Category Archives: Landscape

Anything related to landscape architecture

Focus on Contemporary Landscape Architecture

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There’s a great collection of contemporary landscape architecture projects in the latest edition (Vol 5, No. 3) of ArchitypeReview. Make sure you head over there and check it out as the photographs are decent in both quantity and quality. Unfortunately there’s no editorial or commentary – just project descriptions by the landscape architecture practices. A grid of nine “iconic” landscape projects are also featured, although mysteriously, they are presented in black and white with no more detail. That aside, ArchtypeReview is still a good resource.

My picks of the curated projects include most of my favourite practicing landscape architects…

James Corner Field Operations

RE-USE... an aerial view of a typical section of The High Line, New York City

Office of James Burnett

URBANE... The Brochstein Pavilion rekindles the spirit of the legendary Dan Kiley

Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates

SYSTEMS... bioengineering replicates natural systems at Connecticut Water Treatment Facility

West 8

SURPRISE... it's the Garden of 10,000 Bridges (well, not literally) in Xi'an, China

Also, don’t miss the less known projects; Underwood Family Sonoran Landscape Laboratory by Ten Eyck, Schandorff Square by Østengen & Bergo and Shanghai Houtan Park by Kongjian Yu.

Interview with Adriaan Geuze of West 8

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There’s a solid interview with Adriaan Geuze over at Design Observer on the West 8 master plan for Governors Island in New York:

You need to work from your own experience, your inner resources — the ideas and values that you build up over a lifetime. But it is not so easy to talk about these things.

Clearly, he’d rather demonstrate than discuss.

For more details go the Governors Island Park & Public Space website which outlines the design principles. Or have a look below at the wacky montage/renders by West 8 of ’people enjoying the outdoors’ at the new park.

[Image credits: West 8/Rogers Marvel Architects/Diller Scofidio + Renfro/Mathews Nielsen/Urban Design +]

Monumental Sustainability by Herzog & de Meuron

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Joining a long line of notable architectural designs emerging from previous Expos and World Fairs, Herzog & de Meuron today released their concept design master plan for the Expo Milan 2015.

Aerial view along the primary boulevard, Expo Milan 2015 (Courtesy of Herzog & de Meuron)

Aerial view along the primary boulevard, Expo Milan 2015 (Courtesy of Herzog & de Meuron)

With an Expo theme of “Feeding the Planet, Energy for Life”, the Herzog & de Meuron master plan deliberately makes a paradigm shift away from the monumental buildings (eg. Eiffel Tower, 1889) or big pointy towers (eg. Space Needle) that characterise past Expos;

To this end, we want to reverse the notion of a monumentality that is associated with physical impact and instead offer a vision of landscape that is monumental in its fragility and natural beauty. [Herzog & de Meuron, architect's statement]

Described by the architects as a “reinterpreted urban agricultural landscape” the design reminds me of the classic Italian gardens analysed in the book “Green Architecture & The Agrarian Garden” (Barbara Stauffacher Solomon, 1988) that made such an impact on me when I studied landscape architecture. At first glance, the scheme looks like it could be for an anonymous new city in the Middle East but on closer inspection it reflects some romantic elements of Italian cities – Venetian canals and picturesque agrarian scenes in Tuscany – that sit within a rigourous urban structure.

The design is organised around a 1.4 kilometre long boulevard about the scale of the Ramblas in Barcelona or parts of the Champs Elysées in Paris. In the tradition of Roman cities, this primary axis intersects a secondary boulevard that connects the Expo site to the city fabric. A series of strips (perhaps recalling furrows in a field) covered by shade sails cut across the boulevard axis and define the building sites for all the national pavilions. By arranging these strips perpendicular to the axis, each country has an equal frontage or representation at the Expo – despite the varying lengths and topography. Water frames the site in way that recalls the waterways of Venice (check out the boats!), provides sustainability benefits (in part a constructed wetland) as well as way to move around the Expo by boat.

Canal view, Expo Milan 2015. (Courtesy of Herzog & de Meuron)

Canal view, Expo Milan 2015. (Courtesy of Herzog & de Meuron)

Boulevard view, Expo Milan 2015 (Courtesy of Herzog & de Meuron)

Boulevard view, Expo Milan 2015 (Courtesy of Herzog & de Meuron)

Conceptual layers diagram, Expo Milan 2015 (Courtesy of Herzog & de Meuron)

Conceptual layers diagram, Expo Milan 2015 (Courtesy of Herzog & de Meuron)

Overall aerial view, Expo Milan 2015 (Courtesy of Herzog & de Meuron)

Overall aerial view, Expo Milan 2015 (Courtesy of Herzog & de Meuron)

Close-up of the boulevard, 'strips' and shade sails, Expo Milan 2015 (Courtesy of Herzog & de Meuron)

Close-up of the boulevard, 'strips' and shade sails, Expo Milan 2015 (Courtesy of Herzog & de Meuron)

A mini harbour off the canals, Expo Milan 2015 (Courtesy of Herzog & de Meuron)

A mini harbour off the canals, Expo Milan 2015 (Courtesy of Herzog & de Meuron)

Given the strong green theme of the Expo, Herzog & de Meuron are working with the world-renowned sustainability leaders William McDonough + Partners to develop a range of environmental processes that are guided by McDonough’s “cradle to cradle” approach. The diagram below highlights the different parts of the “nutrient system” whereby an appropriate cradle to cradle cycle is assigned to each component; Stuff (1 day to 1 month), Setting (3-30 years), Systems (7-15 years), Skin (20 years), Structure (30-300 years) and Site (eternal).

Expo nutrient system by William McDonough (Courtesy of Herzog & de Meuron)

Expo nutrient system by William McDonough (Courtesy of Herzog & de Meuron)

Interestingly, Herzog & de Meuron’s bold concept for the 2015 Expo is not exactly their first. In fact, the origins of their de Young Museum (2005) in San Francisco stem from the California Midwinter International Exposition of 1894 as the original building was severely damaged by a 1989 earthquake.

In essence, the design for Expo Milan 2015 by Herzog & de Meuron is an urban landscape design framework that provides a monumental yet sustainable approach for an event such as an Expo. Whether or not it makes a long term environmental contribution to the city of Milan, will be revealed in the fullness time as the concept has lofty aspirations;

Just like nature, the Expo will also change over time… it will have provided a foundation for flexible and sustainable development in the entire region, ultimately redefining our long-term approach to the worldwide production of foodstuffs. [Herzog & de Meuron, architect's statement]

3 Degrees of Jean Nouvel

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This week we have the “3 degrees of Jean Nouvel”, a thinly-veiled attempt at a thematic post set out in three parts; The Architect, The Botanist and The Photographer.

Jean Nouvel (photograph by Thomas Mayer)

The Architect : Jean Nouvel
Every architect’s favourite Dr. Evil look-a-like, Jean Nouvel, reveals all in a personal interview. Learn about his seasonal dressing habits, his small “pets”, and his love of silence. Apart from that, he does get to express why his architecture is so evocative:

there is the desire to analyze and understand the world but this should not prevent us from expressing something, from inventing, and in that sense ‘utopia’ is a part of our work.

More on the the man behind the utopian architecture here. Alternatively, have a look at a slideshow of Nouvel buildings by a bunch of talented photographers.

The Botanist : Patrick Blanc
Next is an interview by PingMag about the amazing vertical green walls and gardens by Nouvel collaborator, Patrick Blanc, a French botanist. Blanc worked with Nouvel on the vertical gardens of the Musée du Quai Branly in Paris, however, the main landscape design is by Gilles Clément. Whilst these “living walls” are intriguing, there is some discussion about their environmental viability and general maintenance. although it’s hard to argue against Blanc’s objective; “The city needs urban nature. There are masses of places one can create greenery without needing to take up large spaces.”[1] Takes me back to university and The Granite Garden published in almost a quarter of a century ago.

A photo essay on the landscape of the Quai Branly museum is available here.

The Photographer : Thomas Mayer
A huge gallery of photographs from an archive spanning 35 years by professional German photographer, Thomas Mayer. His archive is well worth visiting as there are over 10,000 architectural photos alone, including buildings by Frank Gehry, Zaha Hadid, Peter Zumthor, Richard Meier and of course, Nouvel.

Torre Agbar, Barcelona

Mayer’s Torre Agbar set shows the building rising from the gritty urban surrounds of Barcelona like a umm… well, let’s just say looks a bit suspect. Nouvel’s description of the Torre Agbar (aka. Agbar Group tower) is a little more poetic; “a distant echo of old Catalan obsessions, carried on the winds that blow in from Montserrat” but, really, it must be a homage to his love of Cuban cigars.

Also check out the official Torre Agbar site which has a wealth of information – all embedded in Flash unfortunately (gee it does horrible things to text legibility).

Martha Schwartz, Scale, Typologies & Trees

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Mid-Week Linkage No.1

Here’s the first of (hopefully) a regular mid-week selection of interesting articles or websites. Rather than resort to an automatic daily link posting via del.icio.us, I thought I’d try a tailored approach. Anyway, here’s a start…

  • Martha Schwartz: Landscapes of Awareness | An interview where Martha discusses the “bland landscape”, gender issues in the design field and sustainability. That, and she still looks pretty cool (for a landscape architect).
  • Universcale | In the spirit of Charles & Ray Eames famous Powers of 10, Nikon have created a Flash version which indicates the relative scale of objects from the microscopic to the impossibly large (universe). Click on an object and it automatically compares something smaller and bigger – very cool. Check it out but make sure you turn off the crappy background music.

  • Architype Review | Recent projects by Holl, Viñoly, Denari and Will Bruder, categorised by architectural typology such as schools, houses, university etc. Nice clean layout with photos (perhaps too small, even when clicked), a description and credits. Each project is selected by editorial review yet the descriptions are supplied by the architects. Strangely there’s no RSS feed, only a newsletter by email?!
  • Branch Banking: How much a street tree is really worth? | The results of a New York street tree survey that establishes the value (in $) of street trees based on species, age, size, and location. Not that unusual so far. What is a little different, is that the annual energy savings were also calculated along with the value a street tree adds to your property (0.88%, apparently). Interestingly, in the examples the value of a street tree to the home owner is between 16 to 71 times that to the city.

Any suggestions for future mid-week linkage? Post a comment below or contact me by email.