Ed Week 6: The Pleasure garden

 

As Lucy worked with the workers city, rather than start off with small sections of the area I  chose instead to look at where it would be situated before I started on designing it. It was decided that the Pleasure gardens would be in the centre of the city, enclosed on all sides by the buildings of metropolis. I did a couple of sketches of the city as well as a painting of it - above - to get a feel for the nested levels of it.

 

At this time I was also designing the buildings of metropolis themselves, these buildings would be a semi-modular way of looking at the city. Designed to be self-contained apartment buildings or offices, they would each be their own enclosed community accessible by walking or by using the public transport of the trains, trams or taxi.

initial sketches of the city and it's buildings. and the first sketch of the yoshiwara nightclub

 

 Around this time I started to design the pleasure gardens. Initially they were a large garden area with a central, more exclusive set of tiered gardens in the centre. Suspended above the city this garden would be a place to see and be seen and as such was not an especially private place though it contained several 'private' areas to sit and relax.

However it was soon decided that rather than two separate gardens it would be better to include the Yoshiwara nightclub in this area, as a popular place for the citizens to gather it would make sense for the two places to be connected. The garden structure in the centre became the nightclub.

When designing the gardens one thing we had in mind was the show of wealth that these gardens are meant to represent so a lot of the wealth is displayed in traditional understated ways; Water is heavily incorporated into the garden, paths are lined with small channels and waterfalls that are full of water that is clear and clean enough to drink. The plants around are clearly treated well and heavily cultivated as well and rich colours and metals are used everywhere.

In later sketches, quiet, clear sheet waterfalls are used as a means of sectioning off areas of spaces, further demonstrating the wealth that allows a society to waste large amounts of drinkable water.