Future Gardens Unveils Exclusive Designs To Be Showcased At Inaugural Summer Event
12 innovative Designs Will Feature At 1st UK Showcase For Contemporary Sustainable
Garden Event
Future Gardens, the launch-pad of the ground-breaking Butterfly World Project near
St Albans, has unveiled the 12 outstanding designs that will feature at its much
anticipated inaugural designer garden event opening on 5th June 2009.
Each garden has an inventive and individual theme, with many inspired by nature's
offering. Some of the designs are highly conceptual creations such as Tony Heywood's
Anthroscape 3 which will question the definition of landscape by incorporating an
extraordinary diverse range of garden styles. Many have a distinct intention to
attract butterflies such as Marcus Green's For Cosmo, which aims to attract over
40 native different species.
All the garden designs demonstrate that sustainability and innovative, contemporary
design can co-exist and be mutually beneficial. Jane Hudson & Erik De Maeijer's
garden is a strong reflection of this and their design, Nest, based around the creation
of a place to nurture, includes Coppiced Willow which grows over a very short period
of time and can be used as an efficient renewable energy source.
Therese Lang, director of TJM Associates and founder of Future Gardens said:
"This is a very exciting stage in the development of Future Gardens and we are delighted
to be sharing such imaginative designs with the public within this exciting landscape.
The 12 designer gardens will all be sustainably constructed as intentionally thought-provoking
gardens. The selection panel was hugely impressed by how each designer interpreted
the creative brief.
"Future Gardens will provide visitors with the inspiration and enthusiasm to think
about how they can develop their own garden space with real imagination while at
the same time keeping the environment in mind. We are very much looking forward
to illustrating how the gardens will change and develop over the four summer months
- a luxury that is not available at any other UK garden event."
Award-winning landscape designer Andy Sturgeon, whose Urban Greening design is one
of the 12 that will feature in Future Gardens said said:
"Future Gardens is a rare opportunity to make a statement with a garden and provides
an international stage on which designers can flex their conceptual muscles. It
feels like a breath of fresh air. 'Urban Greening' is a response to the loss of
green spaces in our cities and highlights the way that good quality landscape design
can improve the environment. Huge oxidized steel monoliths sitting amongst native
trees represent the cityscape and its encroachment on the surrounding green belt
and countryside."
Almost 100 designers from across the world responded to this exciting brief asking
for pioneering garden designs that would acknowledge the fragility of the environment
and fire the imagination of all generations visiting the event.
A selection panel including James Alexander Sinclair, Andrew Fisher Tomlin and Cleve
West chose 12 outstanding designs which were submitted by a range of designers,
from the award winning to new emerging talent in the design world. High profile
designers, including Andy Sturgeon, Tony Heywood and Bruno Marmiroli are amongst
those who will showcase their innovative gardens with a maximum budget of £25,000.
There is a 13th show garden - Harry's Garden which is being designed by landscape,
garden and horticultural designer, Fern Alder. To date Fern has won two Silver and
one Gold Medal for RHS Hampton Court Palace Show Gardens and has been the winner
of two park design competitions in France.
Visitors will experience a fascinating journey through a variety of unique and thought-provoking
contemporary landscapes which, as well as the evolving designer gardens, will include
permanent gardens. Each of these permanent gardens is an acknowledgment of the fascinating
anatomy of the butterfly, such as land art 'antennae' walk-ways and a spiral 'proboscis'
walk.
An anticipated highlight among the permanent gardens will be the three leaf gardens;
the Lilliput Leaf Garden will allow visitors to see the world from an insect's eye
view, the Children's Leaf Garden will engage children in designing gardens which
will sit in butterfly egg-shaped beds, and the Dry Leaf Garden will show how even
the strangest of man-made objects can create an ecologically sensitive habitat for
insects.
While all of these gardens are designed to captivate, enthral and most importantly,
attract native butterfly and insect species, the British Butterfly Garden in particular
will display the most up-to the minute research into caterpillar food and nectar
plants. There is also a garden dedicated to the late Dame Miriam Rothschild. This
garden will be a tribute to her work as a scientific advisor to the project.
The Butterfly World Project will see its annual Future Gardens event showcase the
highly creative and forward-thinking designs for four months every year. Visitors
to the 26 acre site near St Albans will be able to see and appreciate how gardens
mature and evolve through the season.
The creative brief for Future Gardens 2010 applicants will be released in March
2009 and those wishing to find out more information or submit a design should email
Therese Lang, founder of Future Gardens on
futuregardens@tjmassociates.com or call 01373 812223.
Future Gardens will be open to the public from 5th June to 4th October 2009 and
will reopen in June 2010. The world's largest butterfly dome will be installed in
2011, completing the £25 million world-class visitor attraction, which will then
be open twelve months of the year.