N.Z. flavour in landscape design

Press, 28 March 1981, Page 17

N.Z. flavour in landscape design

) Home Landscaping in New Zealand: | A Design Guide. By Bryan McDonald. Photographs by Desmond Kelly. Collins, 1980. 195 pp. $26.95. (Reviewed by Gerard Halcrow) At first glance McDonald’s book gives f the impression of being another expensive, • but superficial “ideas” book that tells readers what they should be doing, but leaves no clue how to go about it Pick the book up and browse through the first few pages and you could be forgiven for gaining that impression. However, continue reading and the book looses its superficial look very early on; the reader gets positively swamped in detail. Another do-it-yourself book certainly, but McDonald offers the reader a bit of

panache at a price we all can afford: something not always found in books of a similar vein. McDonald achieves this with a mixture of adaptation from plans already successfully used by a selection of New’ Zealand landscape designers, and a decidedly indigenous approach which has marked McDonald’s work to date. The book is one of the latest from a handful of New Zealand architects, homeplanners and designers committed to recording this country’s particular mode in living. For too long the unsuspecting homeowner has been inflicted with design books written overseas with overseas readers in mind, but with a New Zealand addendum tacked at the back. Now thankfully books like McDonald’s are starting to change all that. McDonald stresses the uniqueness of the New Zealand environment and shows the reader how to use the vast potential of native flora. He backs up this philosophv with successful examples that can been seen over garden walls round the country. McDonald achieves what he has set out to do, namely encouraging homeowners to develop their home environments by providing them with necessary aesthetic questions and clear practical suggestions. Everything he advocates reinforces his contention that there is in New Zealand a great indigenous potential for landscape design. Emphasis is placed on natural material and the talents of a thriving group of New Zealand potters. Although profusely illustrated, perhaps a little overly 'so, it would be, unfortunately, an exaggeration to say that the book is well illustrated. Desmond Kelly has gone to a lot of trouble to illustrate the exact points on which McDonald has placed emphasis. Regrettably the printer seems to have hardly gone to any bother at aIL Most of the black and white photographs (which make up about 80 per cent of the illustrations) are very murky and in some cases almost indistinguishable. With today’s methods of high quality printing processes . such is. inexcusable, . •