Monthly Archives: May 2012

It isn't just wildlife that's experiencing a shrinking of habitat. With 7 billion humans now on the planet, the space between us for sprawling flat gardens is diminishing rapidly as well.

The future of gardens isn't out but up. Exploiting non-traditional green spaces and otherwise reforesting urbanized hardscape, indoors or out, makes for exciting new possibilites.

A vegetable garden constructed from rain gutters:

The jungly offices of Herman Miller:

For the love of Ivy: Princeton, New Jersey.

There are places and moments of such an absolute beauty that no words are needed.

And that kind of place is a garden. As opposed to going somewhere with the purpose of doing something, a garden is sanctuary. It's the ultimate nowhere.

A garden is a place for contemplation, but it's also a place for not thinking. Ideally, it's a place for feeling: To feel the wind and sun and gravel under your feet, to smell the flowers and soil and nature. And for seeing—not just with eyes, but everything.

A place to walk without a destination; A walk for walking's sake.

A meandering path a la Andrea Cochran:

"What I like doing best is Nothing," said Christopher Robin.
"How do you do Nothing?" asked Pooh, after he had wondered for a long time.
"Well, it's what people call out at you just as you're going off to do it, What are you going to do, Christopher Robin, and you say, Oh, Nothing, and then you go and do it."
"Oh, I see," said Pooh.
"This is a nothing sort of thing that we're doing now.""Oh, I see," said Pooh again. "It means just going along, listening to all the things you can't hear, and not bothering."

Form The Tao of Pooh by Benjamin Hoff

Nowhere is good. It's some of the best space on earth.

Designers design. Clients expect something designerly and magical. In the process a designer is often tempted to leave some of him/herself behind. Actors might call this chewing up the scenery. For a designer it's more like a spitting out, leaving his/her DNA all over the place. It's an affliction that effects young designers especially. It's not necessarily a bad thing, the only test worth considering is whether the work is good. In making the case for restraint, great industrial designer Dieter Rams said: "Good design is as little design as possible." (See here for Rams's Ten Principles of Good Design.) Interior designer Ettore Sottsass said the best decoration is a kind of "ritual whisper."

But not everyone is looking for a whisper. For those who prefer their design with a louder voice, there's plenty of support for that too.

The image above from Elle Decor's A-list of Top 25 Decorators. (See more here.) Not to decry design that is designerly, minimalism and reductivism present a different ambiance. As a vibe it's a whole other frequency. There are always many possible solutions for good design, Dieter Rams aside.

A room from legendary interior decorator Albert Hadley:

Hadley creates a spirited conversation with texture, bold patterns, shocks of color, and material contrasts: Like a family discussing politics during a holiday dinner.

Now, for something completely different: The infamous Lower East Side apartment of MoMA curator Klaus Biesenbach.

The color scheme is black and white and his decor is nearly non-existent. "Empty" and "vacuum" are some of the words critics have used to describe it. Biesenbach believes the room should frame the spectacular views outside his window, no obstruct it with decoration. The above mentioned Hadley might not agree: “So many people arrange furniture in order to see what’s going on outside. But why? The view isn’t going anywhere.”

It brings to mind the movie cliché of the brilliant scientist who fills his closet with copies of one essential outfit. Here, the quiet, minimal approach seems also to be attempting an ambiance to save valuable brain resources like the brilliant scientist's closet. A piece in the New York Times put it this way:

"I hate design," Mr. Biesenbach will tell you emphatically. When he travels he has the habit of stripping his hotel room of anything that moves (furniture, colored pillows, desktop accessories) and stuffing it all into the closet. "It's a little bit of a curatorial disease," he said. "I like to reduce everything to its surface."

Biesenbach's closet, not unlike the scientist's:

An overview of the space including balcony garden:

After living in an mostly empty apartment, Biesenbach lent an artist friend his apartment for a summer. The friend brought in a white sofa and table and chairs. To offset the potential "clutter," one supposes, the friend painted every other remaining non-white surface white, including the TV and microwave (the TV survived the painting, the microwave didn't).

More on this story here.

Interesting how controversial the apartment is on the interwebs. Some have the called the project "anti-design." Well, if that's what it is it's hostile territory

CBS Sunday Morning spoke with Biesenbach about the apartment:

Humans first experiments with color go back to the caves. The earliest known paintings in caves can be dated to the pre-Neolithic era of 40,000 years ago in Australia and 35,000 in Europe. (The examples below are from Painted Cave in Santa Barbara, CA on the left—earliest sections thought to be 335 years ago—and Lascaux on the right—about 17,300 years ago.)

Colors used were based on whatever could be locally found—charcoal from fire and burnt bones for black, grounded calcite for white, and red and yellow from earth pigments like limonite, hemotite, red ochre, yellow ochre, and umber. Those materials were meaningful: Early painters trekked as much as 25 miles to obtain them.

Interesting to note how committed to style the cave painters were, their vernacular style remained unchanged for 22,000 years.

Forward to the Bronze Age, 1,330 B.C.E. and thereabouts, in Egypt and Greece colors were brighter if still subdued, earth tones still abound. The palette was limited but heavy on the reds and blues.

Below, a rendering of the Megaron at Pylos, Greece: Destroyed in 1,200 BCE the use of primary colors is seen in the tile work. The palette of the frescoes is still limited but the color all around is much bolder.

The Ajanta caves show the early roots of the use of striking color in India. Work on the caves occurred in a period from 100 BCE to 480 CE.

The caves reveal a long relationship of Indian culture to unsubdued color and restrained use of earth tones.

A relationship also reflected in their food.

From 600 - 900 CE tomb painting in China, heavy on the black with red accents, and Bird Man from Mexico and the Toultec who saw bold color as representative of the gods' realm.

Following the long dreary spell of the dark ages, and possibly inspired by the plague, the Renaissance brought the color back in a big way. Left, the early period of Giotto, and right, the high Renaissance of Titian.

In 1613, Jesuit mathematician Françios d'Aguilon published a definitive exploration of color theory that would be of particular interest to painters of the time (Peter Paul Rubens would provide the illustrations). He endorsed the medieval view that yellow, red, and blue were the basic or "noble" hues from which all other colors derived. He also believed that the three "noble" hues were themselves created from a mysterious blending of white and black, or light and dark so that light and dark were the two "simple" or primary colors. The "composite" hues green, orange (gold) and purple (lower curved lines) were mixed from the "noble" triad colors. Many components of this theory were inherited from Greek philosophers.

Optics and color, as was much of the knowledge of the time, was an mysterious admixture of reason, esoteric thought, and magic.

And then later, with Modernism, the rules changed again. Mondrian, Broadway Boogie Woogie, 1943:

Joan Miró, The Nightengale's Song at Midnight and the Morning Rain, 1940:

It seems that many folk art traditions have long understood the power of bold primaries.

An Alebrije, first imagined by Pedro Linares in the 1930s:

In its fashion, primary color swings on a pendulum that often vacillates between the bold and the black and white. Below, a House & Garden pation for the 50s; psychedelic patterns from the 60s; Bowie bulging glam in the 70s; and George Sowden's Pierre Memphis table from the 80s:

The interaction of the primaries creates an energy of its own. Theoretically, color is nothing but the bouncing of light from of a surface and into our retina.

That explains the science but says nothing about the emotional impact or psychology. Why is yellow the irritating color and why does blue calm? And what do they all say when they collaborate together?

A chair pair from Allesandro Mendini, 1978:

Manarola, Italy (and 8 other colorful places here):

Altogether, they're a circus.

The great olive: An essential part of early Mediterranean civilazations. It was featured generously in both the Bible (mentioned 30 times) and the Koran (12 times and referred to by Mohammad as "a blessed tree"). It's a symbol of peace and steadfastness (some trees are known to be over 2,000 years old; one 1,600 year old Croatian tree still produces fruit) as well as strength and sustenance. Its colors are otherworldy and evergreen and its stubbornness against inhospitable heat and dryness have all made it venerated in poetry and metaphor.

There's an old saying, you plant a grapevine for yourself but you plant an olive tree for your grandchildren.

Below, two plantings by northern California designer Andrea Cochran:

The Greeks believe it was Athena, goddess of wisdom and war who gave mankind the divine fruit. The Romans also coveted the precious crop, and later the Venetians shipped it around the Mediterranean from Palestine to Morocco and Spain.

It was olive oil that supplied the fuel that lighted lamps throughout the Middle East during Biblical times and the Nativity. It shouldn't be surprising that olives and their oil have a spiritual significance throughout the Middle East, the oil itself is mentioned in the bible 140 times, the Qur’an and Torah also recording it as symbol of life and fertility.

Two wonderfully symetrical trees stand like sentries on pedestals. Their exquisite backdrop will remain steadfast long after the pool has turned to dust.

Two more Andrea Cochran treatments, below:

Wizened olive nobility decorates this uncovered dining room, and below, the grand dame and her supporting cast:

Olives do well in pots, too. As Mediterranean creatures they prefer warmer climes but for those that live in other zones you'll need to be moved inside during the winter months. They'll need to be acclimated gradually to full sun when returned to the outdoors. In the ground olives will grow 1 - 2 feet a year. Even in a pot they'll need to replanted into larger vessels every couple of years to prevent root overcrowding.

The mini European Olive:

Some poppies providing an understory to the majestic crowns of the olive.

Even when seen from near, the olive shows
A hue of far away. Perhaps for this
The dove brought the olive back, a tree which grows
unearthly pale, which ever dims and dries,
And whose great thirst, exceeding all excess,
Teaches the South it is not paradise.

Richard Wilbur, 1948 (excerpt for Grasse: The Olive Trees where the title of this post also comes)

Public outdoor space is dwindling. The age that brought us the great city parks may be well behind us. But the desire for shared green space remains. What to do?

Rather than hide in their backyards, some enterprising dreamers (disguised as designers and gardeners) have come to save us.

What they do is build green worlds where none existed before. Or sometimes they just better exploit what's already there.

One of the best recent examples of how this might work is High Line.

For decades Staten Island was a place infamous for its stink: Blame Fresh Kills, the world's largest landfill in their midst. Closed to dumping in 2001, plans are now underway to transform this erstwhile effluvium ejector into a lush green space three times the size of Central Park.

This, from Melbourne, Australia:

Macro urban and micro residential:

Barcelona, Spain:

New Orleans:

The size of the garden isn't nearly as important as where it is:

The famous dining plaza of the Hotel Plaza Athénée, Paris:

A concept for Spiral Garden which is to be a self-sufficient vertical public garden as well as a place where social interaction, native vegetation, and urban orchards may coexist. The plan is to build them in cities and run them as a kind of public co-op. More info here.

The proposed vertical Dochodo Island Zoo in Korea:

There's much more to this than merely aesthetics. We don't have to look hard to find more urgent incentives: According to United Nations estimates, 80% of the world's citizens will live in cities by 2050. Swedish architectural firm Plantagon has an idea: The vertical greenhouse.

The greenhouse is a regenerating food bank making food production less costly for consumers and the environment. It also attempts to counter urban sprawl with a self-sufficient alternative. Plantagon's CEO Hans Hassle says this:

Essentially, as urban sprawl and lack of land will demand solutions for how to grow industrial volumes in the middle of the city, solutions on this problem have to focus on high yield per ground area used, lack of water, energy, and air to house carbon dioxide.

More on this here.

Not that aesthetics aren't reason enough.

As George Carlin said, it's not about saving the planet. The planet is fine. It's the people who're f**ked.

Nature will get it back in the end. We may as well give in to it now.

Nothing says modern quite like glass.

Maybe its the transparency and illusion of space it offers or its paradox of fragility and strength. It's smooth fetish-able surface. Taken altogether, they're qualities that make glass architecturally irresistible. Not to mention its sustainability and cost effectiveness when compared to other building materials. And not least: It's completely recyclable.

Maybe, as home dwellers we're a little dog-like; once inside we always crave to look out. We love our shelters but we don't want them to feel like a cages. Glass appeals to that.

Glass has origins going back to the ancient Rome. By the middle ages, stained glass was used to glorious artistic effect in churches, temples, etc; As architectural historian Arthur Korn said, stained glass allowed "a glimpse of paradise in luminous colors from the shadow of the grave."

The Industrial Revolution of the 19th century made glass practical for more than just window panes. In 1851 The Crystal Palace provided both the first extensive use of glass extensively as a construction material and presager for modernist architecture to follow. Created by conservatory designer and head gardener at Chatsworth House Joseph Paxton, the Palace also foreshadowed Modernist architecture. Originally built to stand in London's Hyde Park for The Great Exhibition (later renamed The World's Fair), the Palace, the project was also the first major installation to feature public (pay) toilets. Amazingly, three years later the Palace would be disassembled and relocated to suburban Sydenham Hall in South London. The Palace would eventually be destroyed by fire in 1936.

The Bauhaus, and most significantly Walter Gropius and Mies van der Rohe, would begin a love affair with new Industrial Revolution materials that would feature glass in both architecture and furniture in a big way. As you see from the images posted here, it was an affair that still shows no signs of waning.

The quintessential Bauhaus campus building by Walter Gropius, 1926:

The Kluczynski Federal Building, Chicago, by Mies van der Rohe:

The iconic Glass House by Philip Johnson: According to its website, the structure "is best understood as a pavilion for viewing the surrounding landscape." the Wikipedia page calls it "an essay in minimum structure": Bauhaus by way of Japan.

Sadly, the house has fallen into a state of disrepair necessitating millions of dollars in repairs. Described in its present condition as a mold sponge, its various ailments include peeling tiles, crumbling fixtures, and damage from humidity. Frank Lloyd Wright may've said something once the falling apart being proof of its superior aesthetics but unfortunately I couldn't find any Google corroboration.

In any event, the Glass House helped usher in the International Style to America and influence much of what is posted here.

Natural light is a part of our biological need. Intuitively, we prefer daylight to electric light. It is a perfect white light. And it is, of course, plentiful. Marilyne Andersen, MIT Department of Architecture

Architect Arthur Erikson's Fire Island house:

A glass house in a forest in Thailand:

A school in Japan:

It's been said that a glass exterior can lead to a building’s forming a religious attachment with the environment.

Recent research has shown natural light not can not only have a positive effect on energy consumption but on human well being and productivity as well. Technological advances have made glass more efficient, sustainable, and practical than ever.

It appears glass is no less modern than it ever was.