Collaborative Design Planting Design Working Group 4

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Please add the title of your case study here, adjust the map coordinates and replace the moa image with a characteristic image of your site

Name	Arboretum Hemelrijk - Area Spillebeek
Location	Essen
Country	Belgium
Authors	Anna Martinez, Oliver Linder, Matthieu Mehuys

Landscape and/or urban context of your case

• The Eastern border of our 2.5 hectare big site consists of an old oak lane and narrow water channels in the West. This site is part of a bigger 107 hectares landscape garden / arboretum featuring many rare trees and shrubs from all over the world. The idea of collecting many rear trees and shrubs because of their botanical interest was less important than the design and the general appearance of the English landscape inspired park. Many landscape architects such as Russell Page helped to realize this idea.

• Short history of the site

During the Middle Ages there was a lot of deforestation throughout Belgium and western Europe. After a while wood became scarce and it could no longer be used as firewood. Suddenly there was a need for a new energy substitute. So around the beginning of the 13th Century people began to use peat as a substitute. The manual harvesting of peat created micro-landscapes that can still be found on our site. The transport of peat was done by small boats on narrow channels. Within the ‘Spillebeek area’ one can still find these channels. At the end of the 17th Century the area ran out of peat. So the land needed a new function. Agriculture and forestry were the most profitable at that time. So the landscape changed once again and consisted mainly of forest and grassland. In 1798: After the French Revolution the property was sold off by The French Republic. Thus meant the end to a 7 Century long Abbey Farm. The property became an estate that changed owners a number of times over the centuries. The estates became self-sufficient and isolated from the surrounding environment. During these times farms and other buildings were built with materials from the site. The bricks were made in stone ovens from clay that was found on site. This again increased variety of micro-landscapes that can be found on estate. The house that is on the site was close to the stone ovens. It was here that the foreman of the stone ovens lived. The house was renovated in the 1990’. In 1961 the 107 hectares site has been property of the family ‘De Belder’, who changed it into a landscape arboretum as we know it in its full glory today.

• The site is low maintained, because the renovated house has no current usage. The grass is extensively mown (only about 4 times a year).

On our site there are various sorts of trees and shrubs planted:

  - Quercus robur, Q. petraea 
  - Various Populus sorts mainly Populus x canadensis 
  - Picea orientalis
  - Ilex aquifolium
  - Betula pendula) 

or spontaneously:

  - Fraxinus excelsior
  - Alnus glutinosa
  - Rubus fruticosa

The woody parts are overgrown with plants that came spontaneously (Fraxinus, Alnus, and Rubus) or by seedlings (of Betula, Populus, and Ilex).

• This is a very dynamic and high potential site with many different and interesting landscape typologies.

What are the objectives of your design?

Due to the fact the plot has been managed at a low maintenance ratio, a lot of the garden has succumb to overgrowth and weeds. As the park is not only botanically interesting, but also the way it has been laid out, we see the restoration of the landscape park as the main objective. The first step woud be to do a survey of what was orignally planned and planted and to compare that with what trees and shrubs are still there and growing. A further step towards the restoration, would be to put together a maintenance plan, that would include things like pruning of the trees and shrubs, the removal of invasive and unwanted species and defining grassland maintenance from woodland and wetland maintenance. Since the park is so vastand we have so little time, we have decided on choosing a smaller representative patch within the perimeter. This patch of land has a high density of the various different structural elements, that can be found within the Hemelrijk landscape park. The ideas and principles that we develop for the Spillebeek patch, can then be applied to the rest of the park.

Analytical drawings

Please add four analytical sketches/drawings (or montages/schemes) of your case. Every group member needs to contribute at least one drawing.

• Analytical Drawings
• 

  survey

• 

  legend survey

• 

  current topographical situation

• 

  different habitats

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  Sunny and shady spots

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  analysis photos

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  interesting sights

Projective drawings

Please add four projective sketches/drawings (or montages/schemes), of course with an emphasis on planting design/vegetation aspects. Every group member needs to contribute at least one drawing representing his/her individual ideas.

• Projective Drawings
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  Suggestion wild vs. tame 1

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  Suggestion open landscape 2

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  Suggestion short spiritual retreat 3

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  Legend for the retreat 4

Design Synthesis

Please analyse the individual approaches presented so far and evaluate their strengths and weaknesses (you may use the SWOTanalysis model). Try to create a synthesis and represent it with a plan and some sketches. You can still use drawings/sketches.

• Design Synthesis Drawings
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  synthesis drawing 1

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  mirror pond (Russell Page)

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  Peat bead plants

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  Grasses

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  Plants for Bio-engineering

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  Bio-engineering drawing

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  SWOT analysis

Summary of the collaborative process

Please reflect on your collaborative design process. Which potentials have you encountered? What was most difficult? What does collaborative design mean for you? (approx 150 words).

• Anna: on my experience the collaborative design was very useful and helpful, mainly the different approaches came of with a nice and mature design. Also the process includes a feedback between us, what means an improvement of our skills. The most difficult for me was to explain my thoughts without the background of the landscape history, and reflect my ideas on the planting design from another vision different of the engineering. Even so, I used the bio-engineering because is the most close to landscape design. Individually the principal potential was to know about de concept mapping. And the aspect of group work more interestings are the landscape history background and the knowlegde of native species around.

Image Gallery

You may add a series of images/photos in addition to the sketches/drawings

• Image Gallery
• 

  Design John Bergmans 1966

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  clumb of Picea orientalis

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  multi-stem Fraxinus excelsior

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  old renovated house

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  micro-landscape

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  edge

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  wind buffer

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  summer dry pond

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  small canal: 'spillebeek'

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  oak lane

References

* Please make sure that you give proper references of all external resources used.

* Do not use images of which you do not hold the copyright.

* Please add internet links to other resources if necessary.

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