The new building was supposed to be on the site of the house next door, the one in which I had lived when I first started the job. This was very close to the bungalow beyond, which was one of the reasons why I was sceptical about getting it past planning, particularly as it was the size of the Queen Mary. It would be accessed through the gate to the the house, which would be demolished, and its front entrance would point to the single-track road that was our access. The remainder of the building would then lead back most of the depth of the garden, leaving a narrow strip separating it from the neighbours in the bungalow, and a slightly larger area behind with views out on to my planned seaside garden, beyond which was a whole estate of bungalows which I would need to screen the monster from. Or screen from the monster.
The other and largest area to be landscaped was the piece which lay where the old fruit cage had stood, and which separated the Main House, the historic part of the property where the artists had lived, from the new edifice. My priorities were to create leisure space, creative space, links between the two contrasting themes (the old and the new buildings) and also a screen to hide the one from the other. It seemed that we had given priority to ensuring that our historic property was not infringed upon by the vast modern building we were proposing, but hadn't taken into account that the people next door might have a similar wish not to have our enormous ship overlooking them or shading out their garden.
The screen/link I was charged with creating was to extend almost the entire depth of the garden from North to South from the corner of the tennis court to the back gate, at which point I would need to link it into the seaside garden which lay to the east behind the building.
The scheme I came up with involved a single central grass path which snaked in quite tight curves from one side of the area to the other, and from which four separate circular grassed enclosures were placed. These were in two pairs diagonally opposite each other along the length of the path, and the whole arrangement was delineated by borders of thickly planted tall bamboos, which eventually, with other plantings of grasses and foliage plants would screen each area from all the others. The job of hiding the new building from the old would be achieved partly by the bamboos which would grow to five or six metres tall, and partly by carefully-spaced trees which would reach out above the scheme, softening the profile of the building. These would be chosen for their bark effect, and the bamboos would be maintained to show off their stem colour by removing lower leaves, but allowing the upper and perimeter parts to look lush and do their job screening one area from another.
The first photograph I have to show, characteristically marked out by my slots of removed turf, shows a small circle surrounded by a path. This path in fact would connect to a new path down the side of the tennis court to link the old house with the new, and would continue across to the front entrance of the archive in its new site. By turning right from this, and following the circular path, you would be led to the meandering path between the contemplative circular lawns down to the far end, where, off to the left, you would find the seaside garden and leisure areas. The initial circle you see in the foreground would be planted with a tree and small Pittosporums for the time being, but I had hopes of turning it into a spectacular water feature to contribute to the theme of sound, this being a garden planned for composers.
You can see that as well as my other winter work, I had also demolished the old tool shed and redistributed its contents into the garage at the main house, which involved a lot of work creating racking for all the tools, etc. The string shows the central axis required, which was quite different from the original orientation which had no real focus. On removing the hedge to the left, the ground plan of the two neighbouring houses would join into one, and this new repositioning would work.
On the left of the picture you can see the cut-out for the path leading to the front entrance of the new archive, and only slightly beyond it the beginnings of the serpentine path which would lead visitors through the maze of bamboo. It is clear from this that the path would wander from side to side in quite a dramatic way, thus deliberately slowing down passage through the scheme, to encourage contemplation. These were not shallow curves. The first two circular enclosed lawns were already marked out at this stage too, although they are not obvious from the photo. One was just off the path in front of the small shed, which would disappear in time, and be moved to the compost area to hold my necessary composting tools, mainly a fork and a shovel. The other was over to the right, diagonally opposite the first, across the meandering path. The other two 'lawns of deep thought' would be further down beyond the shed, set up similarly to the first two. I had also marked them on the ground.
The proximity to the white bungalow next door is clear in the next picture -
Imagine a new structure that would stand on the original site of the brick house, though slightly wider and several times longer, and approaching twice the height. How naive was it to expect that to get through planning? Nevertheless, I plugged on with my work, because that was what I had been asked to do.
No comments:
Post a Comment