Hospital Drive-by: June

After dropping off my friend at the train station, I was curious about my design in front of a new El Paso hospital. Photos from 6/21/20:

Their new rules dictate one must get written permission from their administration, in order to photograph and only on a specific day. Since I was nearby, I did what one would expect of me. I took quick photos from my car, stopping at key spots!

Misguided people have latched onto such proprietary rules since 9/11. Yet there’s no harm in photos of design or plants, only good.

My DSLR camera and iPhone…ready!

Sorry for the angle that clipped your flag, Texans…

Cultural companions, also native: Yucca rostrata with Muhlenbergia emersleyi

Agave parryi ssp. truncata tucks nicely between boulders, though I would have used something other than adapted Salvia clevelandii had I known about that attractive sign.

This hospital landscape has a more appropriate, inviting design than the hospital I periodically visit in Scottsdale, by the way. Even though the helipad area limits tree use for some distance, more yuccas soften that use with voluminous Baccharis x Thompson.

Even with the usual faux pas of maintenance (you know…) and facilities (so many non-smoking signs), it’s satisfyingly simple in areas.

Just more Yucca rostrata and Agave parryi ssp. truncata, this time with billowy and unshaped Leucophyllum langmaniae ‘Rio Bravo.’ (victory…bravo!)

It all grows under all that big sky of far west Texas.

Understated elegance rules, flowers are optional!

Apple Store – Old Town Scottsdale

Walking into Scottsdale Fashion Square, a look to the side revealed their Apple Store, with a see-through view to the Camelback Road streetscape.

Of course, upon entering, I covertly snapped some pictures to help inspire or at least provide another look at minimalist planting design in the Sonoran Desert. Perhaps you can adapt something to your own space and ecoregion?

Or refine and enhance it, taking it higher! (i.e. my design bias here)

.

The approach is a long planter of faux cacti. A tie-in with what’s on the outside of the store, but faux is still faux.

How about sculpture feature placed in a minimal fashion, related to the living sculpture outside? That would be similar to the relationship of the interior benches to forms inside.

.

Outside it’s massings of fencepost cacti and aloes under date palms and ‘Desert Museum’ Palo Verde. With their low walls, this common plant treatment here provides a good start or even finish.

The building’s perforated shade canopy is the star here, with a very pleasing pattern cast onto the paving from the laser-beam sun.

Agave parryi var. truncata is used in a similar rhythm or spacing as the perforations.

.

Inside their roomy store’s lounge, downstairs from the main sales area up top, where one can plug in and hang out, or get assistance with their device.

No coffee or water. But a refreshing lack of being bothered by Apple staff, while taking a rest from the mall or the desert’s generous sun and warmth.

.

In the evening, stairs leading up and out from that lounge area come alive. Same similarly massed plantings as on the upper area facing Camelback…

.

The perforated canopy reveals further dimension with dusk.

The canopy reminds me of the Mac keyboards I once owned.

.

And those lit stairs and sitting terraces!

It seems there should be some complimentary containers and plantings, specified for the architecture and desert conditions.

Currently, the space needs to be “activated”, the buzzword-du-jour of some designers. Plants are needed, but I do not mean annuals or flower color.

A reader of my Instagram feed a few nights ago, seeing this pop up on his #marfa search, joked about a Marfa Apple store like the nearby Prada Marfa!

The stair lighting does remind me of Flavin’s interior lighting at Chinati.

No matter, it will have to be cooler, even compared to the temperatures at home, to enjoy such things in the evening. Let alone anytime soon in Scottsdale!

Do aspects of minimalism and contemporary art and architecture leave you wanting? Do you think those can be finished better or made more human, too?

.

7/13/19 weather:
110F / 91F / T or 43c / 33c / T (yes, that’s the low!)

Contrasts

While in Phoenix for other matters, I first took time out to visit their world-class Desert Botanical Garden. I was in search for design inspiration and some relaxation.

Contrast is something I appreciate, being a flowers-optional designer in a 2 dormant seasons climate. Somewhat like the low desert in Phoenix, except as you’ll see they have no true winter unlike Las Cruces’ 2 month “hit and run” winter.

.

The tans and browns of walls and permeable decomposed granite walkway, sure. But without the bold forms and dominant use of blue-green accent plants, this would look weaker. The yellow line of (overused) Echinocactus grusonii doesn’t hurt, here.

.

Same as earlier shot, except angular agaves with a semi-circular seat wall make this pop. So does something I learned at my first job in ‘8*: provide a reveal on a wall to create more shadow and dimension.

.

I enjoyed this on my cool, cloudy Monday as much as on a warm April day my first visit here in 2012. Yellow with tans and blue-greens, bold with the wall edge and crunchy walking.

The water feature in the middle was more captivating when warmer. Since I want a blue wall or two, a yellow wall might also be needed nearby. This is not a massed planting, but a highly naturalistic one, typical of many xeriscape designs in the Sonoran Desert.

.

Same direction and module, yet different materials…concrete and steel.

.

This is the closest thing I saw at DBG that fits in with the whole Marfa minimalism schtick. Oddly, this gridded massing contrasts 2 Chihuahuan Desert species…undervalued Agave lechuguilla and alienesque Euphorbia antisyphilitica.

.

This is a great, sculptural arc of dark with bright, and wet with dry. The dark beach pebbles are a good texture.

While out of my price range for now, something about it could be abstracted with my area’s own hardy desert plants behind it to work. Cholla anyone?

You bet, since chollas are a symbol of my region, yet highly underused or used poorly. I specified them occasionally including using a few different species of cholla at my old house. A colleague even admired my former trio of the silver-form Cylindropuntia echinocarpa in pots, saying, “of course you would use chollas!”

.

What seals the deal on the Desert Botanical Garden, other than various designers’ inputs, is the sense-of-place created.

There’s no denying their garden is in the Desert Southwest, right down to the specific location. There’s no compromise by using contradictory imagery, either.