HOUSE (AND GARDEN) FOR MINER (OR FARMER) - Arnold Arboretum, Boston, Massachusetts
In this studio, the premise was the creation of a garden for a miner or a farmer. The study site was an old quarry situated within the Arnold Arboretum in Boston. Having the miner persona in mind, I decided to create a rock garden where one might expect a planted garden. In doing so, I suggested explosives be used as a sculpting tool, the blasted rocks and the holes they leave behind serving as sculptural landscape elements. These explosives were to be detonated in a predetermined configuration, likely a bit more brutal and less elegant than the precise touch Gutzon Borglum exhibited in sculpting Mount Rushmore, but planned nonetheless. The blastings would be contained tidily within a carved rectangle. My intent was to create a contrast between the organic qualities of the multi-faceted rocks and crisp geometry of the rectangle border. The rock garden could manifest itself in different forms such as a reflecting pool after a rain storm.
A crevasse has been carved into the rock outcropping at its narrowest width linking the garden to the house nested in the bedrock. This primary corridor to the residence perpetuates the theme of different rock environments. In this case, the cool, shear and perhaps damp walls reminding the landscape user that this is a landscape both on top of and within the earth.
This early project marked the beginning of my interest in landscapes created both by design and by chance together. This interest continues as I pursue my curiosity about computer-generated randomization of textural noises we see in the growing presence of procedural-based modeling.
