Shelter as Art, Gazebo as Frame

Last year, almost exactly a year ago now, I found my winter-challenged attention drifting. Drifting away from GARDENS PLANTS GARDENS. We could say that the honeymoon of my garden obsession was clearly over..to borrow a sad expression. Things were threatening to become old hat. Seasonal affective disorder reared its dreary head, right on schedule. Maybe. Seed catalogs started to seem all too familiar, planty daydreams switched from technicolor to gray...and Gardens Illustrated, an important (to me) magazine that had always somehow managed to help sustain my excitement about gardening (as an art, with a historical context and contemporary vanguard - a way of seeing that's virtually unknown in these parts) became very, very boring and unsatisfying. Still is, really, but that's another story. 

Luckily, a shift presented itself. Perhaps it was the pile of Dwell magazines that I brought home from the library that triggered the shift or perhaps it's origins run deeper than that, but I found myself suddenly very interested in buildings. Small modern buildings. Small modern buildings...as art...in a landscape. 

This sort of thing started catching my eye and imagination:

Simple, interesting structures...made of fairly simple materials and designed with IMAGINATION rather than with ye olde sickening suburban tropes or in imitation of a distant past. These aren't victorian artifacts reeking of other people's lives, these aren't shopping malls, ostentatious sports complexes, McMansions, or inappropriately rich people's meandering, flamboyant, selfish indulgences.  And they're respectful of the landscape - in fact, most of them seem to be about BEING IN their surroundings rather than keeping it at bay. I found it quite encouraging. Inspiring even. It was fuel enough to last the rest of the winter and I must admit it was on my mind off and on throughout the landscaping season and...affected some decisions accordingly.

Humans seem to instinctively appreciate a leg up in the perception of nature and the mere happenstance of seeing a sitting place or, better yet, settling into a stylish and sensitive VIEWING SHELTER seems to resonate for most. These sheds or huts or gazebos or what-have-you clearly soothe our inner nomad hunter. Hark...safety! A back to the sturdy wall! Being corporeally unseen but seeing all in comfort! Sounds great doesn't it? I'm sure. What's more, arguably, these smaller structures enable a better connection with natural surroundings. In my aesthetically concerned mind they act as walk-in frames, framing the world (or garden) into ever-changing compositions.

But this is old news to many, apparently. Since last winter, I've become aware of a whole sub-culture, a MOVEMENT even, with some of these interests and variations thereof. Of course. Duh. Subcultures within subcultures within subcultures we are. Lloyd Kahn seems to have a good handle on what's been happening and has recently published a book about it if you're interested in such things. I haven't seen it in real life but I'd like to someday.

And so...to get to my underlying point here without undue rambling...when I'd finished my winter's worth of actually commissioned garden plans I indulged my new found keen interest in 'gazebo as framing device' and spent a bit too much time designing a garden shelter for a client who was only somewhat interested in doing something with an unresolved free-floating deck we made awhile back. Unsurprisingly, nothing has come of the project yet and I suspect nothing will...but I must say that I had a terrific old time thinking the ideas through and would love to do more of this later in life. Yes, yes.

Here's what I came up with, more or less as it was presented to the client...a screened-in shelter designed for the familial enjoyment of the garden during the heavy bug season. A place to have meals and read or just hang out and look around in the outdoors without having to worry about losing a few pounds of flesh to the local insect community...

the proposed gazebo projected onto it's proposed context