Designed by Matthew Childs
Oxo Tower Wharf
11th September - 29th September 2013
The third Remix Garden presented a vertically surging display of planting an immersive environment for vistors to explore.
Matthew Childs’ design concept is concerned with the preciousness and scarcity of natural resources, and in particular the idea that 'Water is Life'. In the form of a mash-up, the installation combines both the ideas behind, and the physical elements from the Wilson McWilliam Studio show garden and the Ecover Garden from RHS Hampton Court Flower Show. The latter designed by Matthew Childs, won a Gold medal and the 'Best in Show' award in July 2013. The design suggests that a wide crack has opened up in the paving, and exploding from it are giant galvanised culverts commonly used in construction to divert water courses. They protrude at gentle angles, and from the top a bounty of plants and materials from the two gardens erupt giving dynamism and life to the urban area.
The towering culverts, introduced into the project, with copper rods protuding from them, lifted by garden skywards creating a vertical dialogue with the surrounding architecture. Their placement created an immersive spatial experience for the public to randomly flow through and around, craning to view the planting spilling down from the culverts in places, and greeting them at eye level at others. Boulders created ground level foils, drifting of towards the perimeter wall where the roof canopy appeared to have crash landed from the neighbouring building site, complete with matching venitlation pipes.
The installation created a sense of intrigue, revealing and hiding aspects of itself to visitors, as they discovered it at close range, and from above on the balconies of the Oxo Tower Wharf building.
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