Hardwick Park, County Durham, for Durham County Council

At Metaphor, I led landscape interpretation design for the recreation of the lost 18th-century gardens of Hardwick Park. A key design aim was to conjure the theatricality of Picturesque landscapes through interventions that invited ‘embodied interpretation’ through role play. In collaboration with in-house writer, Rachel Morris, and through model-making, I developed ‘scenes’ made up of ‘furniture’ bearing ‘script’ from a story that unfolded across the landscape. Moving between 2D and 3D, the profiles of the paper models and later, laser-cut steel furniture, echoed the slender design and ‘silhouettes’ of 18th c. art and design, effectively conjuring a ‘shadow’ of the past.

© Photography by Metaphor.