Garden review: miNiaTURE Garden Show, The Strand Gallery, London (Part 2)

Following the first half of my miNiATURE Garden Show review, here's the second instalment and a look at its success.

Five more designs held the stage. 

Over Under, by Myles Baldwin. A garden to maximise green space, with a shady area below, a mezzanine level (where the figures are) and a green roof. We weren't the only people to spot a resemblance to Tracy Island, but curator Tom Harfleet doubted whether Thunderbirds' influence had stretched as far as Australia.  

Downstairs, we found Full Circle? by Andy Sturgeon. A garden of cone-shaped crystalline forms, blackened on the outside by man's destruction of the environment, but perfect inside, gilded to represent the value we should put on our plant life, as we (and wildlife) rely on it for food, medicine and climate.

 

To Die For, by Wilson McWilliam Studio. Really stretching possibilities, the design aims to reproduce the sense of danger found on cliff edges, waterfalls and mountain tops and those are meant to be full grown trees in the abyss. It certainly made me feel a little queasy, thinking about standing on top of the real thing.

They also wanted to point out that "no model figures were harmed or injured in the making of this garden"...

 

 

Coast, by Jim Fogarty. The shelter in the centre of the garden represents a water molecule under pressure and the bursting bubble of overdevelopment. The stripy ribbon sculpture represents a beach towel and human interaction with beach environments. Water echoes the sound of waves and natural planting recalls the sand dunes.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Creek End, by John Brookes.  This design is based on an actual garden that was built in 2012 in America, making the link between the house and its view of an inlet from the sea. This, with Adam Frost's A World in 21st Century Stone, took the prize for a classically well-proportioned design that instantly pleased.

So, some attractive designs and an enjoyable world in close-up, but were the designers ultimately successful in fulfilling the intention of the show? This is what it was meant to do:

"The aim of miNiATURE is to enable designers to move away from designs that have limitations such as restricted budgets, planting season or focus on awards and to instead give the opportunity to experiment and explore innovative designs through the media [sic] of 3D printing along with traditional modelling."

Well, what struck me forcefully as I trotted round was that it felt very like a Lilliputian version of Chelsea and Hampton Court. To Die For, which looks to to be the only one to have used 3D printing throughout - and about which Wilson and McWilliam are quoted as saying, "We feel able to explore ideas that would either be impossible in reality or unfeasible perhaps because of cost or the construction challenge." - was really the only design that seemed to take the show's intent to heart.

Several of the designs, like Sarah Eberle's, we were told, had already been worked out for other purposes, even though they'd never made it to fruition. 3D printing offers the chance for curves and shapes that would be difficult to model in other ways (Jo Thompson's spiral staircase would have been a headache without it) but there are quite a few linear, blocky constructions that presented few flights of fancy.

John Brookes produced a version of an existing garden and is quoted as saying, "3D doesn't affect how I work at all. I think that you could say that I am not computer orientated!" Which, I hate to say, completely misses the point.

I did wonder if the actual software was a brake on creativity - if you don't know the software well, then you're limited to the design tools you understand. And if everyone's using the same tools, the danger must be that a similar feel emerges.

But garden designer and one of the exhibition's curators, Tom Harfleet assured me not. Some of the designers hired someone to translate their design into CAD (which was then fed into the 3D printer), others handed over their paper design to the curators and they sorted it out.

It was with a view to gaining media attention that the decision was made to invite ten of the world's leading garden designers to submit ideas but in the midst of this elevated company I have to admit to a degree of disappointment. This is not to say that a lot of the designs weren't very engaging - I'd be more than happy to walk round Full Circle?, A World of 21st Century Stone, Stage and Over Under. And It works, to an extent, as a show to demonstrate the potential of 3D printing, but not as a show of unlimited imagination. Tom wasn't shy in calling Chelsea Flower Show "stagnant". And I wonder if this tiny Chelsea hasn't made a rather large point.

Are our big designers so tuned to the needs and demands of large shows with their focus on advertising the industry, so used to restricting a garden to an individual brief, and so focussed on the criteria most likely to win awards, that flights of fancy and gardening innovation are out of the question?

Perhaps it's unrealistic to expect any garden design to look very much different from what we see now - the only tweaks being whether the look is trad or contemporary, stone or steel and perspex. Much debate recently, especially on Thinkingardens, has centred around the need to recognise gardens as art, to elevate their standing.

What can we say if, given the chance to do anything at all, designers come out with more of the same?

It will be interesting to see how the show develops. This is, after all, the first attempt - as 3D printing's possibilities are explored further, perhaps designers will find it easier to break out. As the show goes on a world tour, more gardens will be added, before returning to England later in the year. And next year, if it happens again, the show will be an open competition, which might see some very different designs in the offing.

What do you think? Am I being harsh, or has this show exposed a restricted mindset that is an inherent problem in the ascendancy of garden design?

More photos at City Planter's The World's Smallest Garden Show.

Comments

[Andrew Wilson]

Interesting commentary! Thank you.

[Helen]

You're welcome!