CJ was on his way to Arabia, the second time.
How did this happen?
Where and when did his quest begin?
Check out: Tangier Gardens
Tag Archives: Empty Quarter
“Magical Realism”
I could never get “magical realism” until I spent too many years around the Rub al Khali–the Empty Quarter.
Then I met CJ. He was obsessed. About? I couldn’t figure it out–magical realism or the Empty Quarter.
He wrote: “How to beat, tame, survive–the Empty Quarter–life–magical realism?
Only by imagination.”
CJ tried…and got beat.
It all started in Morocco, Tangier Gardens, then KSA, Egypt and finally, the Empty Quarter.
Seasons change…and so do I
I am embedded in a landscape that has moved from spring into the definites of summer. The basics and the speed of spring growth have finished. For some, the hazy sameness of summer signals the onset of boredom.
Nope, not for me.
Clouds change like the seasons, too slowly to easily see.
And that is how the flahertylandscape blog is changing–slowly.
I set up this web site to talk about the landscape. Since 2013, most of the posts encourage the reader to interact with the landscape, its gardens and plants.
This blog also includes a section on landscape architecture, my profession.
And I have also included a section entitled landscape stories.
I wanted to write landscape stories spurred by my own career in landscape architecture to give to students some insights into what they might find in their careers.
Goes back to my university education where I found the most interesting and valuable courses to be a series of 2 week summer courses taught by private sector landscape architects. Why? Real world projects had a resonance that was absent from typical class room assignments.
Situations in post graduation offices taught lessons never addressed at university.
So I wanted to provide that resonance and reality for students still in university. You might ask, why don’t you teach? My response? Teach?!! Different animal–designing and getting a project built–that’s what I can share…and then there is the small item of my stroke four years ago. Isolated now. Don’t do crowds well. Don’t multi-task. Don’t do tit for tat speed–so I write.
Now I am getting to my seasons change title.
I will be gradually modifying this blog as I get closer to the ARC of my debut novel, Tangier Gardens, the first in the series, The Landscape Architect–fictional autobiographical stories that track the strange twists and turns in the life of a landscape architect who is committed to professional career practice. ARC? Advance Review Copy–working on this now.
Over the next six months, I will track the ARC, the pre-publication and the launch. All will happen and be accommodated on this blog.
But I also have a presence on YouTube which features the many years I lived and worked in the Arabian Peninsula. It has been years since I dug into the Empty Quarter–that place in SW Asia around which a lot of my professional career as a landscape architect revolved. You wonder about that landscape? Here is a taste. Follow the links embedded in each photo.
Felix
There is no Arabia Felix without the Rub al Khali.
Rub al Khali–the Empty Quarter…a massive natural and cultural enigma…
I can not escape its sand. I can not escape.
Talk about a dream
The past quickly becomes a dream at best and worst–Dubai Dreamland.
Well, while I was dreaming about walking distance green and blue in local parks…
How does that shopping work if you don’t want to get into your car every day?
And what if I have to be driving through a neighbourhood and need to shop?
Dubai urbanification–this is the Coastal Zone. In fact, it is the heart of a growing 200km long megalopolis connecting Ras al Kaimah in the north to Abu Dhabi in the south. And it was once…Empty Quarter.
The serviceable part of a lot of those hi-rise apartment neighbourhoods is that ground floor has retail space. I don’t want to turn this into some kind of planners manifesto; but if you must live in an apartment building, it is hugely practical to have retail on the ground floor of hi-rise–especially if your goal is to reduce numbers of local auto trips.
Action
Action? Most of us get no closer to the Arabian Peninsula than King Solomon’s medjool dates, and why not? If you had a choice between your home town and anywhere in the Arabian Peninsula, which would you choose?
My disclaimer is that previously I have lived 20 some *odd* years in and around the Arabian Peninsula. Gimme some of that Dubai, if you will. Go light on the Empty Quarter. And one thimble of Arabic coffee with the dates, please.
Humans + Landscape = ?
In between my infrequent blog entries, which always focus on humans and landscape, I am writing adventure novels, not surprisingly on humans and landscape.
As you can see from the menu bar above, I have been working on four novels over the past six years.
In preparation for updating them on my blog this fall, I have had some fun doing themed graphic design, one composite image for each of the four novels.
Themed graphics?
Yes—unique to each novel—humans interacting with the exotic geography and inspirational landscape around them, with the lightest sprinkling of ethnobotany.
I have interpreted each of the four novels below and I hope you find them enjoyable.
If so, recommend them to your like-minded friends, please.
This is the least developed adventure to date. The story revolves around a coffee house in Vienna–a place where for centuries East and West have and continue to struggle…over espresso…the text offering a brief respite.
The landscape background is the Arabian Peninsula’s Empty Quarter where surface sand patterns take us to Julian eternities and the sun takes away our sight. The botanical panel is the date palm, Phoenix canariensis providing food, utensils, environmental and architectural shelter. The human craft panel is carved stone–essential discipline. The text is the gold ring.
The Moroccan landscape background threatens with an irritating red born of never-truly-healed and always festering cultural conflict wounds–North African, Arabian, Sub-Saharan African and European–in equal measures macerating humans over millennia. The botanical panel is the fruit and foliage of the fig, Ficus carica–rare relief. The human craft shows patterns from North African Berber wool carpets–practical essentials. The text is the shelter humans take from the native and endemic forms of the plant, Cannabis sativa. The dreams are real life.
The dark green and blue landscape background is the edge of our dreams always implanted by the highland mountains, forests, lakes, rivers and streams of the Swiss Alps. The botanical panel is the gentian, Gentiana acaulis, whose blue beauty, paired with our rare good fortune, beckons human transformation. The human craft panel patterns are the lace of internal order. The text is the promise of clarity–or is it simply the hope of clarity?
Cross Cultural
Lived lots of years in foreign countries–foreign cultures.
Cross-cultural are experiences in which I have been face-to-face with people and behaviours I did not understand and often did not agree.
…as opposed to multi-cultural which is theory only.
In my work as a landscape architect in those foreign countries and foreign cultures, I had to build major projects. Had to reach workable agreements in difficult cross-cultural conditions. Learned so very much from so many different people.
The links below track some of my cross-cultural journeys.
They are all HD, all less than one minute long, and they are all growing from the Empty Quarter, the Rub al Khali.
Rub al Khali Enigma: the Empty Quarter in the Arabian Peninsula, what it is.
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Dreams: how to get from dreams to fiction to reality, Atlantis Dubai 2008.
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Empty Quarter: transforming cross-cultural realties, harsh environments into restful shelter, Qasr al Sarab 2010.
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A Golf Academy in the Empty Quarter?
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Dubai Landscape: the humans
The Hajar mountains run along the Emirati and Omani border. Directly on the coast of the Gulf of Oman, they actually collect reasonable monsoon rain remnants about 1,000km south at Salalah, just before the Yemeni border. But here in this photo, the rainfall is rare. These mountains are quarry resources for the entire Gulf region.
The Desert Zone bumps against the Mountain Zone. In the Desert Zone, only the presence of water supports humans. Even with water, humans struggle in the Empty Quarter.
Avicenna marina, al qurm in Arabic. Salt water plants. Mangroves, lots of them in the region; except in Dubai where they are found only in the Ras al Khor Wildlife Sanctuary–in the heart of Dubai Municipality. Mangroves enabled coastal life and architecture (branches for lintels and beams), fodder (leaves), cooking (charcoal). Besides date palms, they had no other woody plants.
Dubai urbanification–this is the Coastal Zone. In fact, it is the heart of a growing 200km long megalopolis connecting Ras al Kaimah in the north to Abu Dhabi in the south. And it was once…Empty Quarter.
Dubai Pent Up Demand
Dubai–pent up coast demand. Everybody lives in AC apartments; but humans flood the coast, climate permitting, weather permitting.
Dubai–pent up park demand. Weather permitting, climate permitting–a green park on the coast.
Remember the landscape context–this is the Empty Quarter–coastal edge, coastal zone.
Blue or green is rare and highly sought after, difficult to access. The coast line of the Gulf. City parks. The above two images are what I think the planners call ‘pent up demand’. But you’ve got to drive to get to these nodes. Tell me these green and blue major recreation nodes should not be 10 minutes or less walking from every front door.
Where’s the coast? Where’s the park? How do I get there?
Dense apartment life everywhere–that is Dubai.
So I said what might that locally accessible (ten minute walk max) neighbourhood park look like?
Dubai Blue::Dubai Green
Dubai Dream–should be a major node, a landmark–something to organise the neighbourhood around–next to the local mosque.
Need green? It’s the plants! You need the plants.