$25K prize for best urban garden design

The Trinity Avenue Farm Design Competition is a competition developed to inspire creativity and innovation as the City of Atlanta works to establish an effective and aspirational model for urban agriculture within Atlanta communities—showcasing how fresh food can be grown locally and sustainably.

The competition is open to professionals, students and educators in agriculture, architecture, construction, design, development, engineering, horticulture, landscape architecture, planning and others fields interested in urban agriculture. Entrants must be residents of the state of Georgia.

The winning farm design will be developed on the 0.8 acre lot located across the street from City Hall on the corner of Trinity and Central Avenues (formerly the site of the Atlanta traffic court building). The physical address is 104 Trinity Avenue, Atlanta, GA, 30303.

How the Competition Works

1. Interested parties must first provide notification of their interest to participate in the competition by registering online by the 5 p.m. (EDT) deadline on October 14th, 2011.
2. Submissions following the competition guidelines must be received by the City of Atlanta no later than 5 p.m. (EDT) on November 1st, 2011.

All design submissions will be evaluated by the Trinity Avenue Farm Design Competition Review Committee to determine the competition finalists. Selected finalists will present their designs to Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed, who will choose the winner. Once the winning design is chosen, the preparation of the land and design installation will begin immediately. The farm is scheduled to open to the public in Spring 2012.

Download site plan here

Download Contour Plan

Download all photos and plans here

Students Win Garden Design Competition at the Southport Flower Show

Oxford College of Garden Design

PRESS RELEASE May 2010

It has just been announced that students from the Oxford College of Garden Design have won the prestigious 2010 Student Garden Design Competition of the Southport Flower Show, to be held from 19 to 22 August in Merseyside. Alexandra Lehne and Lea Maravic (shown above) are currently studying for the postgraduate level Diploma in Residential Garden Design at the Oxford College of Garden Design.

Alexandra and Lea have won a £6,000 commission to build their winning design at the show and received excellent feedback on their garden, which the organisers have described as “one of the best entries ever submitted into the competition!”

Download full plans and details here

The brief was to design a garden based on the Show’s theme of “Coast”, in a 6m x 6m square plot and Alex and Lea’s winning submission included a detailed scale plan, planting plan, scale drawings and illustration (as per example above).

The postgraduate level Diploma in Residential Garden Design offered by the Oxford College of Garden Design is widely regarded as one of the leading garden design courses in the world. Held at St Hugh’s College Oxford, which is set in 14 acres of beautiful landscaped gardens, applications are currently being taken for the next 1 year fast-track course which starts on 30^th September 2010. The world’s first interactive online garden design course has also been launched by the College to run alongside the full time course. To find out more visit:

www.garden-design-courses.co.uk or telephone 01491 628950 for further information.

Oxford College of Garden Design

The College was set up by Duncan Heather in 1992 and has attracted students from around the world, including America, New Zealand and Japan, as well as the UK. Duncan Heather is one of Europe’s foremost garden designers. Duncan was trained by Britain’s best-loved octogenarian designer and garden writer, John Brookes OBE, whom many regard as one of the world’s top garden designers of the 20th Century. In a career now spanning over 30 years, Duncan has won five gold medals, one silver, one bronze and three awards for innovative design.

FOR FURTHER MEDIA INFORMATION

INCLUDING INTERVIEWS AND HI-RES IMAGES PLEASE CONTACT:

GM-PR georgina@gm-pr.co.uk 020 8546 0013

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Former student Mel Jolly, wins BBC Gardeners World Design competition

By Mel Jolly Garden Design
See NS&I Competition Details

My design provides a practical space for every stage of growing food in the garden – seed tray for propagation, cold frames for the more tender plants, the main growing beds and upright support for climbing plants right through to a compact composter in the small storage area to recycle unwanted parts of the plants. In a time where convenience seems to be paramount to people’s lives I feel this design brings together this convenience with a more old fashioned but increasingly popular pastime of growing our own food. It also brings in a social aspect with a bar table that can not only be used for potting and working but also for eating some of the produce grown.

The main features of this garden are the central multipurpose table and the large curved boundary wall. The table is divided into sections – half of which is a storage compartment for all the tools needed and a small composting bin. This can be screened off and locked by a concertina type door. Quarter of the table can be used as a bar area for working and eating. The remaining surface of the table has a seed tray incorporated into it. Below the seed tray the table is screened off with glass to provide a cold frame. The curved wall will be painted with blackboard paint to keep a regular maintenance schedule for work in the garden and joins onto a lower wall with more glass cold frames.

Most of the material used to construct this garden is timber. Timber is extremely durable and if properly managed potentially indefinitely renewable. All timber used will be sustainable timber with the internationally recognised Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certification. I have used very little hard landscaping –most of the ground surface will be pea shingle to give a sustainable drainage system. SuDS. If money allows the large wall will be constructed in such a way as to harvest rainwater for re-use in the garden. The garden contains a small compact compost tumbler.

I believe my design provides an organised, practical and aesthetic place to grow food. Allotments and growing at home have taken off in the past few years but there are still many people who have the will to grow their own but not quite the way. This is often because they don’t quite know how to go about it or don’t have much time. My design is compact and everything is on hand. Also because it has a good space for sitting it means some jobs can be done in a very relaxed and social way in an ‘around the kitchen table’ kind of way. It is also a place for relaxing in a beautiful space not just for working. The ground pattern is not traditional and I think it is good to show that growing food doesn’t have to be ‘allotment’ in style but plants can really be grown in such different ways. The design will be chic, but not at the expense of sustainability or practicality which will still be paramount.

Plants:

The plants I have chosen are all plants that would usually be either sown, planted or harvested during May and June. They are also varieties that I feel are popular and commonly eaten, especially salad foods and fruit. From a design point of view many of the plants have red colourings which I believe will look stunning as well as taste delicious.

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Garden Design Competition: Win a Place on the world’s first professional Online Design Course worth over $9000

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

You can now train as a garden designer from home, wherever you are in the world. Award-winning British garden designer, Duncan Heather, founder and principal of the Oxford College of Garden Design, has just launched the world's first-ever interactive online garden design course.

There's a lot misconception regarding the word online. Our new course is not a correspondence course you download from the web; it truly is online.

All lectures will be watched as on-line video tutorials. There will be interactive online exercises, and students will talk to their tutors using web chat and classes will be given via webinars.

Each online student will be allocated their own qualified garden design tutor and will follow the same timetable as the classroom students.

The one-year course provides a post-graduate level qualification in residential landscape architecture and offers:

• Interactive video tutorials and podcasts

• A personal tutor

• Community-based learning in the "virtual classroom", i.e. talking with fellow students via online forums

• Lectures to listen to on iPod/phone/MP3 player

• Online galleries – featuring ground plans, planting plans, construction drawings and more

• Monthly webinars - live video streams with question and answer sessions
  
• Interactive video tutorials on CAD (computer aided design) and ground modelling

HOW TO ENTER
Click here for details

Closing date is the 30th March 2010 so get your entries in soon!

Winning Design By Sophie Dixon

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