The Japanese Tea Garden is now completed and I shot a short video to walk you through and hopefully can see some of the design intentions. Although I prefer to come back to my projects after the plants have had some decent growth, I had to document this upon completion to conclude my series of posts about its construction.

The clients are very pleased and especially remarked about how surreal it looked while lighted at night. They can now play around with raking the sand and experience it from within by walking the path, sitting in the Koshikake Machiai or viewing it from within the Tea House.

The clients have much to learn about conducting an authentic Japanese Tea Ceremony and they plan on opening the Tea House and garden to local experts who may want to give talks or lead a Tea Ceremony where the clients can learn from others and share the space at the same time.

The whole point of creating such a garden is to tap into the essence of its underlying meaning and to experience those subtle feelings that are contained within the intent of the objects and the overall design. It is a hard thing to describe to someone what they are supposed to understand while experiencing such a special garden space. The simplest way is to show them the various elements of symbolism used to evoke certain messages, principles or aesthetic.

I will return to this garden to take a follow up video and see how it is evolving. Hopefully the clients will also evolve inspired by having such a thoughtful garden in which to grow their appreciation of Japanese culture.

http://youtu.be/IDOFXqLUURw

Or if you would like to see a nice photostream on Flickr, go to this link:

Japanese Garden “after” pictures

Filed under: Asian Gardens

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