Designed for the 2005 Channel 4’s Great Garden Challenge. A contemporary garden inspired by natural elements... Fire Water Wind and Earth.
Competing against one other team, we had three days in which to build the "Garden of Divine Elements". My team mate and helper was Andy Ramus, an architect who specializes in wonderful glass structures. He engineered a fantastic glass cube, a sort of sunken room in the centre of the garden, from which to sit and soak up the lush green foliage surrounding it.
We won the competition and are now through to the quarter finals, so are busy with the next design! In the meantime, please visit the Channel 4 Great Garden Challenge website for more information.
Continuing the theme of the elements, I designed 'Fallingwater – a homage to Frank Lloyd Wright' for the Quarter finals of the Great Garden Challenge.
Inspired by Frank Lloyd Wright’s masterpiece ‘Fallingwater’ in Pennsylvania, I aimed to create a contemporary water garden using striking horizontal plains of the cantilevered glass waterfall emphasized by strong vertical planting.
We won the Quarter finals and are now heading for the semi final...
For the Semi finals I wanted to continue with the theme of the elements and create a beautiful, warm, inviting fire garden – 'Incandescence'.
This garden was inspired by a volcano, with a copper fire pit at its core to toast your toes (or marshmallows) by! Six copper citronella oil lamps keep the bugs at bay, and a wonderful concrete circle ‘lava flow’ provides a convivial seating area that absorbs the heat of the day and keeps your bottom (and bottle of wine) warm in the evening. This is a garden bursting with warmth, passion, energy, friendship and life.
Sadly, here our luck ended. We were squarely beaten by the 'Pie Boys'... but, just a few months into my professional career I feel that I have done well to get so far and feel happy to have had the opportunity to create three wonderful gardens... I was also not entirely sure where the theme for my next garden 'Wind' would take me... mind boggles.