1. Introduction

The memory bank

The Living Garden is a kind of banking system, but one which instead of trading in Pounds, Dollars or Yen deals in the currency of human memories. The Living Garden is, literally, a memory bank.

The high street branches of this memory bank are not constructed from bricks and mortar but from grass, trees, stone, water, sun and light. Inother words elements from the physical world deliberately arranged into a certain shape to create a special place - a garden. The garden provides the means and the place to obtain access to these messages and memories. The garden part of the Living Garden is, therefore, very much a real location. It is not a metaphor, or a description of an image of a garden on a computer screen, but as real as Kenwood, Kew, Fontainebleau or Yosemite National Park.

Beyond the garden walls, the architecture of this scheme provides mechanisms and means which allow anyone to record the messages which will be replayed within the garden. Thoughts and feelings in words, sounds and images can all be recorded and unlocked at a later time, simply by visiting a garden.