Tag Archives: landscape design

Monday musings – how we can all make the most of The Chelsea Flower Show

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This morning on Monday musings we are revisiting a post we published last year about the RHS Chelsea Flower Show as we feel it is even more relevant. This years Chelsea spectacle began yesterday, but with escalating budgets and intricate designs, how can the average visitor or viewer find anything to ‘take home’…?

(originally published 24th May 2012)

Over the past three days we have looked (very briefly) at some of the highlights for the three shows which come to fruition this week. Each of the three are exceedingly different, so, what is the relevance of these events to the regular visitor, with modest living spaces and usually even more modest outdoor spaces – all funded with terribly restricted pursestrings.

It is easy to steal ideas and inspiration from the Chelsea Fringe and Clerkenwell – they are immediately ‘accessible’ to all of us. Firstly, there are small or no charges for any of the events. The events are very varied, just like us. There is a huge sense of community.  It is very cliche to say that there is ‘something for everyone’ but I truly believe the statement. But RHS Chelsea? With a large entrance fee and restricted tickets, massive sponsorship deals and massive budgets can the general public really be inspired?

The RHS Chelsea Flower Show is a formidable beast with a royal heritage – in short, a Chelsea Gold has become the pinnacle of many a designers and growers medal shelf. The years of training and hard toil are rewarded in a similar way to an Olympic event – it has to be right on the day, or sorry, close but no cigar.

But often when visiting these events, the public view is extremely different to that of the RHS judges – and this is exactly what we can all benefit from. It does not particularly matter to us what the medal or award is – the gardens and nursery stands are there to INSPIRE US as visitors, not critical judges and if you look in the right way, anyone can see something to suit their own spaces and budgets.

So, take your camera and notebook and grab the images which appeal. Forget the scale of the gardens and how much they cost – this has absolutely no relevance to many of us at all – look closely at the details and the ingredients which make them up and steal them for your own. Plant combinations, structure of trees, reclaimed materials, hard landscaping, how water can be used, colour use etc…

By all means take an overall picture of the garden but then get into the detail – catalogue all that you like so you can happily steal it all when you get back home. Nicking the small details is how the RHS Chelsea Flower Show becomes accessible to everyone. If we just concentrate on the overall image, we forget about the small elements, which in reality are the things that we can use.

I know from my own collections of images and sketchbooks from previous Chelsea Flower Shows that I have very few images of the whole garden, or plant stand. There are moss covered rocks. The juxtaposition between structure and foliage. The interplay between formal landscaping and sweeping planting. Great textures. Lots of small, close images.

This type of inspiration gathering does not only (and should not only) have to apply to gardeners – anyone with a creative mind can find inspiration in anything. To quote Sir Paul Smith – ‘you can find inspiration in everything (and if you can’t, look again).

And do not worry if you are not visiting the show – watch on iPlayer and snap shots of details from the coverage or look at the beautiful photos which have been uploaded to the RHS Chelsea website. There are long, overall shots, but a lot of them look at the tiny details…

Plus, the gods are in the detail, so open your eyes wide, focus them close and record it all.

(image via RHS)

a new, sustainable visitor centre for the Great Fens

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Visitor centres are funny beasts. They need to be pieces of architecture which are relatively stand out so they act as a kind of wayfinding structure for the site, yet they should be closely related to their locations and compliment the thing that people are actually coming to visit in the first place.

There can be a delicate line between these points. Stand out, yet not too shouty.

The new visitor centre which has recently been unveiled by Atelier CMJN for the Great Fens in Cambridgeshire strikes a nice balance.

Atelier CMJN, Great Fen Visiting Center, Cambridgeshire, rainwater collection, eolic turbine, fen, organic architecture, adaptation, Architecture, Green Materials, Daylighting, green Interiors, energy efficiency,

Constructed from locally sourced timber, the structure also plans to house water recycling, a water heat pump and rainwater collection.

There is also a very nice connection to place, as the side openings in the building allow visitors to see how the surrounding water levels and the landscape changes throughout the seasons.

This is exactly what a visitor centre should do – introduce the building / subject / location to the visitor in such a way that is supportive, not intrusive. The choice of the circular plan will allow this building to open to all of it’s surroundings and the material choice will give a nice vernacular feel to the structure.

A building that we would like to visit as much as the Great Fens themselves.

(image via Inhabitat)

Weekend Colour Inspiration – 50 shades of grey

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Well, not quite 50 shades of grey, but still a hell of a lot. This week on Weekend Colour Inspiration we are looking at the colour grey and the incredible variations we spotted whilst on our Amsterdam trip.

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We adore the colour grey – despite the banded about 50 shades, the human eye can actually see and differentiate between around 500 shades of grey. It is a wonderful, alternative neutral colour, which can be a perfect foil for brights in both interior and exterior spaces.

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Whilst on our trip, I noticed just how many shades of grey adorned the Dutch houses, shop fronts and in the landscaping. Plus, just how these lovely grey junctions sat, side by side and so I began to document a few.

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Junctions between houses. Walls and floors. Signage. Grey was everywhere. And we loved it.

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Perhaps because our skies in the UK are so often grey, we generally associate grey with being flat and dull, which is unfair. It is celebrated in the Netherlands (whose light is not that dissimilar to ours) - and it looks sophisticated and rich.

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So, instead of using just one shade of grey, why not look at bringing different shades together, light grey with dark, textured grey with smooth.

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(images by claire potter)

 

great grey graphical hoarding artwork

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There is something very lovely about finding a great piece of understated yet considered design in a very unexpected place. The sort of design that you almost walk past, before you suddenly stop and go, ‘Ah…..Nice’.

And this is exactly what happened when we spotted this piece of grey graphics, which was  covering a piece of Heras fencing beside a construction site in Amsterdam.

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It was about 5 degrees below freezing and we were looking for a bar (which will feature here very soon), so we almost walked straight past these lovely graphics. Until we literally stopped and went ‘oooh…’

No signage. No other information about the site. Just a nice piece of fragmented artwork printed onto canvas, which, when we looked closely, featured animals in a sort of ‘join the dot’ style.

Very nice indeed. 

So why don’t we see more of this ‘incidental’ artwork about cities in the UK? With a little investment we improve the appearance of our steel wire surrounded sites with great graphics and art - simply and very easily.

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(images by claire potter design)

REVISIT – sweet violets – the most beautiful edible flower for Spring?

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Despite the snow, there are a few plants which are beginning to come to life and remind us that spring is surely on its way.

One such plant is the stunning Sweet Violet, which we wrote about last year and is just starting to get going…

March 2012…

A few weeks ago we posted about the earliest edible flowers available to pretty up your plates and this weekend we spotted our favourites – sweet violets, or to give them their proper name, Viola odorata.

There is a large bank near our studio which sits right on the edge of a road, by a bus stop, which is completely smothered by a blanket of sweet violets which fills the air with the most amazing scent each March.

Given their demure size, the scent they produce is actually quite incredible, with a little bunch happily scenting a whole room.

The blooms are also wonderful added to spring salads to give a bit of colour, but our favourite way to use them is to place a single bloom on a chocolate violet flavoured cupcake – the dark brown icing really making the blue purple of the violet sing out. Or, as pictured to the left here, they can be crystallised and added as decorations (these cakes were vanilla with violet extract flavoured icing)

Sweet violets are a great addition to a garden and as they are happy in both full sun or semi shade there will almost certainly be a place that they would love.

Plus, as well as the standard violet coloured sweet violet, you can get white varieties too, which, if colour is not your thing, would be a brilliant alternative.

Get them here or here.

(top image from crocus)

SPOTTED – a great, low tech green walling system

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As some of you are probably aware, we are pretty obsessed with the greening of our cities – be it with ornamental green wall cladding, or preferably with edible landscaping. A few posts of late have been dedicated to the art of green walling, from the highly efficient living wall systems of Biotecture to the very low tech DIY green walling systems using traditional climbers to clad a building.

And there are clear merits to each of the systems, from versatility, water recycling to just utilising natures own plants which want to scramble and climb.  They also come with very different price tags.

One DIY system we really like takes the green wall plants right off the face of the structure itself so potential damage from the plants climbing to the façade of the building is minimised.

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So whilst wandering around Ecobuild last week we were delighted to see such a system installed as a demonstration stand around one of the lecture pavilions.

It uses stainless steel fixings which space a tensioned mesh away from the face of the building, creating a secondary skin across which a climber, in this case English Ivy can climb.  What is great is that these types of fixings are readily available, reasonably priced and can be customised to the space you need to clad.

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It creates a very nice and clean detail – and some great shadows on the façade of the building, which in this case was large format tiles.

And this is the beauty of shows such as Ecobuild – finding ideas and inspiration for your own projects, so why not take this idea and apply it to your own buildings in need of a bit of green walling?

(images by claire potter)

more climber based green wall cladding…

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A few posts ago we looked at how you can create a green wall type installation using a basic framework, built around your existing building and allowing climbing plants to be grown up the structure.

As we discussed, this sort of installation ensures that damage to the building structure is minimised as the plants are grown off the façade.

It also creates a very interesting secondary skin to the building, which could be allowed to envelop large sections of the structure, or changed periodically to give differences in texture – or even edible crops such as squashes.

It does seem as though this type of ‘green cladding’ is becoming very popular, as we spotted another example at the end of last week, using this very framework based system.

Formerly an existing garage in the Italian Alps, architects Act_Romegialli were bought on board to convert the structure into a welcoming studio for their clients.

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The resulting structure, called ‘Green Box’ is encased in a lightweight steel frame upon which climbing plants have been encouraged to grow – shielding the building and developing it into a piece of the landscape itself.

Privacy to the retreat section of the building is given by the growing vines and climbers themselves which filter light passing into the structure.

green design, eco design, sustainable design, Green Box, Act_romegialli, green roof, Italian Alps, vine covered garage, living walls

The interior of the building follows this simple theme, with reclaimed timber boards, stone and steel being used to create a very industrial yet rustic aesthetic.

What is beautiful about this particular project is the simplicity with which it was envisaged - using the natural growth of the plants to create the covering skin – an idea which could easily be employed with any small scale structure.

Garages, sheds, outbuildings – why not think about creating your own green wall cladding this Spring.

(images via Inhabitat)

the edible city – the future of our workplaces?

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This week we have been preparing for a talk we are giving at the University of Brighton for the Brighton Interior Architecture and Architecture Society, about the work of the studio and stuff that inspires us. One such element is the integration and development of the edible city and how this can inform public landscaping and workplace design.

When putting together the lecture, we were aware of just how many concepts there are for the integration of food growing, particularly beautifully rendered, high technology concepts, but just how little are actually built.

Is it that we are just thinking about the edible city but have just not got around to building it yet?

Also, the vast majority of the concepts are new build projects, usually in the vertical format. Towers, Sky Farms, layered buildings with horticulture and agriculture combined.

There is, of course a certain amount of building efficiency which can be planned into a new structure, but it does not necessarily mean that our existing buildings cannot be adapted to integrate localised growing into their footprints.

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We wrote about one such project here – the FARM: shop project by Something and Son in Dalston, London, which uses a standard retail location to produce fish through aquaponics, salads and even eggs from rooftop chickens – all of which is used in the on site cafe. They also run educational programs to encourage other people to grow.

But thinking of the larger, city workplace format, there is one project which is a very interesting example of what the future of our offices could be – and not in a new structure.

The Pasona HQ in Tokyo is based in a retrofitted 50 year old building, which has been adapted to be not only a working environment, but an urban farm.

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Designed by Kono Designs, the building grows most of the food required to feed its employees, from broccoli, squash, tomatoes and even rice, through a variety of interior and exterior growing methods.

There are growing areas included throughout the building, from the main lobby to private offices and meeting rooms, with both soil based and hydroponic systems being employed.

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Outside, the exterior of the building has a living facade which includes orange trees, which provides valuable seasonal solar shading and improves the air quality as well as being productive.

What is also great about the Pasona HQ is that the employees actually tend to the crops themselves  and are encouraged to spread the word about growing to other city goers through education – leading by example. The sight of someone cutting the rice paddy in the office reception is a welcome change to the usual piece of sculpture.

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Overall, this existing building has been redesigned to include 43,000 square feet of ‘farmland’ with over 200 species being grown.

Could this become a model for the development of our edible city and workplaces?

(images via Inhabitat fron Kono Designs)

project Softwalk – using scaffolding to create a pop-up park

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Even though this project is based and was founded in New York, the problem that it is tacking can be found in cities across the world.

Scaffolding ‘sheds’.

The cages of scaffolding which reach down from the buildings and onto our pavements  encasing the spaces and creating dark tunnels across our walkways. These are essential for the building works, but instead of seeing them as a necessary eyesore, designers Chambers and Hoke have used them as a physical opportunity to re-inhabit the city in a completely new, pop-up way.

Project Softwalk - an urban innovation studio - is a series of elements which can be added to any scaffolding cage to create spaces of rest and pause in the city – a Counter to lean against and have a coffee with a friend, Planters to green up a façade, Light reflectors and Seats – all which clip onto the existing scaffolding in myriad configurations.

Whilst the scaffolding is there, the pop-up park can be there too, creating a temporary area in the city which changes with the building works above. Opportunistic inhabitations, which are quick to install, remove and relocate and allow city goers to stop awhile in an area that is completely unplanned as a ‘public landscape’.

The project is currently developing, with the first popup parks being planned in NY this year. We think it is a very interesting project, and could transform the way we see necessary structures within the city such as scaffolding sheds as places to inhabit rather than just travel through.

(images via Design Taxi)

Cladding with a green wall

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On Friday we looked at how living green wall systems can be used to bring a bit of the Pantone colour of 2013, Emerald Green into an interior space, even though the green wall is most often seen outside.

Of course, as well as bringing a bit of colour into any space, green walls have many air purifying qualities and can even be used to grow edible crops, making then a great space saving choice for residential and business premises. But, as we detailed on Friday, the green wall system is a technical beast.

There are however ways to create a living green wall effect outside with relative ease, as this project, the Art Barn in Greenwich, USA by Robert Young Architecture demonstrates beautifully.

Instead of the traditional panel green wall system that we have come to know, this project takes the effect right back to it’s literal roots – with climbing plants.

The structure is covered with an open mesh type cladding panel which allows the plants, in this case white wisteria, to cling on and scramble up the building. The wisteria acts as a natural rain screen and provides insulative shading in summer, whilst still being a separate ‘skin’ from the building beneath.

This separation provides the feeling of a shield, but also ensures that the vigorous nature of the climbing plants do not do any adverse damage to the structure of the building as they grow. There does seem to be two schools of thought when it comes to climbing plants – good living screens or potential structural nightmares, but if treated with care and attention, with this type of separation, you can have the best of both worlds and is usually the path we adopt with clients with similar projects.

This type of green wall ‘cladding’ is a great way to cover an unsightly building, garage, or to provide a skin for a larger building, just like the example above. Install an open mesh system first, slightly separated from the structure, then choose your climbers. Think of it as a modern, freestanding trellis project and you are pretty much there.

Of course, this type of green wall does take a lot longer to create the end result, but climbing plants which are relatively vigorous can be chosen to cover your chosen structure. You could even mix up your planting with edible climbers too, making the green wall productive as well as aesthetically pleasing.

So, why not think about your own green wall this year? make use of a structure and get growing.

(image via Inhabitat)