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.

The existing Googleplex (not designed by Ingenhoven... if it wasn't already obvious)

So with Google commissioning Ingenhoven to design their main campus (aka Googleplex) in Mountain View, there is a high probability, given the respective backgrounds of the two, that the project will be a success. Google is effectively run by engineers — talented and (mostly) wealthy ones — but engineers nonetheless. Being engineers they approach things with a methodical, logical eye. Why else would they have hundreds of great services we use every day that all look they were designed by someone with a very limited ‘design eye’. Perhaps ‘minimal’ would be the most polite way of describing Google web design. Some talented designers (Doug Bowman) have tried over the years… and failed. The entrenched engineering approach is summed up by Google VP Marissa Mayer demanding a study to test 41 shades of blue to find the ‘correct’ one!

So what’s all this to do with architecture?

Having written about Ingenhoven here before, to me it seems like a logical match. He practices architecture with a rational engineering approach particularly in relation to sustainability. That will no doubt suit Google. The project is a first for both Google and Ingenhoven; it is the first building commissioned by Google by an architect and the first American project for Ingenhoven. Not sure if that spells trouble or just a few client-architect teething issues.

…a design process that emulates nature — and not from ornamentation.
(Christoph Ingenhoven)

Perhaps Google and Ingenhoven will be a client-architect match made in heaven. Meanwhile another huge tech company and architect have started dating: Apple and Foster. Only time will tell which relationship works out.

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 +]

Ingenhoven prefaced his keynote by stating that he believes architecture is about surviving and not fashion and so by extension in order to survive the buildings must be energy efficient. So it’s no surprise that he seeks paired down structural systems, integrates landscape elements and assesses all projects against his own environmental criteria. Many of the projects by Ingenhoven Architects presented are rational solutions that employ double skin facades, geothermal, wind, solar and passive energy principles such as natural ventilation and day lighting. Some achieve zero CO² emissions (the Dusseldorf House) and others find the optimum factor between surface and volume (the circular RWE AG Tower in Essen) to minimise material and energy wastage.

The RWE AG Tower, Essen (photo by Sandra Schmechel)

A group of projects Ingenhoven presented, that could be called the “Atria Projects”, all included a variety of atriums to act as a natural buffer between external and internal spaces. Not only do these atrias provide environmental benefits by filtering air but are also internal landscape spaces for people to view and enjoy away from the climatic extremes. The planning of these large commercial projects is based on a “village concept”, according to Ingenhoven, and the Lufthansa Aviation Centre, 1 Bligh Street (Dexus) Tower and the European Investment Bank (winner of the 2010 Emilio Ambasz Prize for Green Architecture) all take different approaches.

Lufthansa Aviation Centre, Frankfurt

Lufthansa Aviation Centre 'floating' bamboo island atrium

Operable facade of the European Investment Bank, Luxembourg

The tower in Sydney (designed in association with Architectus) is a vertical version of the other two horizontal schemes and is an elliptical plan with a core pushed to the rear (south) of the site away from the views and best aspect. A circulation path takes you around the centre of the floor plate and creates a feeling of community as the lifts open onto the atrium. In this case, a night purge system utilises the atrium and a blackwater (sewer) system is used in cooling water for the air conditioning as only 50% natural ventilation is provided – excellent for a tower in Sydney though!

View from Sydney Harbour of the 1 Bligh Street Tower (render)

The atrium of the 1 Bligh Street Tower (render)

A project that stood out from the others presented was the Stuttgart Station project. With a 20 year period for realisation, the project provides the missing link in the European high-speed rail network and is the most structurally expressive of Ingenhoven’s projects – probably due in part to his collaboration with Frei Otto. The station structure is a pressure-loaded cone structure with a ring beam that morphs the columns and roof into one element. These elements are like giant eyes that provide natural day lighting and ventilation. Ingenhoven claimed the project did not emit any CO² (part of the ‘zero energy’ target) but the most impressive aspect was the concept of harnessing the (sucking) airstream from the trains to naturally ventilate the station platforms and maintain an operational temperature of between 14-27ºC.

View of the platforms at Stuttgart Station project (click to zoom)

Aerial view of the Stuttgart Station project (click to zoom)

Platform view with giant 'light eyes' providing 14 hours of natural daylight per day (click to zoom)

With a typical rationalist approach, Ingenhoven stated that form and design elements of his projects are not predetermined but the result of technical investigations and testing. Not sure if that’s truly the case but for me the synthesis of environmental, structural and architectural elements in Stuttgart Station project transcended this rigid process.

Projects Presented (in order)

• RWE AG Headquarters, Essen (1997)
• “Private House D”, Dusseldorf (2005)
• Main Station, Stuttgart (2015)
• Lufthansa Aviation Centre, Frankfurt (2006)
• 1 Bligh Street (Dexus) Tower, Sydney (2011)
• UCD Gateway, University College, Dublin (2013)
• European Investment Bank, Luxembourg (2008)

Additional Ingenhoven Resources

• Information about tours of the RWE AG Tower
• Image gallery of the Stuttgart Station project
• Main Station Stuttgart Project Booklet (PDF) for the 2006 Global Holcim Awards. A detailed outline of the station design and systems.

Also in this series… Francine Houben, Brigitte Shim, Chris Wilkinson and Billie Tsien

Meier’s proposed 9m-high, white steel and glass five-bedroom home, with a two-bedroom guesthouse, had been recommended for refusal by planning officers and branded an ‘ugly space-age petrol station’ and ‘completely inappropriate’ by neighbours.

Love the droll photo of Rowan Atkinson slotted in the middle of the architectural slideshow. Just in case you forgot who he is… perhaps some may think it’s a contemporary shot of Meier himself.

Read the full story at The Architectural Review.

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)

Boulevard view, 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)

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)

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)

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]

With typical Dutch frankness and charm, Francine Houben delivered an interesting keynote surveying a series of Mecanoo projects. Citing her influences as Charles Eames and her background in the Dutch Delta, Houben said she stays connected to the site by “keeping her feet in the clay”. She aims for innovative, human scaled, sustainable projects integrated with the landscape.

Each of the projects presented demonstrated a similar design approach of a folded ground plane or space “carved” from a solid block.

Library light tower, Delft University of Technology (photo by muchachuco)

Facade screening and soffit detail, Delft University of Technology (photo by rucativava)

In the library at the Delft University of Technology, the ground plane is folded up over the main space and “pinned” by a central cone providing natural day light to the reading area. Houben called it a “happy building” that doesn’t want to be a building but a landscape. In a similar vein, the podium of the FiftyTwoDegrees at Nijmegen is connected to the landscape by a folded plane, however, an office tower at one end serves as a counterpoint to the flat Dutch landscape. As if to defer to the horiziontality of the Dutch Delta, the tower is bent yet still retains an efficient commercial floor plate.

FiftyTwoDegrees, Nijmegen (2001–2007)

Based on the notion of a “carved” block of cityscape, Houben creates voids in the solid buildings in response to function and form requirements. The Municipal Offices and Train Station in the historic city of Delft is a mixed use public building where a city hall sits atop an underground rail station. Houben spoke of creating “an unforgettable space for the people visiting Delft” and indeed the main public area of the rail station hall has an undulating soffit entirely lined in striking Delft Blue tiles. Contrasting this historic Dutch building material is a digital information “ticker” running around the building.

Likewise, the Palace of Justice, Córdoba, Spain is a city block with a huge corner hewn out to create an entrance and the internal spaces are organised along a spine. Other features are the series of outdoor terraces (or patios) providing light and ventilation to the interior and the perforated facade – a reinterpretation of the traditional architecture of Córdoba. The perforations create a detailed light/shade effect on the interior. spaces. With both of these buildings, the use of a contrasting colour on the areas conceptually “cut” from the solid, accentuates the solid/void effect.

The design of the Wei-Wu-Ying Centre for the Performing Arts in Kaohsiung, Taiwan seems to be a hybrid of the folding ground plane and solid block concepts (make sure you check out the high-res competition panels links below). A very large program of a 2,300 seat concert hall, 2,500 seat lyric theatre, 1,000 seat playhouse, 500 seat “black box” and open air theatre is accommodated in a “functional sandwich”. The organising system is via layers (the sandwich) where the public spaces are the central layer sitting between the back of house spaces (underground) and an undulating, perforated roof. Interior spaces are seamless as the floor/wall/ceiling merge into one surface. Unusually, this plane is lined in steel plate that reflects the former boat building in the city. Colour lighting is a key element of the interior design, creating temporal effects and moods for the different spaces.

2007 competition rendering of the Wei-Wu-Ying Centre, Taiwan from 2007

Prototype of the Banyan form, Wei-Wu-Ying Centre for the Performing Arts (photo by China Blu)

Houben’s buildings all have textural quality about them, where site context is reflected in the building materials (Delft Blue tiles, Spanish limestone), form (the Banyan tree in Taiwan) and planning (patios in Spain, breezeways in Taiwan), although it could be argued her approach focusses too heavily on surface at the expense of function.

Projects

• Library, Delft University of Technology (1997)
• FiftyTwoDegrees, Nijmegen (2007)
• Municipal Offices and Train Station, Delft (2014)
• La Llotja Theatre and Congress Centre, Lleida, Spain (2008)
• Palace of Justice, Córdoba, Spain (2011)
• Wei-Wu-Ying Centre for the Performing Arts, Kaohsiung, Taiwan (2012)

Mecanoo’s 2007 Wei-Wu-Ying Centre for the Performing Arts Competition Panels

• Panel 1: Concept/urban strategy
• Panel 2: Site plan
• Panel 3: Level 00 plan and views
• Panel 4: Level 01 plan and views
• Panel 5: Level 02 plan and views
• Panel 6: Level 03 plan and views
• Panel 7: External render view
• Panel 8: External render view
• Panel 9: Grand Foyer
• Panel 10: Structural concept (by Arup)
• Panel 11: Lyric Theatre
• Panel 12: Lyric Theatre
• Panel 13: Concert Hall
• Panel 14: Conert Hall
• Panel 15: Playhouse/Black Box
• Panel 16: Playhouse/Black Box

Additional Mecanoo Resources

• Mecanoo projects on MIMOA
• Delft Library on Galinsky
• Video of the Delft Library
• FiftyTwoDegrees, Nijmegen (official building site)
• Municipal Offices and Train Station, Delft [translated version, original here]
• Interview with Francine Houben of Mecanoo

Also in this series… Christoph Ingenhoven, Brigitte Shim, Chris Wilkinson and Billie Tsien

Three major publishers come to mind when thinking about quality architecture or landscape books; Birkhauser, Phaidon and Thames & Hudson. Birkhauser are usually overpriced (depending on exchange rates) and occasionally include some very average quality images in their books (example) and while Thames & Hudson has published the odd classic, it doesn’t have much of interest coming up anytime soon.

So that leaves Phaidon. They have been riding the wave of success of lately – despite the loss in 2006 of their “design guru” Alan Fletcher – producing books consistently good graphic design, interesting subjects and well-written content. Of course, there are more intriguing niche publishers but taking architecture and design books to a wider audience shouldn’t be scorned.

Here’s a sneak peek of some selected Phaidon books due for publication during February and March 2009.

Álvaro Siza: Recent Works

Written by Carlos Castanheira with Siza, the book focusses on 20 projects designed and built since 1998 (or so) with complete sets of architectural drawings and Siza sketches. So even if you have one of the earlier monographs, this one might be a worthwhile accompaniment. Projects include the Iberê Camargo Foundation in Puerto Alegre, Brazil, a mimesis museum in Paju, South Korea, as well as the Manzana del Revellín Cultural Centre in Ceuta, Spain.

• Hardback, 320 pages (with 200 colour and 200 black & white illustrations)
• To be published March 2009
• RRP US $90 / AU $120 / UK £45 / EU €75
• Buy online. (pre-order before 31 March 2009)

Louis I Kahn

An in-depth brick of a book (at over 500 pages you won’t catch me reading this on train on the way to work) that contains a comprehensive new list of projects compiled by the Louis I Kahn Collection at the University of Pennsylvania Archives. It lists at least 30 previously unattributed projects to Kahn and totals over 231 projects. Author Robert McCarter includes all the usual Kahn masterpieces.

• Hardback, 512 pages (with 178 colour, 130 black & white illustrations also with 240 line drawings)
• Published February 2009
• RRP US $69.95 / AU $89.95 / UK £35 / EU €59.95
• Buy online.

The Contemporary Garden

Seems like it might be one of those low(ish) cost coffee table books on landscape design that are a dime a dozen – but wait! The difference with The Contemporary Garden is the fact that Phaidon edited it so the book includes a range of 100 landscape projects from 1920s onwards not commonly covered such as Garrett Eckbo’s Alcoa Forecast Garden (1925), Robert Mallet-Stevens’s Garden with Concrete Trees (1925), Le Corbusier’s Villa Savoye (1929) and others by Burle Marx, Barragán to Gustafson. Organised chronologically with a full page image and text per project, it looks like The Contemporary Garden would make a great landscape resource.

• Hardback, 112 pages (with 93 colour and 7 black & white illustrations)
• Published February 2009
• RRP US $19.95 / AU $29.95 / UK £12.95 / EU €14.95
• Buy online.

21st-Century Masterpieces

An architectural source book of projects completed since 2000 including Casa da Música in Portugal by OMA, the Walt Disney Concert Hall (Gehry), Federation Square in Australia by Lab/Bates Smart (interestingly Phaidon’s publicity doesn’t list Lab which would no doubt p*ss Peter Davidson off!), and the National Stadium by you-know-who. Again, the book was edited by Phaidon so the application of the term “masterpiece” to the selection of projects is theirs alone.

• Hardback, 160 pages (with 350 colour and 100 black & white illustrations)
• To be published March 2009
• RRP US $24.95 / AU $29.95 / UK £14.95 / EU €19.95
• Buy online. (pre-order before 31 March 2009)

Surely this is a must have (free) tool for any architect, graphic designer or landscape architect? Feel serene and always in proportion by using the Fibonacci series everyday.

[Postscript: Yes, yes, I know. You can just use an ordinary calculator but doesn't everyone like collecting little useless widgets like me?]

Tempelhof in 1962 with aircraft on the apron (source: Berliner Flughäfen/Archiv)

Although the airport has been operation in some for over 80 years, it is the absolutely huge scale and striking form of the terminal building, conceived by German architect Ernst Sagebiel between 1934-1936 (based on Albert Speer’s masterplan), that resonates with me. The audacity of the 50+ metre cantilevered roof arc over the terminal and the clarity of the functional diagram are still, despite of any Nazi undertones, to be applauded architecturally. Templehof is the forerunner and exemplar of today’s super-sized terminal buildings designed by Foster, Piano and Rogers et al. Hugh Pearman points out:

(Tempelhof) was designed to last until the year 2000. Somewhat surprisingly, it has. It is the only major airport in the world to have remained virtually unchanged over more than 60 years. What can it teach us? ¹

The airport was iconic for a number of reasons – not the least of which was it’s intended position as an international gateway in Speer’s masterplan of Welthauptstadt Germainia – it was also one of the world’s largest buildings (for a while), in 1927 it became the first airport with an underground railway station, and was the hub during the Berlin Airlift.

An aerial view of Tempelhof terminal and apron (source: Günter Wicker/Photur)

Tempelhof in the urban grain near Platz der Luftbruecke (source: Berliner Flughäfen/Archiv)

The last charter flight will take off from the huge concrete apron at Tempelhof and fly to Mannheim – coincidentally the birthplace of Speer – with another two symbolic flights leaving just before midnight (local time). One of these planes is a Junkers Ju 52 that saw both civilian and WW2 military service, the other a DC 3. Both planes reminiscent of the airport’s pivotal period.

Unfortunately, only ever arriving in Berlin by ICE or bus, I’ll never get to experience a “Tempelhof arrival” but still say “Auf Wiedersehen” and hope a new life can be found for Tempelhof by the Berliners.

Further Reading

• “Lunch at Tempelhof” by Hugh Pearman (1999)
• “Board now, gate closing” by Jonathan Glancey (2004)
• “The Mother of all Airports” by Reinhard Mohr (2008)