Student Guide to Starting a New Garden Design

 

One of our on-line students recently asked me the following question

Q. Before we start designing are there any obvious 'don't-do's' relating to the size of garden, that you can think of off the top of your head?

A. Size is irrelevant. There is no silver bullet answer as to how you start designing any garden, but I do have some recommendations.

1. I can’t stress how important it is to put together a mood board before you start designing. If you don’t have a theme or style in mind before you start adding your shapes, then you are going to end up with a plan that has no philosophy behind it, will be unconvincing, and the chances are; very ordinary!.........We don’t do ordinary we do extraordinary!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

At this stage in your design career, your ‘shape library’ in your head, is still virtually empty, so it’s vital you immerse your selves in garden/architect/interior images.

PLEAESE PLEASE PLEASE SUBSCRIBE TO www.zinio.com and buy all or any of the garden/landscape design magazines, some architecture ones, as well as some interior design/house magazines, and consider subscribing to The Garden Design Journal

2. Draw bubble/functional diagrams to plan the space. Decide on where the key elements of the design are going and plan how you intend to get there. (via bubbles and arrows) This will decide if your design is going to be a clockwise or anticlockwise design. Once you have finished, remove the bubble diagram and go back to ‘Pattern Analysis’, but make sure some of your interlocking patterns reflect the key areas decided during the bubble diagram stage.

3. Start your SketchUp model now!!!!!!!!!!!! The SketchUp model is a design tool not just for final presentation. Build your model at the same time as drawing your sketch plan by hand. Most of you would avoid half the mistakes you making, if you could visualise your plan in 3D.

Should RHS show judges be allowed to enter Chelsea Flower Show? …..not in any other industry they wouldn’t!

At this years Chelsea Flower Show, Mark Gregory, an established landscaper was one of several RHS show judges exhibiting, who won a gold medal. Gregory’s gold was for a nice little courtyard garden for the Children’s Society. 

The garden was meticulously put together, but in design terms, was nothing that I wouldn’t have expect from one of my student’s first design projects.  Surprising then, that it got a gold despite the fact that it was nothing particularly special.

In the press this month questions have been raised about next years Chelsea Flower Show and the fact the chairman of the show judges, intends to build his second garden and is currently looking for sponsorship.

Forgive my scepticism, but if I was a sponsor with a couple of hundred grand to spend,  this would seem to me, the horticultural equivalent of looking a gift horse in the mouth!

How can the remaining RHS show judges possibly assess this garden in a fair and unbiased fashion?  The whole thing reeks of the old boy network and wouldn’t be tolerated in any other industry.

Without exception, every competition I can find, the rules clearly state that no employees or family of employees are permitted to enter and whilst the judges are volunteers, with hundreds of thousands of pounds in sponsorship and TV deals at stake, this clearly is a conflict of interest and the sooner the RHS wakes up to the fact the better.

What do you think?  Should judges be able to enter their own competitions?

Technorati Tags: Mark Gregory,RHS,Chelsea,Show Gardens,2011,2010,Gold Medal,Old Boy Network

Is This Good Design?……..or Meaningless Scribbles!

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.

The pattern is anything but simple, looking more like an angry jelly fish attacking a building.  Rhythm and line remain unexplained and she then goes on to say that proportion can’t be seen in a plan view….may be not in this design, but it should be there!
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

Student Exhibition 2010: See Why our students are considered some of the best in the World!

Student Exhibition 2010 from Duncan Heather on Vimeo.

The student end of years’ exhibition was held on the 17^th June with over 200 people visiting the show between 4-7pm

The students go on to use their exhibits as part of their sales portfolio so the work has a duel role both as a way of showing the external examiners the quality of the work and also as a sales aide for when they start their business.

The work displayed is a selection of all of the work completed through the year so from the first design exercises completed in the into module to the 3 real gardens completed during the course.

Not to mention the 20 or so speed design exercises design to stretch every facet of the design repertoire from commercial housing projects to car par design, through to the sighting of tennis courts and swimming pools and garage and driveway design. The course is called residential landscape design for a reason, as we cover both domestic and corporate projects to maximise the employability of our students as well as give them the broadest range of experience of any the design schools.

“The course lies somewhere between a university based education and an apprenticeship, as student and tutors work closely together on real live projects and clients from the start.”

Project 1 was a tiny courtyard garden in central Oxford the garden was part of a development of modern town houses built in the late 80’s over 3 floors with the lounge dining and kitchen bases on the first floor.
There is a first floor balcony, but no existing link to the garden, so is was decided very quickly to build a flight of stairs allowing direct access to the garden.

Project 2 was a small country garden in a village location in Rotherfield Oxfordshire. The site had significant privacy issues as well a requiring a new garage and workshop, a new conservatory and a kitchen garden. All to be squeezed into a relatively small 500 square meters

Project 3 was a 2.5 acre country garden on a sloping site in Bluebury Oxfordshire. The front entrance area require a major revamp and the client also requested a conservatory design as well as a new pond/lake at the bottom of the site.

This has been another excellent year.

You can see from the slide show that are student produce better designs in their first 8 weeks of training and most schools produce in a year.

“It’s not just their design ability! The level of technical competence and professional practice is second to none and continues to demonstrate why are student are considered to be some of the best in the world.”

 

Technorati Tags: Student Exhibition,garden Design,oxford College,landscape,architecture