A Whole New World

It is one of those days when the mind longs to wander aimlessly and get lost in search of a new inspiration. We take an unknown desert road that leads to a quaint little island somewhere midway between Abu Dhabi and Dubai. Far beyond lay uninhabited lands and roads less travelled, surrounded by a quietly tucked mangrove haven.

Between the vast blue expanse of the sky and the sea, a scattered mass of pale green plant life silently continues to thrive. With roots staying afloat on the sheet of water, the mangroves make dull sands seem full of life.

An innocent peep from behind their graceful branching pattern takes me to a whole new world. Just then, a blurry image of pink movement is sensed in the modest ambience. Eyes open wide to the sight of countless flamingoes!! They stand on the watery edge flaunting brilliant rosy hues. Some of them fly out in elegant poses juxtaposed against the soft green backdrop of the mangrove forest.

It is an entirely new ecosystem nestled secretly inside our mundane unnatural realm. A world that stands independently, in silent celebration of its own rare beauty. I feel alive. Rejuvenated. Occasions like these take one to a high point of being excessively overwhelmed by nature. And then that state of mind melts down into bleeding ideas. It casts a subtle ‘moving ‘effect that makes me still, in intoxicated meditation.

Somewhere inside, the landscape architect gets roused. This spontaneous encounter with rustic desert landscapes inspires me to create….create spaces with minimum human intervention; spaces that enclose an untouched silence and exist symbiotically as a part of this living desert habitat that surrounds us; spaces that compliment this naïve beauty of the desert environment without disturbing it.

I connected with the mangroves today…and they spoke to me. I realized one cannot separate landscape design from nature. It is something a designer takes from nature in order to give it back in a form that can be interactive and usable. Landscape design thus becomes a creative exercise to craft varied opportunities to talk to nature.

And then, a sensibly landscaped space can become that unexpected rendezvous with nature, where one can get drowned into creative incubation in turn, to discover our own spirit…