LOLA

In Search of Sharawadgi presents the ideas and dreams of Piet Oudolf and LOLA Landscape Architects. Piet Oudolf has completed many popular projects worldwide, while the design efforts of LOLA are starting to materialize and gain appreciation. Oudolf and LOLA have a history of working together on numerous projects.

This book takes the reader on a journey, showing them how public gardens and landscapes across the world have been transformed. From the High Line in New York, the gardens of Hauser & Wirth in Somerset, the Star Maze in Tytsjerk to the Leisure Lane in Limburg. Familiarize yourself with Oudolf’s and LOLA’s ultimate vision for the future: a global forest against the warming of the earth. A dream that can start in anyone’s garden, however big or small.

On this journey the reader is accompanied by the artists Joseph Beuys, Kie Ellens, Anne Geene, Giuseppe Licari, Geert Mul, Darcy Neven, Vijai Patchineelam & Adrijana Gvozdenovic, and Sanne Vaassen. In doing so this book presents us an extraordinary perspective on the discipline of garden design, and major issues such as global warming and the impact of nature on our well-being.

The book highlights five dimensions of the contemporary landscape though five chapters: ‘Composing Nature’ focuses on composition as a guideline for new landscapes. ‘Nouveaux Terroirs’ is about our connections with the soil and its cultural history. ‘Everybody is a Gardener’ focuses on the role and activation of the community in the designs of Oudolf and LOLA. ‘Life Lines’ is about the movement of the user and the reuse of existing and forgotten connections and networks. ‘Dreamy Realism’ concentrates on the global climate crisis and how landscape design can actively provide solutions for it.