Buddhist Garden Design History

On 26th February 2013 Tom Turner is giving a lecture about the influence of Buddhism on garden design, followed by a lecture by Simon Drury-Brown on the possible design of a Dragon Garden for the Druk White Lotus School in Ladakh, India. Tickets are available from Eventbrite. The lectures will be in the King William Building on the Maritime Campus, starting at 6.30 pm

We wish to create a lush garden landscape for the school community. We started this year in April with a volunteer landscape architect, Yiannis Baltagiannis, creating planted areas along the central residential spine of the campus, see below:

Yiannis started a plant nursery to nurture seedlings for additional planting, see below:

Yiannis also got the greenhouse in use again following the winter, see below:

After three months, Simon Brown, another volunteer landscape architect, took over from Yiannis.

Simon developed the plant nursery concept with a specialist from the University of Greenwich, London, Tom Turner. A new planting area in front of the greenhouse has been created for growing vegetables, see below:

Drip irrigation of the campus is planned for 2013, allowing controlled watering and efficient use of water.

We are creating a landscape strategy with help from specialists at the University of Greenwich. Tom Turner, spent two weeks in Ladakh to help with this process, see below:

The students enjoyed the summer gardening competition in which they worked on garden areas outside their classrooms, see below:

The students worked hard on designing, planting and nurturing their gardens over the spring and summer. The landscape architecture volunteer Yiannis Baltagiannis awarded certificates and trophies to the winning class in each section.

Staff and students from the University of Greenwich Landscape Architecture programmes are offering to help make a garden for the Druk (Dragon) White Lotus School in Ladakh, India. The design of the Druk White Lotus School, by Arup Associates, is based on a Tibetan mandala. ‘Mandala’ is a Sanskrit word. It was used for the sections of the Rig Veda and became associated with a visual symbol, based on a circle and square, used for the layout of temples and the design of stupas and many other sacred objects. DWLS was severely damaged by a mudslide in 2010. The site is in a cold desert and there is a great need for a garden and landscape environment. If a project is seen to be viable, our hope is to pioneer an approach to cold desert landscape design which will have a wider relevance in the Himalayan region. Global warming is causing the glaciers to retreat and putting the whole area at risk.

As part of a landscaping programme, students have started creating miniature gardens in front of their classrooms. A volunteer landscape architect, Yiannis, is currently working at the school and collaborating with landscape architects from the University of Greenwich (UK) on a landscape design for the whole campus.

Students took part in the annual Tree Planting on the school campus.