Extracts from “Rooms, Gardens and Things Alike” Folio
Research Unit led by Colby Vexler

Notes on Garden...
“In the same way the walls and floors of a building make rooms, grasses, gravel and plants in a garden do the same thing. Gardens can at most make suggestions of a room, and the elements of a garden are often untameable and can never be wholly designed, in the same way the junction between a floor and a wall will always be somewhat crooked and thus require a skirt.

These rooms are often loosely shaped, and their edges are roughly marked out, tall grasses often overlap gravel or shorter grasses, and gravel can sometimes make its way onto a patch of soil. Maintenance of these rooms often entail pruning and mowing a garden to keep it at the state of its conception. However, without this, the floors, walls, and ceilings made up by these natural elements can change a large room into a smaller one, or a round room into a more square-ish one, regardless of the architect’s original intent.

The use of a line of trees or shrubs to partition a room is not explicit to the same effect a stud frame and some plaster board would have. The hardness of the wall that allows you to rest things against is mostly absent in these garden walls. Take Ellis Stoke’s Paddock Line in Narre Warren, the existing line of trees suggests an edge of a room more than the wire fence that sits at the base of their trunks.

However, the trees were meant to be observed from the grassy floor amongst the other plants and shrubs to have this perception. Once they are observed at a closer proximity, like under their canopies, the relationship to this grassy room and its anchors is no more, and the canopies begin to act as a ceiling, now with a column at their center.”

A paddock line in Narre Warren, Ellis Stokes

An attempted definition of Sam Chermayeff’s Objects...
“Sam Chermayeff’s objects are sometimes low, sometimes high, sometimes alone, and sometimes together. High objects are often an anchor on a plinth or some legs that match the anchor’s outline; they are often tall and skinny.

Low objects are often an anchor or anchors sitting loosely on a surface, which is typically much larger than the anchor(s); these objects are often short and fat.

Objects that sit alone are often outwardly facing, and typically lack orientation, they also usually sit away from walls, opting for the middle of a room.

Groups of objects usually have some that sit near a wall while others sit slightly cranked. These groups are inwardly facing and are often oriented toward a similar point.”

An attempted definition of Shaker Rooms...
“Shaker rooms are often inwardly facing, with most objects abutting a wall with some sitting on the ground, and others living on the wall. Some objects live in the middle of the room, often oriented toward an anchor.

Picture rails act as datums for the objects living on the wall, whilst sills act as datums for objects resting on the ground. Rugs often sit towards the middle of the room, acting something like a room within a room.”