SITE:
In a corporate park, two cultivated gardens off a public sidewalk, across the street from high-rise office buildings. The gardens are each enclosed by an eight-foot high chain-link fence; they can be looked at, from the sidewalk, but not entered. Between the two gardens is a left-over space.

PROGRAM:
An urban garden, between the two existent gardens.

PROJECT:
The existent gardens give birth to a new garden, in between them. The new garden feeds off the old gardens; the enclosed gardens result in an open garden.

From the vertical chain-link fence, at the side of each existent garden, a layer of chain-link fence is stretched horizontally across the left-over space in the middle. Out of the old gardens, climbing plants grow up and over the vertical chain-link, and spread out over the horizontal chain-link, making a new garden in between.

The new garden is a horizontal plane of ivy, four feet off the ground. A system of pathways makes a maze through the plantings. From the sidewalk, an eight-foot wide pathway cuts through the center of the chain-link, across three-quarters of the garden. From this central pathway, four-foot-wide paths branch off to each side, and to the back. The smaller paths branch off into still smaller paths, two-foot-wide corridors, like vestibules into a room, that dead-end in seats made from the steel poles that support the fence. Some of the corridors lead to a single seat, embedded inside the green plane, some to a pair of face-to-face seats, and some to a triangle of seats for three people.

The garden is lit from below: at the bottom of each vertical fence, from each side, a line of spotlights casts a glow beneath the horizontal chain-link, up though the plantings.

As you walk into the garden, you’re embedded in the garden; the garden is all around you, at chest-height. As you go inside, further and further, the garden comes in toward you, closer and closer. When you sit down, the planting is at your head, over your head, you sink down into the garden. Whereas the old garden is a garden for the eyes only, this new garden is a garden for the body.