Garden and Climate [Hardcover]

Chip Sullivan (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 19, 2002 | ISBN-10: 0070271038 | ISBN-13: 978-0070271036 | Edition: 1

'If the world is to make great gardens again, we must both discover and apply in the changed circumstances of modern life the principles that guided the garden-makers in the Renaissance, and must be ready to learn all that science can teach us concerning the laws of artistic presentment.' - Sir Robert Sitwell, On the "Making of Gardens", 1909, quoted by the author in his "Introduction".Air conditioned villas in ancient Rome...windproofed, solar-heated stone seats for toasty-winter horizon-gazing in the Italian Renaissance...Peter the Cruel's self-heating outdoor walkway...cooling summertime chairs fashioned from earth, grass, and flowers, attended by butterflies and breezes, from classical gardens on Mediterranean islands. These are but a few of the wonderful historical finds Rome prize-winning landscape architect/artist Chip Sullivan uses to launch modern methods for modifying the climate in your own garden.For "Garden and Climate" brings you not only a beautifully illustrated tour of many of the greatest gardens of the past - from Babylon to Majorca - but also expert instructions for bringing elements from these immortal landscapes to your own backyard - for microclimate creation, temperature and humidity control no matter what the season, energy savings, and beauty, and yes, to serve the time-honored function of soothing your spirit and restoring your soul. Not only the gardens of the Renaissance, but the gardens of ancient Greece and Rome yield up their secrets in this stunning tribute to the practical - as well as aesthetic and spiritual - virtues of landscape.Divided into sections on "Earth," "Fire," "Air," and "Water" - the four elements that traditionally explain the nature of reality - "Garden and Climate" shows you how great architects and designers of the past turned these elements to the creation of microclimates. With each ancient invention, you'll find suggestions, examples, and adaptations that work in modern gardens. You'll discover the importance and uses of fountains, allees, orientation to the sun, earthen seats, grottoes, sunken gardens, subterranean rooms, underground passages, outdoor paintings, boscoes, "hot seats," and more, from famous gardens such as those for the Capponi and the Medici. You'll discover how to create delightfully breeze-cooled bowers that invite escape from the August sun, and warm and cozy winter nooks that tempt you outside in January.Sullivan neglects no dimension of landscape. He takes you into the cool, fragrant - and sacred - gardens of ancient Persia, where meaning saturates beauty and pathways symbolize the acquisition of knowledge on the quest for wisdom. You'll also accompany Sullivan to the recessed, comtemplative garden at the Villa Medici, where serenity was inspiration and invitation to an important literary circle of Italian Renaissance. You'll share Sullivan's perceptions as he pursues his quarry through the avenues of time, drawing original sketches from observation and redrawing ancient plans.As you travel from storied garden to immortal woods, you'll see how designers of old used the elements of nature to create and modify the climate, soothe the spirit, delight the eye, and serve that timeless objective of all garden designers - the encouragement of desire and love. More than merely an enticing, beautifully illustrated tour of the greatest gardens of all time (with keen attention to features used to create microclimates and practical suggestions for adapting the wonders of old to the needs of the new), "Garden and Climate" synthesizes all the virtues of gardens - metaphysical journey, the benefits of passive design, and the idea of garden as art - into one inspiring whole, interweaving proportion, function, and comfort. You cannot read this book without wishing you were in a garden. And, if you are the creator of one garden or many gardens, this book will be the source of a lifetime of inspiration.

Editorial Reviews

Review

Reviewed by Joan Woodward, ASLA.

. I write in a southwest-facing room of a rented 1950s tract house, ringed by lawn, in southern California, in late summer. I arise early because later it is too sweltering to read and write comfortably without air conditioning. This typical house/garden configuration, particularly in a Mediterranean climate, is precisely what Chip Sullivan's Garden and Climate seeks to counteract. He proposes splendid alternatives, based upon his considerable experience immersed in Italian, Persian, and Moorish passive gardens and deciphering their lessons. As expected, Sullivan's previous publication, Drawing the Landscape, the examples are sumptuously illustrated and bring inspiration and energy to the reader, much as the profiled gardens brought comfort and pleasure to their inhabitants..

. Sullivan's Garden and Climate is a feast for eyes and imagination. The book aspires to spark the resurgence of climate-conscious design based on inventions of ancestral garden designers. Sullivan does what many have threatened to do: He pores over the written, illustrated, and built records of palace and villa gardens from Italy to Persia, organizing and categorizing their strategies, in this case, for moderating climate extremities through passive garden devices. He sifts these recurring devices into four books: earth, fire, air, and water, citing Plato and Empedocles as inspiring this structure. As Marc Treib indicates in the foreword, the structure is artificial, as any constructive theory is, but useful, providing a good teaching and learning device. Each book explains unifying purposes behind the devices and then categorizes them into six to seven "postulates." For example, fire's devices provide warmth in cool months and include postulates such as sunlit terraces, limonaias, and secret gardens. Each postulate is described, diagnosed for usefulness in moderating climate, and supported by dozens of richly illustrated examples from gardens of the past. Instructions and prototypes for potential contemporary applications follow, ranging from an artist community in Taos to new housing near the Everglades..

. This is a fine book for a spectrum of designers, from beginning to veteran; it explains, supports, inspires, reminds, cajoles. Sullivan's strengths are particularly evident in the water book, where he reveals unusual irrigation devices appropriate for today's parched urban centers. "Water jokes" must be among his favorite postulates, illustrated with a sly eye toward fountains that spurt from unexpected orifices, at times soaking viewers relently until "a sense of humor is mandatory." Water is cited as the central, unifying element in ancient Islamic gardens, leading readers to wonder: Is there an implicit, prioritized order in using and fusing these postulates? Aside from simply applying design devices, what comprehensive climate design methods can be passed down from ancestral designers to today?.

. Although Sullivan's bold design interpretations aptly demonstrate each book's principles, designs appear uniform in their commodious scale and lack of troublesome adjacencies and budgets. Sullivan refers to his extensive private practice work, which employs his prototypes; anchoring these dreamlike examples with built, client-based work would help convince readers that measurable climatic transformation is possible when employing recommended principles in realistic situations today..

. Overall, Gardens and Climate is a remarkable blend of history, art, and energy-conscious design inspiration. Sullivan is to be lauded for bringing together research, writing, design, and illustration talents into one useful book. New gardens inspired by this compact distillation of reverberating climatic design lessons certainly will be notable for their delight, wonder, and relief.. (Landscape Architecture )

From the Back Cover

"If the world is to make great gardens again, we must both discover and apply in the changed circumstances of modern life the principles that guided the garden-makers in the Renaissance, and must be ready to learn all that science can teach us concerning the laws of artistic presentment." -- Sir Robert Sitwell, On the Making of Gardens, 1909, quoted by the author in his "Introduction"

MORE THAN ORNAMENT

Air conditioned villas in ancient Rome...windproofed, solar-heated stone seats for toasty-winter horizon-gazing in the Italian Renaissance...Peter the Cruel's self-heating outdoor walkway...cooling summertime chairs fashioned from earth, grass, and flowers, attended by butterflies and breezes, from classical gardens on Mediterranean islands.

These are but a few of the wonderful historical finds Rome prize-winning landscape architect/artist Chip Sullivan uses to launch modern methods for modifying the climate in your own garden. For Garden and Climate brings you not only a beautifully illustrated tour of many of the greatest gardens of the past--from Babylon to Majorca--but also expert instructions for bringing elements from these immortal landscapes to your own backyard--for microclimate creation, temperature and humidity control no matter what the season, energy savings, and beauty, and yes, to serve the time-honored function of soothing your spirit and restoring your soul.

From the inside flap:

Not only the gardens of the Renaissance, but the gardens of ancient Greece and Rome yield up their secrets in this stunning tribute to the practical--as well as aesthetic and spiritual--virtues of landscape.

Divided into sections on "Earth," "Fire," "Air," and "Water"--the four elements that traditionally explain the nature of reality--Garden and Climate shows you how great architects and designers of the past turned these elements to the creation of microclimates. With each ancient invention, you'll find suggestions, examples, and adaptations that work in modern gardens.

You'll discover the importance and uses of fountains, allees, orientation to the sun, earthen seats, grottoes, sunken gardens, subterranean rooms, underground passages, outdoor paintings, boscoes, "hot seats," and more, from famous gardens such as those for the Capponi and the Medici. You'll discover how to create delightfully breeze-cooled bowers that invite escape from the August sun, and warm and cozy winter nooks that tempt you outside in January.

Sullivan neglects no dimension of landscape. He takes you into the cool, fragrant--and sacred--gardens of ancient Persia, where meaning saturates beauty and pathways symbolize the acquisition of knowledge on the quest for wisdom. You'll also accompany Sullivan to the recessed, comtemplative garden at the Villa Medici, where serenity ws inspiration and invitation to an important literary circle of Italian Renaissance.

You'll share Sullivan's perceptions as he pursues his quarry through the avenues of time, drawing original sketches from observation and redrawing ancient plans. As you travel from storied garden to immortal woods, you'll see how designers of old used the elements of nature to create and modify the climate, soothe the spirit, delight the eye, and serve that timeless objective of all garden designers--the encouragement of desire and love.

More than merely an enticing, beautifully illustrated tour of the greatest gardens of all time (with keen attention to features used to create microclimates and practical suggestions for adapting the wonders of old to the needs of the new), Garden and Climate synthesizes all the virtues of gardens--metaphysical journey, the benefits of passive design, and the idea of garden as art--into one inspiring whole, interweaving proportion, function, and comfort.

You cannot read this book without wishing you were in a garden. And, if you are the creator of one garden or many gardens, this book will be the source of a lifetime of inspiration.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 263 pages
• Publisher: McGraw-Hill Professional; 1 edition (March 19, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0070271038
• ISBN-13: 978-0070271036
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 7.1 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,601,405 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Great Read! Great Drawings!, July 15, 2008

By 

Katie (Sunnyvale, CA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Garden and Climate (Hardcover)

Chip Sullivan's drawings are always fun and inspiring to look at. This book contains page after page of his drawings of various gardens and garden elements. His ideas taken from various historial references on climate control in the garden is thoughtful and practical. He gives modern interpretations on ancient design. Great book for anyone looking for ideas to design more energy efficient gardens.