Interesting how we take cues from landscape details.
The conventional approach to protect plants from careless pedestrians is to raise the beds above path level. Here the beds are sunk below. There’s no physical barrier to walking off the path, which makes us pay more attention to the edges. If we don’t want to fall into the thorns we’d better look where we’re going.
Another effect of raising the walks is to make the soil surface more mysterious. Is it soft or hard, wet or dry, a few inches down or more? Together with the associations we make with wooden walks, this makes it easy to imagine that we’re in a wetland. But as it happens, the site is in Paris, somewhat above street level, and they’re growing roses.
Deborah Howe
Toby Wolf
Nice. I like how the plants’ looseness keeps your perception hovering — is the boardwalk field and the plant beds ground, or vice versa?
This has either an urban feel or suggests that the board walks keep one out of wetlands below.
Interesting how we take cues from landscape details.
The conventional approach to protect plants from careless pedestrians is to raise the beds above path level. Here the beds are sunk below. There’s no physical barrier to walking off the path, which makes us pay more attention to the edges. If we don’t want to fall into the thorns we’d better look where we’re going.
Another effect of raising the walks is to make the soil surface more mysterious. Is it soft or hard, wet or dry, a few inches down or more? Together with the associations we make with wooden walks, this makes it easy to imagine that we’re in a wetland. But as it happens, the site is in Paris, somewhat above street level, and they’re growing roses.