No comments about net_condition: art and global media (Electronic Culture: History, Theory, and Practice).

2 comments about Creating Small Formal Gardens.

1. This is an excellent how to for formal gardens. It has a good balance of well done pictures, text and diagrams. Whether you are trying to create a simple herb garden or large complicated parterres and mazes, this book breaks it down without dumbing it down.
   
   The photos and text cover semi-formal styles, like English border gardens, cottage gardens and small backyard spaces. There are good images of knot gardens done in different types of plants and on different scales. There are a number of rose garden styles and herb garden styles. It also covers adding water features, like reflecting pools and ponds into a formal setting. Additionally it has shrub gardens and how to sculpt them.
   
   There is a good chapter of illustrated diagrams. It has 18 basic layouts. Each one with relatively detailed instructions on how to create the desired effect. Including suggestion on how to layer the plantings for visual effect. How to mow the lawn to achieve patterns. Suggestions of brick walkway designs. Alternative hedge trimming patterns. And what plants to use. It also suggests what the annual maintenance is for each different style of garden. Which gives you a great idea of what you're getting yourself into!
   
   After the layouts there is an index of recommended deciduous shrubs and trees, evergreen shrubs and trees, fruiting and flowering trees, foliage plants, etc....it gives zones and light requirements. And it indicates what each plant would be best suited to. Plant names are all in Latin. The index isn't extensive, it only covers 4 pages, but it does give easily attainable plants.
   
   The last pages of the book give illustrations of shaping hedges (with clever ways of keeping them perfectly flat), laying out a perfect knot garden, creating different topiaries, and how to espalier fruit trees.
   
   I love this book, and use it often to show my customers different ideas for their spaces.



2. At first I thought this book would be too sophisticated for a non-professional such as myself - I was wrong! There are many great ideas which I plan to use this summer in my own garden. The author illustrates many garden plans, I have decided to borrow plans from several of them. He also explains tips on how to use symmetry, how to create illusions using height and space, etc. He also explains the history of formal gardens which I found interesting. Another useful feature of this book is the listing of suggested plants for formal gardens and their light requirements. This is the first book I have ever ordered which I picked up and read immediately.

1 comments about Jon Jerde in Japan: Designing the Spaces Between.

1. JON JERDE IN JAPAN: Designing the Spaces Between

   I highly recommend Jon Jerde in Japan: Designing the Spaces Between by Cathie Gandel (Balcony Press, Glendale, CA, 2000) for anyone interested in public architecture; working with the Japanese; and the thinking behind the best in today's mixed-use developments. Ms. Gandel has produced a highly readable book that makes sophisticated concepts accessible to the lay person while providing meaty material for the professional.

   Wonderfully produced on good quality, high gloss stock, the book is chock full of illustrative material that effectively conveys the excitement of Fukuoka's Canal City Hakata. Readers do not have to puzzle over the term "wiggle wall" or strain to imagine what the "wayfinding sculptures" might look like. They can see them clearly in both the wide angle and detail shots.

   Jon Jerde in Japan starts with the project's genesis in 1977 as the first mixed-use development outside one of Japan's major cities, takes it through opening day in 1996 and concludes with an analysis of its amazing popularity-over 43 million visitors to date! It also traces the development of architect Jon Jerde and his deepening commitment to creating original spaces that add something valuable to the human experience. As Cathie Gandel wrote of Canal City Hakata:

   A visitor writes his or her script not only by choosing where to shop and where to eat, but also by choosing whether to see a movie, play a video game or have a drink in the Grand Hyatt lounge; walk under the overhang or out in the open; sit, stand and watch, or wander; jump in surprise at the champagne cork-popping noise of the fountains or wade into the tidal pool. Whatever the decision, the visitor is writer and actor as well as audience."

   I have had such a satisfying time just reading about this "urban theater," I can only wonder what it must be like to experience it in person. This book made me want to do just that.

   Barbara Greenleaf, Santa Barbara, California

No comments about 10 Preserving Modern Landscape Architecture.

No comments about Spirit of the Garden.

No comments about The Garden at Ashtree Cottage.

No comments about The American Lawn.

No comments about Public Sculpture in Australia.

No comments about Japanese Gardens: A Kodansha Postcard Book (Kodansha Postcard Books).

No comments about Transforming the Common Place.