Let the building begin!

Late October on the site. With snow!

Phase 1

The construction of the garden has been split in to three phases :

Phase 1 : Hard landscaping - including paths, areas for planting and lighting.

Phase 2:  Main permanent features, such as the water feature and benches.

Phase 3 : Other features, such as planting and artworks.

At the moment the project has enough funds to finance Phase 1, 

but needs to raise more to realise the rest of the garden. 

We are looking for sponsors if any potential donors are reading this!

Please get in touch!

The image above is a draughtsman's scale drawing for Phase 1, for the building contractors,  local company Elphistone and Howard , to work with.

Etching designs

The garden space will be partly paved using Enviroglass Slabs, which everyone seemed to like. Enviroglass are a local company mainly producing concrete slabs in which recycled glass is the main ingredient.

The CS Team visited the Enviroglass Workshop during their research outings and were given a really interesting tour of the production line.

The slabs can look great when the glass is revealed and allowed to sparkle, which is achieved by burning off the top surface of the slab with acid. I returned to Enviroglass armed with some stencilling materials and assisted by Chris, who manages the workshop,  played explored ways we could transfer designs onto the slabs, through  the etching process. 

Our intention is to transfer a selection of designs and texts produced during the workshops, onto the slabs in the garden space.  

New plans....

Sketches and plans for the space

 based on ideas and thoughts 

from the Created Space Team workshops. 

We discovered that

 the whole housing cluster

 has been named 'Arheim',

 which apparently means 

'by the stream'.....

 a curious co-incidence... 

as we have included a long 

moving water feature in the design.

Some of the team......

The garden takes shape

Shetland Birds

by Natasha

Shetland flooers

By Zandra and Darren

Moving on.....

Yarns

Inspired by Barbara's fabulous work we played with yarn.

Barbara Ridland

Today Textile Artist Barbara Ridland came and showed us her work
thank you Barbara! it was very inspiring and helpful for the garden

sketching up the garden

Here's a quick run through the process used to sketch up this draft
design with a little help from a drawing by Robbie!!


1..Go visit site!


2.. Do some drawings of what could go in the garden


3.. how might that look all planned out ??

4..Make it a little bit more 3D!

5..Tidy it up a little
And there you have the beginnings of
a garden design!

Plans : Draft 1

These plans outline a possible overall layout for the garden. Please note that the artworks and main features included are only rough suggestions for designs to help give an idea of how the space might look on completion. 

The materials selected in the plan for the hard landscaping are also at this time just a starting point for discussion and costs will be an important consideration. We are currently awaiting price quotes from several suppliers of paving slabs etc. 

Let us know what you think!  

All comments very much appreciated. 

Working drawings

Drawing on the the material gathered from everyones contributions during the July workshops, Kristi and I played around with some ideas for the garden space. Here are a few of the 'sketches' we came up with.

Summertime blues and pinks and yellows and......

A bunch of flowers for everyone who has been waiting patiently for the next stage. Inspired by quirky Swiss artist duo Fischli Weiss,  this image is a fusion of two photos taken in a garden in St Ives, in Cornwall where I have been working : growing flowers from seed,  to cut and arrange in a GP surgery in the town. 

Ikea - eat your heart out!

                         Hannah's garden furniture range

Model garden

During Saturday the garden model developed further: areas for seating, and best places for planting and other features perhaps like a pond, had been identified. Ideas also bubbled up to the surface for motifs and themes for artworks.

Watch this space! 

Plantlife

A selection of plants borrowed from Cope nursery which were described as 'pretty hardy' and 

therefore might be good choices for the Quoys garden. Janet, who works there, kindly let us borrow these to bring to make a temporary garden in the workshop studio space at the college.

Superfood

An edible bracelet harvested from the cress garden we sowed on day one.  Is it only me who thinks it looks a bit like a map of Shetland?

row row row your boat

Hannah's pond....... spot the goldfish and frog!

Isn't plasticine great!