It’s great that so many universities are jumping onto the garden design band-wagon because it not only spreads the word, but helps create interest in the subject.
The problem arises when what is being taught, amounts to little more than ‘meaningless scribbles’. I appreciate what I am saying is controversial but this Video to me, represents everything bad about garden design teaching.
This is not supposed to be a personal attack on Dr. Ann Marie VanDerZanden, but why did she choose such a dreadful design example? What she is passing off as a ‘typical residential design’, shows a fundamental lack of design appreciation.
Balance was tackled next and asymmetry and symmetry introduced, but to suggest that this ‘amoeba’ is a symmetrical design makes me wonder if we are looking at the same drawing, as there is nothing formal about this plan.
The building looks like it has just landed from space and been 'plonked' onto the landscape.
The organic shapes used, show a total disregard for the geometry contained within the building and to my mind the house and garden quite simply clash.
I think this design is Awful!!!!! ……….Yet this is the design style being taught to thousands of would-be garden designers around the world every year, by teachers who should stick to horticulture but never venture near a drawing board!
I appreciate that design is subjective and I would love to talk to these people to understand where they are coming from, however, 70 years after Thomas Church and 40 years after John Brookes why is this mediocrity still being taught?
Technorati Tags: Garden Design,Bad Design
