I was taking a workshop at Cuyamaca Water Conservation Garden on Water Harvesting back around August of 2019 and mentioned to the coordinator there that I was a landscape designer and open to connecting with new clients if there was an opportunity to do so. She told me about a new educational building that was being built there currently and they were holding a contest among (4) other landscape designers to design the landscape in front of the building and I was welcome to join.

So I decided to join the contest and they ended up liking the preliminary concepts I presented and so I was awarded the contract. The conceptual theme ‘Impressions’ came to me which I found interesting because of it’s multiple meanings that would inspire one to ponder both their impressions on nature and nature’s impressions on oneself (both figuratively & literally). At that time I was also especially fascinated with how patterns and designs of the universe are reflected (or impressed) in humans such as how our nerve patterns look like roots and branches of a tree, circular planets mirror our eyes, our fingerprint spiral pattern is the same pattern of our spiraling galaxy, etc., so that was also integrated into the overall design.

Some of the main ideas I proposed was a flagstone entry (repesented sun rays / powerful source of energy & life radiating out conceptually) that fanned out from the new double doors of the education building with purple & gold groundcover in between the stones and educational facts about water conservation etched onto the stones, curvilinear arcing lines that separated gold & blue-gray crushed stone areas and functioned as drainage swales utilizing natural rainwater to irrigate the new plants (nerve/root pattern), a new overhead pergola extending outside the double doors (originally a half-moon shape with rafters extending out like the sun), a few seating areas, and new interesting types of plants that would all be appealing to new visitors.

The original design went through a few renditions / evolutions as you can see below and was all coordinated alongside the managing representatives there at the garden who had significant input on the final outcome.