Hadspen Parabola, Somerset, England

Competition for a landscape design in response to an architectural proposal by Foreign Office Architects: of potential interest both to architects and landscape designers Information from Hadspen Parabola 15 Jan 2007: Hadspen Parabola : A Manifesto Exciting gardens reflect the struggle to make plants conform to a single and largely personal vision; no modern garden is ever better than its gardener. As professionals, landscape designers often work in a vacuum of knowledge about plants and plant systems; in contrast, plantsmen find it hard to use their knowledge to inform a disciplined approach to overall design. The Parabola project at Hadspen represents a commitment to seeking out radical solutions to planting, and to exploring the links that gardening can make to other fields of creativity. Over the next twelve months we want to find a gardener with a bold and untried approach to making a garden, and the energy and determination to put this into practice. The winning candidate will be offered an employment contract, a house close to the garden, and all logistical support. Hadspen Parabola - Design Competition Applicants are asked for a response to the new path layout, designed by Foreign Office Architects, for the original parabola-shaped walled vegetable garden at Hadspen. The scheme is intended to provide an empty theatre-stage of three quarters of an acre; the gardener is free to direct the plants to best effect, by adding the drama of poetry, surprise, and mystery. The new paths try only to take maximum advantage of the specifics of the site - the walls and topography, climate, drainage, access, movement and maintenance. All existing plants, trees and paths that survive from the previous important gardens in the space will have been removed. Beyond clarity and rigour of ideas, there are no rules to limit the gardener's approach. Any plant type is fine, as long as it grows; any planting style or diversity is fine as long as the garden can be maintained through the year, more or less, by one person. To attract the right applicants, and the most challenging judging process, the interview panel will itself be composed of experienced gardeners, but all of them with primary (and international) reputations in other fields : writers, set-designers, architects, film directors, artists, musicians. The Competition is open to all. Initial, anonymous, submissions will be requested for spring 2007. Hadspen Parabola, Somerset : Competition PR 150107