Our design ideas...

Now that Natasha's back (yes! Natasha's back!) we've been tossing around several design concepts. Actually, we've been tossing around concepts for a while now. We even started throwing around concepts before we fully decided we were actually going to do this Ellerslie lark.

Natasha wanted to do something that no one had ever done before.

I didn't care what we did as long as it was eco-friendly and sustainable.

May was all for looking at books and gaining inspiration and ideas.

As you might imagine, Natasha and Mays' concepts do not exactly fit together. I personally think that both ethoses (ethoi???) have their merits. But what can one do??? Even at that early stage we could foresee that there would be conflict. I joked that we should take DNA samples of ourselves so that, in the likely event that we murdered each other a part of us would live on in some form.

Still, our ideas have progressed with relatively little strife. Here are all our fantastic ideas that we've come up with over the past... however long it's been:

- Sleep garden, complete with bed/hammock and plants that make you want to sleep, i.e. camomile and hops

- Fold-away garden - watch this! It's flipping awesome! http://www.youtube.com/v/dAa6bOWB8qY&hl=en_US&fs=1

- Scented garden, filled with nice-smelling plants and flowers

- Elemental garden, where the elements of water, fire, earth and air are symbolically represented

- Water garden... something like an island surrounded by water. Or Venice. My mum keeps telling me to do this.

- Japanese Zen garden

- Babylonian Hanging Garden

- Proto-modern Westie garden, complete with dead car overgrown with rampant weeds

- Bathroom garden

And we thought up several elements that could fit into all of these gardens:

- Mosaic

- Outdoor fireplace

- Water feature

- Strange combination of both fireplace and water feature

- Mist

- Birdsong

- Eco-friendly (my criteria! MUST be adhered to!)

- Expensive furniture

- Mural

- Fusion of cultures

- Purple/blue colour scheme

- Flower petals used to form an overhead screen

- Painted lightbulbs made to resemble mushrooms

- Drums

- Chaddis (a funny Hindi word for shorts. And also underwear.)

- Wind chimes

- Mannequins (AUTONS! THE NESTENE CONSCIOUSNESS CAN INVADE THE GARDEN!!!)

- Bottle garden

A few of the last ideas Natasha came up with when she was jet-lagged and high on coffee.

But just in the last few hours Natasha had an epiphany. I'll let Natasha write what she thinks as she's probably the most qualified person to do this:

So, okay, this is a confession, but when I was in India, I wasn't really thinking about Ellerslie (what with so many other things to do :P and EAT). So, when I read all the ideas these guys were tossing around, I liked them ALL. But that only because I did not really think too much about them at all, they all sounded AWESOME. And, well, they were doing more thinking than I was. (or so I thought :P ) Then, I come back, spend an afternoon in the library and realize I have a problem with RELAXING!! OMG!! I just cannot get myself to relax!! and it was that bit of the brief that annoyed me the most! which is why I was so unhappy about Ellerslie. (Note- I was super-hyper excited about Ellerslie ALWAYS! even when I couldn't even say the name :P)

So, I decide that we were not going the right way with our thinking process and we needed to reinvent the way we were going about designing Ellerslie just so that we are a LOT more excited about doing it. Kind of trying to put a bit of ourselves in the design, because lets face it, we are NOT tranquil people and we somehow have to try and add a bit of our madness to the tranquil garden. (Gosh, blogging makes me hyperventilate) Back to Zara- Pheww!

ME AGAIN!!!!!

So yes, I was at home lying in bed eating hummus and crackers and reading feminist historical fiction while Natasha was at the library having her epiphany. Natasha ran into my room and I yelped loudly because it was late in the afternoon and I was still in my pyjamas. She then went on and on about this problem she had with Ellerslie and demanded my instant help.

So I went and had a shower.

I came back out, and she explained her problem, and I began to agree with her. Everything we had designed so far was in my mind pretty, well, mundane. That is, it was all good, but it lacked... something to make it special. Something that represented us. I can't help but think that everything we'd come up with so far was just us redoing what others had done before us.

So we meditated. We did the incense thing. We even turned off the TV.

And then I wrote this rather silly little philosophical thing that Natasha claims puts all of her jumbled thoughts into nicely-formed sentences. I think it's a load of disconnected tosh.

"Nature is our teacher. Everything we feel has its origins in nature. Look at a mountain. It's magnitude forces itself upon our tiny selves a feeling of awe at its greatness. We feel puny in comparison.

A great building such as a cathedral reinforces this awe. Look at its size, it's awesome magnitude. There is no difference between a mountain and a cathedral, save for one thing only: a cathedral is made by man. It's a very human mountain.

Can we not apply this same thought to our garden of tranquillity?

What is tranquillity?

It is peace, a peace that comes from the knowledge that we are free from hurt, from worry, from distraction.

A small stream is tranquil. It flows on, unhurried, in the knowledge that it has all of eternity to reach its destination.

There is not much in our constructed world that brings tranquillity. Everything is built for convenience, for the sake of getting things done quickly. It is stress and pressure that are at complete odds to tranquillity.

Tranquillity is not being forced to move. It is static.

Our garden should have a place to sit and reflect.

It should be filled with nature.

Nature is its own form of static.

But, for some reason, we hate this idea. We are young! We are energetic! We hate the static! We wish to move, to accomplish. We shriek and giggle as we steam-roll on through life.

We just can't stand tranquillity.

Therefore we must throw in some idea other than tranquillity. Something of ourselves that can also be applied to the DINKY couple. A bit of our madness.

But, WHAT????????"

After that we started playing around with abstract concepts. Natasha showed me a painting which was nothing more than squiggly paint splatters (and therefore is not art... hehehe...) but it gave me the idea of deconstruction. Perhaps having all the constructed elements in the garden slowly disintegrating only to be overwhelmed by nature... it's a form of anarchy of which I am particularly fond. Nature getting revenge on the world and all that.

Natasha has an idea of order and chaos... or order in chaos. Nature is wild and untamed. Our modern world exists to try and bring a bit of order to this chaos. But for some reason we are still irresistibly drawn to the chaos, and so even though we find ourselves a part of this ordered, modern world, a part of us yearns for the madness of nature.

She also describes it as being like Bombay. Indian Bombay. Not the Kiwi version. In Bombay there is an old and a new section. The old section is badly organised and thoroughly mad. The newer section is more peaceably laid out. Natasha lives in the newer section... yet every day she seeks to go back to the older section. It's far more interesting and alive.

So, we're thinking of quitting Ellerslie and taking up philosophy instead. Sounds like an inspired career choice.

But seriously, we're beginning to think that if we have an abstract, philosophical approach to our design, we can sort of marry it to some of our previous, concrete design ideas. I - we - think that it's the key to turning our previously mundane ideas into something far more spectacular and memorable.

No idea what May thinks about all this yet. We need to talk to her still. If she totally disagrees with us and throws hot burning acid into our eyes while shrieking in insane fury, we'll let you know.

Hopefully she won't, though. We haven't saved our DNA samples yet.