Japanese Garden, Landscaping Redesigning Project, for Educational Purposes

Abstract

The landscaping in institutes of higher education has different connotations then regular green spaces. For educational institutes it is recommended a norm of 10 square meters per student. For plantations are provided about half of the area, of which 22-26% for grass, shrubs 40-50%, 25-28% trees. The remaining area is divided into alleys, athletic fields, playgrounds (about 35-40%) and buildings (10-15%) of the total area (Preda and Palade, 1973). The U.S.A.M.V. University Campus owns round 46.900 square meters of terrain, including orchards, vineyards, experimental plantations, greenhouses, leisure spots. The plantations are decorative, educative but also very practical green barriers against wind, dust, emissions (Cantor and Zaharia, 2002). One key area of the Campus is the one located west to the Horticulture Faculty building, south to the Agriculture Faculty building and East to the Veterinary Medicine. It, measures 1.625 square meters and considering the key location of this area, the high traffic and the resources it offers, a modern, exotic type of landscape, the Japanese garden style, would fit perfectly. The main reason is educative, as it offers live example of an oriental garden, for the students, including the aesthetic valences, and the utility, as it would be designed to host outdoor classes, workshops or just a nice, quiet place to study. This particular project is part of a bigger one, which covers from the French gardens, or modern, vertically designed landscape, to green Parking or the Japanese gardens for the whole Campus. The composition centre of the new design will consist on a Japanese pavilion, pagoda shaped, made of wood. It will incorporate several wooden benches, in order to provide the space for the outdoor classes. The access to it will be through a new alley, with stairs on the slope area and paved with black granite slabs of rectangular shape on the flat terrain, accompanied by gravel on both sides. The alley will be edged by 40-60 diameter decorative rocks, along with the crawling shrub Juniperus horizontalis. In the Western part another key point will consist on an arid spot (crossed by a wooden bridge), made of small gravel boarded with massive rock on the sides, along with the conifer shrubs: Ilex aquifolium var. alaska, Chamaecyparis lawsoniana var. minima aurea, Juniperus sabina var. tamariscifolia and the flower decorative Rhododendron concinum (centre of the composition). Others Japanese garden plants, Acer palmatum var. disectum, Prunus serrulata and Pinus excelsa, will be incorporated in order for the decoration to be complete during all year stages.