My Final A1 Drawings for Calverley Grounds

A selection of my coloured drawings for the final exhibition

Precedents Images

1:200 Plan

Model Images

1:200 Lighting Plan

1:100 Sections

1:100 Sections

Sequential Sketches

1:50 Garden Plan

1:50 Terrace Plan

1:50 Garden Sections

1:50 Terrace Sections

Final Pin-up

Here it is then, the moment we have all been dreading since we started 3 years ago and looked at the 3rd year's work on the wall.  "Surely we could never achieve that" well we did and stop keep calling me Shirley.
I think we should all be proud of what we've put on the wall as only a few months ago on a tense Monday, Jamie in shovel round the head mode (and justifiably so) we put work up for a crit and were told to go away and try again.  Well, it seemed to work even if we all felt a bit miffed at the time.

 The chaos that is Grant 

Final adjustments

Just one more hoop to jump through then its out into the big, wide world.

To any 1st or 2nd year students reading this, you will wonder, when you look at the exhibition, how you will move from what you do in 2nd year to what you do in 3rd year but you will achieve it, you won't know how, but you will.

Section no. 2

This is my second 1:50 set of sections for my terracing.  It was done with a mixture of hand rendered trees and colour swatches scanned into Photoshop and plonked where they were designed to go.  Some of the other plants are photos which have been through the process of filter and dry brush treatment (thanks to Miss Ford for that one) which sounds like some kind of  beauty therapy "Chardonnay is ready to give you your filter and dry brush treatment now Miss Ford".

I made the stainless steel handrails in Autocad and Photoshop and added a photo of Tunbridge Wells taken from Calverley Grounds as the backdrop.  I have to annotate it now, or you could just make it up yourselves.

I've been sending bits to Errol at Mediatek ready to be put in cotton wool, so thanks to him for putting up with us students at this time of year.  Another few more days of tweaking before the final hanging on Monday, then we can sleep on Tuesday before interviews on Wednesday and Thursday.  

Good luck everyone.

Section no.1

Here are my 1:50 sections for my garden area, without  annotation, on what is now the tennis courts at Calverley Grounds.  Yes, very flat but it was one of my chosen areas.  The other ones will be full of steps and terraces. 
Onwards and upwards...

A Bit of an Struggle

Last week's presentation, avec modele...

...sans modèle 

After being assessed last week and then told to go away for two weeks to try an improve is turning out to be harder than I thought.  Not to say my work doesn't need improvement, there are plenty of things that need to be done, but its finding the energy and the enthusiasm for one more push.
We've been told that we can improve our grades over the next two weeks (now one week) but the irony is that I spend the next week slogging away only for my grade to remain the same.  I spent the weekend and much of last week doing technical details, all the bits that most people won't even look at and none of which I will bore you with here, and now I need to tweak some of the coloured bits.
I'm exhausted and I need to lay in a darkened room for a week.

That's it...

...no not quite.
Yesterday was final crit, the moment 8 year's of work (for me anyway) boiled down to. Standing in front of the University of Greenwich/Hadlow College's equivalent of the Dragon's Den panel presenting our masterplan design and development for our chosen park.  Some did well, some not so well, but we all had fair and balanced feedback from our assessors/tutors so we can't ask for more than that.  We now have 2 more weeks to improve and present to the external assessors but for now we are finished with the University's tutoring and assessment.


I must pay tribute to all of the tutors who have taught us over the last three years and thank them for guiding me and shaping me into what I have become, now I understand.  I may not have seen eye to eye with them at all times but my respect for them grew continually and they are the best anyone who wishes to become a Garden Designer could hope for and so I thank them enormously for the help and guidance they have given me to get me to where I am now.


We've had a lot of ups and downs over the last 3 years and I want to thank all the other students but especially my little gang in Garden Design Year 3 (and the ladies at Willmott Ford in particular) for their help and support during this time, for the moments of darkness when you wonder if it is all worth it, but they have been there for me when I was at my lowest and gave me the confidence and energy to carry on.  Your friendship and support has carried me through what has been a great time and now it is sad to think that yesterday was the last time we wiill be together in that situation.  I hope we will remain close for the years to come and my life will be a little emptier now we have finished.

Bored!

Two hours wating for the printer.  And waiting.  And waiting...

Fine way to spend a Sunday in May.

Saturday Night/Sunday Morning

Can't remember the last time I stayed up all night on a Saturday.  It certainly wasn't to do school work!

These are the fruits of my labour my 2, yes 2, fully rendered 1:50 areas (guess who didn't go to Lille).  Now off to join the hordes at the Uni waiting for printing.  No sleep til Brooklyn...or should that be Hadlow.

Confidence?

...full of it...

Like a circle in a spiral,
like a wheel within a wheel,
Never ending or beginning in an ever spinning reel,
Like a snowball down a mountain,
or a carnival balloon,
Like a carousel thats spinning running rings around the moon,
like a clock whose hands are sweeping past the minutes of its face,
The world is like an apple whirling silently in space,
Like the circles that you find
In the windmills of your mind!
-Legrand, Bergman, Bergman

My 'ead feels like a windmill!

Planting Plansss...aaarrrggghhh.

What a joy...two days in and counting.  All day yesterday drawing little circles in Cad and joining them to other little circles in Cad joining them to other little circles in Cad joining them...you get the idea.  As you can tell from the title I, and those of us who were unable to go to Lille (don't know what it is but I keep hearing the same word over and over and over...) have TWO planting plans to do, by Monday along with two of the hardworks, two rendered plans and whatever else there might be.  

Well here's the news.  It ain't gonna be done!  It is an impossibility to churn out that amount of work to a decent standard in that amount of time.  I could do it all in 1 hour if you like but it won't be any good.

Anyway, back to my planting plan after 4 hours sleep.

Knew I should have been a Landscape Architect, then I could have just used Berberis!

DON'T PANIC...

MR.MAINWARING...


So, there we were all working towards the 30th for our final marking when it was brought to our attention that in 3rd year the word crit has a different meaning to the word crit in the 1st and 2nd years.  It turns out in 3rd year the word crit means you are going to get marked.  Our next crit is on the 16th, 2 weeks before we were all thinking of.  We thought we might get some feedback on the 16th for our final markings on the 30th!
So, a word to the wise for Garden Designers of the future, when you are at Hadlow a crit is something you get feedback on but when you get to big school the term changes.  It means you are getting marked and your whole existence is suddenly crammed into 11 days...


AAARRRGGGHHH!!!

Check me out!

I've gone live.  From a complete numpty on computers a few years ago now I'm Photoshoping, Autocadding, Indesigning and now webmaster!

It bright, its colourful, its at:


http://www.wix.com/neilbrookson/preciouschilli


I know the wix bit is a bit naff but they want money to use your own domain name, you know the one I paid money for yesterday to use as my own.  You never see a poor software creator do you.  No wonder they're billionaires.  I'm going to make up the most random domain name of words that have no relevance to each other and see if I can use it for free, but it'll be "no sorry, we own that domain name".   

Planting Plan

Tree and shrub planting plan, might be right, might be wrong.  I've tried to use plants that will give different things throughout the year like Cornus for its winter stem colour and general greeness during the rest of the year, Corylus avellana 'Contorta' for twisted stems and catkins in winter and Garrya elliptica for catkin type things and being evergreen.  There are some Hamamelis for their early spring/winter spidery flowers as well and Cotinus and Choisya for leaf colour.  I would add to this ornamental grasses and herbaceous perennials along with bulbs to try and keep something going on at all times.

Failing that, I might just use Delphiniums...white ones.