Dream Big Visionaries share details of the projects on their wish lists.
Summer is a time when our relaxed mindset opens the door to new, crazy-good ideas. We asked six leading creatives to share their thoughts and dream projects…
MICHAEL McCOY
Victorian garden designer, blogger (thegardenist.com. au) and presenter of Dream
Gardens on ABC TV. My dream garden project would require having adventurous clients who love plants and are willing to give over their entire garden to a design in the style of the New Perennial Movement. I’d use perennials en masse to create feathery, meadow-like effects. It wouldn’t need to be huge – 10 or 20 hectares is all I’d ask for!
a large country Ideally, I’d like to own garden with vast areas of dense and complex planting, and many different spaces allowing me maximum opportunity to play with plants and planting, in wildly different styles. A garden designer I’d love to meet is Dutch garden designer Piet Oudolf. His planting of the High Line in New York is a revelation to gardeners worldwide. But I wouldn’t just want to meet him,
I’d want to download his knowledge
and experience into my brain. My all-time favourite gardening Christopher Lloyd’s book is The Well-Tempered Garden. It’s a classic, and will change the way you think about plants, gardening processes and garden writing. A garden I greatly admire and [Melbourne landscape covet is designer] Fiona Brockhoff’s incredible garden Karkalla, in Sorrento, Victoria. It’s the most original use of
natives we’ve seen yet, and feels wonderfully liveable.
La A garden I’m desperate to visit is Louve, in Provence. There’s nowhere else like it. While I’ve pored over images of it for 20 years and feel familiar with every corner, you can’t really know a garden until you’ve been there. Plants come in and out of fashion
miscanthus (left). but my favourite is I once overheard the great Christopher Lloyd saying that miscanthus is overrated. I couldn’t disagree more.
SIBELLA COURT
Sydney stylist, author, TV presenter, style influencer and owner of The Society Inc studio and emporium of vintage/ eclectic wares (thesocietyinc.com.au).
I’d choose If I could live anywhere, a boathouse with a jetty on a dam full of fish and waterlilies in the Byron Bay hinterland. It would also have a rotating studio and library, all surrounded by an edible garden.
‘MY WISH FOR 2018 IS TO WAKE UP AND FIND MY RENO MIRACULOUSLY COMPLETED.’ MICHAEL MCCOY
An influential designer I’d love to meet
British interiors stylist Faye Toogood. is I’ve been a fan since her days as a stylist at World of Interiors (about 25 years ago – the start of my career, too). She now heads up Studio Toogood and creates furniture, sensory installations, clothing and all-round greatness. ‘Summer means beachcombing for inspiration for my watercolours, barbecuing, swimming… Long days of fun in the sun.’ Sibella Court There are so many design objects I’d love to own: A Calder mobile. Anything by Richard Wrightman. A Sawkille Co ‘Rainbow’ armchair and ‘Penn’ table. A Jonah Meyer cabinet, a BDDW ‘Tripod’ lamp, a Bellerby & Co globe and pretty much anything by John Vogel. Some famous design landmarks I’d love to visit are The Judd Foundation studio spaces in Marfa, Texas, and Georgia O’Keeffe’s Ghost Ranch in New Mexico; the Pyramids in Egypt; Petra in Jordan and Edward James’ Las Pozas Park in Mexico. A famous person I’d love to meet is Gertrude Bell, who is sadly no longer around for chat. A linguist and amateur archeologist who travelled through the Middle East by camel and horseback in the 1880s. Her defiance of expectations to carve out her own way was gutsy, even by today’s standards.
MICHAEL BATES
Head of Sydney firm Bates Landscape (bateslandscape.com.au) and author of The New Australian Garden
($59.99, Murdoch Books).
would be My dream design project to design a garden in basalt soil. It’s great to garden on the coast, but even better to garden in the NSW Blue Mountains, with altitude. I’m a pluralist when it comes to plants. My dream garden would have lots of intimate and open spaces flowing from
the house, allowing for an effortless transition from indoors to outdoors. An influential designer I’d love to meet is Piet Oudolf, designer of the High Line in New York and the father of the New Perennial Movement. I’d like to ask him how he comes up with endless ‘deadly’ combinations of plants and compositions.
I can’t A design object I’d love to own? decide between an F-type Jag or the Interceptor from Mad Max.
is Jupiter My all-time favourite garden Artland, a garden of sculpted landforms by Charles Jencks, in Edinburgh, Scotland (pictured below). It’s a place that moves me emotionally and physically: I visited recently and sat on top of every landform. Jencks’s vision offers a reimagining of the Australian lawn obsession. We need to have lawns for children and dogs to play on, and we need voids in gardens, but those spaces don’t have to be flat. The future of garden design in Australia is bright. It’s actually a golden time, thanks to the quality of the architecture we work with and the high level of skill in the industry. There’s never been a better time to be a gardener. >
KIM PEARSON Perth interior designer, founder of multidisciplinary design studio Kim Pearson (kimpearson.com.au). My ultimate design project would be designing a hotel. A place where
I dream of staying (or living!) filled with beautiful furniture, fabrics, carpets, rugs, curtains, lighting, books, artwork, china, glassware and crazy-gorgeous bathrooms. Wildly luxurious yet understated, unpretentious and breathtakingly beautiful.
I’d stay where If I could live anywhere, we live now, in beachside Perth. My house is more than 110 years old and is the perfect mix of gracious and slightly bonkers. Serious antiques next to high-street finds. Contemporary artwork and lighting hanging above 17th-century bureaux. Our ‘nanna’ garden is filled with roses, jasmine, magnolia and gardenias.
to meet one I was incredibly lucky of my heroes, [furniture and lighting designer] Jaime Hayon, last year. I haven’t been that starstruck since
I met Adam Ant when I was 13. Other designers I dream of meeting
India Mahdavi, Ilse Crawford are and Patricia Urquiola. They all work across multiple platforms, genres and aesthetics, and embrace colour, texture and form with true originality and a tangible sense of joy.
British I’d love to own an artwork by sculptor Anish Kapoor. Ideally in colour. If it was big, I’d build a room just to house it (I’m dreaming, remember!).
the A building I’d love to visit is incredible public library just completed in Tianjin, China, designed by Dutch architects MVRDV. It’s centred around a spherical auditorium with the main atrium forming an eyeball many storeys high. I love books and I think this has to be experienced to be believed. On a global level, my wish for 2018 is for more people to remember the power of kindness and nice manners. These are the bedrocks, leading to greater compassion and care for others.
more On a personal level, I’m hoping for time with my family and friends, nature, the beach, books and my puppies. SOPHIE DYRING Award-winning Melbourne architect, author, lecturer, socialhousing advocate and director of Schored Projects (schoredprojects.com.au).
would be to design My dream project and build a country weekender for my family. The site would be 90 minutes from Melbourne, well away from freeway noise. The land would be big enough that neighbours are a thing of the past and it would have undulating hills and spectacular views of the sunset. Ideally, I’d also have an apartment in the CBD and live between the two.