rise to practices which might be referred to as 'time-specific', in
response to the 'site-specific' work of the 1960s." This opens
playful possibilities for a new art of gardens, defined not simply by
the objects and forms utilised in them, but by how we actually behave
and engage with each other within them. An artistic practice in which
both artists and garden makers have roles to play.

Garden Design Journal, September 2009

Planetary Gardens - The Landscape Architecture of Gilles Clément

2009-04-08T14:54:00.004+01:00

Alessandro Rocca (Ed.)

Birkhauser

ISBN 978 3 7643 8781 5

If the name of Gilles Clément lacks the familiarity of many other landscape designers, it is certainly not due to any lack of achievement. A long dedicated career has seen the realisation of many high profile public projects in his native France, where his theories regarding the environment are accorded appropriate gravitas. Yet Clément's ecological sensibility has found little uptake in Britain, where his rejection of aesthetics as the primary determinant of design, has perhaps been too alien for local tastes. However, as his advocacy of engaging with gardens as dynamic biological and cultural systems, is now beginning to resound with developing environmental sensibilities, the publication of this impressive monograph may help to redress such neglect.

Major works are presented, including Parc Andre Citroen and the gardens of La Défense in Paris, the impressive 7m high concrete island at Parc Matisse in Lille, and his own home garden La Vallée in La Creuse. Detailed illustrations reflect well the physical and symbolic aspects of the projects, as well as the different stylistic applications of his core conceptual tenets.

Yet the book's real strength lies in its exposition of his ideas. Observation and reflection are key to Clément's modus operandi, and over the past thirty years he has developed a sophisticated symbiotic view of the world. Whilst his ecological theories have certain parallels with kindred spirits James Lovelock and E.O.Wilson, they are set apart by the experiential basis upon which they are developed and substantiated. Through interviews and supporting texts, his central ideas are clearly elaborated, whilst issues such as technology, politics, art and GMOs are articulately addressed.

His three key concepts reflect a sensitivity to stochastic processes, sharing more of an affinity with composers John Cage and Iannis Xenakis, than with the doyens of modern design. His idea of 'The Third Landscape' considers the ways in which biodiversity establishes itself in unlikely habitats, such as urban and abandoned areas. The colonisation of marginal zones reflects their potential ecological value, suggesting new forms of environmental management. By accepting the migratory tendencies of plants, design becomes an ongoing process of engaging with seasonal and annual vicissitudes, rather than something pre-determined upon a drawing board. 'The Garden in Movement' proposes that the designer assumes a gardeners' role, working with, rather than against variable factors, interpreting and adapting to change. Motion and mingling suggest a form of horticultural cosmopolitanism, central to the notion of 'The Planetary Garden', whereby the entire planet is viewed as an interdependent system of lifeforms, whose individual actions have consequences for the sustainable balance of the whole.

But perhaps most prescient is Clément's conviction that we are heading towards economic and ecological catastrophe, which will necessitate a new form of economics and period of downscaling, in order to restore biological equilibrium. Given the current global situation and the need to re-evaluate lifestyle ideals, such a statement surely gives credence to the importance of his forethought and the value of further investigation.

Garden Design Journal, April 2009

A Taste for Gardening - Classed and Gendered Practices

2009-02-02T14:35:00.009Z

Lisa Taylor

Ashgate

ISBN 978 0 7546 7221 0

The gardening world is often viewed as populated by people and plants, whilst the social factors which determine the relationships between them are seldom discussed. But as much as gardens are an interface between us and the environment, they also reveal an inter-weaved web of assumptions, aspirations and inspirations which reflect personal identities and cultural differences.

Lisa Taylor 's academic investigation into some of these issues, focuses on how media constructions of class and gender define gardens and gardening. Her theoretical approach utilises the cultural studies of Raymond Williams, post-modern feminism and sociology of Pierre Bourdieu, to analyse ethnographic research of a group of gardeners in a post-industrial northern town. Her thesis style of presentation is perhaps rather too dry and repetitive for a general audience, and the academic references seem a little ironic, considering her chosen subject is the 'ordinariness' of gardens. This is a shame as it is not often that these ideas are addressed, and judicious editing could have created a debate for a wider audience.

Taylor's research is concerned with the social capital gardeners possess, in terms of knowledge and experience, which defines relative aesthetic sensibilities, informs opinions and directs activities. Reinforced by media influences, she recognises distinct working and middle class differences, in the layout and maintenance of their gardens, reflecting social aspirations and civic status.

A lack of distance from the subject under investigation is apparent, as Taylor clearly has an invested nostalgia in a 1950's working class style of gardening, and the social values it represents. The apparent freedom of middle class culture is viewed with suspicion, whilst working class culture is considered as fixed, without individual agency, or possibility of transcendence or transgression. This appears in strange contrast to her standpoint on gender, which allows more flexibility in establishing forms of personal identity through different gardening activities.

The research is rooted in the 1990's, and considers the changes in that era which relocated gardening as an aspect of 'lifestyle', rather than as 'a way of life'. The influences of television and magazines are discussed, although there is little contextualisation with the wider trends and developments in consumer culture and home-ownership, which substantially reclassified civic society. As such, it presents a historic snapshot of a specific generational and racial identity, the relevance of which does not necessarily translate to contemporary multi-cultural Britain.

Consideration of the social factors which determine how gardens are thought about and used, is most important today, when interconnectivity is increasingly apparent in everyday life. Understanding these relationships and aspirations, is not only integral to interpreting a clients brief, but also an essential means for appreciating how we communicate and engage with each other and the environment around us on a daily basis.

Garden Design Journal, Feburary 2009

The Good Life of Gardens

2009-01-16T12:32:00.001Z

Gardens have always been associated with ideas of the good life, and have historically managed to incorporate two conflicting notions of just what this entails. The first, concerns gardens as sites of pleasure and abundance, displaying affluence and signs of conspicuous consumption as an outward expression of their owners aspirations and identities. The second, is concerned with duty and virtue, a sense of well being through responsible stewardship, a connectedness to seasonal cycles and a sense of place. Whilst each notion plays a distinct role in affording a sense of happiness granted by gardens, the balance between them has varied according to the vicissitudes of time and place.

It is this balance that design must increasingly address when facing up to the many challenges we are now posed with, on individual, national and global levels. This entails a considered professional response to the debates regarding the ways in which we can live more sustainable and equitable lives, in times of unpredictable financial structures and decreasing natural resources.

As the effects of the current economic downturn are just beginning to be experienced, it is obvious that the ramifications will be long term and wide ranging. The situation has seriously undermined the assumption that continual economic growth through consumption can continue to maintain the lifestyles to which we have become accustomed, or produce the levels of contentment we have been promised. Meanwhile the ecological consequences of our carbon based era are evident in resource depletion, loss of biodiversity, and unstable climatic conditions. As such we are faced with developing new ways of living in which our activities will have to engage with more meaningful and responsible forms of management of our natural and economic resources. Both ecology and economy share the same Greek etymological root, eco, meaning home. The former term refers to the study of home, whilst the latter is the management of home. This common basis reflects the interplay between them, and the necessity to appreciate the relationships between each, in both local and global respects, in order to realise an appropriate vision of the good life in the future.

One aspect of the financial changes taking place is that we are now witnessing the end of the age of leverage. Less credit and liquidity will directly affect the amount of disposable income that home-owners have to spend on design services, which are often seen as something of a luxury. The contest for domestic finances will be a hard fought battle, and garden designers will need to state their case, that the service they offer is not simply a lifestyle accessory, but something which can actually provide a sense of rootedness to place and home. Suggesting that spending money on a well designed garden will increase a property's value is perhaps not the shrewdest marketing pitch these days. However suggesting that it may increase a sense of well being and happiness is another matter.

Consequently gardens need to be divested of the Zeitgeist media messages which have surrounded them over the past couple of decades. The makeover craze of the 1990's spurned sustainability for instant gratification. Whilst the post-millennial property ladder mentality, sort to create a nation of developers, who viewed gardens as value added bolt-ons to properties, which were considered as investments rather than places to actually live.

A recent turn towards a more fulfilled sense of living, based on quality of life rather than the quantity of goods within it, has become visible in the growing social sensibilities of 'enoughism' and the 'slow movement'. These aim to defer the ever increasing amounts of information and products directed our way each day, consuming larger proportions of our time and attention, in order to strike a considered balance between having less and appreciating more. Perhaps tapping into such a sensibility could be a rich vein for some designers, and it is indeed a valid option, but it would be wrong to think that such an approach can offer a general panacea to the malaise of a transitional society. New design initiatives will need to compliment new lifestyles, reflecting the social consequences of developments in science and technology. We are already experiencing an ever increasing sense of interconnectivity, hitherto unknown in our history. There are obviously positive and negative aspects to this, but it is unquestionable that it is altering our daily social behaviour. In response to this designers have an opportunity to promote gardens as sites which can accommodate such social changes, through well designed spaces that connect meaningfully with everyday activities.

The short term thinking of the recent garden grabbing phenomenon, has resulted in shoehorning ever greater numbers of people into ever smaller living spaces at the cost of forever-lost green space. Whether the trend will abate or increase in a static housing market remains to be seen, but increasing population density, particularly in urban areas, is a phenomenon which is not about to cease. This increase is in part being accommodated by new forms of social housing, offering dubious quality outdoor spaces for tenants. There are indications that this will replicate many of the problems that resulted during the social housing boom in the 60's, which also failed to address the real importance of outdoor space. However an awareness of this situation, can provide new chances for designers to collaborate with housing bodies and developers in creating garden spaces which engage with developing forms of social interaction, challenge traditional distinctions between public and private realms, and engender new forms of community values.

Ecological and economic concerns, have coincided with a raised public awareness about health issues, to produced a discernable ground level response to food production. The emergence of a grow-your-own sensibility is now in clearly in evidence, on a scale unseen since 'Dig for Victory' was consigned to the pages of history. Considerations of the food-miles of mass produced foodstuffs are of often caught up in the larger complexities of eco footprints, but little dispute exists that self grown produce avoids such problems, and provides a traceable provenance lacking in shop supplied goods. Home production also reinvests cooking and eating with a sense of place, seasonal processes and personal satisfaction, combining the good of both affluence and well being through the conflation of consumer and producer identities.

Whilst never viewed as the glamorous end of the horticultural spectrum by the design world, this situation nevertheless offers designers a creative opportunity to reassess the arrangement of garden space, how it is used and viewed. It is an opportunity to spurn the traditional straight jacket which regulates the balance between aesthetic and productive areas of a garden and conceive new forms of relationships between them. The conceptual design approach to this problematic at shows such as Chaumont over the past decade have suggested not only novel functional ways of doing this, but ways that are also both engaging, entertaining and visually captivating.

Further to this, pro-social relationships can be created through the establishment of markets or food distribution networks, which can enable the formation of new local economies, which enhance community cohesion. There is potential for design practices with progressive business models to incorporate the planning and management of networking these type of projects, in order to initiate new revenue streams and consolidate on their sense of social integration.

But whilst gardens can give the impression that they are ideal vehicles to balancing the virtues and vices surrounding the good life, designers must also challenge the often righteous assumption, prevalent in the gardening world, that gardens are de facto good. There is a popular media myth that simply owning or tending a garden is in itself a positive contribution to tackling climate change, and that being pro-active means planting appropriate drought tolerant plants that will to cope with future water shortages and hotter temperatures, rather than taking measures to prevent such a scenario from occurring, or at least temper its effects.

Consequently, perhaps the most important aspect of designer's work will be to inform and educate, promoting an understanding of the ways in which gardens provide a mediation, not only with the environment around us, but also with each other. Gardens can be used as a cultural technology to illuminate and reflect upon our everyday experiences with our habitat. They are a means to rid ourselves of anthropocentric conceit, and re-situate ourselves as merely one species among many within the complex symbiotic relationships of the biosphere, which provide the 'goldilocks' conditions for our existence.

Now is the time for designers to show that they are up to the true task of design – solving problems. Not simply the on-site problems, but those which enmesh us with our surroundings and in the cultural relationships we use to engage with it, in order to reap the benefits of the good life which gardens afford.

Garden Design Journal, January 2009

Edible Estates: Attack on the Front Lawn

2008-12-10T15:43:00.008Z

Fritz Haeg

Metropolis Books

ISBN 978 1 933045 74 0

The American front lawn has deep roots, binding the nation from coast to coast in a seemingly unbroken swath of monoculture. This ubiquity is not the product of serendipitous aesthetics, but rather of the 18th century grid layout of Thomas Jefferson's chequerboard towns, which shaped the physical landscape in a manner embodying the values of the Declaration of Independence. The uniformity of lawns reflected the ideals of equality and citizenship; a classless continuity denying cultural and regional characteristics. Lawns were a patriotic bond with neighbours and nation, with their status as open, unfenced and unproductive spaces enshrined in local legislation.

In response to this legacy, artist Fritz Haeg launched a contemporary attack on the front lawn and everything it represents, in an attempt to countenance the ecological challenges of an uncertain future. His book documents an art based project initiated to conceptually critique the dominant ideology, and practically challenge it, through a series of four radical garden makeovers, responsive to culture, climate, and context.

His contempt for the front lawn centres upon its' dependence on increasingly scare resources such as water and oil. Their reliance on water for growth, combined with an unnecessarily heavy handed use of chemicals results in groundwater pollution, whilst the omnipresent lawnmower adds to carbon emissions. Haeg believes this unsatisfactory relationship between human needs and natural resources, is best redressed by removing lawns and creating instead productive edible landscapes, which deal with issues of agricultural production, food miles and packaging, in a highly visible public manner.

His writing clearly articulates his rationale, analysing historical foundations, present conditions and future scenarios, and is supplemented by like minded essays, including one from writer Michael Pollan. As befits an art orientated book, the layout provides ample illustration of the projects undertaken, with accompanying reflections by the participating home-owners, contrasting their initial trepidations, with their post-transformation anxieties and satisfactions.

Whilst from a British perspective this may not appear a radical idea, it clearly is in a U.S. context. The underlying theme in the book is the conflict enshrined within ideals of civic duty, where the adherence to democratic conformity contradicts libertarian individualism. The home-owners' clearly expressed fears of ostracism for un-American activities, in pursuit of their own freedom of expression, are manifest. Happily, it seems that general approval was lauded upon their efforts, especially considering they were intended as pro-social attempts to forge new relationships with their environments and communities.

Perhaps the least satisfying of the projects was one non-U.S. attempt, undertaken on a council estate in Southwark, London, in conjunction with the Tate. The project actually addressed quite a different relationship between private and public spaces, to the other examples, and seemed to suffer from a of loss in cultural translation.

The book's importance lies in highlighting the need to reconsider the balance between aesthetic and productive spaces in gardens, something much in need of further discussion. In order to face up to the ecological and social changes necessary for the near future, needs and aspirations will have to be recontextualised within wider symbiotic relationships with the environment, and the interface between home and street is a good place to start.

Garden Design Journal, December 2008

On Guerrilla Gardening - A Handbook for Gardening Without Boundaries

2008-10-15T02:46:00.008+01:00

Richard Reynolds

Bloomsbury

ISBN 978 0 7475 9081 1

2008

The neglect of civic spaces is a recurrent phenomenon these days. When limited municipal funding is directed to politically expedient areas, horticultural aesthetics are often relegated to secondary importance, and the upkeep of green areas sidelined. Thus in lieu of local authorities appropriately maintaining these areas, the Guerrilla Gardening movement sprouted, adopting and reinvigorating, without permission, disused plots of urban land. Since its genesis in New York in the 1970's, it has spread internationally, and has recently found a sense of coherence via the internet.

Since surreptitiously replanting some forgotten flowerbeds outside his council block in 2004, Richard Reynolds has become a self-appointed spokesman for the scene, and this country's most visible practitioner. In this colourful, well presented book, he contextualises his work, and that of his 'troops'. Divided into two sections, it initially details the movement, it's history and ideology, before delivering a DIY manual, with simplistic practical and horticultural advice.

Reynolds rallies an enthusiastic cry for individuals to reclaim neglected spaces as a political act. He dresses it in revolutionary rhetoric, citing as inspiration Che Guevara and Mao Tse-tung, although the relationship of their strategies to gardening seems rather tenuous. His choice of heroes has a pop culture poignancy, owing more to Warhol's portraiture than to historical veracity. But even with a degree of flippancy, it is hard to take seriously a suggestion that gardening should be guided by ideas which led to over 20 million deaths.

A misguided comparison of warfare and gardening as similar species traits leads to a fatiguing overuse of military metaphor, doing no justice to Reynold's practice, and the serious issues it raises. Likewise, the historical precedents, such as Latin American land revolts, seem shoe-horned to fit the theory, giving the impression of post-rationalisation and self-justification, rather than a pre-meditated strategy.

The argument for guerrilla gardening steers a fine line between altruism and self-interest, mixing social criticism with an earthy morality, into a kind of a Flower Power for the No Logo generation. As a pro-social panacea to neglected environments, it implies a shared body of values and attitudes towards spaces, which is a rather contentious assumption. Further, the suggestion that guerrilla activities create community cohesion, neglects the fact that this requires interaction and participation, not simply imposition.

Reynold's affable humour makes guerrilla gardening seem rather effortless and a sure-fire success. But such a laissez-faire approach, without design or planning sensibilities, does not necessarily lead to a publicly desirable landscape, or if done without horticultural expertise and sensitivity, a sustainable one.

Guerrilla gardening comes across less as a serious solution, than as an indicator of issues which require further address, to enable us to consider what we want from everyday encounters with the urban environment, and where the responsibilities of their upkeep lie.

Garden Design Journal, October 2008

'Guerrilla Gardening'?

2008-09-04T00:40:00.014+01:00

Museum of Garden History

28 May 2008

The MOGH's recent program of events, has done much to provide an
important locus for debate around many current topics relating
gardens to larger social issues. One such issue is the use and abuse
of public space in the face of increasing urban density. Competition
for land and resources, unearths manifest social problems which call
into question core beliefs regarding how we can maintain, not only
the environment, but also a certain quality of life in the early 21st
century. This event, chaired by Chris Young, addressed one aspect of
such problems, by giving a platform to several speakers with personal
responses to dealing with the issue of 'orphaned' land.

Appropriately enough, the first speaker was Richard Reynolds, who has
spearheaded the Guerrilla Gardening 'movement' in this country,
attracting a fair amount of media attention the past couple of years.
He provided an approachable and entertaining introduction to his
activities and the revolutionary rhetoric behind them, discussing
historical and international aspects, and presenting examples of work
in South London. It was apparent that there was a degree of jovial
camaraderie involved in his anarchic approach to reinvigorating
neglected flower beds and roadsides, despite the anecdotes of
frustrating encounters with council workers. These unauthorised
clandestine actions, performed with his 'troops', are direct
responses to specific local problems, rather like a Ground Force fix
for forgotten municipal plots.

Perhaps an unlikely unlawful activist, landscape architect Brita von
Schoenaich, nevertheless revealed a fine pedigree for such
activities. Locating the genesis of her social tendencies in the
generational gap between hippies and punks, she suggested that she
had synthesised elements of both along with inspiration from
revolutionary green pioneer Daniel Cohn-Bendit.

This sensibility provided her with the impetus to create, with the
assistance of Guillaume Baltz, colourful flower meadows on the
Hogarth roundabout on the A4, in 1997 and 2007.
Her experience and horticultural knowledge was evident in the
methodological approach she described, and also in the results. Yet
despite media coverage and public acclaim, TFL, the body responsible
for the land, in a seemingly malicious response to having been
usurped in their civic duties, destroyed the work on both occasions.

Social geographer Felicity Collard, related the political economics
of planning to the spacial anxieties of personal psychology. She
suggested that planting in public places often mediates degrees of
confrontation, by separating different areas and people, consequently
dividing and reconstructing notions of community. Planting used in
this manner acts as deterrents and barriers which reinforce social
hierarchies, rather than as inviting and uniting elements in a
landscape. She reflected upon the complex ethics and social values
involved in illegal reclamation bids, such as relocating plants from
affluent spaces to deprived neglected ones.

The question of the balance between the responsibilities of
individuals and authorities, ran throughout the event. As the
environmental and economic changes we are experiencing continue to
play a greater role in responses to public space, it will become
increasingly important to consider not only how spaces are used, but
who is making these decisions and for whom.

Unauthorised Guerrilla gardening is an immediate response to specific
neglected situations, highlighting bigger issues from a localised
perspective. As a means of raising debate this is a positive step,
but it was clear from the discussion that idiosyncratic actions are
not enough. Future solutions to creating and maintaining meaningful
and useful public spaces in a sustainable manner, will have to evolve
from a more inclusive participatory democratic process which does not
shy away from confronting local and national authorities. This will
by involve negotiating and establishing new relationships between
these bodies and the people who utilise, and enjoy, public spaces on
a daily basis.

Garden Design Journal, September 2008

Selective Intervention – A light footprint: responsible approaches to planting

2008-07-02T16:26:00.011+01:00

SGD Conference, 26th April 2008, Imperial College London

An important aspect of the design process is the manner in which

planting is employed as an intervention into the existing landscape.

The consequences have ecological, economic and social implications,

reflecting the use, legacy, and sustainability of a project. The

responsibilities inherent in designers choices reflect the various

ways the science of horticulture can both compliment and conflict

with the art of design.

Reflecting this and drawing upon her research on sustainability,

Catherine Heatherington, framed the event's debate around designing

with or against nature, by asking several questions; What kind of

control is it appropriate to exert? To what end? and with what

consequences? An informative and entertaining series of responses

from the international roster of speakers followed, revealing

interesting differences of conceptual practical, and cultural

perspectives.

Tilman Latz from German landscape architectural practice Latz +

Partners, examined their philosophy of treating landscapes not as

blank slates, but as multi-layered sources of cultural and historical

information. He presented a number of projects which illustrated the

manner in which this 'syntax of landscape' has suggested the means of

transforming sites into usable social spaces, combining the built

landscape with the planted.

Most revealing was Duisburg-Nord, a former blast furnace plant

converted into a public park. Retaining a sense of it's industrial

past it playfully references the English Landscape Movement's

fondness for ruins, and cultural ideas of wilderness. The planting

scheme reinforces the idea, allowing certain areas to develop their

own eco-systems, whilst others are deliberately managed.

The project to redevelop Crystal Palace, revealed the lengthy process

of consultation necessary to satisfy long term commitment from the

many stakeholders involved, whilst the result reflects a sensitivity

to the historic and current uses of the park, with large greenhouses

accommodating exotic planting.

Ex-farmer turned green roof specialist, Ed Snodgrass, considered the

ecologically and socially restorative abilities of design. He

suggested looking to nature for technological innovation,

investigating plants as living machines to provide insight into how

we may utilise them in a symbiotic relationship.

Addressing the increasing process of urbanisation, he advocated the

use of planting for temperature control on buildings, controlling

water run-off on streets, as well as a means of crime reduction,

citing studies which have found that violence relates proportionally

to the amount of trees in a neighbourhood.

He rejected a one-solution-fits-all approach to planting by

advocating a critical methodology, revising existing aesthetic

criteria in terms of the relative merits of herbaceous, succulent and

grass planting in each situation. Presenting images of his work, he

also praised projects reflecting a kindred spirit, including the

pictorial meadows developed at the University of Sheffield.

Brita von Schoenaich rejected the Romantic notion of 'Nature', and the

attempt to recreate it in gardens, calling instead for a new

aesthetic premised upon horticultural research. She stressed the

importance of horticultural knowledge for designers, in order to

appreciate sustainable planting systems and processes, and to create

an approach which combines artistic and scientific sensibilities.

Contrasting a social history of the English garden, with her

experiences of visiting Germany with Tim Rees and Stephen Lacy in

1993, she reflected on the cultural differences between the two

national approaches to planting, suggesting the former was largely

concerned with style and the latter with systems.

She placed her pioneering work with the 'new perennial' movement and

more recent work from Marks Hall Arboretum, Vauxhall Park and a roof

garden in Hamburg, within the wider context of recent European

design, alongside projects from Oudolf, Wirtz and Clement, to reveal

the development of new horticultural sensibilities.

As perhaps the leading contemporary exponent of a distinctly English

planting style, Tom Stuart-Smith reeled slightly from von

Schoenaich's presentation, before redressing the balance by

presenting a dynamic perennial planting aesthetic premised upon a

balance between control and abandon, simplicity and complexity.

He suggested that by drawing on a spectrum of naturalism, subtle

horticultural relationships could be utilised in sympathy with the

site to build and accentuate a sense of place. He stressed the

importance of of reflecting upon history in the design process, and

the role of memory and cultural archetypes in creating a balanced

interplay between nostalgia and modernity.

The examples of his work, differed in scale and situation, from show

gardens through to larger private gardens, including his own in

Hertfordshire. The redevelopment project at Trentham exemplified the

intricacies employed in his approach, balancing a knowledge of the

past with a sustainable eye on the future.

Whilst each presentation proposed differing degrees of intervention,

a theme emerged calling for a greater knowledge of site and history,

and an informed approach to horticultural science. Facing global

uncertainties regarding the future of natural and economic resources,

the conference highlighted the need for designers to rise to such a

challenge, in order to create sustainable gardens and landscapes

which embody new design aesthetics and ethics.

Garden Design Journal, July/August 2008

Christopher Bradley-Hole Designer Profile

2008-05-13T00:11:00.029+01:00

Most descriptions of Christopher Bradley-Hole's work tend to invoke a

recurring set of adjectives from writers. The terms 'Minimal',

'harmonious spaces', ' geometric', and 'pure proportions' are rolled

out in a mantra like fashion throughout the media. Whilst this may be

partly due to journalistic ennui, it is nonetheless evidence that

certain design traits run throughout his oeuvre, giving it a distinct,

almost branded identity.

The stylised naturalism of his planting schemes, full of perennials and grasses, contained within sharply defined hardscape settings, reveal a

rigorous eye at work. The use of natural materials, such as wood and

stone avoid any illusions of naturalism through precise attention to

detail, contrasting and complimenting synthetic elements, such as steel

and glass. This distinctive approach is evidence of a passion for

design, which combines a long abiding love of gardens with the belief

that they somehow touch people's souls in a unique way.

This anthropocentric concern is central to Bradley-Hole's thinking,

"I've always had the philosophy that there should be room for people in

design." He elaborates, "I think design must have a socialist

philosophy, it must be concerned with people. People interacting and

enjoying themselves, whether it's two people or two thousand. It must be about improving peoples lives, trying to do something which is going

to make the world a bit better." He admits this involves a lot of time

and effort, but stresses he would rather be breaking new ground than

simply repeating tired formulas that make " the world a depressing

place because you're just reducing everything to a sort of banal level."

Such idealism derives from his unswerving passion for modernism, and

its agenda to disseminate a vision of social progress through design

principles. "The modernist movement in architecture, where form

followed function to a certain extent, was about new ideas, about new

uses of materials, about freeing space, light, abstraction, asymmetry,

dynamism, movement. All those ideas in which I'm interested." He

considers that the ideas distilled in the works of Le Corbusier, Mies

van der Rohe, and Pierre Chareau, are still as relevant today as they

were originally. "While that must have been a very exciting age, I

think today is a very exciting time to be working in modernist way in

the second generation."

His work utilises modernist architectural strategies within a landscape

context, discarding unnecessary ornament and reducing structure to

essential elements. Where design traditionalists will provide a focal

point in a space, he would rather not intrude, leaving people to bring

their own ideas, "I like spaces which are quite empty so people can

come into them and use them as they would." This approach is deployed

throughout his projects, regardless of size. It is as evident in his

'Hortus Conclus' show garden, as it is in the recent design for the BBC

at White City, with it's layered geometry linked to buildings, clipped

hedges, grasses and reflecting pools. He considers this spatial

continuity, in terms of rhythms, suggesting that they are "slightly

different beats but both used by humans."

Bradley-Hole readily acknowledges that modernism never received

particularly good press in this country, or made much of an impression

on the nation's gardening sensibility. "For garden design, most of the

20th century was dominated by looking backwards. Whereas in other

countries, things just naturally moved forward, no one was thinking

'this is new', people were just doing things. Each year they had more

knowledge, and that influenced their work. In Britain rather than

looking forward, we were looking further back."

However, he believes that recent social changes in Britain have

produced a cultural atmosphere that is proving to be "an incredibly

interesting time to be working." He is a keen advocate of

collaboration, working with kindred spirits in other disciplines,

including architects Allies and Morrison, and Eric Parry. Recently he

produced a medieval hortus conclusus design for a CD booklet by early

music vocal group Orlando Consort. Such multi-disciplinary encounters

are part of his open-minded attitude to design, "I think some of the

rewards are in the people you meet and the opportunities you come in

contact with, which are extraordinary. It's just so nice to be meeting

people who are at the top of their tree."

Bradley-Hole considers himself incredibly privileged to be able to

indulge his obsession for design through garden making. He enjoys the

fact that garden design has a certain amount of freedom, unlike many

other professions with so many legal restrictions. It enables him to

combine his experiences in architecture and horticulture in a dialogue

that manifests itself as a unique art form. "Whether the greater

influence is architecture or is landscape, or whether there's a third

element which is art, that meeting ground is what makes designed

landscapes very interesting", he explains, adding enthusiastically that

"the meeting point where they have that conversation is really a very

dynamic ground to be in."

Personal history

The relationship between architecture and gardens has been a

dialectical one throughout Bradley-Hole's life. Despite nurturing a

childhood fascination with gardens, and learning the mechanics of

gardening from green-fingered parents, he chose to study Architecture

at Brighton University. Under the tutelage of Peter Bareham, he

encountered John Brookes book 'Room Outside', which provided the

conceptual bridge between his interests, by suggesting an

"architectural way of making gardens." He enthusiastically began

visiting as many gardens from the Yellow Book as possible, and

confesses " became obsessively interested in gardening and plants",

whilst making his own garden in Brighton.

After working in various architectural practices in London and

achieving the position of partner, he gradually began to fall out of

love with the profession when faced with a future working on endless

corporate projects. He consequently undertook the Post-Graduate Diploma

Course on the Conservation of Historic Landscapes, Parks and Gardens,

at the Architectural Association, which provided an eye opener to the

history of gardens, and their social importance.

The transfer of his professional allegiance was cemented when he won a

design competition advertised in the debut issue of Gardens

Illustrated, resulting in the 'Explorers Rooftop' show garden at

Chelsea in 1994. Interest in the exhibit led to his first major

commission a year later, for clients in Notting Hill. From there on he

has dedicated himself to the discipline with unremitting devotion and

enthusiasm. As he states, "I was like a convert, and there's nothing

worse than a convert!"

Studio practice

Bradley-Hole established a landscape practice in Chiswick in 1995,

working with three part time assistants, designing town and country

gardens. It's a period he fondly recalls for its simplicity, but as he

says, "One has no control over opportunities arriving." So when

approached by architectural practices to take on bigger public projects

such as the Arsenal Stadium redevelopment and BBC White City, the need

for a larger studio became obvious.

Now situated in Southwark, close to the Tate Modern, the studio houses

eight occupied workstations handling up to twenty current projects. The

bespoke service offered to clients ranges over varying sized budgets,

split 50/50 between the private and public realms.

Bradley-Hole is responsible for the initial design conception of each

project and is deeply involved throughout it's subsequent development.

Other studio members are allocated responsibility for handling and

progressing all aspects of specific schemes.

He ardently argues the need for designers to cut their teeth in a

working office, in much the same manner as architects do as part of

their training. "I think any practicing designer should be able to have

someone in, to work with them either on a paid basis, or not paid, so

that there is a chance for experience". He believes it is an essential

part of the learning process that aims to address the ridiculously

short educational period most designers currently undertake, "You can

study architecture for seven years and I think you've only just begun

to scratch the surface of the subject. So I think we're either saying

that garden making is just very easy and doesn't need it, or we've got

the education and qualification side of things wrong."

Planting

The integration of Bradley-Hole's early love of plants, with his

architectural concerns, came through a fortuitous encounter with Brita

von Schoenaich and Tim Rees in 1995, leading to his involvement in the

fledgling 'new perennial' movement. Amongst a group of like-minded

Europeans including Piet Oudoulf and Rob Leopold, he found "a wonderful

club of invaluable shared experiences", which provided a long-standing

source of encouragement and inspiration. The group investigated the

relationship between nature and the built environment within gardens

and public landscapes. They developed a methodology synthesising

aesthetic and ecological concerns, through a signature style of

perennials and grasses, emphasing distinct structural forms and

constant seasonal change.

He affirms that there is "something essentially right about that,

because it does evoke nature, it's inspired by nature." Whilst this

stylised naturalism represents a contemporary cultural sensibility, he

also traces it's architectural precedents back to the British 18th

century relationship between house and landscape, with the buildings

set in long grass meadows.

This approach can be seen applied throughout his designs, elegantly

articulated in the country garden schemes at Crockmore House, near

Henley-on-Thames, and most recently at plantsman John Coke's house at

Bury Court, Farnham.

Show gardens

Bradley-Hole's name is probably most familiar to the general public

through his show gardens. Despite their short duration, his approach is

the same as with any other design. He believes that gardens should have

an underlying narrative, but dismisses didacticism for it's own sake,

preferring that they should be able to be read on many levels." I think

it is about expression of a theory, but I don't think it's important

that anybody understands what's behind it. I think they should be able

to come along and say' that's pretty' or 'it's not'."

The success of this strategy with judges and public alike can be

evidenced in his appearances at Chelsea. The 'Explorers Rooftop' garden

(1994) was rather different to the work he is now known for. He

describes it as "a bit stylized" and "a little bit Hardy Amis Chelsea."

Consequently the garden is no longer in his portfolio. The 'Latin

Garden' (1997) defined his modernist style, drawing parallels with the

proportions and geometry of antiquity. It utilised quotes from the

Roman poet Virgil, and marked a successful collaboration with artist

Belinda Eade. The 'Sculptural Water Garden' (2000), was followed by

three successful gardens sponsored by Sheikh Zayed, and abstractly

inspired by Abu Dhabi and early Islamic gardens, 'Garden from the

Desert' (2003), 'Hortus Conclusus' (2004) and 'In the Grove' (2005).

At other festivals, some of his more conceptual exhibits share

affinities with installation art. 'Layers' (2002) at Jardins de Métis

in Canada, examined layers of superimposed geological strata modeled on

the stratification of elements in garden design, such as soil, plants,

and decking. Whilst in Singapore (2006) he produced an abstract garden

representing the superimposition of geometry and culture on the natural

landscape of the island.

Books

Approached by Mitchell Beazley in 1997 to write a book addressing an

audience with an appetite for all things 'minimal', Bradley Hole's

publishing debut 'The Minimalist Garden', has something of a zeitgeist

feel to it. The media fed public interest in contemporary design,

evident in the architecture of John Pawson, Ikea furniture, and the

floral arrangements of Jane Packer, provided a solid foundation for a

readership to step outside the house and into the garden.

Departing from the popular format of many garden books, which offered a

catalogue of historic pick and mix styles, Bradley-Hole instead wanted

to write "a book with one philosophy". The book presented a

contemporary view on the reductive fringe of modernist style, focusing

on the architectural relationship between house and garden. It

colourfully examined their interaction, drawing on a range of examples

including works from Martha Schwartz, Tadao Ando, Topher Delaney and

his own portfolio.

His forthcoming book 'Making the Modern Garden', broadens the

philosophical basis of the earlier work, tracing some of the classical

roots of formalism, and describing the application of modernist ideas

to the practice of making gardens.

Garden Design Journal, March 2007

Gilles Clément – From the Garden in Motion to the Third Landscape

2008-05-13T00:08:00.008+01:00

20 February 2007

Architectural Association School of Architecture

Rejecting the traditional nomenclature of Garden Designer, Landscape

Architect, or Horticulturist, Gilles Clément instead prefers the title

of Jardin Planetaire (Global Gardener). Such novelty gives credence to

the manner in which he utilises his formidable multi-disciplinary

skills, applying new conceptual frameworks to the environment. Since

the 1980's his approach has successfully manifested itself in notable

private and public projects throughout France including Parc André

Citroën and La Défense in Paris.

His lecture focused around the relationship between design and ecology

in the composition of the garden, and the role of the gardener in

managing biological diversity as a political project. Defining a Garden

as an idealised enclosed meeting space between people and nature, he

posed the question, "What is a good utopia today?" in light of the fact

that the planetary biomass is precarious and finite.

'The Garden in Motion' emphasised observing more and gardening less, to interpret the temporal evolution and site-specific interactions between

species when left to develop without cultural interference. Design

becomes more analysis than intervention, finding optimum balances

between species to ensure maximum diversity. Clément illustrated this

methodology with slides from his personal ongoing masterwork, a 5 ha

garden in Creuse begun in 1977, which reflects the evolving benefits of

a considered light touch.

His idea of the 'Third Landscape' adapts this administrative attitude

to forsaken urban or rural areas. Encompassing aspects of both

conservation and regeneration in a symbiotic manner, certain species

are left to define territorial form. An impressive project at Matisse

Park in Lille was presented, featuring a central 3500 m2 'island',

raised 7 metres above ground level, unapproachable to the public.

Clement has been working with the local authorities in this space to

monitor the 'ideal forest' which develops with an eye to utilsing the

results in the management of the rest of the park.

Placing this approach in a global perspective, Clément challenged the

view, which seeks to authenticate and constrain horticulture to a

specific locale, by vociferously denying any hard and fast distinctions

between native and exotic plants. He suggested human, animal and

weather flows have produced a state of planetary mixing, in which

plants are suited to specific site conditions rather than imposed

regional or national identities. He advocated horticultural

miscegenation to create new biospheres in areas where traditional local

plants can no longer establish themselves due to environmental

constraints or pests.

Whilst Clément's ideas may not sit too well with British hands-on

aesthetics, they provided a considered means of dealing with the

dynamics of our increasingly complex understanding of the landscape,

and the consequent responsibilities of our ongoing role in managing

it's future.

Garden Design Journal, May 2007

Sculpture and the Garden

2008-04-01T10:54:00.014+01:00

Edited by Patrick Eyres and Fiona Russell

Ashgate
ISBN 0 7546 3030 7

2006

The relationship of sculpture to gardens has been an awkward alliance.

As Christopher Tunnard pointed out, there is always a paradox present,

as gardens are already heavily ornamented nature. Yet all too often

designers use sculpture, in an attempt to introduce 'art' into the

environment, overlooking the ideological implications, which can

detract from the landscape as much as they enhance.

'Sculpture and the Garden' traces the complexities and contradictions

of this relationship, exploring the role of sculptural embellishment in

the contested grounds of British garden history. It focuses on periods

where the synergy between sculpture and landscape has defined aspects

of public and private space. Through a series of illustrated essays,

landscape and art historians investigate the Georgian landscape,

Victorian urban parks, modernist environments, and the contemporary

sculpture park.

Case studies, including the decadence of the Hellfire Club at West

Wycombe, and civic patronage in Northern public parks, reveal the

cultural and political connotations of figurative works, and how

site-specificity has reinforced codes of morality and conduct, within a

class structured society.

The new found optimism of post-war socialism, and it's program of

'cultured leisure', is examined in the work of modernist sculptors, in

particular that of Henry Moore. A passionate advocate of placing work

in the landscape, his 'truth to materials' approach, through the use of

scale and form, created a new dialogue with both rural and urban

environments. But most strikingly apparent in this generation's output,

is the stereotyped gender sensibilities in the placement of their work.

Moore's sculpture at Perry Green panoptically presides in masculine

dominance over the vista, whilst the pieces in Barbara Hepworth's St

Ives garden, sensitively interact with surrounding foliage.

Essays on sculpture parks and the work of Ian Hamilton Finlay, suggest

something of a paradigm shift. Rather than being purely representative,

sculpture is given a more utilitarian role, integrating itself into the

environment, mapping out areas of public use and experience.

Appreciating the landscape in this manner, as a sculptural entity,

neatly feeds back into the approach of the 18th century landscape

movement, discussed in the book's first essay.

The editor's selection of examples from the past provides ample

reflection for designers wishing to develop a more informed approach to

their practice in the future. An approach which could result in

recontextualising sculpture and gardens in a new integrated aesthetic.

Garden Design Journal, February 2007

Sensations - A time travel through garden history

2008-04-01T10:53:00.028+01:00

Nadine Olonetzky

Birkhäuser
ISBN 9783764376239

2007

Throughout history gardens have been playgrounds of the imagination,

creatively embodying the manner in which societies shape the

environment, whether in response to physical necessity, or as acts of

excess and folly. Reflecting this process of nurture over nature,

garden history interweaves the complexities of time and place with

personalities and politics.

Swiss cultural journalist Olonetzky eschews a traditional detailed

approach to the subject in favour of a lighter, idiosyncratic style.

Making no claim to give a complete account of garden history, selected

snapshots of important dates and events trace the northward trajectory

of the garden from Mesopotamia to present day Europe.

Chronologically ordered brief paragraphs explore key individuals,

designs and concepts in relation to their temporal context, and

subsequent developments. Seminal sites and familiar figures are

presented alongside the invention of the lawnmower, the foundation of

the RHS, garden shows and world expos. Focus is also given to progress

of the media, from early horticultural texts and journals to recent

books and TV garden makeover shows.

Central to the book is the theme of the garden as a constructed

paradise. Continually remade and remodeled throughout history, in both

public and private realms, it can be seen to cross-culturally traverse

the gulf between faith and reason, providing spaces for both

enlightenment and emancipation.

The book may not satisfy those with more academic inclinations, but its

appeal is approachable for general readers, and interesting for

designers in it's attempt to accord kudos to the discipline. It

acknowledges the lack of public status currently afforded the practice,

in comparison with architecture and art, as an issue needing address.

The graphic presentation is accessible, from the printed cloth binding,

to the generous selection of photos and illustrations closely aligned

with the text. As a refresher for busy practitioners or an easy

introduction for fellow travelers, the book's brevity and concision

make it ideal filler for many a stocking this Christmas.

Garden Design Journal, December 2006/January 2007

The Glory of Gardens - 2,000 Years of Writings on Garden Design

2008-04-01T10:53:00.025+01:00

Scott J. Tilden ed.

Abrams
ISBN 0 8109 5541 5

2006

Garden design history provides the soil in which we nurture our

contemporary landscapes. An appreciation and understanding of the

issues addressed by designers over the years, is essential for the

discipline's creative development.

Yet many historic overviews simply present a linear narrative of

gardens as a series of social styles and aesthetic trends, ignoring the

complexities and contradictions which have informed their making.

Taking a different approach, Scott Tilden has gone directly to the

original sources, compiling a wonderful compendium of primary writings

straight from the quills, pens and keyboards of designers, gardeners,

and scholars. Extracts from principal tracts, as well as short quotes,

chart the principles of garden design as they appear, disappear and

reappear, across the centuries. A long intellectual trajectory is

passionately articulated through the words of one hundred authors from

Islamic, European, Japanese and Chinese traditions. Writings range from

Pliny the Younger and Ji Cheng through André Mollet and William

Robinson to Sylvia Crowe, Thomas Church, Katherine Gustafson, and Piet Ouldolf.

Over nine chapters, the book covers themes such as site, structure,

unity and variety, colour, and plant selection. Each chapter proceeds

historically from early writings through to contemporary practitioners,

generously illustrated with fine photography. Across 2000 years there

are some stylistic jumps in language and grammar between texts, but the

carefully chosen and well-translated selections ensure a readable

continuity.

What soon becomes apparent, are both the similarities and differences

of opinion on recurring issues, as they thread their way through time.

Often expressed from diametrically opposite viewpoints, they illuminate

the extent to which gardens, and the ideologies surrounding them, have

always been contested grounds. The texts present fundamentally

different approaches to the world around us, informed by historically

specific politics, aesthetics and cultural beliefs, They are valuable

reflections on the extent to which garden design embodies our power

relationships, not only with nature, but also with each other.

The book celebrates this diversity, and its importance is in providing

such material for contemplation and enjoyment. Historical precedents

should inspire design to be challenging rather than complacent, and as

such, the book provides a critical platform for designers to develop

contemporary theories, in relation to current social and environmental

concerns.

Humphry Repton, taking his cue from Hogarth, referred to the 'line of

beauty' as a determining factor of design. This book reveals that far

from being fixed, that line is ever undulating.

Garden Design Journal, October 2006

Lexicon of Landscape Architecture

2008-03-18T13:34:00.028Z

Meto J. Vroon

Birkhauser Verlag AG

ISBN 3764375256

2006

Many practitioners regard garden design as a visual medium, one where

the power of the word is secondary to the seductive allure of the

image. Verbiage is left to correspondence, brief, and specification,

whilst a drawing is considered worth a thousand words. Yet such an

attitude fails to appreciate the extent to which visual communication

relies upon language to underpin, elucidate and enhance the context and

content of any presentation.

Both language and gardens have different meanings and uses according to specific situations, yet the words employed in the design discipline

are often carelessly taken for granted. Design language is always

encoded with complex layers of meaning, articulating the social

relationships that mediate thought and action, concept and material,

designer and client. Design language is a historically derived

discourse and should be critically approached as relative rather than

as universally fixed. It should be a dynamic tool, rather than a static

doctrine, in order to ensure it's contemporary relevance.

Unfortunately British empiricism still casts a shadow of suspicion over

anything critical or conceptual in relation to gardens. It still

prefers that any scratching of the surface should be done in the dirt

and not in the mind. But no such reticence is in evidence in this Dutch

book, where garden and landscape design ideas are accorded equal

gravity as that given to architecture and other artistic mediums.

The book alphabetically offers an encyclopedia of terms and ideas used

in design practice. It covers a lot of ground, with entries for such

philosophical concepts as aesthetics, ethics, ideology and space,

design principles such as symmetry, scale, identity and fragmentation,

and technical concerns like ecocentrism, diversity, and urbanism.

Each entry contains definitions and quotes from a variety of seasoned

writers, with diverse and often opposing viewpoints. A bibliography at

the end of each term provides a valuable resource for designers

inspired to research further. A selection of photos, drawings and

charts, illustrate the entries. As such the book could be

systematically read cover to cover, but it's utility lies more in being

in a reference manual for specific terms, or for stimulating random

browsing.

Books like this are necessary to contextualise issues, and concentrate

the minds of designers on the complexity of the concerns they encounter

on an everyday basis. Language is not presented as set in stone, but

rather as a forum for ongoing debate to enable garden design to mature

as a critical and creative practice.

Garden Design Journal, September 2006