Wanted: Studio with Studio Mates

Dear Everyone in the Universe….or just maybe Utah,

As many of you know, I am a landscape and garden designer delivering bespoke designs for unique sites. I live and also currently work from home in the Avenues of Salt Lake City. It's been great to work from home for the past several years as I love my space and can do laundry whenever I want to. However, I am ready to make a change. 

I am looking for studio/warehouse space with high ceilings, big windows, lots of natural light, maybe some exposed brick and wood or concrete floors...in the downtown Salt Lake City/Avenues area - or Park City (as that is where most of my designs are located), to share with a few other creative or industry-related individuals/groups. Maybe this space already exists, maybe it needs to be created. I know there are shared workspaces out there already, like that Hub one…but I am looking for a strictly creative vibe around me with a real studio atmoshpere and quality characters.

Individuals with whom I would like to share an open space with:

Architects, Custom Home Builders, Graphic Designers, Metal Artists/Welders, Photographers, Fashion, Set, Costume or Textile Designers, Hairstylists, Potters, Woodworkers, Ceramists…any creative who seeks out to be and create the original and exceptional.

During the growing season I am on-site a fair amount, but still have plenty of studio hours at the drafting table. In the falls and winters, there's definitely more studio time. And when I am at the drafting table, it would be nice to have more energy than just my own in the room…someone to talk shop with occasionally and say hi to at the start of the work day.

I am throwing this idea out there to see what kind of response I get. Maybe there's someone out there like myself, who's been wanting to create and work in this type of atmosphere and is ready to make it happen. Or maybe you just know of a great space that I can check out and then continue the search for studio mates….shoot me an email if you know of a space or are interested in meeting up!

Best, 

Lorien  

Dreamy, no?

Blurred Photography With Dots

I don't know why I am so attracted to these types of photographs. Maybe it's the all the colors, the repeated circle shapes, the magical quality, the hint of what it really may be...also, there's something very reminiscent about images likes these for me, as if they are bringing back memories.

Or maybe that I am in a living dream.  

Is there a way to incorporate this trance-like experience into the landscape, I wonder. I am remembering back to a winter night I was in Shoreditch at the tasty Pizza East for dinner. It was wet outside which caused enhanced reflections all around, from anything that was producing any sort of light: cars, buses, taxis, street lamps, store fronts...

Inside I sat near a window which was frosted on the bottom half and left as plain glass on the top half (top image*). This, of course, creates privacy for the individual dining while still allowing views and light in and out of the restaurant at varying levels. It's not an uncommon technique. Those lower window panes become like the blurred photographs I love so much. Maybe not an exact replica, but it gives a very similar feeling (bottom image). And yes, I do believe that this experience I had at the restaurant can be replicated into a landscape or garden in it's own way. Maybe incorporated into an outdoor seating area where there's a fire, a dining area...a hot tub or a bath....it's an interesting concept to consider. And would make for a stunning experience out of doors after dark. 

* Ah, Prêt a Manger! Who would have thought I would miss you so. Please come to Utah. 

Around the Great Salt Lake

A few weekends ago I drove a big loop around The Great Salt Lake. I had never been to the uppermost corner of Northwest Utah and when I get curious about an idea or a place, I can't help myself and plans of exploration are set into motion. I brought a winter sleeping bag with me, just incase; extra gasoline, just incase; extra food and water, just incase.

It was a beautiful drive with lots of moody weather. I saw more cows than people I am sure. More dirt and gravel roads than paved. Some things went as planned, and other didn't. Just like a landscape design, actually. 

While I am out in nature I pay attention to how what I am seeing or feeling could be incorporated into a residential landscape or garden. Light and shadow play, the power of a stretch of straight road, recognizing plant succession and how most plants move in groups, how the influence of man juxtaposes itself against wild nature and how to strike that balance well. And there's always the color palettes to look for. It was a very blue, white and golden-brown-grey day. Very Northern Utah. 

The next adventure is already in the books. 

Photo Notes (All were taken with my iPhone 5): 

  1. Moody clouds out past the Golden Spike
  2. Spiral Jetty by Robert Smithson
  3. Black cows, one of many ranches I passed
  4. Shiny mud on the northern end of The Great Salt Lake
  5. A stretch of dirt road in the middle of nowhere - somewhere by Kelton
  6. Highway 30 heading south
  7. Sun Tunnels by Nancy Holt (was married to Smithson)
  8. A single Sun Tunnel 
  9. Along the western border of Utah
  10. The Bonneville Salt Flats just after sunset

9 Thoughts on Being Process-Oriented

I was reading last night in "101 Things I Learned in Architecture School" by Matthew Frederick. I was at number 29 and really loved what I read (though I've loved everything I have read in this book so far). It said something that I came to realize myself over the past year and a half, but I think he has clarified it better than I did:

“Being process-driven, not product driven, is the most important and difficult skill for a designer to develop.”

He goes on saying that being process driven means:

  1. seeking to understand a design problem before chasing after solutions;
  2. not force-fitting solutions to old problems onto new problems;
  3. removing yourself from prideful investment in your projects and being slow to fall in love with your ideas;
  4. making design investigations and decisions holistically (that address several aspects of a design problem at once) rather than sequentially (that finalize one aspect of a solution before investigating the next);
  5. making design decisions conditionally - that is, with the awareness that they may or may not work out as you continue toward a final solution;
  6. knowing when to change and when to stick with previous decisions; 
  7. accepting as normal the anxiety that comes from not knowing what to do;
  8. working fluidly between concept-scale and detail-scale to see how each informs the other;
  9. always asking "What if...?" regardless of how satisfied you are with your solution.

I think these 9 thoughts are helpful to review every now and then. 

A Dragonfly is Driving the Design

Last month my main focus was capturing and defining the essence of my current design project. Images help me achieve this and I will spend hours scouring the internet, gathering photos into a folder that will then be curated, selecting the most inspiring images that will help me tell the best story of the future landscape.

With this particular project it came down to this:

Simple and elegant. A balance between the masculine and the feminine. Contrast in light and shadow and in color. Strong in form yet effortless, not overbearing. Naturalistic. 

Of course there are a plethora of other images that made the short list, but this one I singled out to have with me as I developed the core of the design. And I will share the results in the coming weeks ahead.

It Was Like Being Inside A Big Beautiful Marble

For as dry and desert-y Utah is, it does have its watery places. I love spending time in these places as water is a great contributor to the dynamics of light, shadow and reflection...something that deeply interests me as a landscape and garden designer. 

This past Saturday I was traveling home from Northern Utah and decided to take a detour - as one always should on a Saturday (or any day). I followed a gravel road, which turned into a dirt road, after which I ended up on a narrow dike with Willard Bay stretched out in front of me. It was mesmerizing, the water was so flat and still. It really did feel like I was inside a big beautiful marble, watching it change and evolve as the sun sunk lower into the horizon line. 

To see more images from my Willard Bay adventure, see my Instagram account. The sky caught fire afterwards and it was breathtaking.

Artemisia tridentata

Since returning to Utah last September, I have been focusing on what I love about this state and why I love living here. 

This is one of those reasons:

I absolutely love Sagebrush. The way it smells after a rainfall, the way it twists and turns as it grows, and the way it fills the vast Great Basin and high mountain desert, adding to the expanse and personality of the West. It is wild and free - and drought tolerant. 

As we are having a very warm February in Utah (lovely for hiking, no allergies!), I am thinking to the growing season ahead and the potential lack of water this part of the world may face. It would do the Earth well if more of us fell in love with this native and incorporated it into our landscapes and gardens. Think how happy the water and wildlife would be! 

Here is a bit more information about this wonderful shrub for those who are curious. This information came from the USU website:

“Driving through the Great Basin, you can often look out upon a sea of gray-green shrubs. This shrub of commanding presence is big sagebrush. This is a woody shrub with silvery three-lobed leaves that stay green all year.

There are several subspecies of big sagebrush. The most common are Wyoming big sagebrush (Artemisia tridentata ssp. wyomingensis), mountain big sagebrush (Artemisia tridentata ssp. vaseyana), and basin big sagebrush (Artemisia tridentata ssp. tridentata). These subspecies are difficult to tell apart, but each has a habitat it finds most favorable. Basin big sagebrush grows in valley bottoms and lower foothill areas with relatively deep, fertile soils and more moisture. Wyoming big sagebrush is more common on hotter and drier sites with shallow, lower quality soils. Mountain big sagebrush tends to occur at higher elevations that are wetter and cooler.

Native Americans made a tea from big sagebrush leaves and used it as a tonic, an antiseptic, for treating colds, diarrhea, sore eyes, and to ward off ticks.

This shrub grows in communities with bunchgrasses throughout the Great Basin. Usually plants grow between 2 and 4 feet tall, but scientists have found shrubs taller than 10 feet in areas with deep soil and plenty of moisture. In late summer or early fall, sagebrush plants bloom with inconspicuous golden yellow flowers. Big sagebrush has a sharp odor, especially after rain. Early pioneers traveling along the Oregon Trail described the scent as a mixture of turpentine and camphor.

Plants must be tough to survive where summer is hot, little rain falls, and strong winds blow. Big sagebrush has many adaptations to fit this harsh environment. Their leaves are covered with tiny hairs that help prevent it from drying out in the heat and wind. Some leaves are shed in the summer when soil moisture becomes scarce, thereby reducing water requirements. At night, the taproot of sagebrush pulls moisture from deep in the soil and distributes it to shallow branching roots that grow near the surface. During the day, the shallow roots use this water to keep the shrub alive.

While the gnarled branches of big sagebrush may seem tough, it is easily killed by fire because it cannot resprout afterward. Occasional fire is the principal means of renewing old stands of big sagebrush.

One of the big reasons cheatgrass invasion is bad for the Great Basin is because with it and frequent fire, we are losing large stands of big sagebrush. Without these shrubs, animals are affected and ecosystem processes change.

Sage grouse rely heavily on big sagebrush. As much as 70 to 75 percent (higher in winter) of their diet is made up of its leaves and flower clusters. Antelope eat substantial amounts of big sagebrush throughout the year, and mule deer feed heavily on the plant during late fall and winter. Sharp-tailed grouse, jackrabbits, elk, and many species of small mammals eat big sagebrush sparingly at various times of the year.

Big sagebrush provides nesting cover for sage grouse, other upland game birds, and several species of sparrows. It also helps prevent erosion, protects animals against wind and rain, and provides shade. Big sagebrush communities serve as important winter ranges for wildlife throughout the Great Basin.
”

Form

I have been thinking about form lately (the mounding variety in particular), and the way it plays with light, shadow, and a sense of the tangible. Two specific images have been coming to mind repeatedly, the Chocolate Hills in Bohol, Philippines, and the Yareta plant in the higher elevations of South America. I believe if you or I were to come across these in their native locations we would probably scratch our heads and smile in curiosity and delight. I think we would feel wonder.  

It is when I see that such creations exist naturally in our world, that I think we ought to be a bit more daring and adventurous in our design work.

The Chocolate Hills: Grass-covered limestone. The conical domes and mounds vary in height - from 98 to 164 feet with the tallest being 390 feet tall. They cover an area of 20 square miles. The green grass turns a chocolate brown during the dry season, thus the name Chocolate Hills.

The Llareta plant: Native to South America. It grows at altitudes between 10,500 and 14,800 feet and is found in the Puna grasslands of the Andes in Peru, Bolivia, northern Chile and western Argentina. It grows approximately 1.5 centimeters a year and many Yareta are thought to be over 3,000 years old. 

yareta-01_slide-5e7529c48ac9ea75764086f61f65e204e62c4460.jpg

Hard Work and Working Hard

This morning I am thinking about the ability of working hard. And hard work. And the courage it takes to do both. 

Some others have thought about it as well.

“Inspiration is the windfall from hard work and focus. Muses are too unreliable to keep on the payroll.”
— Helen Hanson
“I’m a greater believer in luck, and I find the harder I work the more I have of it.”
— Thomas Jefferson
“Sometimes there’s not a better way. Sometimes there’s only the hard way.”
— Mary E. Pearson
“The three great essentials to achieve anything worthwhile are: Hard work, Stick-to-itiveness, and Common sense.”
— Thomas A. Edison
“You cannot plough a field by turning it over in your mind.”
— Author Unknown

Now it's time to get to hard work and to working hard.

Clouds, light and contrast

Here's a moody and moving image I found while searching for images portraying 'light'.

Click on the image to experience it fully.

Clouds and light are some of my favourite things about this planet, Earth.

Friday Musings

.

“Each design I am commissioned for has its own unique personality, character and soul. My job is to find it and provoke it into something beautiful, livable and wonderful.”

Sometimes I am able to express how I view my work and responsibilities as a designer. Other times I really struggle to be succinct and end up rambling on without much coherency. I definitely experienced both this week. Bless the soul who experienced the latter.

The little nook of my recently-moved-back-in studio space in progress.

The little nook of my recently-moved-back-in studio space in progress.

Aspen and Dogwood in Winter

This is just amazing. 

Click on the image to enlarge your experience.

Definitely going to work this into a design somewhere, sometime.

Wagner Residence

Discovering respectable work of other designers and architects in my field is inspiring. While searching for images of cor-ten steel I came across this space:

Click on the image to enlarge your experience.

I love the sculptural presence to the garden.

To see more images of this residence, and other projects check out their website. They achieve simplicity and organization in a freeing manner. Calm and pleasing spaces. 


Deschampsia cespitosa 'Bronzeschleier'

Gorgeous.

What I love about this image: 

The Deschampsia has gone to seed creating a spattered-cloud effect. The seed heads capture light at various angles, thus illuminating various particle sizes which makes it more interesting. The seeds that are in shadow create contrast. The in-focus champagne color vs the grass green color vs the blurry chartreuse color vs the sea foam green color.

January

January...

January is a fresh word. Fresh and new. Full of potential and hope if we are brave enough.

I am back in Salt Lake City, back on L Street…filling up my old place with new memories. I got rid of everything before I moved to London, so I have been doing the run-around for a few weeks in order to create a space in which I can function and feel at home. But also a space where I can be highly inspired and creative. It's coming together and I am giving myself one year to get it all figured out. Rugs take time.

So far I have some furniture arranged about and three plant skeletons I found in the mud flats suspended from the ceiling, so I would say I am off to a decent start. The massive bulletin boards arrive next week. I will paint them white and cover two of my walls with them. Then I can pin up whatever I like, whenever; visualize my thoughts. 

Maybe I have mentioned this before, but during the course of 2015 I will be preparing to open an appendage to my landscape and garden design work, Lorien Hall Studio (I think that's the name). It will be a creative studio that will explore tangible expressions which stem from my landscape work - art installations and drawings that are quite conceptual. I am anxious to see my ideas materialize in a way that can reach a wider audience, and touch more people on a more personal level. 

The year ahead is going to be ace. I already have a great landscape commission on my plate with new opportunities on the horizon. While I miss my life in London everyday, it's good to be back creating dreams here in Utah, where other possibilities do exist.