Issue #12 – Gardens
ISSUE #12: Gardens
The starting point for this issue was seeded by a recent Chapter & Verse theme – “garden”. The pieces quickly expand into thoughts on human relations, design protocols, predilections, and rationales, and the ethics that inform my work and life. Maybe you will be inspired to create a garden, or landscape, or neighborhood!
CONTENTS:
• Gardens
• Design Rules
• Copy That
• Precedented
• Scholar Garden
NEWS AND NOTES:
Recommended Reading – A very good article about the transformative power of landscape. The Other Side of Broken Windows, by Eric Klinenberg (The New Yorker, 8/23, 2018).
Cover image: Seguinland, photograph by Bruce Wujcik
Precedented post image: Mario’s Hat, digital collage by Bruce Wujcik
Gardens
Despite my chosen and beloved profession – landscape architecture – I do not like to design gardens very much at all. I have sorted out the reasons over the years and they are several. In the main, gardens are usually uninteresting problems to solve, from the perspective of an INTJ personality, which I am. We like patterns and patterning and also developing intricate systems that are layered, multivalent, responsive, and rich. Intriguing and compelling opportunities usually present themselves at larger scales,
Design Rules
In no particular order, here are a few tried and true design principles that work at the small garden scale:
Copy That
I have a problem with copying in general – really it is one of my pet peeves – that goes beyond the theoretical framework of landscape and building called genius loci: that a creation is fit to its time and context, making places that are truly local and distinct. Picasso famously said, “Great artists don’t borrow, they steal,” but I am offended nonetheless. Borrowing is out in the open, transparent, sources acknowledged,
Precedented
Here I cite the main references for my design work previously presented in MUSE, to give credit where credit is due.
Mirror Park – Design for Change
Eugene, Oregon
Panarchy – I adapted and applied the basic ideas of Panarchy theory (Panarchy 101/ Understanding the Complexity of Economic, Ecological, and Social Systems by C.S. Holling), i.e. that small frequent adjustments and adaptations moderate (manage) change and evolution,
Scholar Garden
This design for a Chinese Scholar Garden follows unwavering precedent, tradition, and program requirements, and is nonetheless unique and original.
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