The spaces in between buildings

This month's meeting of the Kingston upon Thames Society (KSoc) was held jointly with the Kingston Horticultural Society and considered how planting in the spaces in between buildings can improve the look and use of the area.

The talk took the form of a series of photographs of some unnoticed places locally that gave good examples of opportunities taken and missed in make the best of these spaces.

I was particularly interested in this approach as this is very much what I am trying to do with my Ham Photos blog that tries "to show the unusual, the unexpected and the unnoticed". I mentioned this in the open session after the talk and that garnered some interest and I hope to be able to help KSoc to get started on a similar project.

If there were any negatives from the meeting then it was the horticulturists' frequent claim that the trees in the photos softened the impact of the buildings behind them when, at times, I thought that the messy trees obscured the straight lines and impressive walls of the gorgeous building!

But it would be a little harsh to criticise the horticulturists too much for that and the joint working between the two societies to improve both the buildings in Kingston and the spaces between them has got to be good news.