Chaumont Garden Design: Group Project

 "For me, a landscape does not exist in its own right, since its appearance changes at any moment." - Claude Monet

I am lucky enough to be classed as one of the courses which have been allowed to return to university this week, it feels so good to be back in the design studio and my first day back consisted of playing around with design ideas for a group project. We have been assigned to choose a garden design competition, to which we chose Chaumont-Sur-Loire International Garden Festival. 

The concept given for this years garden design is Biomimicry, in which we explored different ideas within that concept. Before we met to design the garden, I thought I would do some research into the concept and find more ideas I could use within a design. The main reoccurring idea which I decided to roll with was the idea that the golden ratio is displayed within every living thing. 

The golden ratio is shown within plants, flowers and animals, as well as being evident in many more things. I thought it was really interesting how noticeable the concept was in certain objects, and how you had to search for it within others. From this concept, I decided to try and put it into the site. I started by drawing the site outline for the garden, before placing the golden ratio spiral on top and moving it to see where it would fit best within the site. 

I then played around with the concept more to see how the shape could turn into elements such as planting or pathways, and how other elements would fit around the shape such as trees and shrubs. 

When I showed the ideas I had created to the rest of the group I felt like they liked the concept and for a while, we played around with how the shape could perhaps be water, or if the levels of the site could slowly go down as you went in the spiral. Being back in the studio and throwing ideas around as a group felt amazing. We did decide in the end to go with a more indirect approach towards the golden ratio idea, however, I'm not sure if I'm allowed to start showing that just yet.