SGD Spring Conference 2011

From a background in architecture, Christopher’s gardens and landscapes are designed with an underlying philosophy to discover and reveal the purity of space through mathematically harmonious proportions. Using classical geometry and inspiration from contemporary architecture, he creates minimalist gardens and public spaces that capture an abstracted essence of a place.  

Describing his work as “exploring the art of landscape design”, his rigorous approach features natural materials used to achieve a hierarchy of layered details to articulate space and function.  His planting style fuses an architectural use of trees and hedges with drifts of perennials and grasses selected for their structure, naturalistic character and mutual compatibility.

Juan Grimm trained as an architect in Chile, before becoming a landscape architect; a switch brought about through an empathy with nature. He is driven by “a constant search for perfection, which I have only found in Nature”, as well as a very personal aim to understand, revive and retain this perfection. 

From creating playgrounds in the courtyard of his childhood home, he now uses design to facilitate a dialogue between the topography and vegetation of a site and the spatial structure of his gardens.  The focus of his work is this relationship, which he exploits by including the surroundings, using borrowed landscapes or creating an open space that is inspired by its wider landscape. 

www.juangrimm.cl        Click here for Juan's presentation with transcript 

Ian Kitson studied landscape architecture in 1973; he was taught for 4 years with the exception of 7 minutes when he was educated by Geoffrey Jellicoe. The prospect of designing Tesco car parks for the rest of his working life encouraged change. With no intention of wanting to be an architect he took a degree in architecture and with no intention of wanting to restore period gardens he took a post graduate diploma in the conservation of historic parks and gardens.

Ian is known for his free-flowing, organic style inspired by the wider landscapes surrounding the gardens he designs. He believes this approach to be “a very precise way of both solving problems and also creating powerful identities for garden and landscape spaces”.

www.iankitson.com

Arnaud Maurières and Eric Ossart have worked as a team since 1985. During this time, Eric also worked for the International Garden Festival of Chaumont-sur-Loire, while Arnaud became artistic director for the Parisian garden salon L’Art du Jardin and founded the Mediterranean Landscape and Garden school.

Inspired by Luis Barragan, their highly original approach is respectful of the environment and uses the concept of the oasis as the perfect organization of garden space, and they have explored this model in their work in France, Morocco and Mexico.

John Wyer has spent the last twenty-five years combining a successful practice of garden design with landscape architecture on a huge variety of sites and locations from Taiwan to the 13th floor of a London tower block. John looks at design in terms of space, not style. His philosophy of design is that it is as much about the detail as about the broad stroke in the way that planes and junctions come together, and in the relationships between shapes and levels. John’s innovative work has won many awards including the BALI Grand Award 2010.

www.bowleswyer.co.uk/