Getting started - Inspirations
Developing a theme and inspirations
How to get started
You have taken client brief and a site survey and perhaps researched the site and area. Now it is time to start working on your concept. There are lots of ways we can start to processing ideas including: creating themes, writing design statements and creating mood boards and more. Think of these as your compass for the project. When you are lost the remind you the direction you are heading keeping you on track, and removing the superfluous.
Theme
Creating a theme and/or a ‘Big Idea’ for your site can be a great way for you to set some direction.
mood boards / Inspiration Palettes / Image Boards
This is a visual representation of your ideas.
DESIGN STATEMENTS
A design statement is usually a short piece of text that captures the essence of your project and could include things like; materiality, textures, moods of spaces, functionality, aesthetics, and colour themes.
If you create the above three in a cohesive way, it sets the direction for the project clearly and makes the work that proceeds much easier. It is something that you will need to refine as you progress your ideas. See below for further information.
THEMES and BIG IDEAS
A ‘Big Idea’ is something large enough to guide the project. It needs to be contextualized to your project, while being broad enough to be applied out across the majority of a project without limiting it.
You can draw inspiration for it from the site, precedent projects, the client or just out of your mind. But, it doesn’t necessarily have to be completely unique.
Some people will say that every project needs a big idea. However, I personally think for some projects a small idea is sufficient and can be as simple as ‘to create a Victorian coastal garden that looks beautiful’. However, this is not the best approach while you are starting to study.
I would aim to be able to express you Theme or ‘Big Idea’ in just a couple of sentences or less.
INSPIRATIONS PALETTE
Collecting ideas in photos, stories, videos, magazine clippings, pinterest boards and music are a great way to start forming a mood and aesthetic for your spaces. The most common way to do this is creating a mood board of images.
When you are starting out your ideas are not that refined, they are a broad direction to start moving. Your board may help express your broad theme but it might look like a collection of images that don’t necessarily belong together. The images may also be quite abstract. They may capture textures colour schemes, maybe even non-garden related items that help convey your idea.
As you progress you want the images to start to feel like they belong together. Some ways to help with this are:
Take time selecting and come back repeatedly and delete, replace and refine until there are no longer any contradictory images. Less is often more.
If there are contradictory items within an image, crop them out.
If the colours clash, then desaturate the image or put a filter over the images so the colour look they belong together.
Put some effort into how you arrange them on your page. Spatial arrangement is a key skill of a landscape designer.
As you progress through, it is the conceptual phase you may come back and make edits until you have a really clear direction. Start broad and then refine.
Inspiration Example
Refining your Inspirations
By the time you finish your design statements and inspiration board you can tell you are finished if you can give it to another designer and they feel that they could go away and design the garden for you.
DESIGN STATEMENTS
Writing a design statement that works with your image palettes to tell the story of your design is a good idea. It is extremely helpful as your concept progresses to come back and read your design statement to keep yourself on track. It helps reduce the chance of having an unclear narrative in the space.
A design statement could include many different elements. I like to cover the aesthetics feel, textures, colour, mood and theme of the space.
Example of a design statement
The front yard space has two clear functions, quiet reflection, and exploration. A refined clean delineation between zones will help to set the differing moods within each area. At times, the space will need to lend itself to meditation, yoga, and a quiet coffee, but still allow exploration play and utility on a classic lawn. The colour theme should be vibrant without providing too much contrast using a simple palette. The surfaces and plants should sweep rather than be straight and blend the zones with soft textures. There should be a sense of enclosure created through vegetation around the perimeter but a visual openness between areas. The materials should be earthy and used to create connection and consistency across the areas.
Session Outline
Getting started on your design
Themes
Inspirations
Design statements
Examples