Canadian design firm wins gold medal at the 2010 Gardening World Cup in Nagasaki
Nagasaki, Japan
October 13th, 2010
b sq. Design Studio, a Toronto based Landscape
Design and Build firm, won a gold medal at the inaugural, 2010 Gardening World Cup held
in Nagasaki Japan. Created to celebrate world peace through garden design and landscape art, on the 65th anniversary of the atomic bombing of Nagasaki during the Second World War, b sq. Design was one of ten internationally recognized teams invited to compete in the competition, beating out designers from the U.K., Australia, the U.S., France and New Zealand.
The only Canadian firm to be invited to compete in the competition, b sq. Design Studio completed construction on the project over three weeks in September and October in collaboration with a local Japanese contractor. The team was awarded the gold medal for the winning project on October 11th, at the beginning of the Gardening World Cup Flower and Garden Show.
The winning garden design by b sq. Design Studio was created to reflect upon the history of conflict throughout the world and the garden design culminated in a space designed to represent a feeling openness and togetherness for our future. Canadian school children from Kindergarten and Grades 4 and 5 from Our Lady of Lourdes public school in Toronto contributed messages of peace and goodwill to the Japanese people which were featured prominently within the design.
“It was a very daunting prospect to design a garden with a message of peace for this particular garden show, said Alex Bartlett from b sq Design Studio. “Given the recent history of Nagasaki we wanted our message to be very meaningful and heartfelt”.
The completed garden was over 1500 sq. ft. in size and included 12 mature trees over 25
feet in height. It took 10 people over three weeks of work to construct this garden. “Our Japanese contractor and his workers were excellent craftsmen with a wonderful attention to detail,” said Bartlett. “We provided many detailed drawings and 3‐D models of the design prior to construction and this effort on our part paid off as the Japanese crew replicated every aspect of the design perfectly.”
He added that “even though it was difficult at times to communicate with our workers we all did become good friends and the highlight of our experience was watching our contractor celebrate winning the gold medal with his father who had travelled 1500 km just to attend the awards ceremony”.
This was the 2nd international design show for bsq Design Studio this year. Earlier in July of this year bsq Design Studio constructed another garden over 1000 sq. ft. in size for the Singapore Garden Festival 2010 and won a Silver Medal for its efforts there. Once again in Singapore, they were the only Canadian design firm invited to participate among a field of International, award winning garden designers.
“Even though it is mentally and physically exhausting to travel around the world to participate in the design shows it is still an honour to do so and we will most likely be very happy to do it again in the years to come,” said Robert Boltman of bsq Design Studio.