LANDSCAPE AT THE KYAGAR

The landscapers who didn’t plant  

written by Iker Zuniga

A desert is silk. A desert is sand. A desert is rock, and the dry air is the desert too.  Mountain peaks of rocks, stones, and boulders—thousands of eons of tons—dry out  after being submerged for millions of years under the sea, and then the path to satisfy  the thirst starts again. It began with mist, a cloud heavy with water vapor, the rock not  being able to absorb it. The waterdrop slides down the rock, around the boulder. And  the sun shows through the clouds, evaporates it, and the opportunity is once more lost. 

Over time, the same sun that vanishes the waterdrops makes icy water from the  mountains begins to melt, and the water flows through the valleys, finding its way  down. It moves through Ladakh, to remote places like Nubra Valley, and wherever it  reaches, there is a patch of green life surrounded by brown dryness. Now, I am entering  the garden designed by Faiza Khan and Suril Patel, founders of the nomadic  architecture and design firm Field Architects. The floor is paved with boulder stones of  different sizes. Under my feet I can feel their rounded edges. As I walk, I see flowers  sprouting from the gaps between the cobblestones. There must be only soil beneath, no  cement. Otherwise, they would not grow, and the rocky “path” would be nothing but a  dry desert.  

The water descends from the mountain and is stored in ponds at different heights across  the site; in this way, the amount of water reaching the gardens and the orchard is  controlled. Between the ponds runs a little stream, barely carrying water and at points  almost indistinguishable from the color of the ground, made visible only by the  reflections it casts of the sky. Soon after, I leave this stony area, where the path  simplifies. The stones are left behind, and now I walk over the rammed earth they once  concealed. The path is elevated, with a limpid thread of water flowing along both sides.  Around it, plants of every scent and type seek space near the water. Flowers spill over  the path, and makes me pause to notice the tiny details of this miniature landscape.  

I look back, and a dog is sitting a few meters away. It is orange, like the dry parts of the  landscape. I crouch down to his height and pull my hand away from the plants to bring  it closer to his nose. He lifts his tail from the soil and approaches carefully. Smelling the  trace of sage on my hand, he lets me stroke his back with the other. After that, he leaves  the paved path and disappears into the colorful weeds. I watch it appear and vanish until  I finally lose sight of it, then rinse my hand with the glacial water of the stream.  

The path is curved and unexpected, shaped by the terrain. Some stretches hide the  ground, and others confront you with the forest as if it were a wall. No matter where  you look, there is something taller than you. Ahead, to the southeast, is Khardung La:  snowcapped mountains rising to more than 6,000 meters. Sharp and jagged peaks, still  fervent in their youth. Beside them, the range of Karakorum, the exact point where a  mountain chain is born, stretches for more than 500 kilometers and reaches its highest  point at 8,611 meters on Mount K2. Northwest the valley where the water comes from,  and northeast, a silhouette across the rugged wall is forming because the sun is setting,  peeking between the mountain crests and a higher layer of clouds.  

Attention feels scattered; all senses receive information at once. I smell wild hervs, I see  a snowy peak streaked with white and brown above a tangle of greenish forest, I hear  flowing water and birdsongs. The plants are very geometric, distributed in peculiar  ways, with a curtain of wheat shielding spiky vegetation behind it. Color and texture  dominate—everything else follows. Something makes me think about Pollock, and then  I think about the architects again.  

I wonder how long it has been since I entered the land, and how much longer until I  reach the river. The dog emerges from the bushes and starts walking towards me. Every  few meters he stops, checking that I follow. Soon he crosses a stone gate, and beyond it,  the river flows with immeasurable force. Part of that force is fed by the small stream— the same one that nourishes these plants, quenches the dog’s thirst, and washed my  hands. The sky is red, and so is the water.  A few days later, I meet Faiza and Suril on the land at dawn. As we walk, they tell me  this landscape will be a desert two months from now. And in six, it will bloom again.  “How did you choose all these plants? How did you decide the colors and textures?” I  ask them. “We did not select the plants. In fact, no one did,” they reply. “We studied  and prepared the land, shaped the paths, distributed the water—so that nature could do  its work. When we arrived here, the place asked nothing more of us. For us, the greatest  compliment is when what we design blends into its surroundings. When it feels as  though it has been here for thousands of years, as if the place itself designed it.”  I want a portraits of them and ask them to step off the paved path, outside their design.  We take the chance to pick some sour fruits from a sea buckthorn that no one planted,  and in this way we say goodbye to the forest before it disappears.