Re-use on a big scale: Germany

It doesn't sound very sexy, going to old Nato bases somewhere in Germany or steel works in Ruhr, but it's a lot better than it sounds.

Alter Flugplatz Bonames, Frankfurt

What do you do when an old airfield is abandoned? You turn it in to a park of course. Let nature take over and have something which attracts people, like keeping the old tarmac by the flight tower for people to roller-blade on and convert the buildings in to a restaurant. On a German tour this has to be one of the stops. Tower Café, located in the park in the old airfield buildings.

Duisburg Nord Landschaftspark, Ruhr

I think I could get lost here, as simple as that. The park has some interesting lightning too so a visit twice is probably in order, and I suspect that this time of the year is the best time to go. Landschaftspark Duisburg Nord on the web.

Once these are ticked off I'd slowly cruise the narrow roads down the Rhine Valley and work my way through the villages and wineries, eating and drinking for a week at least.

Invite nature

A bit of Landschaftspark Duisburg-Nord in the garden. Let the industrialism flower.

Moss graffiti

Don't just grow  stuff in the ground, use the whole garden room. Moss thrives in many places where other plants can't or don't like to grow. In any shady part of the garden it's possible to grow moss in more innovative places than in the lawn.

The recipe I was taught when I was becoming a gardener was moss, some soured milk/yoghurt and some water. Whisk the moss and yoghurt well and add water until you get a paint like mixture and use an ordinary paintbrush to paint the surface you want to have moss on. If it's dry you might need to spray it with water. Quite soon you'll see the result of your work.

There's also a beer recipe where you whisk moss with beer, buttermilk and sugar and paint it the same way as with the recipe above. Some recipes say you should use a mixer, but I personally care too much about my mixer to do that.

More pages on the subject:
Stories from space
Inhabitat
Apartment Therapy
Craftzine

There are many other sites out there writing about this. Spreading moss by painting it on objects isn't exactly new knowledge and gardeners have known about this for very long, though it wasn't called graffiti (I dare to say centuries here) but it can never be repeated enough. Go forth and spread the knowledge!

Blending in

Japanese conservatory house.

Corteen steel trellis

Bougainvillea.

Re::use

In touch with nature

Living in a part of the world when outside and inside are separated during most part of the year, I really appreciate ideas where the outside and inside meet. It reminds me of certain old conservatories, the way it's dug in to the ground.

Rust

Sempervirens

It's coming

Spring is in the neighbourhood. Plant Hamamelis x intermedia 'Diane' close to a window where you catch it every day and it'll bring tidings of spring even when snow covers the ground and warmth seems far away.

A wagon in the garden

Playhouse, gazebo, writer's hideout, allotment cottage, summer house... the possibilities are endless.

Gaudí

Still haven't been to Barcelona.

Papaver somniferum

Invite it in to your garden and it will stay with you for as long as you have that garden, popping up (pun intended) everywhere.

Spring porn

Prunus 'Accolade'.

Outside the box

We're so very used to having hard floors everywhere in our houses, insulated properly. It is possible to do it differently though. This house is in Japan, and part of the house has dirt floors where various plants thrive. If you're building a glazed extension of the house, consider something like this. Not only does it give a lush, more earthy feeling, but it gives a better in door climate in that part of the house.

A sea of gold

Knowing your environment

Knowing the room you're going to work with is very important when you're working with any kind of architecture. A room can be vast and it can be tiny. No matter what you need to get a feel for it and understand it. The above are two pictures taken during a workshop I was part of during my years at SLU, when we worked with spaces. By moving around in the room, sitting still, using our own bodies to build structures, we learned how room structures work. It was a very interesting workshop in that it brought up a lot of things we tend to take for granted, or think we know, and we got insights in how room structures affects us and how we can affect a room, and change the impression of a space.

A good experience is to empty a room completely, move around in it, stand in different places and think about where you prefer to be and where you don't wish to be. Why is that? Bring the furniture back in, one at the time and place them carefully in the room, based on what you found out when the room was empty. You'll get a whole new room. It's a bit more difficult to do that in a garden, but it's still possible to feel the space and think about improvements.

Contemporary baroque

Tage Andersen definitely has a recognisable style. I'm not crazy about everything he does, but in the right context it works very well. This is from Rosenborgs Slot in Copenhagen, where this industrial baroque blends in quite nicely.

When in Rome...

Go to Ninfa.

Mr Marx

Burle Marx, Brazilian landscape architect.