Anyone who has stood
in the cathedral created by a stand of tall conifers or basked
in the exquisite warmth collected in a sunny nook on a winter
day will be able to appreciate Chip Sullivan' message in Garden
and Climate (McGraw-Hill). His study of passive methods of
controlling climate is likely to interest gardeners as well as
architects. Garden and Climate, which won the award of
the American Society of Landscape
Architects, looks back at historic gardens for ways to control
climate that can be applied to today's gardens.
In this beautifully
illustrated book, Sullivan leisurely takes the reader on a tour
of the formal gardens of the Persians, Romans, and Renaissance
Italians uncovering examples of landscape design and architecture
that work with nature to control climate. Sullivan is a landscape
artist as well as an architect, and he brings both talents to
bear in this book. His own sketches and lovely watercolors recreate
the ancient gardens and illustrate their design elements, showing
how they work with the sun, wind, water and earth.
The author sets out
to show how such things as water fountains and orientation to
the sun can have a dramatic effect on cooling and heating while
contributing to the beauty of the garden. If applied to today's
landscape architecture, such garden features have the ability
to reduce energy use, especially for heating and cooling homes
and commercial buildings.
Sullivan examines the
garden in all its dimensions: the physical, psychological, aesthetic
and climatic and, in so doing, transports the reader to those
lovely, faraway places. By chapter's end, the reader is inspired
to think of how those methods might be applied to his or her garden.
Hopefully it will be as inspiring to landscape architects as well.
The book organizes
the early methods of environmental design into four sections:
Earth (and its cooling effects), Fire (the warming effect of the
sun), Air (and its cooling effects) and Water (again for cooling).
Each section cites examples of design elements that conserve the
environment while making it more comfortable and pleasurable for
the users. At the end of each discussion, the author explains
how to apply a particular design element in a contemporary situation.
For instance, early
air-conditioning ranged from something as simple as grassy seats,
grottoes, shady tunnels, and pruned walks to the more elaborate:
subterranean rooms, boscoes (an outdoor room of densely
planted trees), pineta (pines planted in geometric grids)
and cryptoportici (an underground corridor providing air
circulation and sheltered access). Solar energy was captured in
courtyards, stone seats, limonaia (or lemon house) and
sunny terraces.
Water has long been
used for its cooling effect, both physically and psychologically.
Wet walks, calm pools, cascading sheets of water and kinetic displays
of aerated water are a few of the examples discussed. Especially
intriguing is a device called the 'water joke' created by early
Italian designers, in which sudden bursts of water as a mist or
cascading arch startles or moves visitors to another part of the
garden. The nozzles are cleverly hidden in the anatomical parts
of sculpture, grotto ceilings, or even the seats of stone benches.
The author concludes
with the hope that the four elements of the book (Earth, Air,
Fire, Water) will be fused into a new approach to landscape architecture
that makes gardens functional microclimates as well as artful
and spiritually enlightening places. Chip
Sullivan believes that the solution to the challenge of finite
resources lies within the garden.
