United Kingdom
Both of the projects to be described involve the
remodelling of significantly placed urban spaces,
adjacent to the Town Hall in the Sheffield example,
outside an art gallery in the case of Newcastle. Both
were multi-disciplinary team efforts, involving not
only landscape architects, but also highways and
lighting engineers and specialist designers, artists
or craftspersons. A major difference between the
projects was that in the case of the Blue Carpet,
Newcastle, the creative vision was essentially that
of one person, Thomas Heatherwick, whose train-
ing was in three-dimensional design and who com-
bined the ability to work with others with the tena-
city to hold onto the integrity of his ideas; whereas
in the case of the Peace Garden, creative ideas
came from many different people and sources, yet
the whole scheme is remarkably coherent and uni-
fied. It seems to disprove the adage that one cannot
get good design from a committee.
