Imaginative Play

'Children's Playground'

09

Delaney

Southern Sonoma Country Life. (2023). Southern Sonoma Country Life. [online] Available at: https://www.southernsonomacountrylife.com/blogs/ 

Topher Delaney

Delaney has been an environmental artist for the past 40 years and has explored the social aspect of art through public art, landscape architecture and her spiritual relationship with nature. She creates spaces to be interpreted by the public to provoke feeling and wonder about the use and meaning. 

Often her work features an alternative sense of what we consider 'normal' in our everyday lives and so we begin to question the most ordinary of objects or concepts in her designs. 

Birdhouse.org. (2023). Cornerstone Gardens. [online] Available at: http://archive.birdhouse.org/images/shacker/cornerstone/13.html 

‌Design Process

Unfortunately Topher Delaney was diagnosed with breast cancer and so she devoted her life to helping others to heal. Over the past 12 years she has achieved this and more. She specialises in the creation of healing gardens for hospitals and sanctuaries for residential areas and business parks. She is heavily lead by her faith and so expresses this in landscape design as her 'commitment to the environment' and setting. 

Ultimately she believes her work to improve people's psyches and engages others to respond to complex, emotional issues. 

With each project she is finding new ways to translate the language of the landscape to become a more human and emotional form. She explains that 'the word garden from the German garten, originally meant enclosure. So if you think about this in a metaphysical way, a garden should be more than just a pretty object. It should be like an embrace.' (Elizabeth Harrison Kubany, 2022)

Pinimg.com. (2023). Available at: https://i.pinimg.com/originals/63/31/8b/63318bed5b49efdd9dc3e9b29bf99f9c.jpg 

Children's Playground

This design was crafted to explore the meaning of garden play: What is needed for imaginative play? What does that space look like? What materials are used?

Shaded fabric is illustrated on 2 walls to form a sense of enclosure and is made of recycled plastic to signify how gardens may now be considered a product of play. Also, the trees, ground and other objects are white is colour and so reflect the sun, suggesting that the garden should be outside, lit by the sun and to be a bright space to explore every aspect of the garden. Likewise, when the sun shines on the birch trees, shadows are cast on the ground, showing movement in the space, suggesting that the concept of a garden is forever shifting, as we age. 

The whole idea of reconstructing a garden is playful within itself and I believe that Topher Delaney is emphasising how a place of play can be found anywhere, granted the fact it brings joy and safety. 

Elizabeth Harrison Kubany (2002). Topher Delaney. [online] Architecturalrecord.com. Available at: https://www.architecturalrecord.com/articles/12630-topher-delaney 

Alicesgardentravelbuzz.com. (2023). Topher Delaney - Creator of Garden Play at Cornerstone Sonoma «Alice’s Garden Travel Buzz. [online] Available at: https://www.alicesgardentravelbuzz.com/art-of-gardens-topher-delaney-cornerstone-sonoma/ 

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