Influential landscape consultant Made Wijaya will join three other cutting-edge designers at the KL Design Forum
 |
The first glimpse of the eco-tourism resort designed by Made Wijaya (inset) and currently being built in South Kerala, India. – Photographs courtesy of PT Tribwana International |
The globe-trotting consultant and former tennis coach, just can’t resist giving brutally frank opinions on what irks him, especially in the world of design, even in an e-mail interview like this one.
Participants at the forthcoming KL Design Forum ’07 to be held at the Kuala Lumpur Convention Centre tomorrow from 2pm to 6pm, will no doubt get to hear and see good and bad landscape designs as well as resort concepts.
Says Made: “I’m currently working on an Asian garden design for the Naples Botanical Garden in Florida. I’m also collaborating on the masterplan with the famous Raymond Jungles from Miami as well as with Bob Troskowski – the garden designer for Mick Jagger, Paris Hilton and Bill Gates.
“I’m also doing the Taj West End in Bangalore, which is a make-over of an 1860s botanical splendour. Other projects include private designs for dream homes in Belize, Antiqua and Dubai and an eco-tourism resort in south Kerala, sited in virgin forest with a lake.
“As for my writings, I’m working on the second volume of Stranger in Paradise – Diary of an Expatriate (a collection of Made’s diaries over the last 15 years as published in Hello Bali magazine).
“It has been six months since I was last in Kuala Lumpur. At the KL Design Forum ’07, I will be speaking about my latest designs for the projects which I have mentioned.”
As the key speaker, Made’s actual topic at the forum is entitled Post-Zen Depression based on an article he wrote for the July-August 2007 issue of the Lifestyle + Travel magazine.
“Why Post-Zen Depression? It’s the way I feel about the state of the landscape design in South-East Asia where Bolshie architects have laid waste to suburbia with tank trap-like untropical homes with tree-less, birdless, god-less gardens. You know, the usual rant.
“In my presentation, I hope to show that not all modern tropical gardens are ugly.”
When asked what excites him in the design world, he replied: “All the colour and movement happening in European interior design. The gardens of Bill Bensley never fail to excite me. I am easily excited. I follow the trends in India’s very dynamic men’s fashion industry.
 |
Made Wijaya has adopted a more modernist approach to his latest garden concept for the Taj Wellington Mews Apartments in Bombay. |
Made has written five books on architecture and landscape design; one of which, the ground-breaking and best-selling Tropical Garden Design, has been translated into French and Chinese. His new book, Modern Tropical Garden Design, will be out in September.
“My new book has got a lot more tropical designs of South America and Florida. It is about modernists and their influence on landscape. It highlights the work of 10 great modernists – including (Malaysian) Ng Sek San, Raymond Jungles and Brazilian maestro, Roberto Burle Marx.
And when it comes to his pet subject – Balinese garden design – Made Wijaya does not mince his words. When asked if he thought international resort owners have had enough of Balinese garden designs, he concurred.
“Yes, because bad ones have been done to death, particularly in Malaysia. Bill Bensely and my garden designs are artful and culturally referenced, not just ‘Balinese’.
“The real old Balinese-style hotels – like the Tanjung Sari and Taman Bebek – survive today like Japanese Ryokans in a sea of internationalism. Think local, act global.”
Made Wijaya is best known for his romantic Balinese garden designs – and for his books and films on the architecture and culture of Bali. His resort gardens are particularly famous in properties such as the Bali Hyatt, Bali Oberoi, Four Seasons Jimbaran Bali, Amandari, Bvlgari Bali and the Taj Wellington Mews in India.
No comments:
Post a Comment