Ever since I was introduced to the recycling antics of Uncle Bulgaria I’ve had a fascination with trying to make good use of things that other people throw away. 

Over the last 20 years I’ve repurposed skip destined flues into contemporary planters; pallets have become external shelving and broken mirrors have been reinterpreted as light refracting sculptures. For most people, the humble skip represents the final destination for household detritus, for me they’re a treasure trove of potential artworks.

Bearing the above in mind, you can imagine my delight at finding a number of toughened glass panels among construction waste on a large garden I was designing.  While the client was initially perturbed to see me wrestling the panels from the landfill mass, I assured him I’d put them to good use and reluctant latitude was given.
 

In addition to placating my now worried client, the garden in question presented me with a number of distinct challenges. Not least of which were the severity of the slope from house to the adjoining cliffs and the need to balance any interventions with the preservation and enhancement of the garden’s primary feature: its outstanding views out over Dublin bay.











































A view looking down toward the recycled glass enclosure
 

The provision of curved grass steps mitigated the steepness of  the slope but the momentum of decent still required the incorporation of a punctuation point; a fullstop platform that would slow the garden viewer, allowing them to gather thoughts while taking in views to the city in the distance and coastal cliffs in the foreground.  Having considered and discarded a number of options I returned to the site in the hope of inspirational gold. And while looking out over the bay I was lucky enough to have one of those eureka design moments. An hour later I was busy arranging the panels to create a transparent spatial enclosure, that – to me at least - accents and draws in the bay through its simplicity and form, provides the client with a nice place for a brandy and cigar, satisfies a functional requirement of the design and saves some great material from landfill. 
 

Skip waste at your peril.
 

Looking back up toward the enclosure.

This feature was originally produced for the GLDA periodical Compass