Diana Memorial/ Designer

DESIGNER

"I'm very connected to the land; I can feel it physically inside me."
Kathryn Gustafson is an American-born, Paris-educated landscape architect and environmental artist who has been practicing since 1980, primarily in France, working as a sole practitioner in collaboration with architects, artists, and engineers.
American landscape designer Kathryn Gustafson, long one of the most respected in her field
Her 20 years of experience in landscape art followed an earlier career as a fashion and fabrics designer in New York and Paris.Through her private practice, she has won a series of high profile landscape projects including the corporate headquarters for Shell, Esso and l’Oreal near Paris, a new park in Terrasson la Villedieu which has become a listed landmark, the Square of Human Rights in Evry and Square Rachmaninov in Paris.Kathryn Gustafson now works throughout the world with the two offices, Gustafson Porter in London and Gustafson Guthrie Nichol in Seattle.

Her work pioneers an original vision in landscape architecture, rooted in Modernist abstraction; her artistic vocabulary also derives from the elusive qualities of intuition, memory and emotion.
Dominate her works-
Contoured land
Sleek structures
Restrained plantings
Monochrome
Simplisity

Harmony is the key to Kathryn Gustafson's work.
It is about harmony between the land and the mind, body and soul, she says, and harmony between the site's past and how it can be adapted for the future.
She also says she tries to create spaces where people can shelter from the incessant barrage of information that fills their daily lives - to create places of serenity and clarity.
One of Gustafson's recognized abilities is the way she sculpts and rearranges the land. Her intention is to create harmony, serenity and balance between people and nature. Many of her designs have an abstract style that doesn't fit into Modernism nor Minimalism. Her designs portray open areas with spatial orientation. Although her drawings begin as abstract drawings, the techniques are then turned into reality. Although her projects can range from being 1 acre to 150 acres, Gustafson tries to relate viewer's need for peace and calmness to the landscape. Much of her designs are conceptually influenced by her previous vocation as a fashion designer. Gustafson believes that the design for a site comes from the site itself and not the other way. Therefore, before coming up with a design, she tries to research about the site and achieve the best type of plan for the context of the area.
Gustafon incorporates water as a sculptural element, activating designs and contrasting the rhythmic but static forma of the land. Curved and very defined geometries are also distinctive in Gustafson’s work.







Designed by Kathryn Gustafson:

She completed her first major land movement piece, Morbras ( 1986 ), in Roissy-en-Brie.





Rights of Man Square
Rights of Man Square, based in the city of Evry, France, was completed in 1991. The theme for this design emerged from the French constitution, which consents freedom of expression. This is meant to draw people to gather at the plaza for personal, public, civic purposes. The plaza is primarily an open space with a few trees lined up on the sides with focal points leading towards the buildings. However, the site's granite floor with fountains of water surging upward from the ground dominates the viewer's
Shell Petroleum Esso gardens ( 1992 ) in Rueil-Malmaison
The landscape for Shell Petroleum Headquarters was completed in 1992. Before beginning this design, Gustafson studied the setting of the land and its relationship to the community. She tried to achieve a landscape that would relate to the company's current stance in environmental issues. Part of the land near the entry is shaped into rolling mounds of earth with stone walls protruding from the ground; the other part of the entry is a rectangular pool. The water in relationship to the water is supposed to signify the dependency people have for Shell's products.

Lurie Garden is a 10,000 m2 garden located at the southern end of Millennium Park in Chicago. Designed by Kathryn Gustafson, Piet Oudolf, and Robert Israel, it opened on July 16, 2004.
The garden has won numerous awards: Best Public Space Award 2005 Intensive Industrial Award by Green Roofs for Healthy Cities, 2005; Institute Honor Awards for Regional & Urban Design

Great Glass House interior (Wales)

Judgement:
The design does not include the requirements of the competition - improvement of water quality of the Serpentine (Required: the memorial to sit "on the edge of the Serpentine" on the former chlorination plant site. The Gustafson "moat" is between 50 and 100 metres away. The memorial was supposed to "contribute to the improvement of the water quality in the Serpentine" and "enhance the wildlife value of the water's edge habitat and vegetation")
Cost
the costs of building the memorial reflect that it is built from high quality Cornish granite
each year maintenance cost (120,000-250,000£ The Royal Parks budget is very strained and simply can't afford that sort of money, it means the money has to be found by neglecting some maintenance at another royal park.")
Choice of Mat/ Finish/ Understanding the Mat properties
fountain is made from slippery granite
Taking into account the environmental factors
slimy algae would build up inside
leaves from the trees bunged up the drains
tech mistakes
poor drainage
too soft surfaces on some most frequently walked areas


Conclusion:
Designer declined to comment the ignorance of design requirements.
Another factor which might affect the quality of design is the fact that K Gustafson was in charge of massive project in Chicago - Lurie Garden is a 10,000 m2 garden. It opened on July 16, 2004 just 10 days after Diana Memorial.
Some of the problems with the fountain reflected basic project management failures. The fountain was a small-scale project, yet there were multiple stakeholders whose roles, responsibilities and accountability were not clear. Nor were there clear plans for managing the project risks. The relationship between architects, engineers, contractors has to be umbilical.
As the main idea of whole design was “to be interactive with and become part of /inclusiveness and interactivity" the design resolution seems to be poor, because the consequences/ problems might caused by overwhelming visitor member has not been taken into account.