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Note: I would like to share with you through these few words, photographs, and hyperlinked websites, a three Dimensional experience as though you were actually there with us. Click on any photograph and it should enlarge to different size ….. at least half screen or size full screen. It will be clearer in detail than the photo on the post. It will be as if you were really there looking at the actual scene. You are an arm chair traveller with us.
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See the previous post: Inside the House
Based on what I said in the post The House I finished a Science degree (in biological science) at the University of Queensland in 1974. Instead of going into a science profession, I went into my own business. Unknowingly, I had always had an artistic, innovative creative side from my farming background. I could pictorially visualise things in detail long before they were constructed. This was visually, in colour and in three dimensions. That I understand is a special gift in life. I could also problem solve with creative practical initiatives.
Having grown up in the rainforest country of Wilson’s Creek, meant that I had developed a special affinity to nature and the natural environment. My late father had taught me by example, how to make things from the bare minimum of scrap, to turn unwanted scraps into useful items. He had come through the Depression days of the 1930’s. This was recycling long before recycling was a fashionable term. I had put this knowledge into good effect in the building of our future house. See the photos in past posts:
The House, External View of our House and Inside the House
My mum taught me unknowingly to have a love of beauty, art and garden layout. She planted and arranged a huge flower garden around our simple house grown in the brown volcanic soil and abundant rainfall. As an indirect consequence, I ran a small landscape design and construction company for 20 years from 1975 to December 1995, the year my very severe brain injury. I did very creative, individual designer gardens for wealthy residential clients in Brisbane.
I was more an artistic sort of person, a lateral thinker ….. more artist than businessman. I was very concerned with sustainability in a gardening and agriculture sense ….. can certain practices be maintained ….. is what you doing now, preparing the way ahead for new life? ….. is this garden going to survive for twenty years? I thought of a landscape as would a sculptor in a solid medium, but I saw it as a three dimensional piece of space which people walked through which had an emotional effect on people. This space changed with time as it grew and changed with the time of day: shadows vs. sun patterns, boulders, colour, plants, trees, earth-forms, solid structures and water. These were the ingredients in a subtle flow of landscape design and construction. Unknowingly I was a landscape sculptor. Rather an intangible product to sell and run a business with!! Out of this stage I built a structure for my life: my marriage with Harriet, business and the house plus we had a family.
In 1981, we built a unique natural house which people often come out to see. This is on our five acres of light open eucalypt bush at Chambers Flat, Brisbane which is 35 kms. out of Brisbane. The house is largely of glass set into a post and lintel construction of 100-year old broadaxed timbers and sandstone walls. The total concept of indoor-outdoor flow has a nice ambiance to it and the design is unique.
The whole garden has been designed as a series of linked garden rooms. Each garden room has a different function but has creates a real sense of belonging. I thought of a landscape as would a sculptor in a solid medium, but I saw it as a three dimensional piece of space which people walked through which had an emotional effect on people. This space changed with time as it grew and changed with the time of day: shadows vs. sun patterns, boulders, colour, plants, trees, earth-forms, solid structures and water. These were the ingredients in a subtle flow of landscape design and construction. Unknowingly I was a landscape sculptor. Rather an intangible product to sell and run a business with!! Out of this stage I built a structure for my life: my marriage with Harriet, business and the house plus we had a family.
See the first post of 11 posts on the garden at: Post 1: The Outside Amphitheatre Garden Room