Passage - Ceramics at the Hyatt, Chennai

The half acre, 3rd-floor pool deck—a slab of disintegrating concrete abandoned by previous owners—is to be transformed into a garden of regional character with native plants and fired clay. Rajeev Sethi’s brief: The co- dependence of species. The bee. Cross-pollinator. Model to man for a life-on-earth equation of ecological balance—the environmental imperative for a healthy planet. I invited landscape architect Kavita Srivastava* of Mumbai to help re- conceptualize the 3rd floor garden and Paul Blancheflower of the Auroville Botanical Garden to advise on, supply and plant a mix of exotics and local species. A tamarind forest from beyond the hotel boundary becomes borrowed landscape, bringing the wild onto the deck where a drought-resistant hedge of indigenous shrubs surrounds the central pool. The earthy palette of high-fire ceramic, arguably the most elemental of the arts, is a quiet complement in this setting of forest, clearing and spring.

*Kavita Srivastava interned with me in 1994 while working on her B.Arch. at S.P.S.M.B.H. College of Architecture, Kolhapur. Post - graduation she worked for me for one year as a site supervisor in Kodaikanal. She earned her Master of Landscape Architecture from the University of Sheffield in the UK.