18. PURGATORIUM
Whether passed on in oral or in written form, myths, like the one about the gardens of the deadly sins, have cradled and forged the imagination of the Western world for centuries.
The garden is a contemporary evocation of the myth of Thomas Aquinas, who conceived the idea of the deadly sins in the following manner : either we want something good, or we flee from something good that we consider evil. The garden draws us along a path to a Purgatorium.
The garden contains a mix of green plants and posts of dark wood. You can wander freely along the paths covered in bright black gravel – which, at first sight, may seem as sharp as glass. The wander leads us to the confessional, which we can walk around and where, through the bars, we can look upon the coloured plants growing therein, as much as the sky and the clouds reflected in the mirror set at its heart.
DESIGNERS
From left to right: Cecil Howell, Loïs Farningham , Elodie Egonneau, Koung Jin Cho and David Seiter
“Future Green Studio is an innovative landscape design and urban ecology firm in Brooklyn, New York. Our design approach is reductive – through analysis, we scrape away, unearthing the layers of an existing site to reveal its inherent value and beauty. We develop a thorough understanding of its historical, material and spatial conditions so that we can optimize the overlooked social, ecological and economic assets that lie dormant within it and awaken the user to the complex ecology of our cities.”
David Seiter is founding principal of Future Green Studio, an innovative landscape design and urban ecology firm based in Red Hook, Brooklyn. With a Master in Landscape Architecture from the University of Pennsylvania, David's portfolio includes private and public-use projects ranging in scope from intimate residential spaces to larger developments as well as city-wide research and visioning. With keen attention to sustainability, Future Green Studio is continually exploring and incorporating innovative methods for aesthetically stimulating, practical, socially and environmentally responsible design.
Loïs Farningham has a MA in Fine Art from University of the Arts London where she researched activation and potential energy. In 2007, she earned a Bachelor's degree in Architecture from the Bartlett in London. Lois specializes in visual communication for Future Green and helps to craft the firm's branding, style and landscape / art interventions.
Elodie Egonneau has a Bachelor of Science in Urban Planning from the Institute of Geography and Planning at the University of Nantes, France. After working as a landscape designer in France, she moved to New York in 2011 and joined Future Green Studio to design and develop urban projects ranging from public parks and gardens to private terraces and rooftops.
Since obtaining her Masters of Landscape Architecture from UC Berkeley, Cecil Howell has practiced at Hargreaves Associates in San Francisco and at the Tulane City Center in New Orleans. Her work at Hargreaves included the conceptual design of several large-scale public parks and the construction documentation for a 500-acre corporate campus. She brings her interest in creative community engagement, as well as past experience in park and product design, to Future Green.
Koung Jin Cho received a Bachelor of Landscape Architecture from Dankook University in South Korea, and earned her Master of Landscape Architecture from the University of Pennsylvania, School of Design. Her portfolio includes urban plazas, campuses, hospitals and residential projects in Korea.
