inspiration
great outdoors. He grew up watching his father working in the fields and his mother cultivating their patio garden, occasionally helping by weeding or picking fruit and vegetables, and when he went to university, he spent his spare time working in the institute’s botanical garden. His time at the Jardin Majorelle led him to develop a career in perfumery, spurred on by Saint Laurent, who commissioned him to create a fragrance for the garden’s gift shop. Naturally, he speaks fondly of the designer. “After the garden was closed to the public, he would pass long hours walking and meditating in his garden, listening to the songs of the birds, which returned every night to
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sleep on the branches of the trees,” the ethnobotanist recalls. “His taste and sense of colour have profoundly marked the aesthetics of the garden, without ever altering the design of its creator, Jacques Majorelle.” It’s no secret that design and botany have long gone hand in hand, and the significance of the world's urban landscapes nurturing the environment is not lost on Andrew Grant, director and founder of landscape architecture firm Grant Associates, and the mastermind behind Singapore’s striking Gardens by the Bay project. “In the context of climate change, mass urbanisation, biodiversity loss and depletion of resources, including