Landscape Visions

Task: use Photoshop to crystallize an image, reducing the 'noise' of the image and instead bring attention to the dominant colours of the scene.  Reflection: typical everyday screens seem more full of colours than they feel in reality, such as the view from a residential front door. Buildings are abstracted in a particularly interesting and playful way. Tonal change through objects is displayed in a much more descriptive way, helping the eye understand its full colour range.   

 The East Garden at 101 Collins Street Openwork A modest project which I found immediately intriguing as it resembles in nature what would be a dark caverness space, with that one streak of light breaking in to fill the cavespace with wild greenery and special seclusion. The small rises and falls of bedding, igneous rock-like sculpture, trees stretching for sunlight is an implantation of a sort of Genius loci found lost elsewhere, the importing of which sits at a comfortable juxtaposition with the tall grey-black sleek stonework. This, softened by the misting devices, creates an calming space within what I can assume to be a heady fast-paced building of business. Https://aila.awardsplatform.com/gallery/DPJzDmPY/PgqppVBy?search=b1189b28b4d77096-36

Dry Garden Poetry Santa Cruz Mountains, Arterra Landscape Architects  I was stuck by the spatial distinctions between the arid plants, hard landscaping vertical plans and buildings. Here I feel natural sparseness between typically desert plants has been used to allow breathing space between the different garden elements. The rectanlinear building work is mirrored by rectangular pathways throughout the garden, seperated by the gravel and sand which would typically denote the negative spaces between wild plants in arid and desert landscapes. Whereas in other gardens, lack of bodacious borders might suggest poor garden maintenance or design, here creates a calm flow and subtle softening/complimenting of hard built edges. Www.asla.org/2023awards/7742

 Visited an exhibition at Messums at Tisbury, Dorset, showcasing heavy metals and art noveau artist Albert Paley. The gentle flow of the heavy and seemingly unyielding iron and the way his sculptures 'perform dances at every angle' was a delight. And such fine craftsmanship and care when working with and orchestrating his pieces. Of particular interest were the drawings, which share the same stunning visual effects and energy of the final pieces. I found I learnt alot about representing landscape architectural forms from both the drawn and ironworks. The exhibition is open until 14 January 2024.

 Task: get tipsy, eat some chocolate. Reflection: nice effect created when the ink disperpated along the plastic chocolate sleeve, and so could be 'printed' onto paper to create a blurred line-dot effect. Moody and atmospheric, perhaps making a good distant backdrop. 

 Task: compile some techniques and ideas discovered over the first weeks of uni, and practise by just drawing from imagination.  Reflection: very enjoyable applying and crossing over techniques from G.W.Ried and book Drawing Techniques for Landscape Architecture 1. Wanted to incorporate an entrance of some kind, and it worked well to draw without time limit or pressure. Would theme the top of gateway slightly better to the rest of the wall.

 Task: create different cartridge paper sketch models over 5 mins each in response to 'design briefs' made up of 2-3 words/criteria.  Reflection: very freeing to have created something in such a short time, and more so to be taking the designs on as a concept. It's very easy to worry too much about the details of an idea early and take it nowhere. And so this task helped to break that habit. 

 First practise with Inkintense Block paints/inks 

 Inspired by Helix Bridge, Singapore, I imagined a garden space which continues the twining of the metalwork bridge into urban greenspace