• Garden grotto design can help save planet Earth

    Updated: 2010-08-30 05:37:25
    The Fantastic Cave Landscape with Odysseus & Calypso was painted by Jan Brueghel The Elder with Hendrick de Clerck. It looks the other way about, but its theme is the seduction of Odysseus by Calypso. Boccaccio, writing in the mid-fourteenth century, uses a grotto in one of his tales: …. “he let himself down thereby [...]

  • Does Leeds Castle have the lovliest castle garden in England?

    Updated: 2010-08-26 06:54:14
    No. It does not. Leeds Castle gets enormous and well-deserved publicity as ‘the lovliest castle in England’ and is crowded with visitors paying £17.50 each in 2010. My guide book says the garden is Grade II listed. If correct, this is ridiculous. The designed landscape around the castle should be Grade I+++ listed. The riverside garden [...]

  • UIA Press Release: Institute of Architects Pakistan Flood Relief Fund

    Updated: 2010-08-24 19:25:03
    Author: UIA General Secretariat The Institute of Architects of Pakistan Disaster Relief Fund requests contributions. Donations can be directly transferred into the IAP Flood Relief Account: ============= Fund Account No. 1005-0081-024396-02-7 Bank Al Habib Zamzama Branch, DHA, Karachi 75500 Pakistan SWIFT CODE: BAHLPKKA ============== Contributors may also ‘adopt’ a village or contribute a house – [...]

  • Trinidad and Tobago’s Construction’s fragile state causes worry

    Updated: 2010-08-24 17:24:21
    Published: 24 Aug 2010 Author: The President, Arch. Mark Raymond Trinidad & Tobago Institute of Architects ———— Architects are deeply concerned about the current fragile state of the construction sector. At the commencement of the recent boom, the last administration initiated projects and engaged the construction sector only to peremptorily drop it in favour of [...]

  • NASA space settlements as garden suburbs

    Updated: 2010-08-21 07:30:59
    Thank you to Jack Varga (on Larch-L) for drawing attention to Nasa’s ideas on space colonies (see explanation and examples). They remind me of Sarah Eberle’s built example at the 2007 Chelsea Flower Show. But the Nasa examples are oddly suburban, as if humans would invest in travelling the universe to enjoy the delights [...]

  • Romantic new cafe garden and elegant architecture in London’s Chiswick Park?

    Updated: 2010-08-19 07:00:20
    I have always had a soft spot for Chiswick House and Park: my Mum used to play there; it is a key project in William Kent’s design progress; it is the only park or garden in the world where a uniformed official has told me that ‘you can ride your bicycle here if you want [...]

  • Has London gotta lotta bottle? – or too many garks?

    Updated: 2010-08-15 06:49:43
    The Urban Dictionary gives these meanings for ‘bottle’: 1)Transparent Container, usually for liquids that is narrow, circular-based, mostly handle-less and with an ever-narrowing top, where the opening is found. 2) To hit someone on the head with a glass bottle, smashing the bottle in the process. 3) Guts or determination 4) Female with no volouptous features, in comparison to [...]

  • Postmodern landscape architecture by Peter Walker and Partners?

    Updated: 2010-08-12 06:43:10
    Sometimes, I wonder if landscape architects have borrowed my diagram of the postmodern style and scanned it into their computers. But since this design for a reflecting pool and fountains at Children’s Park and Pond in San Diego, California (by Peter Walker) won an an ALSA award in 1998 it would be better to [...]

  • Global warming and cultivation of the grape vine in England

    Updated: 2010-08-08 07:30:33
    When John Harvey became President of the Garden History Society, in 1984, the great medieval historian suggested bringing back the grape vine as an ornamental plant. He explained that: ‘From very early times until the eighteenth century the vine was one of our chief garden plants, quite apart from attempts to make wine in England [...]

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