Featured Show Gardens
Fleming’s and Trailfinder’s Australian Garden presented by Melbourne, Victoria
Garden in the Silver Moonlight
Awards
This garden was awarded
Silver
Studio Lasso
Garden in the Silver Moonlight
Designers: Haruko Seki, Makoto Saito (add.locus architects)
Contractor: Generating Gardens
Sponsors: Royal Palm Residences Seychelles, Urban Regenerate Association of Niigata
Supported by: The Great Britain Sasakawa Foundation,The Japan Society
The garden is inspired by the architectural features of the Katsura Imperial Villa in Kyoto and it is designed as a contemporary interpretation of traditional Japanese concepts, such as a ‘succession of various sequential views’ and ‘capturing changing scenery alive’. The garden particularly focuses on the moon that is reflected and captured in a pond, to be looked at from a viewing platform.
In the middle of the pond the moon appears by shot-blasted glass lit from the bottom of the water in the daytime. On 20 May, the real full moon will appear in the evening and will be reflected onto the pond and viewed from the platform at the highest point of the garden.
The garden is structured by a white stone pathway and viewing platform at the highest point. The curved path that leads finally to the platform travels first alongside water, then up a slope to a bamboo woodland. A wider decking path is surrounded by numerous bamboo sticks. The first line of the path leads people through the dark woodland of Japanese cypress trees, and the second line of pathway directs to the view of bamboo woodland behind the platform.
The dark woodland, as a backdrop to the garden, is mainly composed of cypress that is seen in shrines and temples in Japan, and provides a secluded atmosphere. The planting colour scheme is silver-grey, and silver foliages complements silver-grey hard materials. The contrast between dark green of background trees and subtle atmosphere of ornamental grasses and the marginal plants provide special character to the garden.
The garden is created as an art form that stimulates the five senses, and is created by the collaboration of the following designers and artists from Japan and UK: Masako Shiraishi (sculpture), Shinichiro Ito/Miyazaki Prefecture Parks Foundation (planting design), Motoki Hirai & John Pearce (music), and Makoto Tanaka who made a great contribution to the competition stage.