IT WAS WHEN Maggie Keswick, a scientist and also Charles Jenks’s wife, proposed that Charles and herself design a “kitchen garden” behind their 19th century Georgian farmhouse (named the PORTRACK HOUSE after the nearby remains of a Scottish Castle) in which they would explore the fundamental aspects of nature if through garden design. The kitchen garden eventually became a 30-acre tourist attraction that is open only two months out of the year (May/June) for half of the day to keep foot-traffic at a minimum. Charles was quoted as saying “What is a garden if not a
miniaturization and celebration of the place we are in, the universe.” He, along with Maggie and many other designers, craftsman, and scientists took that concept to its boundaries with the design of THE GARDEN OF COSMIC SPECULATION.

LOCATED IN Dumfries, Scotland – the garden uses a landscape vocabulary that reflects the deep, smooth valleys, and low, long hills as well as creating astoundingly interesting spaces to view and to visit in a controlled environment. The garden itself consists of 5 main areas shaped to celebrate tactile aspects of the natural world. Using self organizing patterns found in nature, such as the spiral – which is related to the DNA molecule as well as the shape of the galaxy, fractals, snakes and dragons (which create a overall program and design strategy for the garden), wave forms, atoms, equations, and concepts of metamorphosis, Charles and his team of intellectual designers – including Frank Ghery, Rem Koolhas’s wife, Chris Barrowman, and others – created a garden that reflects both large and small scale elements of the universe and creates a new grammar in landscape design.

THE FIRST of these five areas is referred to the SENSES OF SENSUAL KNOWLEDGE. This is where the kitchen garden began – as a paradise garden walk able via a winding, intimate footpath that undulates through rhododendron, hostas, lily of the valley, flowering shrubs, and thick moss plantings at the terminice. The entire footpath is obscured from the house, creating a sense of mystery as well as uncertainty as one passes through this portion the garden. The garden is intended to be a narrative of the five senses, using linear plantings framed by paths that weave through each other and surrounded by peculiar undulating walls. Also located in this area is a tennis court, ironically named SENSE OF FAIR PLAY and the GARDEN OF LEAVING YOUR SENSES which takes design inspiration from the garden of BOMARZO. Here, the NONSENSE HOUSE resides, which is modeled after the concept of the LEANING HOUSE. The NONSENSE HOUSE is exactly that, nonsense – the structure itself is nonfunctional and clashes with itself in design. Anagrams and equations are found throughout the house.

THE SNAIL MOUNDS AND SLUG LAKES make up the iconic image of THE GARDEN OF COSMIC SPECULATION. As the largest and most obvious moves in the landscape, these landforms and water bodies create an immensely obvious sense of place. An initial concept for these earthworks included “a water dragon eating a land dragon.” Designed with inspiration from the DOUBLE HELIX formation of the HUMAN DNA MOLECULE, the snail mound and snake mounds allow a patron to experience a similar journey that a DNA PROTEIN would inherently follow. To go up, one must go down and to go down, one must go up – creating a paradox that is everywhere in nature whether we are aware of it or not. Another design precedent included the ziggurat structures of the Egyptians – utilizing the mounds as observation and survey points to view the garden as a whole. An arched causeway divides the two slug lakes, reminiscent of a common Chinese garden element that forces the pedestrian to essentially “go slow” while obscuring the view of what is ahead – which can be confounding or perplexing as well as enjoyable and relaxing.
OTHER CONCEPTS that inspired the design of these forms include CHAOS ATTRACTORS such as the most commonly known Lorenz Attractor or “Butterfly Attractor” and the Ueda Attractor. Chaos attractors are models of how the universe could have been created – through an imbalance of elements and chemical reactions. This concept of imbalance is also reflected in the design of the CASCADING UNIVERSE. Located directly behind the Portrack Residence, the Jumping Universe is a series of zigzagging stairs and terraces that tell sequentially tell the story of the creation of the universe, dating back over 100 million years to the millisecond that the universe “sparked.” Each terrace represents a major event in the creation of the universe. Jencks produced countless drawings trying to provide brain food for question of “what does the universe look like?” Running down the staircases is a small imprint or divot that follows the zigzags in a more linear fashion than the actual stairs. This line represents a theory known as “inflation” which discusses the obscure probability in how the universe was created – how the imbalance could have been off by a trillionth of a unit of measure and the world as we know it would never have begun to exist.

THE BLACK HOLE is another concept that inspired Jencks in the design and creation of THE GARDEN OF COSMIC SPECULATION. The BLACK HOLE TERRACE was a joint effort between Jencks and master metal smith John Gibson (who has worked on the sculptures in the gardens with Jencks for over 15 years). Jencks commends his colleague in his effort to understand contemporary science, and to then turn it into growing sculpture. THE BLACK HOLE TERRACE is literally a sculptural landscape piece that fuses earth and metal together to represent the concepts of EVENT HORIZON and SINGULARITY in an artistic and gestural manner.