Carmen Specimen Garden
The Garden's Story
This garden is one that carries a lot of emotion at BBG as the original client who hired us, a wonderful Romanian architect named Carmen Stan, was lost to cancer shortly after the garden completion, and so the garden now carries her name, in memoriam.
THE FUNCTION
This site was essentially a brownfield site. Previously a homeless squat and later burnt out, the site's soil was full of rocks, trash, and gasoline. The site clearing, cultivation, amending, and planting was no easy feat but was completed using traditional man - and woman - power, with biodegradable and recycled materials, and no GHG emitting machinery.
The site is lawn less and irrigation less site, which will clean, filter, absorb, and slow rainwater, helping support Atlanta’s overextended stormwater system. The use of native plants and soil means lack of need for high maintenance conditions and pollutive fertilizers, also helping the stormwater system and the fauna that live there. As a carbon sink, the garden will help to cool the surrounding heat island effect of midtown Atlanta. It features 68 native species, many of which are either endemic only to Georgia or are in rare or threatened conservation status. With 50 host plants on site, the garden will support native beneficial insects and birds, many of which have compromised conservation status as well. For human sustenance, there are native fruit trees and vines, as well as medicinal and herbal plants. For generations, this garden will serve as conservation source site for rare native species and it will help grow the native ecological corridor that already exists in nearby Atlanta Botanical Gardens.
THE LOOK
This bold commercial building, with it's striking primary colors and contemporary arts and craft style, was reminiscent of a colorful rectilinear Piet Mondrian painting. To compliment the look we went heavy on block shades of pink, purple and orange in some borders, then mirrored the yellow, blue, and red on the building in other borders so that the whole site feels alive and vibrant.
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