DESIGN / 11
MUSEUM
IN A GARDEN
Landscape designer Nicola Haines describes the inception and creation of a new public garden in Limerick city centre which opened at the end of June 2021
T
he end of June marked the opening of the new 'Museum in a Garden' in the grounds of the Hunt Museum in Limerick city. The opening has been eagerly anticipated by the garden team for whom this project has been long in the planning. Covid restrictions delayed the start of the build but it will be open for the summer and hopefully be used and loved by Limerick locals and visitors to Limerick for many years to come. The Hunt Museum houses an eclectic collection of antiquities and fine and decorative art that reflects the tastes and interests of the people who formed it, John and Gertrude Hunt. It is a diverse mix of pieces sourced from all over the world. Smaller artefacts are displayed within drawers that have to be opened to 'discover' the objects hiding within. This element of discovery has been brought into the design of the garden with areas providing semi private spaces waiting to be discovered by visitors. The museum is housed within the former Customs House, a Palladian
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Georgian building designed by the Italian architect Davis Ducart in 1765. The rear garden is approximately 3000m2 flanked by two rivers, the Shannon and the Abbey, with views towards the 12th century St. Mary's Cathedral and the Potato Market. Existing trees are major assets to the space, giving a timeless quality of maturity and solidity with the largest, a London Plane, having a canopy diameter nearing 20 meters. The former garden was laid to lawn and split in two parts by iron railings that closed off this substantial space to the public. The museum decided to remove the iron railings with the intention of giving over the entire area to public amenity use. The design brief was partly to create exhibition space for supersize replica museum pieces, to allow the museum to escape outdoors and blur the boundaries between internal and external displays. Above all else, the design had to create much needed community amenity space to entice everyone from local residents, office workers, and museum visitors to schools and charitable groups to use the garden. An outdoor chess set was to
HORTICULTURECONNECTED / www.horticultureconnected.ie / Summer 2021
be included, as were areas for growing vegetables and fruit in a community garden. The design had, of course to respect the beautiful protected building and manage seasonal flooding which has plagued the area in recent times. The museum ran an open landscape design competition in January 2020 with submissions appraised in two phases by a team of judges and engagement sought from the public over social media. A key aspect of the brief was that the garden be designed to use, reuse, and recycle and use as much locally sourced material as possible. We were delighted to win the competition, and design development started in May 2020. The design for the garden draws on the maritime connections of the building and museum collection by creating 'tide lines' of grass and planting that ebb and flow around the garden, creating undulations and alcoves of shelter for exhibition space, seating and play. Semi-private places are created by sculpting the earth into berms providing for a diverse selection of areas for visitors to meet, chat or sit quietly and enjoy the outdoors. Parts of the garden are 'discovered' in the same way the collection pieces are uncovered within the museum. Three main alcoves create exhibition spaces for replica museum objects and their shape offers people sitting within them some protection from the wind. The internal
