ADJACENT GARDENS (three into one)
The project concerns the (re-)design of three adjacent gardens inside a closed urban block of monumental canal houses.
Each garden is individually laid out as a graphic pattern on the ground. Each self-contained pattern reflects the specific spatial and/or formal condition of the garden and house and conforms to existing elements that are to be preserved, like for example the old apple trees. Each pattern is materialized into different textures and colors that change over the seasons.
One is a transit-zone, to be accessed form the rear street: long colorful lines flow from the street, materializing into large arrows that indicate how to go and which define several specific, outwardly orientated places.
The other is an in-between: large steps following the gentle slope of the existing garden, opening out into the purple, lavender planted patio. Each step is materialized differently, like a series of small terraces.
The third, in a way, is the mirror image of the first (or vice versa): long lines flow from the building and bent organically, defining a specific, inwardly orientated place, touching the garden in-between, flowing back into the building and through the building onto the canal.
So three different individual patterns intertwine, formally as well as materially; three individual gardens melting into one. Not incomparable with the row of individual houses on the canal, they suggest that certain casual, but often latent continuity that characterizes urban space.
