Urban Chat | Design

Landscaping Your Little Corner Of The World In Harmony With Mother Nature

By Rob Doddemeade

When it comes to design elements, few areas area as exciting and challenging as landscape design and blending one’s creativity harmoniously with Mother Nature.

Indeed, the lay of the land can inspire your imagination to follow nature itself; but do it in a balanced way that integrates leisure areas with minimal impact on the environment, while at the same time capitalizing on all that mother nature has to offer.

New innovative building materials are opening up new eco-friendly and cost-efficient opportunities. Reinforced concrete, stone cladding ‘batu sikat’, wood and steel construction all offer exciting design possibilities. Orientation to the harsh elements of nature, and harnessing energy efficiency, are all important concept factors these days.

People often ask me why I write about design; and indeed, all forms of designs that touch our lives in so many ways…not just in terms of art and architecture. For me, the answer is simple. Most of the time, we all live in a man made environment; your home, your office , hotels, restaurant and bars, and especially in your car, in Jakarta. Almost everything surrounding you has been invented and designed by someone else, and I’d like to dwell on this important point for a moment.

Some person at some time engaged in a creative act, and the sum total of those acts makes up the world you live in. This applies not only to your physical environment but your mental one as well-your mind is filled almost entirely by symbols formed by creative persons.

Consider what these creative products are made from. Very simple things; things that existed in nature, now combined into new patterns. The chair you sit in did not exist in the tree and resinous substances from which the materials came; but in the mind of the creative  person who designed and constructed it from natural raw materials.

The same can be said for the very floor, walls, drapes and ceiling that surround you. All are patterns formed by creative persons who found new combinations for quite simple and ordinary things. The essence of the creative act is to look beyond what exists in its raw state and ask; “What if” and “Why not?” It is this kind of thinking that shapes the world we live in.

Of course, not all these thoughts have been good for our environment: the clearing of rainforest and tampering with nature, is causing the extinction of many animals and mammals. Toxic gases from industries and carbon fuel emissions from traffic – all man made -  are polluting our world, destroying the ozone layer and increasing global warming. More inventions and creative solutions, like solar energy, wind-power and safer alternative fuel sources, are required, if we are to save our planet.