Category: Design
Old School Gardener
Guest Post by Nick Taylor
I’m grateful to my old friend Nick for sharing these wonderful pics from his recent trip to Singapore. I’ve featured some of these gardens/ spaces/buildings before, but these pictures make a revisit a must. Here’s Nick’s commentary….
‘Seeing your recent blog with a picture of the hotel in Singapore reminded me that I said I would provide some photos of the Gardens by the Bay, with the artificial trees, which gather rain water and generate solar power…. Some of the trees – there are many – have climate domes (a bit like the Eden Project).
Twice each evening, a sound and light show takes place at the main group of trees. Being close to Christmas, there were familiar tunes! There are also currently additional Christmas lights, which detracted somewhat from the effect of the trees themselves. A ‘German’ style Christmas market was being erected at the time. The whole effect was, as with much of Singapore, rather unrestrained, but good fun and a free show.’
‘Here is the hotel at the Gardens By The Bay, with the linking bridge featuring infinity pool and roof garden, another view of one of the climate zone domes and a view of the Park Royal Hotel you featured, with the hanging gardens…’
‘The next pic is of highly colourful water lilies at the Arts and Sciences Museum. The building itself is shaped like the opening petals of a waterlily. In the background is the Shoppe (sic) at Marina Bay shopping centre, which has four levels, each the size of a large airport terminal, with a canal with gondolas (see photo) on the basement level. Shopping is one of Singapore’s main pastimes and a major economic driver. There are huge, modern malls all over the city, but mostly concentrated in Orchard Road, which at the time of WW2 was lined with – orchards.’
‘Finally, here are the gardens of Raffles Hotel, named after Sir Stamford Raffles, the official of the British East India Company who took a flyer and established the colony in the face of Dutch resistance. We performed the ritual of ordering Singapore Slings in the Long Bar, as countless Brits have done over the last 100 years or so. It’s a very sickly, sweet cocktail and not particularly nice!’
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La Piscine otherwise known as the Musée d’Art et d’Industrie André Diligent or Le musée d’Art et d’Industrie de la ville de Roubaix (let’s stick with La Piscine), is a wonderful reinvention of an Art Deco Swimming Pool in Roubaix, northern France as an art gallery and museum. I had the great pleasure of visiting it recently whilst on a long weekend in the area.
The Museum itself with its clever conversion retaining hints of the building’s previous use was a delight- I loved the central pool with fountain head surrounded by a new, beautifully finished dark wooden floor, together with the regular playing of a soundtrack from a swimming pool! It also holds a wonderfully rich mixture of items on display- sculpture, paintings, textiles, photographs, glass and ceramics etc.- many displayed in what were once the changing cubicles of the swimming pool!
The swimming pool was constructed between 1927 and 1932 but closed in 1985, and was then remodelled as a museum, opening in 2000. A modern entrance building, special exhibition space and garden were constructed within the roof-less shell of an adjoining textile factory.
The museum’s permanent collection has its origins in 1835, when a collection of fabric samples from the many local textile factories was started. The collection was seen as a way of cultivating the tastes of the town’s workers, foremen and manufacturers. To this end it combined elements of literature, fine-arts, science and industrial products. The museum previously housing the collection closed with the onset of War in 1939, and never reopened. From 1990 the collections were displayed in Roubaix’s town hall, in preparation for the opening of La Piscine in 2000.
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Further Information: Museum Website
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I love these ornamental bug hotels!
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Seafront Walkway, Malaga, Spain
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The 40,000 words of Thomas More’s ‘Utopia’ painted onto the sides of a redundant Electricity building in Norwich by Rory McBeth and students of Norwich School of Art and Design (2006).
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Heat Sink Greenhouse- heat is absorbed by the stone trough during the day and relased at night.
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Here’s my last compilation of the latest outdoor projects using pallet and other recycled wood. This is a bit of a mixture of things, but hopefully you’ll be inspired by them. All courtesy of the Facebook site 1001 Pallets.
A natty shed…
An amazing barn!
A crafty water feature…
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Montreal, Canada
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