installation
For the last few months, the Getty Villa in Malibu, Calif., has hosted a special exhibit called "Stories in Stone," which is all about the nature, preservation and conservation of stone mosaics found in the ancient Roman cities of North Africa. Even a quick walk through the halls is enough to show why these art objects speak to us across the millennia: Their colors are vivid, their decorative capacity is amazing, their durability is unrivalled and their sheer beauty is a delight even to the unschooled eye. At best, tile mosaics of any caliber are both aesthetic and functional, timeless and contemporary, subtle and dramatic. They are also versatile - interior or exterior, commercial or residential - and have long been among the very best media available to designers and architects looking to infuse their work with the
For the last few months, the Getty Villa in Malibu, Calif., has hosted a special exhibit called "Stories in Stone," which is all about the nature, preservation and conservation of stone mosaics found in the ancient Roman cities of North Africa. Even a quick walk through the halls is enough to show why these art objects speak to us across the millennia: Their colors are vivid, their decorative capacity is amazing, their durability is unrivalled and their sheer beauty is a delight even to the unschooled eye. At best, tile mosaics of any caliber are both aesthetic and functional, timeless and contemporary, subtle and dramatic. They are also versatile - interior or exterior, commercial or residential - and have long been among the very best media available to designers and architects looking to infuse their work with the
There's something intriguing about heavy objects that float on water. In our daily lives, we often see traditional fountains made with utterly huge pieces of stone, but as gorgeous and compelling as those systems can be, it's the ones in which that stone moves that are the most fascinating of all. The very idea that you can move a massive piece of granite with just the slightest touch of a hand is simply mesmerizing. These floating objects become centerpieces immediately - a fact that has led to their proliferation in plazas and other public spaces around the
Elegance, romance, subtlety, tranquility: All these words speak to a potential of watershaping that is realized far too infrequently. If ever there were a common detail that typifies these missed opportunities, I'd have to give the prize to the standard waterfall/waterwall effects seen on too many pools and other watershapes these days. I can think of nothing less compelling than the typical sheet of water spilling down the face of a wall or in front of some other structure on its way into a pool or spa. This look is not only overused, but
With greater force than ever before, water conservation is back on the minds of governments, landscape professionals and property owners these days - and for good reason: The combination of growing demand and recurring periods of drought has sensitized people in many parts of the country to the fact that water isn't an infinite resource. Even this new magazine is part of the dialogue: In the September/October 2006 issue of LandShapes, James Minnich defined the need for landshapers to become more
We live in a multi-dimensional world. Most people understand that space has three dimensions: height, width and depth. But relatively few people look at color in the same way - that is, as a three dimensional phenomenon. Understanding these three dimensions of color can become the key to unlocking your creativity as a designer. We began our study of color in LandShapes' May/June issue ("Designing in Color," click here), where we explored the scientific nature of color and its first dimension - hue, the name of a color (red, yellow, blue, orange, green or violet) - and learned that each hue has a temperature range (from warm to cool). We also learned that all six hues may be organized and better understood through the use of a helpful tool developed by color scientists called the color wheel. We will now continue our study of color by exploring the second and third dimensions of color and then by discussing contrast, analogous and complementary colors and color harmony. This will enable us to begin applying these fundamentals as landshapers and see in practical terms how understanding these fundamentals can help us become better
It has always bothered me a bit that designers tend to restrict their thinking to just the physical area that fits the definition of their design specialty. Landscape designers stick to outdoor spaces and interior designers work on interior ones - and seldom the twain shall meet. To my way of thinking, that's shortsighted - which is just one of the reasons I'm both a landscape designer and an interior designer. I would argue that, when it is appropriate, professionals on both sides of the divide need to open their eyes and work with the visual flow through and between clients' interior and exterior spaces to achieve optimal design results. As landscape professionals, we already accept the importance of the "borrowed view," a wonderful term used to describe the deliberate capturing of other properties' assets by creating living or artificial frameworks that make them an artistic component of our clients' landscapes. If we are good at capturing neighboring views for our landscapes, I'd suggest it's a short step to make certain that we achieve the same sorts of wonderful views between the
Inspiration - literally, the breath of an idea - can come from any number of sources. While studying the work of 20th-century designer Beatrix Farrand at Dumbarton Oaks in Washington, D.C., for example, I spotted the planting combination of climbing pillar rose and Wisteria and thought her brilliant for having covered the woody Wisteria stems with rose flowers and
It's amazing how the traditions of art and craft tracing back through centuries still inform today's designs. That's particularly true in the field of garden ornamentation, where modern statuary, fountains, vases and seating elements take their cues from original works found in ancient Greece and China, in Renaissance Italy and France - and from just about every other era and location around and between. This depth of available imagery is both a boon and a challenge to those in the business of supplying garden ornaments to today's architects, landscape architects, watershapers and their clients. There's just
Every year, it seems, I'm asked to teach more and more classes on how to build streams, waterfalls and ponds that look natural. I enjoy conducting these sessions for local supply houses, landscape architecture firms, community colleges and other organizations and find it flattering that they value what I know. My motivation for sharing, however, is less about ego gratification than it is about my awareness that there's no way a single company can build all of the naturalistic watershapes consumers want these days. To me, it's a matter of collective as well as personal interest that these watershapes be built to function well and look great. In Colorado in particular, I also see a need for work that appears completely and distinctly natural, simply because most clients here are accustomed to seeing remarkable beauty in the countless alpine settings that grace this beautiful state. Indeed, it's a fact of professional life here that the work must mimic nature closely or it just won't fly. That can be very good for business, of course, but only if more than a few professionals hereabouts are up to the challenge. Available projects range from those that use thousands of
