Beauty and Inspiration in a Parking Lot

During my employment as a landscape architect and planner, I designed my fair share of parking lots. Small, large, paved, gravel. I'm here to tell you, as if you didn't already know, that there is nothing glamourous about designing a parking lot - or being in one for that matter.  

The grey and black asphalt grows so hot during the summer that you can actually see the heat rising. The bays, sectioned by fading white lines, are stained by oil slicks and residual AC fluid. Traffic jams. Competition for spaces. Paying for a space.

I write this blog to remind me that even when the whole of something is mundane or ugly, elements of it can be beautiful and inspiring. A parking lot is hardly inspiring, but smaller vingettes within a parking lot, really set my mind in motion - the way the lines make patterns on the ground, the arc of the trees grown to provide shade, the subtle changes in shades of grey. 

This is true in reverse when we create.  Sometimes we find ordinary items -  ribbons, buttons, paper.  We examine, rearrange, and choose a composition for the pieces and, whatever it is, it really satisfies our need to make something beautiful to us.  The pieces ordinary pieces inspire us to create a more beautiful whole.

My point is - whether you deconstruct something unappealing or make something new from ordinary parts, there is can be beauty and inspiration.  It all depends on how you decide to look at it.   

Craft and Landscape Architecture in Portland

On my recent trip to Portland, I felt just like this rock sitting in a Japanese garden.  Alone and the center of my own universe, but still longing for those in the distance.  I felt this way even on the plane ride, having just left my children and husband for a little adventure with my Mom and Sister in Portland, OR.    I love my kids more than anything in the world, but I've only had one other "vacation" in almost 4 years. 

I'd never been to Portland, but couldn't have been more ready for a long weekend with very little responsibility in what has to be one of the craftiest and naturally beautiful cities in the States.  I had a long list of places to visit the first day.  

When we left "heaven" (thats what I've dubbed my sisters place since she lives only a few blocks away from many of these places) we hit The Knittin Kitten - a big craft thrift store.  Purchase One:  5 sweater knits at $2 a yard.  Can't beat it.  

Next, Scrap.  I've heard so much about this place.  How people have found oodles of gorgeous vintage fabric for next to nothing.  No such luck this time.  I bought a bag of scrap leather for a dollar and a bag of scrap paper (Purchase Two and Three).  How fitting for a place called "Scrap".

In the afternoon, we took the elevator to the second floor of Heaven and got off at Kinokuniya, a japanese bookstore inside of Uwajimaya, the largest Japanese grocery I've ever seen.  I really had to restrain myself here.  Kinokuniya had at least 3 head to toe bookshelves full of Japanese craft books.  I found at least 10 that I really wanted, but picked just one to take home (Purchase Three).  They also sold the super cute folders, stickers, and notebooks I've seen some sellers offer on Etsy.  

Finally, Powell's Bookstore.  The absolute biggest bookstore I've been to - ever.  The size of a city block and several stories tall, I didn't manage to make it out of section A by the front door (the sewing and craft section).  Final purchase:  used books on creating your own patterns.

In all, I'd rate my shopping day "not too shabby with a whole lot of restraint".  I just wish I could have gotten to more thrift stores.  Next time.

Below are a few photos of places we visited that satisfied the landscape architect in me.  First, the Multnohma Falls and then the Japanese Gardens.  Both fabulous.  I must have taken 100 photos of walkway details (drains, pavement, walls, benches) and trees.  

If you don't know a landscape architect, thats what we do.  We take pictures of the ground, benches, drains, statues, and light poles just in case we might use them in a future project but can't remember where we saw them.  If you're out walking with a landscape architect, don't be surprised if they ask to take a photo of you next to that lovely fence you just passed.  Rest assured, you will almost definitely end up in the lower left hand corner of the photo as you are just being used for scale. 

 

"Dwell" on it

I am a magazine-aphile with an appetite for design and craft magazines.  I devour them.  It is a mandatory stop in almost any store so you might see columns like this every once in a while on Plainly Jane Handmade.  I like to share what inspires me, makes me think, or is just plain innovative.

Today...  Dwell (dec./jan.).

For my inner-crafter...    

For woodsmen whose facial hair isn't quite up to snuff.  This woolen knit cap is by Icelandic design collective Vik Prjonsdottir.

The landscape architect in me finds this two-for-one quite interesting.  Is it a fence or is it climber?  I suppose it depends on the user.  Bends and bulges make fine places for children to play or for adults to, literally, park it.  Produced by Tejo Remy and Rene Veenhuizen .

A shadow of what used to be.  In Montreal, its painfully obvious what existed before this parking lot and its tiny shack.  I love the evolution of old cities and how unintentionally their character is sometimes developed.  Photo by Matthew Monteith.

I love the grocery store, but I'd move in if it looked like this one.  This MPreis is situated in Wenns in the Alps and was designed by Astrid Tschapeller and Rainer Koberl.  Dwell: "By virtue of progressive architecture, excellent siting, and stunning environs, MPreis elevates an often mundane fact of daily life."  Way to take advantage of the natural landscape.

 

After grocery shopping, I'd serve dinner on these plates.  City Plates collection by notNeutral turns cartography into stunning dinnerware.  Not only interesting to the landscape architect or urban planner, but mighty crafty as well.