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RIVERSIDE: Members wanted for community garden – Press

A group of Riverside residents has been working over the past year to develop a design, bylaws and rules for the future Tequesquite Community Garden.

They are now offering charter memberships to the community garden in Riverside that is scheduled to open next summer as part of Ryan Bonaminio Park, now under construction at Palm and Tequesquite avenues.

Charter members will be not be automatically granted a plot, although they will have an opportunity to sign up for one. They will be asked to elect an executive board to manage the garden.

The charter member dues are $10 per person, which grants full membership through Aug.31 next year. Funds will be used to offset costs associated with the Tequesquite Community Garden becoming a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, which will enable future fundraising efforts.

Charter members who live or work in Riverside will be first in line to sign up for garden plots when they become available. A separate plot fee will be required to offset the cost of water and other expenses.

A membership application and a required city liability waiver former are available at the Wood Streets Green team website, woodstreetsgreenteam.ning.com. Both forms must be filled out and signed and mailed with the $10 dues to 4342 Elmwood Court, Riverside, CA 92506.

Contact Pat Silverstri at silvestri.pat@gmail.com for more information.

Arts Review: ‘Orchid’ in Design District Needs Pruning

It’s been nearly 30 years since the Cirque du Soleil phenomenon—artsy, fanciful productions featuring exquisitely costumed tumblers, jugglers and aerialists—swept the globe. Each Cirque du Soleil production was more lavish than the last, with incredible sets and more daring tricks, and, of course, it was performed in a big traveling tent, lending magic to a nation accustomed to packing sports arenas for entertainment.

If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, then Cirque du Soleil should be flattered. Pompano Beach is home to Neil Goldberg’s Cirque company, which has brought the spectacle to performing arts centers around the world. And, in recent years, Miami has been the destination for traveling productions based on pirate and Halloween themes and Absinthe, a period show performed in a wooden, 19th century spiegeltent.

The latest cirque iteration to set up in Miami is Orchid, performed in a spiegeltent in the “Pleasure Garden,” a park on the northwest corner of Biscayne Boulevard and 38th Street on edge of the Design District. Billed as the ultimate mix of sexuality and cirque, Orchid, a new production directed by William Baker and promoted by the Arsht Center, purports to present a tale of the creation of beauty in a solitary, pristine garden.

Voiceovers introduce the Master Gardener (Richard E. Waits), who creates the ultimate flowering beauty, Orchid (Lexy Romano). But, as in the Biblical Garden of Eden, the Master Gardener’s creations are tempted by the Bee Keeper (Patrick Ortiz) and his bees.

The show is part burlesque (get ready to see lots of boobies covered with clever pasties), part musical theater and part circus, and unfortunately, never really hones in enough in any area to be coherent: Let’s face it, this garden needs a good pruning.

The book (Baker and Terry Ronald) is downright hoky, filled with every possible double entrendre about the flowers’ “vessels” and evoking far too many comparisons to the Eden story. The story is certainly not propelled by the score either, which is part New Age soundtrack/part rock anthem, with the small cast tackling familiar pop songs, including “Like a Virgin” (during the pollination sequence, no less), “I Want Your Sex,” “I Feel Love,” “9 to 5,” and “First Time Ever I Saw Your Face.”

Most of the vocals are competently tackled by Waits, Romano and Ortiz, but attempts to harmonize with the dancers and performers rarely are convincing. The girls were obviously hired for talents other than their voices.

The costumes, designed by Stevie Stewart and Baker, are colorful, but a little confusing. The Master Gardener is portrayed as a sort of a confusing Mad Hatter character more suited for a Tim Burton film. The Bee Keeper looks like something from the pages of The Great Gatsby in pinstripes, wingtips and straw hat.

Two performances make Orchid worth the ticket price: Stunning aerial acts by the King Bee (Hampus Janssen, a Nordic Adonis whose every ripped muscle glistens under the lights) and comic relief from burlesque performer Kitty Bang Bang (as herself). The mixed gay/straight crowds both ogled Janssen’s perfect body every time the statuesque blond took the stage and sighed with each show of upper body strength. As for Kitty — I’m still not clear how she fits into the whole “garden” thing — well, she stole the show with a high energy, sexy dance number performed with flaming torches and culminated with blazing pasties.

If you go, plan to linger in the Pleasure Garden, tastefully decorated by Luis Pons in giant flowers constructed of garden lattice that perfectly complement the European character of the spiegeltent and accompanying restaurant, featuring a $38 prix fixe menu by award-winning celebrity chef Michelle Bernstein. If you’re feeling particularly adventurous, munch on the duck fat popped popcorn during the show or down a kosher hot dog slathered in kim chee. Just like the show, there are plenty of competing flavors, both salty and sour.

If you go see Orchid

When:

Through Jan. 6, 2013

Where:

The Pleasure Garden
3800 Biscayne Blvd., Miami

How Much:

Tickets $79-118 at www.OrchidTheShow.com

UH Graduate Design/Build Studio unveils new project

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Twain House Hosting Gardening Seminar With P. Allen Smith

When P. Allen Smith starts planning how to design a garden, he doesn’t think of it as a patch of soil, grass, flowers and shrubbery. He thinks of it as a room in his house.

“What will the floor of your garden room be? In your home, it’s hardwood, but outside, you may want to do turf or gravel. What are the walls? I couldn’t afford brick, so I used hedges with holly. What do the entry ways look like? I used arbors covered with roses,” he said. “What is the focal point? What is the seating? What is the element of fun and whimsy? These are questions we ask ourselves when we are doing interior design. We should ask the same questions in the outdoors, when we’re doing exterior design.”

Smith will bring his unique perspective on garden aesthetics to the Mark Twain House Museum in Hartford on Saturday, Nov. 17, at a daylong seminar, “The Garden Home in All Seasons.” He is the keynote speaker.

Tomasz Anisko, curator of Longwood Gardens in Pennsylvania, and Ruth Loiseau of Suffield, who does floral arrangements for the White House, also will give talks at the event, which is sponsored by the Connecticut Horticultural Society.

Smith, who has two shows on CPTV, “Garden Home” and “Garden to Table,” hosts the P. Allen Smith show on radio and has written several books about gardening, said in a phone interview from his Little Rock, Ark., office that late autumn and winter, when the ground is beginning to freeze, is the perfect time to talk about gardening.

“When it’s cold outside, you can be more focused. You can talk about design and begin to think about the space throughout the winter, so you’ll be ready to move in the spring,” he said. “Spring is a distracting time to think about gardening, because you’re out there doing it.

“In the spring, I’m always running around as hard and as fast as I can to get the plants into the ground I can’t think of where the garden is going,” he said. “In winter, you can think of things you might need to move, and you have time to move them. You can mull it over in your head and noodle around on a piece of paper.”

But there still can be work outside to do this time of year. “It’s the holiday season. How can you work outdoors in a creative and stylish way?” he said.

Smith designed his first home-centric garden after he came back from grad school in England. In that country, he is now a certified fellow in the Royal Horticultural Society.

“I don’t know that garden style there is so different from here, but I had the good fortune to see really great examples of garden design, and some of the best of the world are in England,” he said. “They put the emphasis on structure, on the ‘bones’ of the garden.

“I came home realizing that if you create a confined space, an enclosure, you have the opportunity to deal with the space that isn’t overwhelming.”

Included with admission on Saturday are a demonstration of seasonal greenery designs by Woodland Gardens of Manchester, a silent auction, tours of the Twain House and a vendor market, which includes tools, gardening supplies, house plants, holiday decorations, gardening books, antique engravings and lithographs, photographic prints,notecards, pottery, decorative tiles and birdhouses.

“THE GARDEN HOME IN ALL SEASONS” will be at Mark Twain House Museum, 351 Farmington Ave. in Hartford, on Saturday, Nov. 17, from 9:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Admission is $95, $85 for members of the Connecticut Historical Society and the Mark Twain House. A box lunch will be provided. Tickets to a VIP reception with P. Allen Smith will be Friday, Nov. 16, at the Harriet Beecher Stowe Center, 77 Forest St. in Hartford, are $40. To buy tickets, call 860-280-3130.

Planning a landscape? Get it all down on paper first

Designing your landscape can be one of the most rewarding projects you’ll ever do. It’s also one of the best garden-related things you can do during the long, cold days of winter.

Good gardens don’t just happen; they’re the result of careful planning. As anxious as you’ll be to rush to the garden center, now’s the time to pause and develop a real understanding of your property’s features and how they can be used to create enjoyable outdoor spaces.

Consider doing these steps:

— Base map. A sketch of your yard, showing property lines, the house’s orientation, driveways and paths. Start at the front corner of the house. With a 100-foot tape, measure the distance out to the curb and across to the nearest property line, and draw onto graph paper. A scale of 1 inch equaling 10 feet works well, but pick whatever works for you and stay consistent through the drawing. The larger the grid paper, the easier it will be to write in all your plans and ideas. If you can find it, 18- by 24-inch grid paper is great.

Continue measuring from all corners of the house to the property’s boundaries. Draw an arrow indicating north. Locate doors and windows; gas, electric and cable utilities; trees and shrubs; and any neighbors’ features near the property line that might affect your design, such as large trees, fences or buildings.

— Site analysis. Make a basic inventory of the property’s strengths and weaknesses. A site analysis can be sketched in a single day, but it would be better to record how the area changes throughout the year. Note all significant features like sunny and shady spots, prevailing winds, drainage problems, existing vegetation, good and poor views and all utilities and easements. Make several photocopies of the base map with site analysis notes.

— Preliminary designs. Now use the copies to come up with three or four preliminary designs. Let your imagination run wild with gazebos, vegetable gardens and flowerbeds. For each design draw a bubble diagram roughly indicating the shapes and locations of these features. Exact items and perfect graphics aren’t necessary; just “bubble in” rough ideas.

Do pay attention to your site analysis, however. For example, a vegetable garden needs a flat, open area with lots of sun. Don’t place it under a huge tree. Consider how the elements relate to each other and the house, too. For example, a compost pile should be close to the vegetable garden but out of view. Or a patio shouldn’t get blasting, summer sun without some kind of cover. It’s going to take several tries to fit the odd pieces smoothly into the jigsaw puzzle, but finally a practical plan will emerge.

Look over your preliminary designs and note the features you like from each. Put them all together on a new, more detailed base map while paying attention to that site analysis. It’s critical that the garden’s features all cooperate. Here is where you need accurate dimensions, too. Find the mature spread of that shade tree; measure exactly how long that front walk will be; count the number of shrubs needed for the hedge. You may find you have to make a hybrid of several different ideas to get everything to work together. Above all, consider the mature size of the plants and trees you want to add. Otherwise, you’re setting yourself up for lots of work and expense later.

When you find your perfect design, draw it on a clean base map. As an option, you can color the different features for easier visual reference, then show it to other gardeners or even a professional landscape designer. A fresh set of eyes is an insurance policy that you haven’t overlooked something that could really cost you later.

— Next, work out a budget. Don’t let money limit your creativity, but be realistic. Actual costs might mean a change in the design. But instead of going back to the drawing board, consider building one part of the plan at a time. Figure what you most want and can do immediately and what can wait until next year. You may find you can have it all — but just not all at once. 

Good landscape design isn’t difficult, but it involves a definite process. Planning, patience and looking to the future are characteristics of gardeners, anyway. You’ll be amazed how quickly you can create the landscape of your dreams.

(Adapted from an earlier The Gardener Within column.)

(Joe Lamp’l, host of “Growing a Greener World” on PBS, is a master gardener and author. For more information visit www.joegardener.com. Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, www.shns.com.)

Garden design: it’s not just about the plants

If you were to meet a garden designer at a social function, I’d lay odds you would launch into a discussion of your gardening woes. I know we are supposedly a nation of gardeners, but would you ask an architect for bricklaying advice or an interior designer about vacuuming?

There is a public misconception about garden design that it is about gardening – it isn’t. It’s about design; the manipulation and organisation of three-dimensional space. Plants play a part in this of course, but so too does paving, lighting and drainage systems. So while pretty flowers may contribute in the creation of something beautiful, design involves spatial awareness, a bit of human psychology and, as Steve Jobs once said, “design is how it works”.

But garden design is more complex again; it doesn’t just exist in its own space but needs to make sense of the context of the space; how it relates to buildings and the wider landscape, whether that’s the neighbour’s dominating Leylandii hedge or a far-distant rural view.

How welcome then, that the Society of Garden Designers has launched the SGD Awards, its inaugural awards scheme to reward fine design and increase understanding of the contribution a professional garden designer can make to both public and private spaces.

At the Awards ceremony last Friday, broadcaster, garden designer and host for the evening James Alexander-Sinclair touched playfully on the rivalry between garden designers and landscape architects, saying that the difference between the two is that garden designers make places pretty while landscape designers make it easy to park your car. The reality is, of course, that there is huge overlap between both disciplines and James went on to say that it’s about the creation of “better, more useful and prettier places”.


Gardening blog: Dan Pearson - Grand Awaard winner at The SGD Awards
The Tokachi Millennium Forest, designed by Dan Pearson. Photograph: Syogo Iizumi

We were treated to a whole series of inspirational pictures from winners and finalists, demonstrating better, useful and beautiful places. A tiny back garden in Chelmsford designed by Patricia Fox, scooped the best small garden award for clever planting and beautifully finished hard landscaping, while the 240-hectare Tokachi Millennium Forest designed by Dan Pearson, which won the grand award, the most prestigious award of the night. Dan’s vision for the project has been to engage a largely urban population with the natural environment and it was described by the judges as “extraordinarily skilful and appeared completely effortless and natural”.


Gardening blog: manda Patton Planting Design Award Image
Amberd Lodge, Somerset, designed by Amanda Patton, who won the planting design award at the SGD Awards. Photograph: Amanda Patton

It’s a great feeling to be judged by one’s peers (and I know as I received the planting design award that night) who aren’t seduced by the superficially pretty and who took the time to visit many of the shortlisted gardens and talked to the owners. This designer/client relationship is often undervalued, but is critical in making the difference between a good garden and a truly great one.

In the case of Ian Kitson, (who took the coveted judges’ award in addition to the hard landscaping and best medium residential garden awards), the judges congratulated his clients in allowing him free reign to create what they described as a spectacular garden at Follers Manor in East Sussex. It was a bold and brave design, and without a good relationship with the clients, the comment “I’d like to use lots of crazy paving” might just have been the point where the client/designer relationship broke down!

As for the ceremony itself, the event was peppered with people from all sides of the profession, including designer and broadcaster Joe Swift, himself a fully registered member of the Society, and Andy Sturgeon, a fellow of the society; multinational nurseries and plant specialists, specialist stone suppliers, artists and craftsmen, teachers and students and a lot of people, like myself, who have the pleasure of being able to design a little beauty into people’s lives – that, and giving them somewhere to park the car.

Amanda Patton is a Sussex-based garden designer and a member of the Society of Garden Designers

Sarah Price’s guide to naturalistic planting for your garden

There were a few people who took one look at the naturalistic meadow plantings
of my Chelsea garden earlier this year and quipped “well, that’s what
happens if I let my lawn go”. However, the reality is that creating the rich
tapestry of naturalistic planting requires a lot of planning as well as a
new set of compositional rules.


Sarah Price’s gold medal winning Chelsea garden (MARTIN POPE)

It begins with the careful study of natural habitats. I love to do this on
walking holidays, but if that’s not possible I find myself spending long
hours on the internet looking at amazing photographs of wild plant
communities. I am looking for plants that like to grow together, and in what
conditions. I also look at the pattern and distribution of different species
in their natural setting. A good garden designer needs to be a visual
sponge.

When it comes to selecting plants, there are a few basic rules to consider.
Ecological compatibility is vital, which means choosing plants that suit the
conditions but will also work well as a community. Again, the easiest way to
make the right decisions is to take cues from what you observe growing in
nature.

Then I draw cross-sections of my planting schemes. Simple squiggles will do,
representing a simplification of the main plant forms: umbels, spires,
button-like dots and low, mounded hummocks. Use tracing paper or layers of
greaseproof paper for this. Always draw to the same scale so you can see how
different layers will combine and interact visually. Refer to a nursery
catalogue for information on the height and spread of the plants when they
reach maturity.

The purpose of these sketches is to test your planting scheme to make sure you
have enough variety in contrasting plant forms. This is the key to an
interesting composition.

A strong rhythm

To simplify things, I build up my planting schemes in three vertical layers,
starting with the lowest. Short plants (less than 12in/30cm) should form the
base of the planting scheme (around 40-50 per cent of the mix), and I tend
to choose plants that naturally form low hummocks.

The middle layer (approximately 12in-40in/30cm-100cm, around 40 per cent of
the mix) often contains plants with a long flowering season. Finally, I
choose two to three species that will emerge through this tapestry, the
taller the better (40in/100cm or more, approximately 10 per cent or less of
the mix). I rely on these plants to bring a strong rhythm to the scheme and
so I usually place these first so that I can see their distribution clearly.
The lower two layers are planted at random among them. Random doesn’t mean
the distribution lacks any kind of pattern or regularity: there will be
clumps of certain species, just as there are in nature.

A planting scheme like this is a radical departure from the classic,
hierarchical scheme that gives each plant its own place in the sun.
Intermingled plantings require more careful plant selection to ensure enough
sunlight can penetrate to the lowest levels. This means choosing plants for
the middle and upper layers that have near-leafless stems (see Tips, right),
avoiding taller plants with a thick canopy of leaves. If you want to achieve
a really natural effect you have to embrace the dynamic nature of plant
communities. The balance of species will change from year to year, just as
it does in a grassland meadow.

Beautiful wild places

If all this seems like three-dimensional chess, the best thing to do is to pay
a visit to a garden where you can see this kind of planting for yourself.

The Phoenix Garden in London’s West End (reopening early in 2013) is a small
garden that champions ecological principles on a small scale with plenty of
colours and habitat-rich plantings. James Hitchmough’s exotic meadow at RHS
Wisley is a long-flowering spectacle of colour. Keith Wiley is another
daring plantsman I admire for his work at the Garden House in north Devon
and his new Wildside nursery is just down the road.

Cassian Schmidt’s gardens at Hermannshof in south-west Germany were important
influences on our planting strategy for the Olympic Park. It was pouring
with rain when I visited, yet the rich golden yellows of Solidago caesia
‘Goldbandrute’, Helianthus occidentalis and the purple aster
novi-belgii, as well as the towering scale of the planting, created a
lasting impression.

This approach to planting design isn’t for everyone, nor is it right for every
garden. There’s still a place for the more traditional approach. But if what
you want from your garden is a reconnection with beautiful wild places, you
have to take on a different approach to design. It may require some
experimentation, but you can rest assured that you’ll be joining a small but
growing number of pioneers in this new wave of “gardening in the round”.

How to use plants in three vertical layers

• Use plants with low hummock forms for the lowest layer.
Heuchera villosa
is shade-tolerant, making it particularly useful as a
ground-layer plant that won’t mind a little shading from the taller plants.
It is very architectural, with long- lasting, creamy flower spikes. In the
Olympic Park’s North American garden it has been planted to spectacular
effect in among the bright yellow flowers of the low-growing Coreopsis
verticillata
‘Zagreb’. Aster divaricatus would work equally
well. Primula veris and Primula vulgaris are other
shade-tolerant options, perfect for a hedgerow or woodland-edge-inspired
area of planting.

If you’re looking to create a scheme inspired by dry meadow or steppes, Dianthus
carthusianorum
would be perfect as a low-layer species. It is very
long-flowering and its low mound of grassy foliage is evergreen. Try it
alongside Pulsatilla vulgaris.

• For the middle layer, use plants with a long season of interest
that have a relatively upright form. Sanguisorbas are invaluable for their
airy structure and elongated tassel or button-like flowers. For a scheme
inspired by British moist meadows, try Sanguisorba officinalis, Lythrum
virgatum
‘Dropmore Purple’, Succisa pratensis and Centaurea
nigra
(otherwise known as devil’s bit scabious and common knapweed).

If you have a free-draining soil in a sunny situation, Achillea ‘Credo’,
Achnatherum calamagrostis, Liatris spicata ‘Alba’, Eryngium
bourgatii
, Perovskia ‘Blue Spire’ and Salvia nemorosa would all
suit.

• For the upper layer, use tall upright species with near
leafless stems. Rudbeckia maxima creates a vibrant composition when
planted with Verbena bonariensis and/or the less well known Verbena
hastata
. Coreopsis tripteris is equally tall and airy with single
yellow daisies on a profusion of wiry stems. The molinia grasses are well
known for their upright, near transparent flower stems; try Molinia
caerulea
‘Karl Foerster’ or the even taller ‘Skyracer’. Calamagrostis
x acutiflora
‘Karl Foerster’ always stands upright, as does the less
well known North American prairie grass Andropogon gerardii.

Top tips

Lack of leaves

This is important for the middle and tallest emergent layers. Sunlight needs
to penetrate through the different layers of planting.

A transparent form does not mean that it lacks vigour; look at the towering
clear stems of Silphium terebinthinaceum, or at the plumes of Molinia
caerulea
‘Transparent’ and the persistence of our native meadow
buttercup, Ranunculus acris.

Ecological compatibility

Take the lead from a plant community that you are familiar with, for example
what you see along a woodland edge in Britain in spring. Consider growth
rates – will one plant become dominant and eliminate the slower-growing
species? Match the chosen plant palette to your soil and to the growing
conditions.

Variety of shapes

Contrasting plant shapes create an interesting composition (and also promotes
a richer habitat).

Long season

Select mainstay theme plants that will carry the scheme through the seasons
and choose plants that have interesting seed heads after flowering.

Planting density

Increasing the planting density reduces the likelihood of weed invasion. If
you were to plant nine 1 litre plants per square metre in spring, by early
summer there would be no bare soil showing, allowing little opportunity for
airborne seeds to take hold.

Look at wild plants

Plantlife (plantlife.org.uk)
is a charity that speaks up for the nation’s wild plants and which has 23
nature reserves across Britain. In spring and summer, all of their reserves
are open to the public. Here you can find a rich source of inspiration in
important wild plant habitats such as hay meadows, chalk grassland,
limestone pavement and culm grassland.

Reader offer Buy six 9cm (3.5in) pots of the tall, airy perennial
Verbena bonariensis for half price – only £14.97. Visit gardenshop.telegraph.co.uk/offers

Ann Stookey, floral designer

Ann Stookey, 60, formerly of Chestnut Hill, an award-winning floral designer, died Nov. 6 in Paris after suffering a brain hemorrhage while vacationing with her husband, Joe Waz.

The couple had been living in the Brentwood section of Los Angeles since 2011 when her husband retired as an executive with the Comcast Corp. They had been traveling with friends in Turkey, Greece, Croatia, Italy and France.

While living in Chestnut Hill, Ms. Stookey became an active gardener and floral designer, winning awards at the Philadelphia Flower Show and becoming an accredited judge of floral design. The “green garden” she created at the family’s residence in Chestnut Hill was featured in the Philadelphia Inquirer and magazine and online spreads, and has been recorded in the Smithsonian Institution’s Archive of American Gardens.

An active volunteer, she chaired various charitable events at Germantown Friends School and Settlement Music School in Philadelphia, among other institutions. With her husband, she co-chaired the Parents Leadership Council of Emerson College in 2007-08.

Ms. Stookey also was an accomplished choral singer and was a member of church choirs at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Chestnut Hill, Grace Episcopal Church in Silver Spring, Md., and All Saints Episcopal Church in Beverly Hills, Calif.

She and her husband met in 1979 when both were working for the National Citizens Committee for Broadcasting, an organization chaired by Ralph Nader. During her years in the Washington area, she worked in various capacities at National Public Radio, the Public Broadcasting System, and related institutions.

She was a member of the Wissahickon Garden Club of Philadelphia, a member of the Philadelphia Aviation Country Club, and a former member of the Philadelphia Cricket Club.  She was an avid traveler.

In addition to her husband, Ms. Stookey is survived by a son, Jack Waz, of Los Angeles; her mother, Martha Ann Stookey, of Texas; brothers Steve, of Doylestown, and Robert, of Minturn, Colo.

A celebration of Ms. Stookey’s life was held Nov. 10 at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Chestnut Hill. Memorial funds in her name will be established to support the arts of music and floral design in Philadelphia and Los Angeles. – WF

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Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens Project Achieves Net-Zero Energy Use Status …

/PRNewswire/ — The Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens Bosarge Family Education Center, a LEED Platinum certified facility located in Boothbay, Maine, has achieved confirmation of Net-Zero Energy status after a year of operation. The Education Center is recognized as one of only a handful of Net-Zero, non-residential buildings in New England, and is the second commercial LEED Platinum building in Maine.

(Photo:  http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20121112/PH10888-a )

(Photo:  http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20121112/PH10888-b )

According to the U.S. Department of Energy, a Net-Zero building is a structure with zero net energy consumption and zero carbon emissions annually. After a year of operation, an analysis of the property’s performance has confirmed that the Center is producing almost 30% more energy than it is using, and the excess energy produced is being used to supplement other power needs at the Gardens. Only a few select commercial projects nationwide achieve this distinction annually and the Center is the first non-residential development in Maine to achieve Net-Zero Energy status.

The new Center highlights the remarkable growth of Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens, which opened in 2007, on 128 acres of forest and tidal frontage. The Gardens attracted about 40,000 visitors the first year. Since then it has expanded to 248 acres, becoming the largest botanical garden in New England and one of Maine’s top tourist attractions. Today it hosts about 100,000 visitors annually.

This fast-growing popularity caused Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens to quickly outgrow its visitor center, prompting the decision to build the education center. At the facility’s opening in the summer of 2011, the 8,000-square-foot Education Center was hailed as the “greenest building in Maine.” This building stands at the next frontier of building design, going beyond LEED standards to achieve much greater energy savings and reductions in greenhouse gas emissions.

The building enclosure is at least a foot thick. Designed and specified by Maclay Architects of Waitsfield, VT, this innovative enclosure design achieves an impressive efficiency rating of R-40 in the walls and R-60 in the roof. Special triple-glazed windows, among the most efficient windows that can be bought in the U.S., allow for passive solar gain in the winter, while keeping out the heat in the summer. In addition, a recent energy audit of air leakage concluded that air infiltration at the facility is by far the lowest in the state. All these factors combined allow for a building with incredibly low energy consumption, before renewables are even factored into the mix.

To produce the energy required to achieve Net-Zero status, 135 photovoltaic panels are mounted on the south-facing roof, and an additional 102-panel array is located in an open field nearby. Altogether this solar installation generated 55,184 kWh last year. Payback for the solar system is estimated at 10 years.

The structure was a collaborative effort of integrated design and construction that included Portland-based Fore Solutions, the green building consulting company acquired by Thornton Tomasetti in 2012, which served as the project’s green building consultant. Their work also includes Maine’s only other LEED Platinum commercial building, the Augusta Hannaford supermarket.

The design was led by a collaboration between Maclay Architects and Portland, Maine-based Scott Simons Architects. Maclay Architects, a widely-recognized leader in sustainable and Net-Zero design, has completed 10 Net-Zero or Net-Zero ready projects ranging from 3,000 to 75,000 square feet. Scott Simons Architects has been recognized nationally for innovative design.

In addition, Allied Engineering, also of Portland, collaborated with Energy Balance of Montpelier, VT to design and engineer the mechanical and electrical systems, which include a massive array of on-site solar photovoltaic electricity generation capable of generating 55,184 kilowatt hours.

H. P. Cummings of Winthrop, Maine was the construction manager on the project. Becker Structural Engineers provided structural design services for the project. Bensonwood, of Walpole, New Hampshire, builders of high performance houses and commercial structures, produced and installed the super-insulated, tightly-sealed building shell.  To reduce waste and minimize disruption to the build site, Bensonwood fabricated the panelized construction assemblies off-site at their NH facilities, and assembled them rapidly on-site at the Gardens.  Bensonwood’s off-site fabrication techniques enabled the building to be rapidly assembled on-site during the winter months while ensuring the highest building performance standards.

Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens has been praised widely, receiving accolades from the Maine Chapter of the U.S. Green Building Council’s Katye Charette, who commented “Healthy, high performance buildings like the Bosarge Family Education Center are key to creating a sustainable built environment in Maine.”

Funding for the project came from the Bosarge Family Foundation, which was so impressed by the plans for the Education Center that it donated $2 million, including a $1.5 million matching challenge, which the Gardens not only met but exceeded. The total cost for the Center and its all-native landscape is $4.2 million.

To learn more, call 207-633-4333, visit www.MaineGardens.org, or stop by the Gardens, off Barters Island Road in Boothbay, Maine.

 

 

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SOURCE Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens

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ISLAMIC ART-INSPIRED DESIGN THE INTRICATE DESIGNS, ARABESQUE … – U

“There’s been a growing interest in Islam over the past decade, and not always for positive reasons,” says Sheila S. Blair, a professor of Islamic and Asian Art at Boston College and co-author of the book Islamic Arts (Phaidon Press, 1997). “But because people are curious about Islamic traditions, and art is a great way to learn about a different religion and culture, they are paying more attention to Islamic art.”

So what is Islamic art exactly? “It’s a very general term used to describe art created in countries where Islam is the major religion,” Blair says. “But wherever Islam went, the people practicing the religion interacted with local traditions. So Islamic art created in Africa has a very distinct look while Islamic art created in India has a different look.”

But while Islamic art covers a vast amount of work, which makes it hard to generalize, there are some major themes and similarities among it. “You typically see writing, geometry and extraordinarily colored arabesque patterns. Other religious art may feature people or animals, but in Islamic art that is much less prominent.”

That said, images of people and animals aren’t banned. “That’s a misconception about Islamic art – that you can’t depict people,” Blair says. “But there’s nothing in the Quran that prohibits the depiction of people in art.”

The love for Islamic art has spread to art collectors around the world. One of the most famous lovers of Islamic art is Doris Duke, an heiress who filled her Hawaiian home, Shangri-La, with Islamic art.

“In the 1930s, Doris traveled extensively and developed a great interest in the Islamic world,” says Donald Albrecht, co-author of “Doris Duke’s Shangri-La: A House in Paradise” (Rizzoli, 2012) and co-curator of an exhibition of her pieces. “Once that happened, she set about collecting Islamic art for Shangri-La. As a result, its walls were covered with shimmering surfaces and abstract patterns.”

Doris Duke wasn’t the only person inspired to bring Islamic art into the home. Ann Getty, a designer and philanthropist, also did.

“One of Ann’s favorite cities was Istanbul,” says Deborah Hatch, chief curator of fine arts for the Ann and Gordon Getty Collection. “She loved traveling to Istanbul, and her homes show her love for the artwork she’d find there.”

Islamic influence can also be seen in garden design. “There are key elements to an Islamic garden that people can follow no matter where they call home,” says Emma Clark, author of “The Art of the Islamic Garden” (Crowood Press, 2011). “They are designed with order and geometry, often split into four distinct sections. Islamic gardens were considered a refuge from the outside, harsher environment of the desert. So it is lush with water and shade. That’s what people longed for when trudging through the desert.”

The Islamic garden is meant to delight all of the senses, Clark says, so people include “bubbling fountains, fragrant roses and lavender and delicious fig trees. And lastly, make sure it feels peaceful, a place for contemplation.”

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