PROJECT SUMMARY + FINAL DESIGN IDEAS

Project Summary:

At first I found this project quite difficult. I didn't feel inspired to draw in my sketchbook and wasn't sure how I would ultimately bring everything together to form design ideas that would be relelvant to things I had been looking at or reading about.

However, I found that by combining a blog with the sketchbook, I could use both to provide ideas for the other and I found that actually it was quite a good system.

I am surprised at the end results, because I wasn't really sure what they would look like until I started making them. However, once I began putting the bits together it all fell in to place. 

This has been a challenging, but ultimately rewarding project..

Final Design Ideas:
 
These are mixed media collages i've made in response to work from my sketch book and research on my blog.
I photocopied images from my sketch book that particularly interested me or stood out as being visually strong. I needed a way of bringing all my different ideas together and found that collage seems to naturally fit this. It has meant that I can move things around and play with different colours/textures/shapes easily as I go...


 

Inspiration:

VnA Chair (Sketchbook/Blog)

Flooring Pattern from hatching Grids (Sketchbook/Blog)

Inspiration:
Japanese Garden Rocks (Sketchbook/Blog)

Patterned Rug  Path (Blog)

Japanese Garden Theme (Blog)

Rocks and Children (Installation, VnA Courtyard, Visit)

Inspiration:
'Mask' Sculpture - Part of a VnA Chair (Sketchbook/Blog)

Patterened Plinths (Sketchbook - b+w pencil flower sketch)

Focal Point (Sketchbook)

Grid Paving (Blog/Sketchbook)

Inspiration:
Church Spire (Sketchbook)
 Paving Sets (Sketchbook/Blog)
 Frank Lloyd Wright, Stained Glass (Blog)
Andrea Cochran (Blog)
Ulf Nordfjell (Blog)

 

Inspiration:
Stachys Drawing (Sketchbok)
 Community Garden (Blog)
Foliage (Sketchbook)

Inspiration:
Chairs, VnA Visit (Sketchbook/Blog)
Community Garden (Blog)
Paving - Rug/Japanese Garden/Neo Bankside (Blog)
Stone Roof (Drawing, Sketchbook)

ANDREA COCHRAN

ANDREA COCHRAN
Landscape Architect
USA
Find out more here: www.acochran.com

AC is one of my all time favorite designers, who combines bold modernist design with natural forms, plants and landscapes to soften hard edges. She is so uncluttered in her designs, and plays with large open areas to make you feel simultaneously within a garden and also within the landscape beyond its boundaries. She is based and does most of her work in San Fransico, and therefore chooses materials and plants that she knows will be enhanced by the light or by reflections of the sky.
In an interview I read with her (on the American Society of Landscape Architects website) she sights these modernist designers + minimalist artists as an influence on her work: Dan Kiley / Garrett Eckbo / James Rose / Robert Irwin / Fred Sandback 

This is a nice quote from her, talking about a rooftop garden she created for an affordable housing community:

"The point I started with was that I saw this man up there, he had the most beautiful broccoli growing in his two by three foot bed, and I don't know what else was in there, but this broccoli was unbelievably beautiful. He said I come up here and this is my therapy. I can get my hands in the dirt. I was almost in tears. I thought it was the most meaningful thing I'd ever done to just give this guy a chance to just be outside, be in the sun and work with his hands in the dirt and grow something in the five foot square plot. I think it's really worked well. When he's up there working, teenagers come up and hang out. Adults are up there working on their gardens so the teenagers are being monitored. It's not a leftover space, isolated, where things can happen. It becomes this environment that's more of a community, and people kind of watch out for one another".

 
 

CURRENTLY READING

The Fundamentals of Landscape Architecture
Tim Waterman
2009

MYOUNG HO LEE (b. 1975 -)

Photographer

South Korea

'Tree' Series

To achieve these photographs, large cranes are used to hold the white canvas up behind the trees, and then minimal digital retouching is applied to remove any visible cables. 

I think they are incredible and really inspiring for the gardens project. By removing the tree from its background you are really able to look at its form and appreciate how individual each one is. This could be put to really good effect in the Japanese garden, where specimen trees such as cloud trees and Acers are already used for their shapes and architectural qualities. Also, within the woodland garden, it could be interesting to highlight one tree out of the 'woods' to make you actually look at it as a single thing, rather than just a mass of leaves and bark....

 

 

 

TEXTURES

On holiday a couple of years ago I used a disposable camera to take pictures of textures that were specific only to that place. 
This is what caught my eye....

 

BRUNO MUNARI

BRUNO MUNARI (b.1907)
Artist / Designer

I love the work of Munari, and find that it influences me regularly in how I approach design work. I love the sense of playfulness present in his work, as well as freedom within design. These images are just the tip of the iceberg of his collection of work as a whole.

 

COLOUR PALETTES

MOVIES IN COLOR
Blog
http://moviesincolor.com/about

This blog breaks down film stills in to their colour palettes. It's a really good way of getting you to look at things purely based on the colours rather than being distracted by the actual objects or action occurring in the frame. 
This is really useful skill to practice for garden design, as it enables you to focus on just colour within a design. However, the same discipline could of course also be applied to looking at, for example, leaf shape / plant form / texture / shade + light etc
(see sketchbook)

Moonrise Kingdom, 2012
Director: Wes Anderson
Cinematography: Robert D. Yeoman

Trainspotting, 1996
Director: Danny Boyle
Cinematography: Brian Tufano

Rear Window, 1954

Director: Alfred Hitchcock

Cinematography: Robert Burks

Pulp Fiction, 1994

Director: Quentin Tarantino

Cinematography: Andrej Sekula

Groundhog Day, 1993

Director: Harold Ramis

Cinematography: John Bailey

HIDDEN GARDEN

HIDDEN GARDEN
Trent Park
North London

I took these pictures in February last year of one of my favourite hidden gardens. It is offset from the park itself, and has a really interesting structure which is best seen in the earlier months of the year.
A sense of journey is created in a small space with the use of paths and bridges. A limited palette of hard landscaping brings the space together and works well with the large trees that scale the space. 
The light at the time of year these were taken creates some amazing shadows and reflections too.