Impacting lives through landscape architecture.

Today in SMK Convent Sentul, we were graced by the presence of two renowned landscape architects in the persons of Ms Yap Nga Tuan and Ms Nicole Van Den Steenhoven. These two very interesting ladies together with their staff helped us understand how landscape architecture and town planning impacts and improves lives.

Ms Yap, who is the director of Praxcis Design enlightened us on the history of landscape architecture with her lovely and colourful slides . She began with the Stonehenge in UK. She then took us  to Easter Island and then to the hanging gardens of Babylon built by Nebudchadnezzar. We literally went around the world with her, to Chinese and Japanese gardens, to Greece, to romanctic water gardens in Italy and to .... We learnt a little bit of the rivalry between French and English gardens. We also learnt that Sentul Park in KLPAC is based on English garden landscaping.




Sentul Park KL PAC




Long green grass on lake in Sentul Park.

We learnt that the nearby Sentul Park surrounding KLPac draws its inspiration from the landscape style of 18th century English gardens which broke away from the formality of the French tradition to a simple appreciation of unadorned nature.



Martha Schwartz artsy fartsy concepts.



Ms Yap introuced  us to Martha Schwartz's artsy fartsy playgrounds with vibrant colours. She educated us on the importance of roof gardens and rain harvesting. She showed us a river in Korea that looked very cool.



1000 year old restored river in Korea.

Ms Yap's friend Ms Nicole Van den Steenhoven began her story with a slide of a garden goat. She told how as a 6 year old, she tended her neighbour's garden and recieved sweets as a reward. Ms Nicole shared she was rejected by the top horticultural school in Boskoop, Holland because she was a ..... girl. Well later, they took her in because she passed the exams ( quite esaily she said). She recieved plenty of help from the boys in the school ( Her model looks and figure must have inspired the boys to help). So girls, be inspired by Ms Nicole and learn that that  discrimination ( gender and otherwise ) can be overcome and only serves to make us stronger in our spirits.

Ms Nicole played a pivotal role in the development of Nexus Resort Hotel, Karumbunai. She shared how she had this lovely office view of  the deep blue sea on one side and Mount Kinabalu on the other. She also shared a story of how once a long drought almost wiped out the plants in her project. And when they were down to their last drop of water, the rains came. She was so thankful that she walked  ( did she dance in the rain, I wonder? )  in the rains with an umbrella.  Ms Nicole's love for plants ( temperate and tropical ) and her expertise on plants is clearly evident.

She showed us a cute picture of slippers that looked like they had grass growing in them. Walking in those slippers would be like walking on the green grass. She inspired us to creative and innovative thinking beyond our horizon. She showed us slides where she stood in a pool with her jeans rolled up to literally test the waters. One thing stands out clearly, girls. Often Ms Nicole is the only lady on the project.  She shows us that ladies can succeed just as well as the men provided we work just as hard. We must throw off negative  mindsets and set ourselves free!!!



Ms Nicole pays careful attention to Ms Yap's sharing



 Thank you Ms Yap and Ms Nicole for lifting us up from our horizons. Thank you, Mr Lee Geok Ai and Ms Lee Foong Lian for coordinating this lovely visit and talk. Our souls have been watered and refreshed.  We want to bloom like the many lovely gardens shown and bring therapy to others through the well watered gardens in our souls.




Ms Lee Foong Lian and girls pay rapt attention.