Botanica Atlanta - Landscape Design, Construction & Maintenance

In the 1860’s Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux designed Brooklyn’s Prospect Park, giving it a commanding centerpiece. Carefully screened from New York City’s outside disturbances through the use of gentle hillocks and dense forest plantings, the vast openness of this centerpiece, the “Long Meadow,” affords city dwellers a sense of liberation and restoration that was specifically intended to renew their spirits. After all, late 19th-century urban life was filthy, smoky, loud, and odorous in a way that modern New Yorkers simply cannot imagine.

Images: Sam Valentine and Matthew X. Kiernan

Today, Long Meadow is still just as amazing of a space, and according to the Prospect Park Alliance, its gently undulating grass surface may be the longest unbroken meadow in any American city park. To those playing frisbee or soccer, flying kites, or enjoying a relaxed picnic, the subtly curved alignment – a strategic landscape feature called a “dog leg” – implies to the viewer that the meadow is even longer than its actual one-mile length. Even more impressive though, is how Olmsted, Vaux, and Company choreographed the approach and arrival to this liberating landscape.

 Image: From “Design for Prospect Park,” Olmsted Vaux & Co. 1866-1867 (Color added by Sam Valentine)

The primary paths of access to the open meadow are guarded by unique, ornamental archways.

Images: Ranjit Bhatnagar and Sam Valentine

These arches are quite functional, as they are actually overpass bridges that bear their own park paths. To a traveler along one of the gently meandering paths that leads to the Long Meadow, however, these architectural interventions provide a dynamic sensory effect. With their handsome stonework, the arches initially attract the eye of an approaching visitor. As one gets closer, they then frame the view of the meadow. Upon entering one of them, they tightly enclose the viewer and shroud him or her in a cool darkness. Then, finally, they reveal the grandeur and vastness of Long Meadow in one dramatic moment. This is a sequential experience that is magnified by the contrast between the sunlit open space and the cave-like tunnel from which one has just emerged.

Images: Sam Valentine

You may find yourself interested in Olmsted and Vaux’s orchestration of arrival onto Long Meadow but hold doubts that this effect can be transferred to a property that is significantly smaller than Prospect Park’s 585 acres. You should know, then, that Olmsted created a similar dramatic arrival experience, albeit scaled down, at his home in Brookline, Massachusetts. His property was only a little more than an acre, but on one section of his landscape, Olmsted choreographed the arrival to the largest open space on his property – his front lawn.

While walking along a narrow, short path that winds through a rock garden, visitors to what is now Frederick Law Olmsted National Historic Site can find themselves suddenly expelled from an intricate environment of craggy boulders and shady mountain laurels onto the relatively spacious vista of a residentially scaled meadow.

Author: Sam Valentine,BLA, LEED AP

The picture below shows a bridge. The structure carries visitors from the forest on the left, across the wide, muddy, moat, and up the steep embankments of the historic fort on the right.

Please do not be surprised if you cannot actually see the bridge. The designers of it were going for precisely that effect. Conceived by RO&AD, a Dutch architecture and landscape architecture firm, this “bridge” provides access to the centuries-old Fort de Roovere in the Netherlands.

For reasons that should be quite obvious, this ingenious, waters-parting walkway calls to mind the biblical legend of Moses providing passage across the Red Sea.

Through the structure’s creative engineering, visitors are now able to follow in the path of an invading soldier. To enter the walls of the fort, a person descends the outside bank, walks beneath the surface of the brown, murky moat, and then climbs the steep, two-tiered fortification. This sequenced entrance experience is certainly more welcoming now than it was historically, but it still maintains a revelatory fraction of the physical and psychological intimidation that the fort must have presented to attacking forces.

There are far too many instances of modern architecture overpowering the landscape in which it is built. Though the Moses Bridge has all of the marks of modern architecture – clean, straight lines, sleek detailing, and a heavy presence of wood slats – this structure is anything but obtrusive. I believe that in environmental design, just as with human speech, there are times for shouting and times for whispering, and RO&AD was able to fulfill a functional need while still recognizing that their architectural voice should be low and restrained in the fort’s historic setting.

All in all, the structure is an excellent example of a creative, calculated, and responsible architectural intervention. The design is sensitive to Fort de Roovere, following its cues and sticking to its slopes, and it is environmentally sensitive as well, featuring wood that is both FSC and PEFC certified. It is no surprise to me that this project was recently awarded Building of the Year 2011 from the BNA (Union of Dutch Architects.)

All images from RO&AD Architecten

For a moment, try to think back to the first image that I presented. Imagine a conventionally designed bridge arching and spanning across the moat, and ask yourself what visual impact that might have had on the surrounding fort. It is remarkable that the designers were able to come up with and execute their unique, creative vision in order to preserve the original character of the historic landscape.

Author: Sam Valentine, BLA, LEED AP

Image: Oberon’s Grove

A land artist hailing from Britain, Andy Goldsworthy’s work is site-specific sculpture and photography that pulls from the natural environment in which it is set. His work is dynamic, colorful, vivid, and sometimes intended to mislead the viewer’s eyes.

Pinecones, twigs, blades of grass, clay, mud, ice, stones, and even entire trees are just some of the media that Goldsworthy manipulates to create his works. He creates his compositions in British fields, American forests, and coastlines around the world, and he abstains from using manmade aids such as glue or fasteners. As a result, many of his creations only last as long as it takes for a flower to wilt, the tide to rise, or the wind to blow.

Images: Art + Culture and Sam Valentine

My first exposure to his work was through striking photographs of his circular arrangements of colorful leaves and stones, and I was amazed to find that the pieces were composed of only natural elements.Then, a few years ago, while visiting Storm King Art Center, I had the opportunity to see one of Goldsworthy’s more permanent works up close. Nestled in a lush mountain valley in Mountainville, New York, his “Storm King Wall” rises from a field, dives into a placid pond, and then emerges from the other shore.

Images: Green Sky Designs and Leonel Ponce

The wall, over two-thousand feet long, was built from stones and boulders collected on the old valley farmland, and parts of the wall follow the old foundation of a boundary wall that predated the art center. Thewall makes a point to bend to nature’s will, yielding to tree trunks and meandering a wide serpentine path around them. In addition to the fluid line that the wall paints on the landscape, it is also something that should be appreciated at a nose’s length. To build the wall, Goldsworthy collaborated with professional stone masons who skillfully shaped and dry-stacked stones.

Images: Green Sky Designs, Sam Valentine, Daryl Edelstein, and Urban Palimpsest

If you consider yourself an admirer of art or a lover of nature,it is well worth making a trip to Storm King Art Center, which is only an hour north of New York City, or you may be interested in Goldsworthy’s book, which documents the conception and construction of the wall. Disobeying the very nature of rock, Goldsworthy has created a composition of stone that is surprisingly alive and fluid. The wall is a lasting work that will have an enduring impact on your artistic soul.

Author: Sam Valentine, BLA, LEED AP

Anyone who has gathered around a fireside storyteller, and observed him positioning a flashlight beneath his chin and pointing the beam over his face, has experienced the dramatic affect that can be created by uplighting. With a simple beam of light, even a friendly, smiling face can be transformed into a dramatic – and perhaps even haunting – image. In the landscape, the technique of uplighting can turn a dark, dull volume into a composition that is high in relief, contrast, and dramatic effect.

Images: Arne Hjorth Johansen, Hazel Owen, and Matthew Fish

On building walls, the technique is an effective way to highlight significant parts of a facade, and in my experience, the strategy unfailingly results in a structure that – when night falls – looks clean, well-maintained, and attractive. The consistent effect of shining a beam of light nearly parallel with an architectural face is to emphasize any inherent structural relief. Between courses of brick or stone, mortar gaps only half an inch deep can take on a much greater visual depth by remaining in complete shadow. Similarly, wood-sided structures and slatted shutters can become banded canvases of highlights and shadows.

Images: R. K. Node, J.P. Stanley, and Nico Hogg

Directing uplights at trees and tall shrubs can create equally dynamic results. Artificial lighting that is judiciously positioned and aimed can exhibit the smooth trunks of American beech trees, magnolia species, and American hornbeams, and the inherent roughness of pecan, oak, and trident maple barks can be exaggerated. Additionally, uplighting can be employed to brighten a tree’s leaves and canopy, creating hundreds of green, glowing lights from a plant’s foliage. Perhaps the nicest effect of uplighting plants is the creation of an illuminated silhouette against the black background of night.

Images: Alicia Woodward, Chris Malory, K. Ramesey, and Gregory Garnich

Churches sometimes use uplights to celebrate their steeples, and businesses regularly use uplighting to call attention to their signs and to attract customers. Whether it is coming from the sun’s rays or an overhead fixture, most lighting that we see is a form of downlighting, and as a result, uplit objects are unusual and tend to attract our eyes.

In your residential landscape, consider using uplighting strategies to accent and bring attention to your favorite structures or garden objects. Can you think of any carvings, plants, or sculptural artwork that might benefit from the dramatic contrast of uplighting?

Images: Michael Whitneyand Dominic Alves

Author: Sam Valentine, BLA, LEED AP

Image: Andrew&Suzanne

From the time of the Roman Empire, to the villa gardens of the Italian Renaissance, and throughout the history of Japanese gardens, the human race has brought fish species into many of its gardens. The garden fish, perhaps epitomized by the showy koi, is cherished as a bearer of color, movement, and life in a designed landscape.

Although an ichthyologist would certainly tell you that a fish is an animal, in the contained landscape of a garden a fish has many of the qualities of a plant. Unlike other animals that you might find in a garden, including birds, chipmunks, and even frogs, a fish is the one animal that is incapable of leaving its habitat. Garden fish are fixed – or perhaps “planted” – by the gardener.

Just like plant selection, when deciding what fish might best complement your garden, there are many carefully bred species and varieties to pick from. Each of the many options has distinct appearances, qualities, and needs.

The Comet Goldfish

Images: Sheffield Tiger, Lina Smith, and Julie Goldy

One of the most popular garden fish, the Comet is an active, long-bodied goldfish that is well-suited for outdoor living. This variant of goldfish typically has the orange flame coloration, though Comets can sometimes be found with white or even red and white scales. The silhouette of this fish is defined by its single and deeply forked tail fin that resembles the streaming tail that trails a comet as it moves through space.

The Fantail Goldfish

Images: M. H. Stephens, Steven Maw, and Annie Roi

This goldfish variant has a shorter and plumper body that is almost egg shaped. Its coloration is similar to the Comet, but its form is defined by its showy, split tail fin.

The Oranda Goldfish

Images: Haree Eyes, Bill Frazzetto, and Fuzzy Thompson

The Oranda can have a wide range of scale colors, and this fish is available in orange, red, black-and-white, red-black-and-white, and even blue. A mature Oranda is immediately recognizable by the intensely colored, bumpy growth on its head. This feature, called a “wen,” often makes the Orandas look as if they are wearing a bright red cap on their heads.

The Black Moor Goldfish

Images: Norman Baboo, M. H. Stephens, and Benson Kua

Black Moors can be recognized immediately by their bulging, “telescopic” eyes and black coloration. Their scales range from velvety black to black with a bronzy sheen.

The Koi

Images: Minarae, Mar-Law, and James Laing

The koi, though often mistaken to be a large breed of goldfish, is actually a species of ornamental carp. Beginning in 1820’s Japan, koi have been carefully bred for almost two-hundred years, and as a result they are incredibly showy fish. They can be found in almost every color, including orange, yellow, white, blood red, cream and blue, and many fish have hybridized combinations of those colors.

Koi are often more aggressive than goldfish varieties, and they also have a longer lifespan, regularly living two or three decades. The longest living specimen is said to have lived 226 years, though I would guess that you should not count on your garden fish to survive quite that long.

There are many important considerations that you must consider when selecting fish or fishes for your garden. Before acquiring any fish, I would recommend consulting with books or specialists to see what fish are “hardy” in your climate, or else you may have to collect and over-winter the creatures inside your home.

Additionally, it is of great importance that the new habitat, whether a pond, lake, fountain, or outdoor aquarium, is properly designed to meet the specific needs of the fish you might select. The recommended volume, depth, and aquatic plantings will vary with each type of fish. Consider incorporating a small waterfall or fountain into your fish’s new home, as these features oxygenate the water and make for a healthier habitat.

In my experience, the inclusion of fish is one of the most overlooked means of improving a residential landscape, as the presence of fish can be a unique, valuable asset to any garden. As with plant selection, careful consideration of your options and their impacts is a better strategy than diving right in.

Image: Linux Librarian

Author: Sam Valentine, BLA, LEED AP

This month’s Garden Design published an article that covers a one-of-a-kind art experience that is put on annually in London, England. One of the city’s prominent art museums, the Serpentine Gallery, sets up a temporary pavilion on its lawn every year. The pavilion lawn is adjacent to Kensington Gardens, which was once a private, palatial garden and is now one of the largest public green spaces in central London. The magazine article, appropriately titled “Summer Temp,” highlights Peter Zumthor, the internationally renowned Swiss architect who was selected to design this year’s pavilion, and the article gives a description of the structure that he created.

Images: Garden Design

In his own words, Zumthor articulates the inspiration for his pavilion in the following sentences:

“A garden is the most intimate landscape ensemble I know of. It is close to us. There we cultivate the plants we need. A garden requires care and protection. And so we encircle it, we defend it and fend for it. We give it shelter. The garden turns into a place.

Enclosed gardens fascinate me. A forerunner of this fascination is my love of the fenced vegetable gardens on farms in the Alps, where farmers’ wives often planted flowers as well. I love the image of these small rectangles cut out of vast alpine meadows, the fence keeping the animals out. There is something else that strikes me in this image of a garden fenced off within the larger landscape around it: something small has found sanctuary within something big.

The hortus conclusus that I dream of is enclosed all around and open to the sky. Every time I imagine a garden in an architectural setting, it turns into a magical place. I think of gardens that I have seen, that I believe I have seen, that I long to see, surrounded by simple walls, columns, arcades or the façades of buildings – sheltered places of great intimacy where I want to stay for a long time.”

Images: John Offenbach

I find Zumthor’s pavilion design intriguing, and I find the emphasis that this architect has placed on the garden to be novel. From my interpretation of his writing, the garden stands at the center of his concept, and his entire pavilion symbolically protects this green heart. His writing and the pictures of his pavilion are quite remarkable, and I can only imagine what it might be like to explore it and appreciate it in person.

After reading this article, I started thumbing through images of pavilions from previous years. There were two observations about the Serpentine Gallery’s Pavilion project that I found especially noteworthy. The first is that, despite the fact that these structures only stand on the museum lawn for a few months, their character is quite permanent. Built of such durable materials as steel, concrete, glass, and wood, the construction and subsequent dismantlement seems quite demanding. This hard work, though, is not done in vain, as the yearly visitation can be as high a 250,000 visitors in just one summer season.

The second and most remarkable characteristic of these pavilions is that each architect who was selected has come up with an unprecedented, truly creative work. Looking at the eleven pavilions that have been built since the Gallery’s tradition began in 2000, it is hard to draw any comparisons among them. Not one has resembled a pavilion that came before it.

Images: World Architecture News, Philippe Ruault, Hélène Binet, and Love Architecture

The pavilion architects are unhindered by most of the basic programming demands that typically thwart the full realization of a designer’s vision. Such concerns as bathrooms, fire escapes, HVAC systems, and broom closets, which are requirements of habitable structures, are not required in these pavilions, and the result is a fluid, pure expression of an architectural concept. The finished product is bold and beautiful, albeit fleeting. But I believe that, though the walls come crashing down after a period of weeks, the architectural experience of each pavilion lives on in the sensual memory of each visitor for years to come.

Images: Iqbal Aalam, Love Architecture, and Iwan Baan

Author: Sam Valentine, BLA, LEED AP

Image: William Hogarth

William Hogarth was a jack-of-all-trades. In his lifetime, he was known throughout England for his beautiful paintings, his biting political satire, and for his wide range of written work. When Hogarth wrote The Analysis of Beauty, he was trying to isolate a universal standard of what exactly is attractive to the human eye. In the book, his process of discerning a single quality that is present in all beautiful things involved a painstaking and laborious investigation of everyday objects. By “everyday objects,” I of course mean those items that were part of daily life when Hogarth was writing his book, which was way back in 1753.

Image: William Hogarth

Analysis is rich with illustrations, and Hogarth guides the reader through tedious analyses of the lines found in men’s wigs, candlesticks, flowers, and even women’s corsets. He concludes from each of these detailed discussions that of all of the lines that we see, it is the gently curving line (numbered “4” in the above engravings) that makes objects beautiful. He calls this line the “Line of Beauty.”

Image: William Hogarth

Though it was written almost three centuries ago, Hogarth’s book is full of eye-opening and surprisingly shrewd observations. For example, take the case of a typical living room. Whether it was built in 1753 or 2011, construction methods are ruled by right angles and straight lines, and, as a result, most rooms have flat walls and sharp corners. Hogarth wisely points out that, despite a room’s inherent rectilinearity, we human inhabitants tend to fill these spaces with curving lines. We carry in a rounded entourage of lamps, couches, and tables, and we even ornament a room’s corners and seams with curved moldings.

Hogarth’s point is a simple one. Yet it was so revolutionary in its time that it inspired a measurable shift in the world of garden design. In the decades after Analysis was written, landscape historian Elizabeth Barlow Rogers notes that English garden designers showed a “complete abandonment of straight lines in favor of the continuous S-curve known as Hogarth’s line of beauty.”

Image: Mark Duff

It is my opinion that Hogarth’s final argument, that beauty can only be found in curves, was overreaching and too simplistic. Based on my own experience, it is unfair to the straight line to say that beauty cannot be created without curves. To name just a few examples, beauty can found in such curve-less compositions as the obeliscal Washington Monument, the stacked horizontal planes of Frank Lloyd Wright’s Fallingwater, or the Egyptian Pyramids at Giza.

Images: Sam Valentine

Hogarth was certainly onto something though, and that is the absolute correlation between the curving line and beauty. Perhaps the best evidence of this correlation that I have seen with my own eyes is San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge. By function, the structure is required to offer a straight, flat road surface of over a mile in length. Aesthetically, though, it is the gently curving lines formed by the bridge’s suspension cables that make it a thing of beauty.

William Hogarth argued that there is a universal attractiveness in waving lines, and I cannot help but agree with him. I believe that curves have natural, intrinsic beauty and that the human mind is naturally attracted to the serpentine lines that are found on a human face, followed along a winding garden path, or perceived in the form of a flower.

Image: William Hogarth

By Sam Valentine, BLA, LEED AP

Images: West 8

In its May issue, Landscape Architecture Magazine ran a feature that alerted me to the freshly completed “Miami Beach SoundScape” by the landscape architecture and urban planning firm West 8. Based on the superficial similarities between this music-oriented public landscape and the Toronto Music Garden that I described strolling through last month, I had been hoping to write a comparison piece about the two. Upon entering this urban Floridian landscape, though, I found that they have little in common.

Image: West 8

 When I visited the SoundScape, I found myself in a carefully crafted landscape unlike any that I had experienced. Coming in at less than three acres, I found it difficult to determine whether I was meant to perceive this space as a tiny city park or a lushly planted plaza. Composed of gently sloping lawns, low seat walls, crisp-edged concrete walks, and densely planted trunks, the SoundScape was illuminated with a clean, white light. The designers wisely selected "Dark Sky Friendly" full cut-off fixtures. In other words, the artificial lighting points to the green spaces, sidewalks, and seating areas, but it does not unnecessarily pollute the night sky. On the muggy, steamy night that I visited Miami Beach, light pollution would have been quite distracting, but instead it was nonexistent.

Miami Beach SoundScape was developed in conjunction with the new Gehry Partners-designed home of the New World Symphony. From an architecture firm known for its bold, warping, and wildly shaped facades, I found this building to be surprisingly restrained. The exterior wall facing the SoundScape is largely rectilinear, though I could make out tumbling, white forms within the glass-screened box that makes up half of the length of this external wall.

Images: World Architecture News and Dezeen

 The other section of the Symphony building’s adjacent wall is a perfectly flat, white face. Depending on the night, an impressive arsenal of audio and video projection equipment may be playing mainstream movies or art films, or possibly even simulcasting a performance that is going on inside the building.

Images: West 8 and Sam Valentine

Images: West 8 and Sam Valentine

 One of the landscape’s most memorable structures is an assortment of vase-shaped pergolas that West 8 has arranged throughout the eastern edges of the site. These puffy, aluminum frames are said to be modeled after the cumulus clouds that regularly roll over Miami’s skies, and they are planted with colorful bougainvillea vines that will soon climb to cover the structures with dark green foliage and magenta blooms. The designers cleverly clustered these pergolas in such a way that they provide organic gateways from any possible angle of entry along Miami Beach’s busy Washington Avenue.

Images: West 8

 The greenspace of the SoundScape is dissected by an indecipherable web of paved pathways. This clean, white hardscape is given texture by a trapezoidal mesh of shadows that are cast by the pergolas. By creating an artistic interweaving of hardscape and landscape, every logical circulation path was provided for, but more than half of the site is still covered with vegetation. The result is a landscape that functions like a plaza but feels like a park.

It would be far from the truth to call the uniquely vibrant and exciting urban environment of Miami Beach a “desert.” But to a tourist or citizen walking beneath the city’s oppressive summer sun, this landscape may present itself as something of an oasis. Much in the way that they are depicted in the thirsty hallucinations of a cartoon desert wanderer, the SoundScape consists of a lush smattering of misaligned palm trees. Desert oases are valued for having something that cannot be obtained for miles around: water. In the same way, the Miami Beach SoundScape’s fusion of shaded greenspace, public art, classical music, and high-tech sound, projection, and lighting gives this landscape something truly unique and rare.

Image: West 8

By Sam Valentine, BLA, LEED AP

The human eye delivers an inestimable and invaluable wealth of information to the brain at every given moment. As urban planner Gordon Cullen describes it in his book The Concise Townscape, “We turn to the faculty of sight, for it is almost entirely through vision that the environment is apprehended.” The eye passes this critical visual information an inch or so back to the brain, and this biological phenomenon allows us to perceive almost everything about our surroundings, including distance, texture, and color.

Image: B. Bubble

To the inhabitants of a landscape every object has a color, and to all of these perceivers each color carries unique social and cultural connotations. When surrounded by the color blue, for example, many of us think cooling thoughts of water. Perhaps the color green calls to your mind calming, refreshing thoughts of spring. Pastel blues often symbolize baby boys and pastel pinks represent baby girls. The color red can be associated with a wide range of meanings, from love and affection to anger and even blood.

Images: Joey Lim, Fabrice Rose, and Jeremy Brooks

Beneath this range of cultural color associations that we all carry with us, studies in color psychology have shown that humans connect with different colors on an even deeper, more subliminal level. Exposure to color can alter our moods, intensify emotions, and even strengthen or weaken our spirits. For example, various studies have shown that red, the same color that we may culturally associate with love or anger, can increase feelings of desire, aggression, and appetite. Studies have shown that blue, the natural color of very few foods, can reduce feelings of hunger. Greens have been found to cause feelings of comfort, calm, and rejuvenation, which is perhaps how the historic color for a theater’s backstage “green room” was selected.

Perhaps the clearest demonstration of the impact that an environment’s color can have on the human spirit involves the color pink. Some evidence has indicated that the color pink calms the muscles, relaxes the mood, and even reduces aggression. Decades ago, a clever football coach at the University of Iowa read about these theories and ordered the visiting team’s locker rooms to be painted pink. The only evidence that his strategy worked, that he was able to weaken the opposing players before the game even started, is anecdotal, but the practice has since caused much controversy. Interestingly enough, some prison wardens have since adopted this technique to successfully pacify especially violent inmates.

If seeing is so important, then the designers of landscapes must be vigilant in their selection of plants, materials, and exterior finishes. We must take into account the cultural, psychological, and even physiological implications that colors carry with them. What impact will color have in your garden and in the mind of your visitors? With a little research and careful consideration, it is much more likely to be positive and long lasting.

Images: Sam Valentine

By Sam Valentine, BLA, LEED AP

My goal in last week’s post was to give the reader a clear understanding of wrought iron: its history, composition, and unique aesthetic value. This week I will shine the same spotlight on another type of iron that is often mistakenly described “wrought.” The focus of this article is cast iron.

Images: Stephani Bachman and Cattoo

I admit that it is somewhat strange to think about cast iron as a “new” technology, especially as its first appearance for structural purposes roughly coincided with the birth of our nation. In the scheme of things, however, iron has been with us for several thousand years, and we have only known how to efficiently cast it for a few centuries.

The development of the cast iron process was a huge leap in technology. Whereas every single component of a wrought iron structure had to be heated until red hot and then laboriously hammered, twisted, or bent into a desired form, the technique of casting iron is comparatively simple. Only one original object – a fence post, a manhole cover, or a frying pan – needs to be created. From an original, heat-resistant molds are then made, and finally, molten iron is repeatedly poured into these molds and allowed to cool, thus replicating the original form over and over again. For this reason, the casting of iron was as much of a breakthrough to metalwork as the development of the printing press was to the written word.

The trick, the only thing that had hindered this process from coming around sooner, was the availability of lots of coal and the design of a furnace that could get hot enough to liquefy iron.

It was in the late 1770’s that perhaps the first large-scale iron structure was built near a town fittingly named "Coalbrookdale." This structure, known officially as “The Iron Bridge,” was constructed by several trailblazers in furnace technology. The bridge was built to span a 200-foot gorge, and though it was completed in 1779, it still stands today.

Image: Phil Parsons

Cast iron structures are modular; they could be put together from a repeating combination of prefabricated components. At that time, bolts were not common place, so the cast iron was fit together much like wood joinery, which was the only structural precedent the builders had to look to at the time.

Images: R. P. Marks and Pete Reed

Like wrought iron, the aesthetic and stylistic properties of cast iron have been influenced, if not defined, by the process that makes them. The repeating cloned process is capable of capturing intricate details and complex patterns that a blacksmith would dread hammering, and it almost always does so without monotony, as I have never seen a cast iron fence that I found monotonous or boring. It is in this detailing that a piece’s quality becomes apparent. When compared to modern, off-the-shelf cast iron patterns (which, these days, are actually more often hollowed steel or even aluminum) there is a major gap in richness. When comparing fences, they seldom have the sturdy, hefty posts and detailed bevels, motifs, and forms that were incorporated in cast iron fences up until the middle of the twentieth century.

 Images: UGArdener and Torrey Wiley

Whether cast or wrought, ironwork has a considerable impact in the landscape. In both residential and urban settings, this material, and the many shapes it can take, states with pride that it is of an earlier time. Sometimes it is stated in the sense of style or craftsmanship, detailing done in a level of quality and skill that has been all but lost. Other times the age of the piece can be biologically determined, by looking at a century-old tree trunk that has fused itself into the rails and pickets of a fence.

The tree, of course, yielded to the metal frame of the fence because it is a growing organic organism, but I feel that this phenomenon serves as a symbol in the landscape. Just as this grotesque growth proves that the fence predates the centenarian tree, it will likely outlive those people that have enjoyed its beauty. Ironwork lends character to a landscape by speaking to a visitor in a language that is rare, but understood by all. In the landscape ironwork speaks of an earlier time.

Image: Peter Hawman

By Sam Valentine, BLA, LEED AP