Principles of Design #3

Principle #3   make inside /outside connections

The posting today is one of the series titled:

                               Principles of Design in use at Gardens at Waters East.

All ten (10) design principles are listed in an outline form which can be located on the November 14, 2010 posting.  Refer back to that date for the complete list of the guiding ideas used to develop and to bring unity throughout the many gardens.

In designing space, it is vital that adjoining spaces have a smooth flow from one to the other.  With gardening, if the inside and outside spaces share common elements, colors, textures, etc. the “whole” will be felt and experienced.  As is often said, The whole will be greater than the sum of its parts”.  A real genuine sense of unity will happen.  Using just one or two similar or common elements, is plenty to tie both spaces, inside and outside, together.  The garden will feel like it is part of the home structure and the home will feel like it is part of the garden.  Everybody wins.  Everything not only seems to be more together, it really is more together.  Your property “lives” as one grand comfortable experience.

Some of the ways that “inside and outside” connections are made at Gardens at Waters East are these.   1. Colors in the living room sofa are the same golden Spring colors found in the leaves of the Golden Nuggets Ninebark bushes.   2. The texture of the leaves on the Viburnum - Autumn Jazz have the same “feel” as a number of fabrics use in the home.   3. Driftwood sculptures are used in the home and also found outside throughout the garden.   4. The red and black bamboo used in the Asian Garden fountain area outside are also found in a large urn in the sunroom and a original steel sculpture in the entrance hallway.   5. That same sculpture using circles, standing on a pedestal in the home, is mimicked in the round roll of barbed wire sculpture attached to a fence post in the Rain Garden.   6. The ship rib from a mid nineteenth century ship located along one of the paths, is complimentary to the many nautical artifacts in the quest bedroom.   7. Works of art in the home such as the oil painting of seagulls, reflect the environment of the garden and the lake.   8. The blue bottle collection in the home reinterprets the blue bottle sculpture in the Lily Path garden room.   9. Bringing inside in the winter dried flowers and seed heads such as the Allium – Mount Everest, is another way to tie both the outside and the inside together.   9. Even in winter, the dark green of the firs and pines is reflected in the home using many “green only” foliage plants near windows.

The following photos are some examples of tying inside and outside into a unified whole.  There are so many more examples, but let these suffice.

 driftwood standing as sculpture on the guest room desk

 driftwood in the Rain Garden

part of a driftwood fence sculpture

Another example of tie-together is the use of color and form in the following.

red and black of the bamboo

red and black of an original steel sculpture created by a former student of

Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design  (MIAD)

The above mid eighteenth century ship rib is located in the Nautical Garden

At the end of the Grand Hall, hangs this wonderful original oil of

Seagulls Fighting over Fish.

So often while in the home or in the garden, their voices are heard and this picture captures both sight and sound.

In the garden, there is a blue bottle sculpture reflective of this collection in the sun room.

dried allium - Mount Everest

These are just but a few of the many ways Gardens at Waters East ties inside and outside together.  Demonstrations of principle #3.

(((  NOTE:  if you wish to use email  -- please do:  gardensatwaterseast@yahoo.com  )))