Recently, I have run into a couple of references to a project in Paris that seems the predecessor of The High Line project in New York City. 'La Coulee Verte' (aka The Flowing Green) is a partially elevated railroad route through that was abandonded in 1969, and given to the City of Paris. Also called the Promenade Plantee, and The Bastille Viaduct, the project was designed by architect Philippe Mathieux and the landscape architect Jacques Vergely, how worked collaboratively on the realization of the project, which was completed in 1995.
:: La Coulee Verte - image via Eco Partners
The similarities to the High Line are significant and an interesting precedent to elevated landscape projects. Using these abandoned remnants makes sense for a number of reasons. First, the space are typically underutilized, and often blighted. These spaces are also typically visible from adjacent buildings, which makes greening a visual imperative as well. The linear corridors, often with minimal disruptions from cross traffic, allow for linear greenspaces, as well as providing activation at the ground levels, providing some potential catalytic development.
:: The High Line - image via Architect's Newspaper
There is obviously more current information on the High Line, and I have yet to really dig deep into the competition, design, and subsequent installations, which I will investigate in a later post. For now, I am looking at The Promenade Plantee as a vital precedent to vegetated architecture. The integration of space, along with the implementation of park like features similar to rooftop gardens, with planters, structures, and water features. This is due in part to the significant structure predicated on the previous use, as well as the width, allowing for pathways as well as adjacent nodes and public spaces.
A number of these elements appear in photos of The Promenade Plantee, covered in a selected number US and French sites, including the unofficial site with numerous photos. The 2.5 mile elevated corridor is punctuated with spaces to relax and pause, while connecting to various parts of Paris, from the Bastille Opera House to the Bois de Vincennes.
:: La Coulee Verte - image via Webshots - gerard_de_f
:: images via Friends of the High Line
The linear corridor is only part of the system, with exciting interactions of spaces happening either below, or at significant crossings. A major park crossing occurs at Jardin de Reuilly, with a bisecting elevated walkway:
:: images via Friends of the High Line
:: images via ARDDS
An example of the activation of adjacent districts is the Viaduc des Artes. A restored viaduct that features arts and crafts studios as well as an assortment of cafes and restaurants that has become a community gathering space. It must have a coffee shop or two, as it even makes the cut as one of PPS Great Public Spaces. 
:: Viaduc des Artes - image via ARDDS
The influence the Promenade Plantee has on The High Line is significant, and it will be interesting to see the similarities and differences. Obviously there are stylistic differences, but as a whole are the two projects getting at the same goals - revitalization, activation and redevelopment to provide energy to adjacent neighborhoods while offering a linear green corridor. The project(s) have also spawned some significant projects like the Beltline in Atlanta, the Reading Viaduct in Philadelphia, and the Bloomingdale Trail in Chicago.
This trend definitely takes rails-to-trails to a definite new level...
Friday, February 29, 2008
Take the High Road: Paris
Thursday, February 28, 2008
Green Ribbon Design: Heping Park
Here is really compelling project by Perkins+Will for the Heping Park in Tianjin, China, provides elevated ribbons of vegetation defining the roof zones. 
:: image via Perkins+Will
Covered in World Architecture Network, the project description is punctuated by 3 large towers, as well as parking and green spaces creating a vegetated canopy that is engaging from street level as well as from above. Daylighting is allowed through circular penetrations in the roof plane:
:: image via WAN
From WAN: "The neighborhood's redevelopment plan includes new high-rise residential construction that will emphasize a higher quality of life through the integration of public green spaces and parklands... The ample green space was achieved by submerging two garage levels below the main park that begins at grade at the west end of the site. Ribbons of green space undulate across the site, admitting light, access and ventilation to the parking below. The green ribbons rise to form a green roof over the three pavilions that form the community center at the eastern end of the site... Various grass textures accentuate the patterns formed by the folds in the park. A variety of paths provide access through the site, emphasizing the pedestrian network at grade."
Tagging
Not an urban graffiti post, but a virtual tag from The Where, via Pruned, via Passages and on, and on... some of my favorite blogs, so sure, I can play along:
:: The rules of the tagging game are as follows:
1. Pick up the nearest book (of at least 123 pages).
2. Open the book to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the next three sentences.
5. Tag five people.
The book is a good one, Building for Life: Designing and Understanding the Human-Nature Connection, by Stephen R. Kellert. I've been picking away at it for a week or so, and had not made it to p. 123.
:: image via Stout Books
Page 123 opens the fascinating chapter on Biophilic Design...
"Reducing the adverse effects of modern development is arguably the first and more basic priority of restorative environmental design, but we must go beyond this limited objective to also identify how buildings and landscapes can foster human lives of meaning and satisfaction by celebrating our dependence on nature as an irreplaceable core of intellectual creativity and emotional capacity. The label 'positive environmental impact' or, preferably, 'biophilic' design describes this second dimension of a comprehensive approach to restorative environmental design. The fundamental objective of biophilic design is to elicit a positive, valued experience of nature in the human built environment."
Ok, now for the tagging (ya'll are it):
1. Something About Maryman
2. Jetson Green,
3. Sustainable Stormwater
4. Synchronicity
5. architecture.MNP
Monday, February 25, 2008
Tree/House
There's a few posts out showing off a variety of actual treehouses, but what fun is that. I thought a sampling of projects of the theme would be much more informative. Just for kicks, here's my favorite, a more refined method for the discerning tree-sitter, from Web Urbanist:
Sunday, February 24, 2008
Public Farm 1: Work Architecture Company
While aiming not to be redundant with other resources out there, I just really like this project quite a bit, and have to expand on the previous post. 'Public Farm 1' is the Young Architects Program at PS 1 Project by Work Architecture Company has been covered extensively by a number of sources: originally the NY Times, then Pruned, World Architecture News, Architectural Record, and others that a search would inevitably turn up.
:: image via NY Times
The NY Times article 'Betting a Farm Would Work in Queens', offered the insights on the motivations of the architecture team (Work Architecture Company = Dan Wood and Amale Andraos): derived from the French notion of "...'Sur les paves la ferme,' meaning, “Over the pavement, the farm.” In the architect's words:
Andraos: “We wanted to find what our generation’s symbol would be, embodying our preoccupations, our hopes for the world.” ... "For us it’s an opportunity to create an exciting structure, but also to talk about issues and ideas — to be engaged with the world.”
:: images via WAN
For a more expansive theoretical view of the approach, check out Work's website. The concept, in a nutshell, via Architectural Record:
"Although the design calls for a productive food garden, this will not be your standard back-yard set-up: Public Farm 1 will soar to 30 feet above the ground. The contemporary art museum has two adjacent courtyards, each enclosed by 20-foot high concrete walls. Dropped into the larger courtyard, the garden’s folded plane will form a V-shape whose two raised wings shade the spaces below. The larger wing will perch itself on the concrete wall and reach over the adjacent courtyard, providing a roof for what the architects dub the “Funderneath” side, adding an unexpected flying garden to the skyline. Columns supporting the overhead garden will delineate different programs, among them a juicing station and cell phone charging area. A “Kid’s Grotto” will be located under the smaller wing and a small wading pool is planned for the point where garden and ground converge."
:: images via WAN
Compelling design, both in simplicity and form - as well as the overall idea.
Looking at the detail more closely the project. Again, from Architectural Record: "The architects will create the installation’s structure by bolting together sections of durable cardboard cylinders. Collectively, like a honeycomb platter, these cylinders will form a massive folded plane. Each cylinder will hold a certain plant. WORK hopes to create a pattern whereby six tubes of the same plant will encircle one empty cylinder. This pattern will heighten the visual impact and allow crews to ascend into the garden to tend it through the open spaces."
:: image via WAN
The cardboard 'superstructure' will be infilled with a variety of plants. A look at the detail below illuminates some of the complexity underlying the simple idea. Tubes will be shimmed together with sheet metal to avoid tearing when bolted together. A perforated strip of MDF will be installed to provide a planting pocket, which will be lined with a product called Magna Moist Organic Planter Lining (of which I could find no info). Soils, irrigation, and plants will finish off the 'cells'.
:: image via WAN
The planting palette is geared towards 'urban garden', with a mix of vegetables, herbs, and fruits, with an eye toward production as well as consumption - on-site. There's talk of a PS 1 beer made from hops grown on site, as well as use of other materials for cocktails - or sale at a local farmer's market. I'm a little skeptical of the actual productivity of this system - especially with a season of watering, rain, wind - all perilous additions to even the most well lined waxed cardboard system.
Alexander Trevi from Pruned made an astute point on this approach, in the Landscape Urbanism evolutionary approach: "Though the current proposal involves a canopy-like structure, the total program will largely depend on continually shifting, real-time conditions. Rather than to a prescribed set of formulas, the space will be finely attuned to the weather, pollution, the disintegration rate of materials and uncertainty."
:: image via Architectural Record
Contrasting this to the 2007 winner of the PS 1 competition, from Ball-Nogues Studio, entitled 'Liquid Sky' - a much more architectural solution, a more artistic, less funky idea:
:: image via Architectural Record
Part of the appeal right now, is that a group of architects and landscape architects with the Portland AIA Committee on the Environment (COTE) have the honor of designing this years Festival of Flowers display in Portland's Pioneer Courthouse Square. This ephemeral design and blending architecture and landscape in a public space is an interesting concept to explore as a designer. While not as long-lived as PS 1 project will be, the idea of this temporary installation that is compelling and interesting in a public space even for a few weeks. Stay tuned for more on this.
:: Aerial view of past Festival - image via Pioneer Courthouse Square
Veg.itecture: S, M, L, XL
I will eventually run out of witty, thematic ways of presenting Vegetated Architecture (ok, I may already have), but in the interim, a selection of projects in a range of sizes (with apologies to Koolhaas + Mau). Of the precedents previously shown on L+U, architecture and landscape combinations range from the modest to the extreme, and these are no exception.
S: A small-scale version of a indoor planting system, via Treehugger of student work in 'eco-innovation' at the Royal College of Art. One project, entitled Verticulture, is a frame of planters with integrated irrigation, designed for urban gardens. The product site envisions the product as 'the future of vertical gardening'. I don't know if I'd go that far, but it's kind of hip in that Bucky Fuller kinda way.
:: image via Treehugger
M: a modest rooftop garden for the Diane von Fürstenberg Studio in NYC by recent media sensations Work Architects. Found on Atelier A+D, the rooftop spaces are integrated with a columnar lightwell to bring sunlight into multiple floors throughout the space. Work Architects are quickly becoming one of my favorites (and two weeks ago, I had never even heard of them).
:: images via Atelier A+D
L At the larger scale, a recent complement to the Caixa Forum building and the implementation of rusted corten panels. In this case, the Cremorne Riverside Centre in London UK, Sarah Wigglesworth created boxes of of steel to house a canoeing club on the Thames. It's interesting to see the mixed reviews of the building, from users and media (particularly a heated exchange on the Dezeen comment forum)
:: images via BDonline
Now we may ask how this meets the idea of Veg.itecture? Well, I have yet to see an actual example of this on the above building, but it has been reported that it contains 'brown' roofs, which consist of building rubble and other aggregate (with minimal planting and other items that provide habitat for a UK native bird species, the Black Redstart. From BDonline: "The roof is EPDM covered with demolition rubble, all of which was kept on site, which is intended to encourage the insect and spider life vital to sustain rare bird species."
I'm planning a post of green/blue/brown rooftops, where I will elaborate on the differences. Below is an example of another unrelated 'brown' rooftop, similar to what is described on the Cremorne Building. This, is, large!
:: image via Urban Habitats
XL While not oversize by Foster standards, our final super-size version is of vegetated architecture, picks up or thread (albeit loosely) of habitat via brown rooftops. The new zoological park in Vincennes, France, as covered wonderfully in BLDGBLOG in the post 'Simulated Environments for Animals' by the firm of Beckmann N'Thepe Architects. The creation, according to BLDGBLOG, includes six ecosystems or 'biozones' which "...include the savannah, the equatorial African rain forest, Patagonia, French Guiana, Madagascar, and Europe. Also included are a range of artificial topographies, which create a unique environment, as well as opportunities for interactivity for the visitors.
:: images via BLDGBLOG
While zoos have a long and sordid history (and a wide range of ethical dilemmas) there is a couple of ways of looking at this. One is to view all zoos as evil and inhumane, in which there is no way to create a positive project. The second is a stance that zoological parks are necessary for protection of certain species, providing us with a valuable connection with nature, and that when created humanely with appropriate knowledge of habitat necessary are a valuable asset to humanity. If you adhere to the second view, this project looks to be an exemplar of the landscape project type.
:: images via BLDGBLOG
The size and range of vegetated architecture project ranges from the personal to the global. We find opportunities in details, projects, and landscape types - to provide gardening in small urban spaces, for the creation of poetry amidst the urban fabric, for specialized urban habitats - either for native species, or for those captive in a foreign environment. The common thread is simple - plants.
Saturday, February 23, 2008
New Vegetated Architecture
As we continue to provide an adequate definition, and sift through example, after example of Vegetated Architecture, there is a seemingly constant barrage of projects evolving and shaping the idea. A quick summary is in order, which I am saving for a later post (which is going to be an upcoming essay for publication).
In the meantime, we continue to spot, sort, store, and convey more examples out into the ether. I've compiled a group of projects that have been waiting in the files for me to get around to looking and organizing. Can't believe I neglected these beauties! Enjoy.
Earth Architecture featured a simple, earthen built project by Proyecto Hornero of a building in Uruguay (wish I had more info, but couldn't get a translation on the site). I reall like the exposed timbers, especially those extending from the green roof to the grounds.
:: image via Earth Architecture
Via BDonline, a new town center plan for Croydon, London UK, design by Will Alsop: "...plans to replace Croydon’s reviled concrete look with a remodelled town centre including a 30-storey version of Cornwall’s Eden Project, an “emerald necklace” of parks, squares and a remodelled flyover and the restoration of the river Wandle 40 years after it was buried in culverts."
:: image via BDonline
And I don't really know what is up with the building facade - but it is compelling... ok, maybe just strange?
:: image via BDonline
Visually interesting, the renderings for 3XN's 'Buen' Cultural Housing in Mandel, Norway - via Architecture.MNP: "The project is described by 3XN as ‘a green blanket that elevates and makes room for the cultural center, and thus integrates it in the surrounding landscape".
:: image via Architecture.MNP
The swooping vegetated rooftop form provides usable space without compromising views: "The undulating roof of the cultural center appears as a rolling hill, sloping upwards from the landscape - giving residents and visitors a usable, central outdoor space on the waterfront. This allows for the the center to occupy the land right on the water, without blocking access to the views and waterfront pedestrian experience."
:: images via Architecture.MNP
Oft-published, the images of Antilla, by Perkins + Will, a 24-story corporate tower in Mumbai. Where to start with this one? First, it is named after a mythical island in the Atlantic. Second, it is built for a billionaire. Third, well, it's pretty green.
In addition to this, there is the concept of Vaastu: "Similar to Feng Shui, the practice orients a building in harmony with energy flows. At Antilia, the overall plan is based on the square, which is Vaastu’s basic geometric unit, and a garden level occupies the tower’s midsection, the point where all energies converge according to the Vaastu Purusha Mandala."
:: image via Architectural Record
A significant feature of the facade, obviously, is the vegetated forms. A description of the approach, quoting P+W design Principal - Ralph Johnson, from Architectural Record:
"Among its interesting elements, Antilia will feature a band of vertical and horizontal gardens that demarcates the tower’s different program elements. A garden level will separate the ground-floor parking and conference center from residential space above, for instance, and the outer walls on certain levels will be sheltered by trellises supporting panels that contain hydroponically grown plants.
"In addition to signaling different space uses and providing privacy, these “vertical gardens” will help shade the building and reduce the urban heat island effect. “You can use the whole wall almost like a tree and increase the green area of the site by five or 10 times over what it would be if you just did a green roof,” Johnson observers. “It’s a prototype for buildings of the future.”
:: image via Architectural Record
A more modest (and local example) from Seattle. Dwell featured 'Chrome Below, Green Above' and a garage-scaled green roof project by architect Rob Harrison.
:: image via Dwell
The final project falls into the artificial and kitsch: Guy Hohmann's work Harmony, is a bench made of ash, plywood, polystyrene, and everyone's favorite, artificial turf. 
:: image via MoCo Loco
Color Theory
These images on MoCo Loco's Art MoCo featuring the work of artist Denny McCoy's simple yet somehow deep paintings of colored bands, jogged my memory of a couple of recent color-related resources that floated by recently. Part photoshop swatch, part Timbuk2 messenger bag - it's not the composition, but the complement of shades and tones that give this work resonance.
:: Rural Free Delivery - image via MoCo Loco
:: Cypress Creek - image via MoCo Loco
Maybe it's because plants come with so many built in choices, or that we fear the power of color, but often this is an overlooked and powerful design element to and landscape composition. The psychological effects of color on the psyche is oft-mentioned and probably more oft-misapplied due to generalization, but at least the effort is there. How can this be applied in a meaningful way to design? I've always relied on my slim copy of Johannes Itten's wonderful book 'The Elements of Color' , a text for 100-level University Art, for the basics. I still reference often today.
:: image via Amazon
A couple of recent reports expanded the idea of color-related preferences, and their applicability to landscape architecture and urban design. A fascinating study of Canadian cities and 'Local Color' from Brand Avenue - taken from a recent article in The Walrus, where Todd Falkowsky's is described: "I began by taking scores of photographs and employed computer software to pull out the predominant colours of Ottawa and the provincial and territorial capitals. The exact process that worked in Toronto did not necessarily work elsewhere — there is also an intuitive element to it. For each city, I had to centre on what makes it unique, such as prominent landmarks or distinctive features of its built environment. As a result, regional differences emerge: the North tends to be very bright, the Maritimes aquatic, Ottawa pale."
See swatch samples from Winnipeg, Victoria, and Quebec City below. What colors would your city be? 
:: images via Brand Avenue
Treehugger profiled a study by Getty Images MAP study 'Aspirational Environmentalism' that studies imagery and shows the trend of environmentalism away from stereotypical representations and 'propoganda' into a more expansive message. One that will typically eschew the color green - due to the direct connotation with the environmental movement.
:: image via Treehugger
I wonder how this will affect architecture and design, as green becomes a stigmatic hue - will vegetation on buildings become a problem versus a value-added?
Color theory is more vital due to the prevalence of digital rendering software in our field. These tools offer some great resources for determining color palettes for both representation and design. A colleague at work found Kuler, from Adobe Labs. A shared resource where designers can develop, save and sift through others color combinations. Here's the swatches from the 'Orange on Olive', one of the combos featured, amongst hundreds.
:: images via Kuler
The site also offers a number of additional color-related resources. One favorite I found was 'In the Mod: Color Analytics' - which provides Photoshop swatches of famous modern artworks. Once a palette is chosen, other palettes of similar paintings by other artists - a way of noticing some similarities, and I was frankly surprised by some of the similarities.
Color, as I mentioned, is a powerful tool. Architecture spans monochromatic to highly varied colors in both interiors and exteriors. Landscapes offer, through plants, soil, water and sky - any hue imaginable in our imagination. Collectively, these become powerful materials and options at our disposal as designers. Like all other materials we utilize, we must continue to study, learn, evolve our thinking to capture the potential of this simple yet powerful tool.
Living Walls: Indoor Filtering
New Vegetated Architecture, moving to the indoors. This post was borne of images from the Cambridge Civic Administration Building in Toronto, featuring a large indoor living wall very reminiscent of the project at Guelph-Humber. This gives us the opportunity to get into depth regarding the function of indoor walls (and indoor vegetation by default) to provide climate modification via 'vertical filters' (one of the VegArch typologies).
From World Architecture News on the Cambridge Building: "Features of the building include a four-storey atrium which will act as an interior public square during the winter months. The atrium also features a green wall bio-filter which is a component of the indoor air quality systems and is an element of the sustainable design strategy for the building."
:: images via WAN
So how do these things work? For some answers, the first stop is a company that evolved from the research of Dr. Alan Darlington on the Guelph-Humber project, Air Quality Solutions, and specifically their Naturaire® Systems. 
:: images via Air Quality Solutions
Their site offers the most detailed account of some of the scientific processes at work to provide air quality benefits by the use of indoor plants. In addition, the also have a pretty good library of research. A summary of the process (all quotations from the AQS site):
1. The process involves a hybrid of two technologies: "... biofiltration, the use of biological systems of beneficial microbes to break organic pollutants down their benign constituents and phyto-remediation, the use of green plants to facilitate the remediation or reclamation of contaminated soils or water."
2. Unlike mechanical filters which clog or saturate, plants are self-rejuvenating: "Because the pollutants in the air are broken down to their benign constituents, there is nothing to accumulate in the system."
3. Because of the variability of indoor contaminants,: "Microbial species diversity is a key parameter. To maximize diversity, an indoor biofilter must provide many different microbial ecological niches."
4. This is where planting comes in, offering a: "...complex ecosystem which infers operational stability and, in contrast to conventional biofiltration, ecosystem diversity which may promote the degradation of a broader range of contaminants."
5. Plants are beneficial in other ways, by a variety of means. These include, a high surface area ratio, they are regenerative, can actively break down microbes versus merely filtering - both in vegetation and roots, accumulate airborne pollutants and dust, and provide a CO2 sink via photosynthesis.
:: images via Air Quality Solutions
Why would you implement a project such as this, aside from the obvious aesthetic benefits? The quality of our indoor air has degraded to the degree that poor air quality is fourth on a list of 31 environmental threats in the US, according to the EPA. According to Air Quality Solutions: "It is estimated that nearly 25% of US residents are affected by poor indoor air quality, either at the workplace or the home. Indoor air pollutants can be as diverse as toxic chemicals emitted from building materials and furnishings, combustion pollutants like carbon monoxide and toxic particles, and biological contaminants such as moulds and bacteria."
:: Dr. Darlington, I presume? - image via Treehugger
The final technical issue is sizing, which varies depending on the system, contaminant load, and level of cleaning, but works by the following rule of thumb: "Given most residential and office conditions, a ratio of at least 1 to 100 for the area of the biofilter to floor area to be treated will give desired affect. Given typical operating conditions, this will mean that one square metre of biofilter will treat 100 square metres of floor space (or 1 square foot of biofilter will treat 100 square feet of floor space)."
Below is a simplified diagram of a circulating indoor system, with pump, and fan providing flows throughout the aparatus:
:: images via Manhattan Plant Experts
The type of plants matter, for starters, check out Treehugger's list from NASA of the top 5 indoor cleaning plants, (fyi: peace lily, bamboo palm, English ivy, mums, gerbera daisies). Yikes, I may stick with bad air if that's my choices.
And applications vary as well, to high-tech, small-scale solutions working on similar principles, such as the Bel-Air, "...a mini mobile greenhouse that continuously inhales the space-polluted air, forces it through three natural filters (the plant leaves, its roots, and a humid bath) before ejecting it, purified."
:: Bel-Air - image via Core77
So the multiple benefits together help to justify the cost of implementation. Natureaire has developed two 'systems', Natureaire Supreme - in 'classic' or 'custom'. This always kind of scare me a bit as off-the-shelf nature (read green roof 'systems') is never something I've been too comfortable with. But the idea of a system, or at the very least, some viable precedents with proven track records, makes me feel that we will soon be seeing more of these proposed and built throughout the world.
Friday, February 22, 2008
Veg.itecture: Queens Botanical Garden Visitors Center
It really amazes me the composition of buildings envisioned 5 years ago versus today, and the short time period that has elapsed between sporadic vegetated architecture examples and the explosion of current projects. Some days, it seems hard to keep up. Here's a new, built example in NYC:
:: image via NYT City Room
A note from Archinect announced the opening of BKSK Architects' Visitor's Center for the Queen's Botanical Garden. Partially earth sheltered, and partially vegetated building, this LEED-Platinum building is a stunning expression of the QBC's mission: "...a living museum serving the most ethnically diverse county in the United States, is committed to presenting collections, education and research initiatives and programs that demonstrate environmental stewardship, promote sustainability and celebrate the rich cultural connections between people and plants."
:: images via Wired New York
Another recent article in Metropolis featured the project, 'A Garden Blooms in Queens' with some great photography and a wonderful overview. Here's the an overall plan (top), a photo of the ecoroof (middle) and the water feature at the end of the cleansing biotope (bottom):
:: Plan: Click to Enlarge - image via Metropolis
:: additional images via Metropolis
A major strategy in LEED-Platinum is water-efficiency, and the building has an agressive plan for On-Site Rainwater Reuse (via Metropolis), including the rooftop and biotope spaces:
"On-site Rainwater Management: When children come to visit the garden, members of its education staff perform a very simple experiment, Jennifer Ward Souder says. “They put red-tinted water in a length of clear glass pipe, which contains a thick layer of soil. When the water comes out at the other end, it’s clear.” The same experiment is operating on a much larger scale all around them: the new building and the grounds around it have been designed to capture and filter rain. Since the building was completed in September, there has been plenty of rainfall, and none of it has entered the city’s sewers, which is important because they carry effluent and storm water through the same pipes; when they overflow during a deluge, they pollute the city’s rivers. “We set the goal of one hundred percent storm-water management on-site,” Souder says. So far the goal is being met.
1. TERRACE ROOF Rainwater collected on the gull-shaped roof over the building’s plaza pours down dramatically into a “cleansing biotope.”
2. CLEANSING BIOTOPE Captured rainwater enters a catchment area (augmented by a 24,000-gallon underground tank), where it is filtered through soil and the roots of native wetland plants, including soft rush, pickerelweed, and cattail."
Even some of the details were arboreal, with an main entrance gate in metal tree-form:
:: image via Metropolis
The ability to have a building and site strongly reflect the mission of an organization is a statement of the quality of designers and clients both. A Botanical Garden leading the way with innovative sustainable landscape strategies is laudable, and striving for high LEED rating, as well as taking advantage of extremely refined approaches, makes this a case study for all to study.
Thursday, February 21, 2008
Block Architectes: Veg.itect
We featured the rust/green complement in the Caixa Forum building, now to shift gears to another wonderful complementary palatte - concrete and greenery. Life Without Buildings featured work of French architecture firm Block Architectes - and while not all of it is using this dual material scheme exclusively it is all pretty integrated - with enough greenery to garner the title of Veg.itect. It's mostly paper architecture (or should I say digital?) at this point, but heck, so is 85.3% of Vegetated Architecture so far. Just enjoy what might be.
:: image via Life Without Buildings
And a quick visit to their site yielded some more tasty shots, such as this parking screen scenario:
:: image via Block Architects.
And a vegetated wall for an urban park development in St. Georges (top), and a rooftop vegetated youth hostel in Morlaix (below):
:: images via Block Architects
And finally just a trace of vegetation on the Ghost Bunker... but nice juxtaposition of materials and what looks like an actual structure!
:: image via Block Architects
"Block, which was set up in Nantes in 2000, comes across as a group with its sights determinedly set an experimentation. This said, they had already worked together on many projects since their thoroughly illegal occupation of a Second World War bunker in 1996 -- Blockhaus DYI0. Their praxis is intentionally cross-disciplinary, involving sound recycling, installations, performances and architectural projects. The overall dynamic underpinning their line of thinking veers towards the notion of shift and displacement, and the decon-textualization of one or more ingredients of the real, duly turning into a project and indexed forms. Block was a Nouveaux Albums de la Jeune Architecture 2002 award-winner."
If my French was better, I may actually get something out of it. Either way, images need little translation... from the PDF book:
:: images via Block Architects
One Single Tree
The story of the 150 year old Chestnut tree outside of Anne Frank's house in Amsterdam, and the heroic efforts to save it, makes one think of our careless disregard for trees and the benefits they bring to us. (Read more about this at Treehugger) It is inevitable that a tree will succumb to nature and fall - decompose and regenerate. We seem to want to cling to this life, much as with a loved one whom is beyond saving, but can be kept breathing by heroic measures. Also, we have employed technology to make us feel better, allowing for the genetic re-creation of what is lost. Similar to the previous post on process landscapes, we seem to want to fight nature, especially when we've attached cultural significance to something natural. 
:: Anne Frank House Chestnut - image via Treehugger
On the note of trees, interesting trends emerge - and always, the modes of representation continue to offer some telling insight into the motivations of the project and designer(s). In this regard, I've started culling images that for some reason or the other I thought made a subset of Veg.itecture. I call it, One Single Tree.
As mentioned previously on L+U, graphic representation often aims to highlight and focus attention to specific aspects. A variety of techniques (framing, composition, transparency, etc.) are used to acheive this effect. The reasoning for some, of course, is to provide context without obscuring the building. Others, it's a device to obscure the building, maybe a flawed corner. I'd like to this it gives realistic context and de-objectifies the building. None of this matters, with one, very strategically placed tree.
This graceful and poetic example from Phos Architects early proposal for the Mersey Observatory in Liverpool has a wonderful counterpoint to the strong lines of the buildings. In this case, the restraint works.
:: images via architecture.MNP
One tree can create tension, in this case, Redwoods blocking a neighbors solar acces to PV panels. It becomes technology over nature, in this case: From Treehugger: "It's not that we think trees are more or less important than solar collectors. It's that our state's leaders have said under the following circumstances, solar takes precedence," said Ken Rosenblatt, supervising Santa Clara County deputy district attorney for environmental protection."
:: image via Treehugger
Conversely, every LEED project should always attempt to maximize open space, and perhaps have some PV panels to boot, right? This diagramatic rendering of Brooklyn's Greenbelt, offers perhaps a more spare, winter aesthetic. Ironic, though, the first image on the website is tree branches...
:: image via Jetson Green
And a modern houseboat with extensive landscaping... i'm still trying to figure out how this one works with the flotation, and what happens to stability as it grows... but it's a nice thought.
:: image via WebUrbanist
Wednesday, February 20, 2008
Process Landscapes
I was compelled to dust off my copy of the Landscape Urbanism Reader (ok, really just my notes), and look at a few key positions regarding the idea of 'process landscapes'. The following quotes stuck out as applicable to process, a major tenet of LU theory (all quotations from Waldheim, ed.):
Corner's (p.16) four processes: “…ecological and urban processes over time, the staging of horizontal surfaces, the operational or working method, and the imaginary.”
This is further elaborated by Corner in the essay Terra Fluxus (p.29) “Thus, dynamic relationships and agencies of process become highlighted in ecological thinking, accounting for a particular spatial form as merely a provisional state of matter, on its way to becoming something else, Consequently, apparently incoherent or complex conditions that one might initially mistake as random or chaotic can, in fact, be shown to be highly structured entities that comprise a particular set of geometrical and spatial orders. In this sense, cities and infrastructure are just as ‘ecological’ as forests and rivers.”
:: images via io9
This was followed soon after by a post in BLDGBLOG regarding the 'Prosthetic Delta' and the ability to manipulate landform and water, in a figure-ground relationship. Specifically this was directed towards the Mississippi delta region, using a directed natural process (in this case, 3-D printing of landform) to create new delta configurations that would provide buffering from future hurricanes. Ok, the technology for all of these ideas is in more conjecture, and exists for the most part in either sci-fi lit or movies. But it is technically possible, or will be in the not-so-distant-future.
:: image via BLDGBLOG
Either way, let's look at the essence. What is technically possible (i.e. possible to acheive through technological advances) has grown and continues to grow exponetially. Man has evolved the capacity to create amazing change to the earth's surface and processes with our tools and technologies. This visionary new application is just a step beyond where we are, a bigger tool for bigger things, and more than likely, bigger mistakes.
There is a paradox in our continually developing world. Our development and impacts create change, for better or worse. Our technologies are used to create as well as to mitigate this change. Is it possible for this to be change in a positive versus a negative? Sure. Does the equation balance? Look around, the answer is pretty clear. The question is one of not intent or method, but overall magnitude. We have the capacity, through big technologies, to make enormous mistakes.
:: World's Largest Solar Farm - image via Treehugger
Back to technological creationism... some differences, on a continuum, are:
1. preventing natural processes from changing a particular result
2. allowing for natural processes to occur to shape a landscape,
3. making modifications to influence natural processes to a certain result, or
4. magnifying natural processes to create specific man-made cultural artifacts
Each of these requires thought and action (or deliberate inaction, which to me is action). At one end, we expend a ton of energy to maintain our cultural artifacts. In the middle ground we let alone, or make small tweaks to acheive a certain result or maintain equilibrium. On the other extreme, we use natural processes instead to create our cultural artifacts, but are caught in the catch-22... once we've created results (islands, or deltas, or magma buildings, or whatnot) - how to we prevent them from being destroyed by the same natural processes in which they were created? Or more likely, what gives us the right to create them in the first place.
:: Dubai Palm Islands via Flickr, gavinsblog
It's interesting to see the similarities between the Palm Isles, and the previous image of 'prosthetic delta'. Good v. evil perhaps? Once the technology is developed, who is to say how and when it is used? Our track record of restraint, has been, and continues to be, not something to brag about.
Which in a roundabout way, takes us back to the Landscape Urbanism Reader. Talk of process permeates the book, touched on by many contributors. Process landscapes are a possible remedy to the long-standing tendency to want to force our will upon the earth, regardless of motivation. Rather, it accepts our powerlessness to predict and harness natural processes in a consistent way, and highlights our willingness to let nature assist us in the creation and articulation of spaces. We're working in nature's turf, for starters.
:: Urban Plan, Vatnsmýri, Reykjavik, Iceland - image via WAN
While sometimes maligned for their inherent over-intellectualization of some topics, the significant Landscape Urbanists have perhaps discovered the key to success in our dialogue with the land into the future. While the implementation and creativity will still allow for vibrant and dynamic design, it also accomodates the natural processes which will continue to shape places after the designers hand has left. As Waldheim posits, (p.28) "This emphasis on urban processes is not meant to exclude spatial form but rather seeks to construct a dialectical understanding of how it relates to the processes that flow through, manifest, and sustain it."
We often talk of the difficulty of dealing in these constantly flucuating materials of landscape. As Richard Weller explains (p.75), this is part of the benefit as well: “Landscape architecture – insofar as it is implicitly concerned with materials and processes subject to obvious change – seems well placed to give form to an ecological aesthetic. Landscape architecture is not frozen music.”
Tuesday, February 19, 2008
Eco-Planning: Redux
:: SUDS - image via Sherwood Energy Village
Previously covered widely, (this via Jetson Green) the US town of Greensburg, Kansas suffered devastating losses due to tornado damage. It has since become the first city require all buildings bigger than 4,000 square feet to be LEED Platinum rated. It will be interesting to see if this approach works - not necessarily eco-planning but setting a standard target for all significant buildings. Plus it will cut down on the potential McMansions. Overall, from a community planning scale, even a modest one of 1500, it might be a better approach to adhere to LEED-ND standards if dealing with a community scale?
In Germany, the Solar City in Frieburg is a model example of solar-energy as the driving force in development. As part of the larger Solar Region, the goal is to maximize solar resources. It's interesting to note that Germany has similar sun days to the Willamette Valley region of Oregon, where PV panels are consistently poo-poo'd as not feasible due to lack of solar access. There seem to be a lot more of them showing up in recent years.
In the same issue is an article by Andres Duany on knowing your audience. 'Who will opt for a green community?' targets four types of people that are constituents of the core group for 'eco-planning' activities. These include Ethicists, Trend-Setters, Opportunists, Survivalists, and the final group, the Apathetics. Why? To market to the specific goals and motivations of each group.
Duany, from the article: "New urbanists, Duany said, should have the prescience to ask themselves: Are you speaking to an ethicist, a survivalist, or a member of one of the other market segments? You can build the same project for people of differing outlooks, but you should present it differently, depending on the target."
The above projects show a variety of scales and offerings of 'green' communities, circumnavigating the globe. So I guess the question isn't which one, but rather, what are you waiting for?
Monday, February 18, 2008
Veg.itecture: Caixa Forum Madrid
The Caixa Forum project in Madrid has been shown in brief on L+U before. It is, simply put, an amazing composition, using two complementary materials (red rusted metal panels and green vegetated panels) juxtaposed together with stunning results. Project is by Herzog & de Meuron. Vertical Garden by Patrick Blanc. Image links to Flickr pool are via Dezain. 
:: image via Flickr - Pacobond
:: - image via Flickr - Ronin
:: image via Flickr - Matritensis
:: image via Flickr - jamesantoni
:: in process images via Flickr - Josh Clark
It's great to see the in-process shots (thanks to all the Flickr contributors for the images) - and to see how much it's filled in in a short period of time. If you can't tell, I've been blown away by this project since the first time I saw it. Is there really anything else to say?
Four+Zero = Net-Zero
More case-study research for Net-Zero development, offering some modest examples to augment some previous developments. For starters, via Jetson Green is the High Street Philadelphia project is being developed by home(scale) in a former brownfield zone in downtown Philly. The most urbanized version, this was originally shown as a very vegetated facade in early renderings from mid-2007:
:: images via Jetson Green
These images are from a more recent post, showing building refinement but less overall greening (or a different facade? I can't tell. Either way, this project is very cool, and is similar to the previous net-zero case studies using green roofs and vegetated walls to provide energy mitigation as well as amenity and stormwater management.
"...22 townhouse units incorporate sustainable features rarely attempted in smaller residential projects, including heat recovery ventilators in each suite and stormwater recycling for flushing water and irrigation. These somewhat unusual approaches, combined with more traditional green initiatives—including dual-flush toilets, radiant flooring, double-glazed low-e argon-filled windows, occupancy sensors, and abundant daylight."
:: images via BDCnetwork
Definitely a case-study in green being a market advantage, part of the reason. From BC+D, the developers, "...decided to best the competition by going all out on advanced green features and high design. While other developers were building condos with a few 'light green' features..." This all led to better sales, even though comparably priced to single-family homes and similar condos, or just a slight percentage more in cost.
Another example from the US, is the Cromley Lofts, according to Treehugger, the first LEED-certified Condos in Virginia (Gold rating). The major component with this project, and similar to many net-zero is the modesty of size and scope, while being packed with green features. A few, via their website:
:: images via Cromley Lofts
A major component is the ecoroof, which is typically more effective for energy-efficiency in single-story or smaller scale multi-story buildings, because of a high ratio of roof to skin surface, compared to a high rise. The following shows seasonal variation of the vegetation as well.
:: image via Cromley Lofts
:: image via Treehugger
The final net-zero entry is from the UK, and is non-vegetated, but does delve into spatial re-arrangement plus high-tech solutions by creating a curved facade that provides maximum daylighting with minimal energy loss. Via G-Living, the BRE Lighthouse uses form, as well as a 'high-performance Structural Insulated Panel (SIP)" which provides a large amount of thermal insulation which reduces heat-loss by two-thirds from a standard design. Check out all of the projects at the BRE innovation park.
:: images via GLiving
The modest scale of some of these projects is starting to show that there are many technologies and opportunities that work on residential scale buildings. One aspect of acheiving net-zero is having less volume to condition, making it easier to use less and conserve more. While some are not-necessarily designed as officially net-zero, which is kind of a moving target anyway, the writing is on the wall that more models will being built around the world, making it a sure net-gain in net-zero.
Sunday, February 17, 2008
Veg.itecture: Building Edges
It just keeps on coming, and I have to say I can't get enough. Here's a Vegetated Architecture post that spans all sides of the architectural envelope. It's interesting to see the varieties of facade and rooftop articulation, building on an earlier post regarding definitions of typologies of VegArch.
Starting from the top, we have a bevy of images from a cascading project by Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG) for an apartment complex in Copenhagen, Denmark. The form of buildings and rooftop greening creates an artificial hillside environment above a car park, giving the project it's name, Mountain Dwellings. (via Dezeen):
:: images via Dezeen
Addressing the front entry / street side of the building, this proposed building by Herzog & de Meuron is for Project 2012 in Basel, Switzerland offers a full-facade vegetated covering along the entire length of one building, creating a soft, welcoming approach along an adjacent plaza.
:: image via MCH Messe Schwiez AG
Taking it to the bottom, the ground plane is created in a conceptual approach of 'site insertion', these mixed-use towers in South London are featured in BDonline. The towers sit atop the artificially created field below, over structure of pedestrian scale buildings that provides a softening and transition into the adjacent city.
:: image via BDonline
Taking one side, this competition entry winner by Richard Scott of Surface Architects, along with Sarah Wigglesworth and urbanist Jan Gehl provides a glimpse of green that stands in contrast to the fruit-inscribed facades of the surrounding buildings. A generalized swath of green still has resonance against other materials because of it's texture and it's contrast to the blue sky above (via BDonline):
:: image via BDonline
The flip side, another development with strategically-placed microclimatic green walls in the UK's first net-zero development, Hanham Hall. A previous post about Net-Zero development outlined the strategies of vegetation to control heat gain and allow sun in winter months. And they're sexy too.
:: image via ArchNewsNow
The potential greening scenarios are endless, and as I mentioned at the outset, seem to be permeating design thinking more and more. I will continue to cover all the sides, as well as get into the nuts and bolts of some of the practicality of these as i find more info. Coming soon, profiles of the available manufacturers systems, as well as focus on details of some installations. Anyone out there know of more resources, pass them along.
Accidents & Opportunities
I always seem to be looking for/at imagery from magazines, blogs, books and websites in searching for Vegetated Architecture examples and other inventive ways of blending landscape and urbanism. Via computer generated graphics, photos, and drawings, the media and message is varied in form and success. There are moments where this documentation, either through accident or serendipity, creates 'accidents' that result in some amazing images. The following are a couple of examples. See anything similar out there, let me know.
A post on anArchitecture about Auralab, a computer-rendering firm, and their recent split, yielded an image of JDS Architects SLC' (Shenzen Logistic City) project that blurred vegetation and building. Partly a result of transparency of foreground, and partly tinting of facade, the result perhaps is not vegetated architecture, but has the qualities of landscape/building interaction that is quite stunning.
:: image via anArchitecture
A recent series of images illustrate this in a real building as well. The following is some of a set of photos found via Dezain, from the Kanagawa Institute of Technology designed by Junya Ishigami. Sifting through a series, they tend to be mostly populated by glass walls, interior columns, or sparse furnishings. Also, there seemed to be a lot of awful interior potted plants that had no apparent purpose.
:: image by Akiwo via photozou
In this case, I'm not making architectural judgement. It is kind of random assortment of 'interior' greening, but that analysis is beside the point. Delving further in the photo-stream is an amazing photo of reflected adjacent vegetation, that seems to float somewhere between the inside and outside of the building, as well as seemingly creating the structure of the building. This is a similar impact of the Tattoo House, featured previously here and here on L+U.
:: image by Akiwo via photozou
The fuzziness of graphics and the contextual impacts of sites and buildings allow for multiple interpretations of the representation and the built form. The concept of tromp l'oeil (trick of the eye) has been used many ways in design to expand visual impact and supplement the design, although in a more directed way. The painting at the end of the hall, on the example below, shows this mechanism at work.
:: Schwetzingen Schlossgarten - image via Wikipedia Commons
The idea of representation, particularly hand drawing but also in digital media, make it difficult for landscape to be accurately portrayed in a meaningful way. There are countless examples of renderings of buildings and vegetation on this site, and even with digital tools, there are seldom examples that do not look artificial. Buildings with inert materials and static locations, that can be rendered with photo-realism is possible (although expensive). Landscapes are touchy. Take the ubiquitous awful landscape in SketchUp:
:: Orchid Street Cityhomes - image via Jetson Green
Can we learn, both in design and representation, from some of these accidents and tricks to make our graphic products more informative for communication? Even video games have a much higher level of realism (and simplicity) that we can potentially glean from in providing better representation.
:: Sim City - image via Freds House
Saturday, February 16, 2008
Veg.itecture: More New Additions
I have sifted through and expanded the list of resources (see sidebar to the right), which exposed some new Vegetated Architecture projects. The Design Blog, one of these new additions for L+U, featured The Montenegro Residences, is an 8000 square meter development aimed at providing views of the surrounding vistas. Designed by Bjarke Ingells Group (BIG) from Copenhagen, the project is immersed in the tropical context: 
:: image via The Design Blog
From The Design Blog: "They have planned out the residences not as separate structures, jutting out of the rock, but have taken up the challenge to blend them into the landscape. For this purpose, they have followed the step farming pattern, by forming a terraced landscape of housing. The mountain is left in the natural form and the building moulds into the curves naturally, providing large gardens facing the magnificent sight."
:: additional images via The Design Blog
A moisture-laden vegetated wall and interior wetland garden example from computer-generated graphics by Luxigon for an uncredited project entitled EBV Palma.
:: image via Luxigon
Next is an amazing conceptual tower, The Belvedere in London, which was discovered on BDonline, evokes striking vertical garden, as well as patterning with timber skin materials. Quoted: "The building’s facade is reminiscent of a giant garden trellis. Sean Griffiths, director of Fat, said the design aimed to make the tower stand out from other residential high-rises. “Its origin is a kind of gothic symbol you quite often see in churches,” he said."
:: image via BDonline
Back to The Design Blog, a project by Javier Senosiain of Bioarchitecture (whom has also authored a book by the same name) creates naturally sculpted works that adopt organic forms and border on the absurd. His work for Quetzacoatl Nest is an apt example, with sinous forms blended into the landscape.
:: images via The Design Blog
The final projects are a little more restrained, spanning some low-rise condos, to mid-century roof terrace, to a recent ephemeral art installation in NYC. The first is a 'smart-condo' project in Vancouver,B.C., by Busby Perkins + Will, with rooftop greening and viny parking structure vents along the street frontage (via Treehugger):
:: image via Treehugger
A site found on Civic Nature offered links to many of Robert Royston's post-war landscapes, including this unidentified roof garden from 1961. For more on Royston, read this Sept. 2007 Dwell article on him as well. The split photo shows the terrace in 2001 (left) and as originally realized, showing that the design has held up well over history. It also shows the tendency of modern mid-century landscapes to be a lot of paving and not a lot of vegetation (a tradition that unfortunately continues today with notable exceptions).
:: image via Post-War Portfolio - Robert Royston
The final is an award-winning proposal for the annual P.S.1 Contemporary Art installation for an outdoor social space through its Young Architects Program. Covered in the NY Times, and created by Work Architecture Company, it makes use of large cardboard tubes, connected into a swooping structural form with a central water feature and pockets that will contain an Urban Farm of vegetation that provides colorful patterns, as well as edible and drinkable plants.
:: images via Life Without Buildings
Urban Ag: A Variety of Techniques
It is garden planning season, and my plan is to double the 200 s.f. first year garden from last year, and build up some raised beds as well. I wonder, how large does a backyard garden have to get to qualify as a farm? Perhaps I should be more careful to plant what I can safely consume and/or give away, rather than the overwhelming abundance of last year. All these issues and more, you will find, in this journey on Urban Agriculture below.
To guide on this quest, a couple of books that are perennial favs in the gardening sphere, particular to the Pacific Northwest. The first is my bible for local garden knowledge, 'Growing Vegetables West of the Cascades' by Steve Solomon, in a new edition. This book is worth it just for the chapters on compost and soil amendments - plus it's the book that showed me the value of sharpening tools. Second is from Oregon's own Toby Hemenway, author of 'Gaia's Garden: A Guide to Home-Scale Permaculture'. This book is a nice companion, rounding out some basic gardening techniques with more sustainable options.
:: images via Powells
The goal is to grow lots, but also to grow smarter as well, and have fun doing it. For starters, Pruned recently recapped an exhaustive list of Agro Posts, encompassing everything from laser etched bologna to high-rise farming. Read them all. Learn lots.
A recent post focussed on 'The Subterranean Farms of Tokyo', which profiled PasonaO2, an underground agricultural system that looked a lot like a well-funded indoor pot grow operation. 
:: images via Pruned
But alas, our tiny basement is already brimming with stuff, and I'd hate to max the electric bill, so we must head outdoors. A comment to a L+U high-rise agriculture post pointed me to a great site entitled SPIN Farming, which elaborates a technique for urban agriculture and is short for Small Plot INtensive Farming. Using small spaces, urban farmers grow niche crops that demand a higher value on the market.
The lack of tangible information, and the sheer common sense of it as shown on the site lends me to think it's perhaps some sort of scheme, but in theory, the idea sounds solid, if maybe a little too good to be true. From the Tyee: "...it means renting the back forty from residential homeowners, ploughing their lawns under and then turning tens of thousands of dollars in profits selling the high-end produce cultivated by hand." I guess anyone with a garden and a buyer can do this? And to think I've been giving away my surplus produce all these years.
:: images via Spin Farming
A second resource, from Michael Cannell's Blog on Dwell, is similar to SPIN, involving losing the lawn and gaining the garden. Architect Fritz Haeg, who authored a book entitled 'Edible Estates: Attack on the Front Lawn', encourages engaging not just the land, but people's perceptions with this endeavor: Haeg, from the book: “Edible Estate gardens are meant to serve as provocations on the street... What happens when we share the a street with one of these gardens? The front-yard gardeners become street performers for us.” 
:: image via Dwell
This is similar to recapturing of quasi-public spaces during wartime in the form of Victory Gardens. Many people in Portland I know have planted trees and other things in their front median strip, only to find rich and fertile soils which we suspect grew some tasty WWII vegetables sixty plus years ago in our quest to rid the world of despotism. More than the idea of gardens - the visibility of these strips in the eyes and consciousness of people was the point.
:: image via Wikipedia Commons
Friday, February 15, 2008
New Suburban Landscape
There are some things that make me pine away for being in close proximity to Minneapolis. One is some really good friends that I went to school with that reside there. The other is the Walker Art Center, which seems to address landscape much more often than is done here in Portland. Maybe they have more to turn a critical eye towards?
Worlds Away: New Suburban Landscapes opens tommorrow (text and images from the Walker website):
"Because suburbia occupies a dominant presence in so many lives—a place of not only residence but also of work, commerce, worship, education, and leisure—it has become a focal point for competing interests and viewpoints. The suburbs have always been a fertile space for imagining both the best and the worst of modern social life. 
:: Greg Stimac, Mowing the Lawn (Chandler, AZ), 2005/2006
"On the one hand, the suburbs are portrayed as a middle-class domestic utopia and on the other as a dystopic world of homogeneity and conformity. Both of these stereotypes belie a more realistic understanding of contemporary suburbia and its dynamic transformations, and how these representations and realities shape our society, influence our culture, and impact our lives. 
:: Benjamin Edwards, Immersion, 2004
"The intention of Worlds Away: New Suburban Landscapes is to demonstrate how the American suburb has played a catalytic role in the creation of new art. Challenging preconceived ideas and expectations about suburbia (either pro or con), the exhibition hopes to impart a better understanding of how those ideas were formed and how they are challenged by contemporary realities. 
:: Lewis.Tsurumaki.Lewis Architects, New Suburbanism, 2000/2004
"The exhibition features artwork by Gregory Crewdson, Dan Graham, Catherine Opie, and Edward Ruscha, among others, and architectural projects by firms such as Fashion.Architecture.Taste, The Center for Land Use Interpretation, MVRDV, and Estudio Teddy Cruz. Worlds Away will be accompanied by a 320-page, fully illustrated catalogue featuring essays and interviews which provide a revisionist and even contrarian take on the conventional wisdom surrounding American suburban life."
:: Matthew Moore, Rotations: Single Family Residence #5, 2003–2004
Oh, Twin Cities. Perhaps a visit is in order, as the exhibit runs through August. Never thought I'd wanna fly across the country to visit the suburbs.
Eco-Planned Communities
It's not a surprise for those of us in the Pacific Northwest bubble that tend to live and bleed green, but always good to get some positive reinforcement that we're doing some things right. The latest was in the form of an article in Popular Science magazine, which, through somewhat generalized scoring system, named Portland, Oregon the Greenest City in America. Barely edging out San Francisco, the article mentions a few notable elements in Portland:
"America’s top green city has it all: Half its power comes from renewable sources, a quarter of the workforce commutes by bike, carpool or public transportation, and it has 35 buildings certified by the U.S. Green Building Council."
:: Official Flag of Portland, Oregon - image via Wikipedia Commons
As thoughts of Ecotopia dance in our heads, and succession from the union sounds like a viable option, Portland has continued to do a few things better than most. Innovate and plan. We won't be the biggest, or the flashiest, or the most wealthy. But we will continue to push the boundaries of what is possible and continue striving forward. This fearlessness of new strategies, and a way of looking at the parts and the whole simultaneously in new ways is what contributes to 'greening' of the entire city. Sometimes wholesale, sometimes piece by piece.
This post looks at the elements of what makes communities 'eco-friendly' around the world, both in large and small scale. Treehugger offered a couple of thoughts on Ecocities, via and interview with Richard Register, who is the prophet of ecological cities, through writings such as 'Ecocities of Tommorrow' and organizations such as the visionary Ecocity Builders and the much more realistic and focussed group, Urban Ecology.
:: Ecocity San Francisco - image via Ecocity Builders
In abbreviated form, Ecocity Builders defines an ecocity as: "...a human settlement that enables its residents to live a good quality of life while using minimal natural resources... its buildings make best use of sun, wind and rainfall to help supply the energy and water needs of occupants... is threaded with natural habitat corridors, to foster biodiversity and to give residents access to nature for recreation... its food and other goods are sourced from within its borders or from nearby, in order to cut down on transport costs... the goods it produces are designed for reuse, remanufacture, and recycling... [and] ...it has a labour intensive rather than a material, energy, and water intensive economy, to maintain full employment and minimise material throughput."
Another recent article in Natural Home Magazine (via Treehugger) identified the Top 10 eco-neighborhoods takes this down a notch, focussing on a smaller building development. A few notable local examples, including Pringle Creek Community in Salem (another GreenWorks project), and Helensview, in Portland. To the north, some more examples, including Issaquah Highlands, in Issaquah, Washington as well as The High Point, in Seattle, one of the first integrated stormwater systems at a community level.
:: Pringle Creek Community - image via Treehugger
There does seem to be a cluster of eco-planning examples in the Northwest, and a good number of future ones in the works. For a current project I am working on, we're doing some more detailed case studies of all of these precedents, so stay tuned for more info on all of these. In addition, these all evolved not from new ideas, but from some new thinking. Aside from some historic precedents, more modern examples that would fall under the mantel of 'eco-community' would be Village Homes in Davis, California, that redefined community open space and McHarg's The Woodlands, in Texas, which integrated stormwater as never seen before.
:: Village Homes - image via GreenEdge
On opposite sides of the pond, two different stories. To the east, read about 'Britains happiest eco-town', from Treehugger, the community of The Wintles, where it's quoted that: "...an eco-town must not only be built using the latest low-carbon technologies but must also engender a sense of place, to be a town that will work from one generation to the next and be able to feed and clothe itself from local products." 
:: The Wintles - image via Treehugger
It should go without saying that sense of place comes from understanding and reflecting the culture within a place. Authenticity and tapping into the local is vital for making great communities, 'green' or not. The flip-side of this is when culture is misinterpreted or ignored, as in the case of a model green village designed by William Mcdonough. The story of Huangbaiyu is covered in a fantastic three part Frontline series, and was previously scooped by our own local Sustainable Industries Journal. Essentially, the development was designed and planned well, but suffered from trying to apply a different land use pattern for rural residents.
From SIJ: "Rigorous efforts were made to design the new village with local resources and local residents in mind. But potential income villagers could lose if they lived suddenly only meters apart with no provision for sheep pens and vegetable gardens did not appear to be part of the planners’ initial calculations."
:: Partially completed house - image via Sustainable Industries Journal
While culturally a bit different, this rings with the similar tone of people saying they will never live in high-rise housing as a response to demands for density. In Vancouver, BC maybe, but this is America, right? It's astounding the high-rise boom (and to be fair, building and habitation boom in general) in Portland, and many people who probably said they'd never give up their lawn, and McMansion are now staring at views of Mt. Hood from their South Waterfront or Pearl District towers. If you eco-build it will they come? Or are cases where the cultural issues are too great to change ones way of life?
:: South Waterfront & Aerial Tram - image via Portland Ground
Worldwide examples abound, specifically a concept for Masdar, Abu Dhabi - a six-million square meter new city in by Foster and Partners. Touted as the first 'zero-carbon, zero-waste' city in the world. Recent news in Inhabitat outlined some of the sustainable features: Along with being car-free, the development will include: "...the conscientious incorporation of wind, photovoltaic farms, research fields, and plantations, allowing for the Masdar to be entirely self-sustaining." Oh yeah, and it's a perfect square. Very natural.
:: image via Inhabitat
Eco-community planning will inevitably taper into a new form of status quo, which is a good thing. As we evolve to greater heights of carbon-free, car-free, waste-free, guilt-free and fat-free communities, we must remain wary of not slipping into the trap of communities that are also soul-free. If this results, we may just was well crawl into the computer and live out our 'Second Life' or melt into Sim-whatever (read this great recent post in the Where about 'Living in SimCity')...
...or better yet, populate someone elses created online ecotopic world. Economic development seems lean in my bustling new metropolis of CrazytownUSA, (via MyMiniCity). It's no Portland, but it's probably better than Houston.
World Architecture News
Our dilemma: having the time to spend daily on keeping up with the frenetic pace of design in todays world . Always a challenge, and in searching out more resources, I stumbled upon a great site yesterday, World Architecture News (WAN) featuring at least daily updates to a wide range of buildings world-wide. While building-centric, it follows trends in architecture, thus fits into Vegetated Architecture category (without really even knowing it). One exception was an article/link to the renovation of Les Halles, the much loved Parisian open space. Other great features: good photos, links to firms, and a listing of related books relevant to the project. Definitely check it out.
Here are a few of their projects I thought worthy of highlighting (all images via WAN).
:: The Church Site - Slough - by 3DReid
:: Town Hall - Sogne, Norway - by A-lab
:: Drents Museum - Assen, Netherlands by Erick van Egeraat Architects (EEA)
:: The Red Apple - Rotterdam, Netherlands by KCAP
:: Ocean Financial Centre - Singapore - by Pelli Clarke Pelli Architects
And that's just from the past month or so. Perhaps my bias peeking out again, but there is some really compelling architecture world-wide - that kind of puts a lot of what's going on around here to shame. That is not to say there is not some great examples in Portland or the greater US, but it seems to be more restrained. This is probably due in part to regulation, in part to financing. But what other factors are at work? A recent article in BusinessWeek via Architectural Record highlighted the 'State of American Architecture', starting with a focus on New York. Paul Goldberger is quoted often, giving some shape to the American situation: "Trends today are national or even global. Sustainability is certainly one. We should be doing more on this, but we're doing more than we did in the past."
While regional differences make sense, and global trends provide some levelling to the field, what is the major difference between American architecture/design and it's worldwide peers? Areas like Dubai are driven by significant wealth that tends to create the amazing excess of such interventions as artificial islands, populated by star-powered monumental architecture that would never be built in the US. 
:: The Palm Deira - image via TEN Real Estate
Sustainability might provide a common thread, but that is only one major driver of design style and innovation. Ugly LEED Platinum is definitely possible... One word for a driver in the US... money - namely in infrastructure. Cities don't have the funds, where private developers do, and he who pays tends to get to decide. This is reflected, according to Goldberger, of the Ground Zero redevelopment:
"... In many ways, it merely reflects where we are today. It's a commercial development, not a civic place. And it isn't effective urban design." Warming to the topic, he talks about "the relative withdrawal, even abandonment, of large-scale planning by the public sector. It's giving way to private developers, letting them take charge of what gets built where. At the end of the day, it's not real planning." A reason for this withdrawal is the government's inability to build urban infrastructure on the scale that is needed. "What we're seeing is the development of parallel infrastructures—one built by the private sector and one by the public. I can imagine a time in the future when some people might have little interaction with the public infrastructure."
Thursday, February 14, 2008
Jean Nouvel: Veg.itect
From Curbed LA a series of articles on Jean Nouvel's current work in Los Angeles, and beyond. This project is slated as luxury condos in Century City, which judging from the existing skyline is not a hotbed of zoomy vegetated architecture. I appreciate Nouvel's use of vegetation on this project as a mediator between indoors and out, to frame and provide context for the distant view. The way this subtly articulates the facade is a nice touch as well.
:: images of interiors via Curbed LA
This piece, along with the much discussed and photographed Musee du Quai Branly in Paris, made me start to look at more of the body of work by Nouvel, and his use of landscaping in building form and function. MQB is obviously striking, and Patrick Blanc's vegetated walls are pretty stunning. My first thought is that it must be a true Veg.itect to allow plantings to cover the facade, as well to see some of the less photographed facades of this building.
:: image via Human Flower Project
These two buildings inevitably led me to want to see how this is realized in other projects Nouvel has been involved in. This building, the Chelsea Residences, is located in New York, and featured some vegetated terraces. The main building feature is a variety uniquely shaped window panels that gives the facade it's irregular surface.
:: image via OutNext
:: image via Dezeen
Further exploration led to some other work led to a few other examples. The 'Puerto de Vigo Tower', in Spain was a competition winning entry for a tower and adjacent open space. From Urbanity: "...Apart of the monolithic tower, Nouvel’s proposal, presented with the motto: “Peirao XXI”, proposes the “Jardín de las mareas” (tides garden), an avenue that will reach the hotel’s base. It will be an ensemble of different heights terraces, which will be flooded in part by the high tide."
:: image via Urbanity
An earlier competition winner for a Cultural Center in Kuwait City, hints at the vegetated wall forms from subsequent projects (although it may be overshadowed a bit by the architectural form).
:: image via Bartproject
Sunday, February 10, 2008
Ken Yeang: Veg.itect
Defining the concept of Vegetated Architecture led me to identify some of the key players in the field. Rather than continue the segregation of disciplines, Veg.itecture spans disciplines, further blurring the lines of established practice regimes. This does not demark territories where only the few architect/LA dual practicioners are allowed to have this mantle, but rather it is indicative of a unique approach - one where building and landscape are not discernable as individual elements.
Ken Yeang epitomizes the concept, perhaps stronger than any current architect. His concepts of bioclimatic high-rise design has been a signature of his designs - maxing aesthetic and technical principles. 
:: image via Jetson Green
These include the following strategies (from daaq.net): "Bioclimatic skyscrapers are skyscrapers that use environmentally and climatically sensitive forms and means of construction. The points Yeang considers vital to bioclimatic skyscraper design are:
:: variability in facade and building performance in response to climate and location
:: alignment of building along the solar path
:: flexibility to adjust to different climatic needs throughout the year
:: use of entirely passive means of lighting and ventilation whenever possible
:: material selection based on ecologically sound principles"
This is a similar conceptual framework to a recent post on Defining Veg.itecture, which maybe is whay Yeang get's the top slot for Veg.itects. A recent project profile on Jetson Green - confirms this featuring his current firm of Llewelyn Davies Yeang and their plans for Turkey's Zorlu Ecocity.
:: images via Jetson Green
Some other projects of note (and keep an eye out the forms of vegetated facades).
:: Elephant and Castle Eco Towers London - image via MoMa
:: Editt Tower Malaysia - image via Index
:: Chongqing Tower, China - image via Jetson Green
:: Human Research Institute, Hong Kong - image via Jetson Green
:: Macau Master Plan - image via Jetson Green
:: BIDV Tower, Vietnam - image via Jetson Green
Relatedly, Yeang will be speaking in the Ecocity World Summit on April 22-26 in San Francisco, alongside pretty much anyone you can imagine, call it the Monsters of Ecocities Tour. My guess the Veg.itects will be out in force at this event - and most definitely more to come from Ken Yeang.
Saturday, February 9, 2008
Veg.itecture: Defining Moments
Vegetated Architecture (aka Veg.itecture, VegArch, Building/Landscape Fusion) is a common theme on L+U. The working definition of this fusion of architecture and landscape has been swirling around in the back of my brain for some time, and I thought it appropriate to give some further definition of what this is.
:: Terreform Treehouse - image via Inhabitat
While Terreform's 'Fab Tree Hab' is perhaps a futuristic example, the main point is a definite departure from more commonly used individual strategies such as green roofs, rooftop gardens, and living walls. Also significnat is the degree to which these elements are integrated, both visually and functionally, into the building form. Simply, Vegetated Architecture consists of a few simple elements:
1. Using vegetation as a primary component of the building skin and roof systems.
2. Creating usable site area in urban development by implementing landscaping on structure.
3. Blurring the lines between interior and exterior spaces through design.
4. Use of these strategies for environmental and social benefits (i.e. heat island reduction, smog/particulate reduction, air quality, stormwater management, microclimatic shading, food production)
This is a working definition, so please comment and help shape this thinking. It is gleaned from past and recent project examples that illustrate these points. It's a old/new phenomenon - much like many green strategies, there are historic precendents. Similar to the green roof phenomenon in the early 2000's there is a lot of talk and energy (and proposed projects) that are pushing from simple green adornment to this new fusion of Vegetated Architecture. The following expands these ideas to develop a vocabulary of typologies:
One notable form of Vegetated Architecture is 'facade articulation'. This goes beyond merely attaching panels of green screen with vines, to integrating vegetation into the entire building form, as a aesthetic strategy, but also to provide microclimatic cooling and seasonal variation. The vegetated form becomes another material for building skin. The proposed 110 Embarcadero Building in San Francisco, featured on the always fantastic Jetson Green, is a fine example of this step towards integration.
:: images via Jetson Green
A varient of above is the more intensive method of 'roof greening', strategies that incorporate facade and rooftop with vegetation that is visible from the street in other ways as well as providing amenity space for users.
:: image via Birnbeck Island Competition
Not as much visual amenity as functional (although it can be both) is the idea of 'roof gardening'. Folding in aspects of urban agriculture for expanded food production in the urban realm. A 2007 ASLA award-winner for affordable housing in San Francisco, by Andrea Cochran LA, named the Curran House, is a good example.
:: image via ASLA
The work of Patrick Blanc outlines another strategy, that of 'vertical gardens'. Rather than articulation of a buildings facade or wall area, the vegetation becomes the primary skin material. There has been much adoration of this technique, and you can see why.
:: image via Inhabitat
The 'vertical filter' concept is a feature of vertical gardens that is applicable indoors and out. Indoors a growing body of stunning interior landscapes provide environmental and air quality benefits alongside the obvious aesthetic gains.
:: image via Manhattan Plant Experts
Another form of Vegetated Architecture is 'site insertion'. This new casino proposal in New Jersey, found on Places and Spaces, highlights a version of vegetated architecture in it's sinous swoopy rooftop gardens. The gardens are not ancillary spaces tacked onto the building, but rather are meshed into the overall structure, being viewed from pedestrian level, as well as from above - and creating site context in urban areas. 
:: image via Places and Spaces
Much veers into an abstraction of 'vegetative forms' including art, artifice, and subtlety that connect interiors and exteriors, or evoking organic and natural forms without using real plants. Featured here previously subset, albeit a powerful one, of the Veg.itecture idea - these strategies are definitely viable and have long historical roots. A few examples from recent projects:
:: image via Andrew Maynard Architects
The vegetative function as 'microclimatic modifiers' using plants is a final strategy, previously discussed in relation to Net-Zero Homes. Simply in means using plantings on site, adjacent to buildings, to provide and expand environmental controls for the building, such as reducing solar gain in summer, and allowing sunlight to penetrate for heat gain in winter. Another strategy involves using evergreens or buffers to mitigate prevailing winds.
:: image via Colorado State Univ. Extension Service
In summary, there are specific goals for Vegetated Architecture that range from the environmental to the aesthetic, with most projects finding a place somewhere along this continuum. In addition, a typology of forms has begun to evolve, with specific strategies emerging from this work. This include facade articulation, roof greening & gardening, vertical gardens & filters, site insertion, microclimate modifiers and abstraction of natural forms. In total, i'd say we're on the verge of a movement, and I could not be more excited to see the future.
Fakery is the New PoMo
Paper or Plastic... Fake or Real. No, these are not the perennial Christmas question, or a variation of the paper or plastic debate, but another round of abstractions of all things landscape. I stumbled upon an old post on Strange Harvest that had some amazing images of design for Montreal's 1967 World's Expo (aka Expo 67) and the unique Canadian Pulp and Paper Pavilion building. Quoted: "Its abstraction - the geometric interpretation of 'forest' - suggests the relationship of abstract ideas and processes to the natural landscape."
:: images via Strange Harvest
Abstraction is often a tool to express 'artistry' as part of the design strategy. This is particularly evident in landscape architecture, because the primary material is a living material. The most notable example is Ken Smith's rooftop 'garden' for MoMA in New York built in 2005. Taking the idea of camoflauge as a parti, the design liberally juxtaposes fake boulders, rubber mulch, crushed glass, and artificial boxwoods. 
:: a fake of the 'real' fake - image via Archinect
While venturing into kitsch, there is some precendent and theoretical underpinnings behind this fakery. From Archinect: "If you are going to fake it, make it epic, make it at volume 11, make it massive. Landscape architects understand this. There is a tradition of faking it in landscape, from the garden at the Villa D'Este to Humphrey Repton's landscapes in England. But with the advent of Pop in 1960s, a new era of fake was born. Contemporary landscape architects mine the fertile territory of Warhol's Pop-riddled 1960s and the slap-dash fakery that dazzles with wit and whimsy. Smith and other landscape architects such as Martha Schwartz and West 8 are using the same amplifiers."
Maybe a response to some of the design stoicism (read: boring) design today, it strikes chords similar to post-modern architecture and it's reaction to the 'soulless' formality of modernism. Artistically, PoMoArch is "...described as 'neo-eclectic', where reference and ornament have returned to the facade, replacing the aggressively unornamented modern styles. This eclecticism is often combined with the use of non-orthogonal angles and unusual surfaces." Sounds familiar. I offer in case, our own Portland Building.
:: image via , um, Great Buildings
While the Portland Building, which is the unfortunate poster-child for PoMoArch, deserves some further scrutiny beyond this - (especially the ecoroof on top) - it is a fitting example architecturally. There are garden precendents too. From Schwartz' Bagel Garden to Charles Moore's Piazza d'Italia - this historicity and sheer audacity - is similar to the rationale offered above for fakery. One aspect to differentiate landscape is that modernism in the landscape vs. buildings has taken wildly different paths and timelines, so one does not necessarily equal the other. Read more on Post-modernism in landscape architecture and architecture, there are many books, perhaps this one by Charles Jencks.
:: image via Wikipedia Commons
A very pomo/fake idea is abstracted vegetation, which has been covered in L+U previously. The concept is so incredibly fascinating as to become a regular feature. While the levels of abstraction to vary widely, one interesting phenomenon is the painstaking effort put into creating fake trees that look real. Popular in interior landscapes, it is taken up a notch with some more expansive efforts. My mom growing up had nothing by plastic plants, because they never died and the dog didn't eat them (most of the time). We also had a fake Christmas tree, and knick-knacks ringed in plastic vines to add that needed greenery without the muss and fuss to any interior. Ironic that i'm a landscape architect.
:: image via Fake Landscapes
Abstraction doesn't stop at trees or plantings. A few items that have uses in the landscape are designed to mimick nature, either for cost, weight, or other less understood reasons. Couched in terms such as 'cultured' or 'simulated', stone is a great example. And they are all just another way of saying 'fake'. But sometimes, maybe there's a time and place for artifice in the landscape. And sometimes, maybe not...
:: fake wood - image via Trex; fake stone - image via Cultured Stone; fake rocks - image via Exterior Accents
Friday, February 8, 2008
Net Zero Effect
One of the plethora of terms floating around the design-o-sphere is Net Zero Homes (aka ZEB or zero-energy building). Another fancy term for the same thing? Sort-of, but with a slightly different spin. Simply, it is a building that has a net energy usage of zero over the course of one year. Spawned by the impacts construction has on climate change, as well as reduction in fossil fuel consumption - it has caused some radical re-thinking of how we do things in the design world. A good resource can be found at Architecture 2030.
Recently announced on BuildingGreen, the State of California is taking the challenge, seriously. All residential buildings will be required to be net-zero by 2020 with commercial buildings following suit by 2030. The photo below is one of 4 model net-zero homes in California:
:: image via BuildingGreen
This doesn't mean merely slapping PV panels on a California Ranch and calling it good. Design potential is huge in addition to the value of net-zero as a branding and marketing opportunity for new development. A fantastic small-scale net-zero example, via Inhabitat, is 'Glass and Bedolla House' by Chicago architecture firm Zoka Zola Architecture + Urban Design. 
:: image via Zoka Zola
What makes it net-zero? For starters, PV panels, solar heating, and geothermal all add to the energy-efficient production side. In addition, operable windows are aligned to allow for cross-ventilation, and the placement of openings along with vegetated walls and deciduous canopy trees aid in seasonal reduction of heat-gain, while allowing winter solar access.
:: image via Zoka Zola
Using landscaping and site orientation as a significant site feature. By smart orientation and using the microclimatic benefits of trees, living walls, and ecoroofs, the overall reduction of energy use in a home can be significantly reduced. This ties into, but expands, the concept of daylighting design by providing an active agent (i.e. the plants) to aid in even more efficiency. This is also first-year Environmental Design studio stuff - but how many times does this get missed or ignored in the building processes?
The following series shows sections and plans from summer solstice and winter solstice and the different mechanisms at work.
:: images via Zoka Zola
While the preponderance of new 'green' terminology abounds, a careful reading of the specific details of each shows both the similarities and differences, and allows for application that is more appropriate for a particular project. As with many strategies, net-zero benefits are maginfied with the creative and smart use of vegetation, which for years have been mediating building microclimates. Looks like we can come full-circle.
Project Promotion, via others
A marketing philosophy I struggle with is the concept of self-promotion (ok, not really). Doing good work and telling the world about it is a natural reaction. It's easier when others beat you to the punch. Jetson Green seems clued into the great work of the firm which I love (and in the spirit of full disclosure, am an Associate Landscape Architect at) - GreenWorks Landscape Architects, in Portland, Oregon
The latest reference is to a project near and dear to me, Independence Station in Independence Oregon. On track to be the world's highest Platinum LEED rated building, we were fortunate enough to work with a great team and perhaps the most forward thinking developer on the planet, Steven Ribeirio (Aldeia Development) to develop sustainable landscape strategies for the building including significant rooftop gardens, living walls, and green roof coupled with PV panels. As Steven puts it: "Green is the new red, white, and blue." I think that says it all. 
:: images via Jetson Green
Last week Jetson Green offered a profile of another GreenWorks project, RiverEast Center in Portland, Oregon. I did not personally work on this project as it predated my work at the firm, but love the integrated design and detailing (that is not a shameless marketing ploy, as most designers will admit, they don't love every project in the office, all the time). The innovation of the project is subtle but amazing, as you will read about in the following writings on the project.
:: Link to ArchitectureWeek article by Brian Libby
:: Link to Environmental Design and Construction article by Peter Alto
One amazing aspect is the first shared private-public green street for treating parking and street runoff. I'm not sure if anyone realizes the amount of effort and wrangling it took to make this a reality, but the entire team deserves a tip of the hat for everything included in the project - using the site to create amazing public open space connectivity to the Riverfront in the process.
:: images via GreenWorks
The project, house the offices of local firm Group Mackenzie (whom was the project architect), amongst other businesses (and waterfront related warehousing for rowing clubs and Alder Creek Kayak) and including site specific sculptures entitled 'Portals' by Linda Wysong.
:: image via Jetson Green
:: 'Portals' - image via Linda Wysong
OK. It's odd to be featuring projects that were done by the firm I work for and/or am currently designing. I thank Jetson Green for profiling these two projects, and well... giving me the opportunity to forward them along. Plus, the editorial content here is chosen by a very biased source (me), and the goal is to feature all of the great landscape+urbanism out there. In this regard i will feature and credit any project, designer, firm that is out there pushing the boundaries.
I look at it this way. I could be a landscape architect looking at all the cool projects and writing about them, wishing I could be doing that. Or I can share was we learn, take the media and visuals and concepts - all the great work being done in the profession - and use it to apply to projects and thinking in the profession. It can shape and inform what we all work on, creating amazing spaces that are contributing and expanding the to the discussion of sustainability, landscape architecture, vegetation-builing integration, and green urbanism.
I say it's better to be inside the building in this good company, than outside with my nose pressed to the glass. So projects to featured, send them along. Feedback and commments, always welcome.
Thursday, February 7, 2008
Reading List: Vertical Gardens
Arriving last week, one of many books to come in the next year focussed on green walls and vegetated architecture. Vertical Gardens, authored by Anna Lambertini with an introduction by Jacques Leenhardt and photos by Mario Ciampi. Much like the gardens themselves, the photos of projects are full of variety and almost moist to the touch with vegetative lushness.
:: image via Amazon
The popularity of Vertical Walls has exploded recently, and there is a daily display of new projects that are incorporating the ideas into the building form. The book is great in providing real examples of built projects, instead of representative green material that so often shows up in renderings. A few of the projects were featured here previously, including Musee de Quai Branly, by Patrick Blanc, and projects by Edouard Francois.
A sampling of other notable projects included in the book (note photos are not from the book, but gleaned from other sources) Buy the book! It's worth it for the imagery alone!
:: High Rise of Homes, James Wines - image via Life Without Buildings
:: Cheminee vegetale la Defense, Blanc and Francois - image via Fabian Coughnaud
:: Pershing Hall Hotel Plant Wall, Patrick Blanc - image via Businessweek 
:: MFO Park in Zurich via Archidose 
:: Flower Tower, Edouard Francois - image via DesignBoom
:: Acros Building Fukoka, Emilio Ambasz - image via Metaefficient
There are very few books on the subject, so if you are at all interested, I would recommend this one. I imagine this lack of books will change, as the woefully small shelf of green roofs and living wall books is going to explode to encompass more space and i will have to sell back everything else. On that note, later in 2008, the much anticipated book The Vertical Garden by Patrick Blanc, will be available for review. In the meantime, Lambertini's book contains a good amount of Blanc's work which will have to suffice along with his great website.
:: image via Amazon
Wednesday, February 6, 2008
Veg.itecture: Photo Gallery
A few project photos, via the Archinect Image Gallery (a great resource of building-related images). Definitely more to come as there are a LOT of images to go through. Enjoy!
:: House, 2005 - by Jan Kempenaers
:: Palisades Concrete Pier House
:: De Young Museum
:: Nicolas G.Hayek Center -- (featured previously on L+U)
:: Pékin Fine Arts Building
:: Musee de Quai Branly
:: Amterdam 253 (Mexico City)
:: Therme Spa, Vals
:: green, green, green
:: moistscape - by Freecell
:: Seattle Public Library - vegetated interior carpet
Tuesday, February 5, 2008
Urban Ag: Sans Dirt
The need for food production in urban areas is challenged by one significant barrier: lack of land. In this version of Urban Agriculture, we explore three methods for solving this dilemma by using interiors and exteriors of building in inventive ways.
Kicking off is a local example of rooftop agriculture. The Rocket, a slim addition to upping Lower Burnside's hip quotient, is a new building by local developer/architect Kevin Cavanaugh. Named for the pseudonym for arugula, The Rocket was featured in The Oregonian for an inventive and simple rooftop garden for growing veggies that are used in the restaurant. Marc Boucher-Colbert and Erin Altz of Edible Skylines used kiddie pools, yep... kiddie pools - for the garden beds.
:: image via OregonLive
Part II: Rooftops offer a lot of potential, but taking it to the next step, how about using the entire building. Vertical farming has been covered here with a past post on L+U. Buzz is going about a 30 story building in Las Vegas aimed at producing food.
Quotes from Next Energy News: Cost effective? "Although the project initial cost is high at $200 million, with annual revenue of $25 million from produce and another $15 million from tourists the 30 story vertical farm would be about as profitable as a casino with operating expenses only being about $6 million a year. Viable? It's suggested that "...There would be about 100 different crops grown ranging from strawberries to lettuce even miniature banana trees could be grown from each floors specially controlled environment."
:: image via Skyscraper Page
The last is, admittedly, a bit crazy. Treehugger outlines the idea of Urban fish farming as as an opportunity for urban areas, in this case using "... urban fish pools, each about the size of a children's pool with higher walls and a roof." Brought up as a response to contaminants in local sushi, this form of aquaculture is adaptable to a variety of spaces and is theoretically a safe environment. A previous Treehugger post shows some more info, as well as this video of the concept:
:: video via Treehugger
Elements: Air
Save politics, air seems to be the issue on everyone's mind these days. From global climate change to carbon sequestration and offsets - air quality is a significant urban landscape feature. Buildings, and landscapes (alongside appropriate technology) can be a part of the solution, in addition to being less of a part of the problem.
For instance, the City of Chicago touts it's natural landscaping program for better air quality, and lists many tangible benefits. We have covered some of the 'Carbon Question' here previously, and the ideas that plants and more particularly, soils, are major players in the quest for neutrality. Green roofs and other vegetated architecture strategies help with air quality and urban heat island impacts on the exterior of buildings.
Indoors, the growth and popularity of interior living walls make them a viable strategy for creating better environments. The well publicized and tested green wall at the University of Guelph has shown tangible results in breaking down indoor air contaminants through microbial action. The added benefit, it looks great as well.
:: image via University of Guelph
At a landscape scale, how does this get realized. An amazing recent project that has appeared in multiple forms is the press recently is the winner of the 2004 ‘Eco Boulevard‘ competition held by the Madrid Municipal Housing Corporations Residential Innovation Office. Entitled the 'Air Tree', by ecosystema urbano. Periodically, there have been some pics and basic coverage, but recently the process and detail was recently well-covered in Architecture.MNP and it definitely is an amazing project and idea.
I don't normally include millions of image of one project, but much like a train wreck, i cannot avert my eyes from this project. Enjoy:
:: images via Inhabitat
:: image via G-Living
The overall concept is one where the recyclable 'structures' are the catalyst and attractions for the project. As the plantings mature, the pavilions will be dismantled, which will create voids in the canopy of the surrounding trees.
These structures will act as trees, providing canopy shade and conditioning of the surrounding microclimate. This function, quoted from Greenline: "…[there are] simple air conditioning systems installed in the air tree. They are evapotranspirators. This is a natural way to air condition a space, not a part of commercial strategy. Rather, it creates naturally conditioned spaces between 8-10°C cooler than the surrounding streets where the residents can take active part in the public domain."
:: images via Architecture.MNP
Monday, February 4, 2008
Public Squares: Past, Present, Future
The Walrus Magazine recently published an overview of six international public squares. Read the full article for information, but the graphics alone are fabulous. Here's a couple of examples of the significant spaces - Kiev's Independence Square (top) and Salt Lake City's Temple Square (bottom):
:: images via The Walrus
Locally, this reminds me of Portland's 'Living Room', Pioneer Courthouse Square. This is the case of a design being 'good' without specifically being wonderfully elaborated. In a word, the design is okay - the result is amazing. One of the darlings of Project for Public Spaces (PPS), it is on the list of Best Public Squares in the US and Canada, probably just because of the Starbucks... (oh i digress, sorry Fred Kent). From the PPS website, here's why it works:
"Its modern design includes public art, amenities, flowers, trees, walls and stairs designed for sitting on. It is the scene of frequent events, and includes a coffee shop, food vendors, and the information center for Tri-Met (regional Portland's transit agency), which was the key agent of the square's successful redevelopment... Pioneer Courthouse Square is one of the first in a new generation of public squares. No longer just passive green spaces, these squares are designed to be programmed and used by the public. In fact, the infrastructure for such uses is built-in, and the spaces have management entities in charge of them to assure their ongoing effective use."
:: image via Pioneer Courthouse Square
Fair enough. Maybe it is the central location, or the fact that it does have many significant public events like concerts, beer festivals, and the annual Festival of Flowers (as well as my favorite, the annual piking and lighting of a large dead tree for christmas). This square works and it is very Portland. It is also very indicative of the PPS mantra - which is good, but not the one-size-fits-all solution to public space.
On the flip-side (literally, as it is two blocks away) and a good test of this theory, will be the latest addition: Olin Partnership's design for Park Block 5, one of the 3 Downtown Parks projects that are being redeveloped throughout the city. The park blocks are one of the oldest fixtures in Portland, donated in 1852 by Daniel H. Lownsdal, and set the stage for much of our current, amazingly successful park system, particularly in downtown. The North and South Park blocks are a green linear corridor that provides a wonderful break in the urban grid, as well as places to sit and relax. 
:: South Park Blocks - image via Portland Parks & Recreation
I definitely like the design and details of the new Park Block 5 and as a piece of landscape architecture it's going to be well executed. What's missing I fear is the appropriate context. This entails both the surrounding urban use areas, program for the plaza, as well as the historical/traditional design intent of the Park Blocks themselves, which seemed to be tossed out in favor of 'designerly' strategies. I understand that you can't condemn a project, and this could be all chalked up to designer envy (as we don't like critique or discussion any longer) before it's built, so here's my critique of the unbuilt design:
(1) It is a hardscape plaza, with significant paving, a water feature, kiosks, and covered areas adjacent to light rail - which is exactly duplicating the function of Pioneer Courthouse Square, a mere stone's throw away.
(2) It makes little reference to the historic form and greenspace that was intended for the Park Blocks. For a 'park' block, it contains precious little park. It is on a parking structure, but the budget allowed for rooftop planting, if desired.
(3) It offers little of Portland's strategies for stormwater, sustainability, green design. It seems of another place - perhaps one with a history of better space design, but less good planning. Somewhere where plazas are looked at but not used. 
:: Park Block 5 - image via Portland Parks and Recreation
Alas, this is the plan that will go in, and it will inevitably get the praise and coverage it deserves in the media. But will it work? That's a whole other question.
Another new plan in the works is Walker Macy's design for Ankeny Square. This tough project site offer new urban public space in an area that needs it most - this time along the Waterfront Park, and providing a new home for the Saturday Market. A difficult task in the least, it required providing covered space for vendors, pedestrian crossing of the barren Naito Parkway, and interface with the Willamette as well as fitting into an existing park and a historic district. No small feat, and I think it's a really good plan. Simple and appropriate, and highly-usable. Getting the Saturday Market out into the park will be a boon too - as it is currently jammed under the Burnside Bridge and adjacent to Mercy Corps' new building and will make way for new development. For more on the Ankeny design, check out the PDC site.
:: images via Portland Development Commission
While armchair quarterbacking both of these project designs, I know it kind of misses some of the essence. There's some good and bad (which is pretty common) - and i'd dare say the public processes that led to them would have resulted in similar forms of the same idea, only with different signatures had they been done by a different group. The question, or thread to weave throughout, is what makes a great public square and are either of these destined for that distinction?
One option is to look to PPS, and infuse the space with programmatic and social possibilities. This works at many places (like Pioneer Courthouse Square), but is not the secret formula to good design. Context and history is important - looking at the spaces historically successful, such as those featured above, or the piazzas of Rome to name a few.
Looking purely at Pioneer Courthouse Square as a design - it leaves a lot to be desired (arguably), both in design and detailing - as well as longevity. As the living room and an activated, social, vital urban place - it's wildly successful. The other designs have (arguably as well) higher design arcs - but this does not guarantee they will be successful. My vote is that of the two, Ankeny Plaza is most likely to be a success, purely due to it having a specific and unique focus in it's location. As well, this will hopefully help to energize Old Town/Burnside area redevelopment and make the district and plaza more successful, and perhaps for longer than two days a week. Block 5, well, we shall wait and see.
Elements: Water
Water. How do you talk about it without sounding like a commercial for some sort of Brita water filter? Projects abound that deal with stormwater and water as resources - as we have evolved outside the terms of 'waste' and looked at it as a viable resource. 
:: An Exercise in Futility (by rebekka) - image via green.MNP
Aside from the thirst quenching (for plants and humans) benefits - an aspect of projects (my work included) is ways of artfully expressing water in inventive (yet still sustainable ways). A few projects of a more art/architectural nature:
From Architecture.MNP via Reuters, public artist Olafur Eliasson's new project NYC Waterfalls, proposes: "...seeing water in a different way,” Eliasson told a news conference on Wednesday, unveiling plans for the waterfalls, which will range in height from 90 to 120 feet — around the same as the Statue of Liberty from head to toe."
:: images via Architecture.MNP
BD Online mentions Terry Ferrell's aquarium (i kept thinking of Jane's Addiction every time i see that name in print) project in London, which includes watery and vegetated forms. From the article "The naturally ventilated aquarium will boast an ETFE roof — as used on Grimshaw’s Eden project in Cornwall — and will include a series of biomes arranged around a central atrium, each housing a complete eco-system. Four biomes will recreate water habitats from the Amazon, the British Isles, the Indo-Pacific and the Atlantic Ocean, while the fifth will focus on protecting aquatic species." 
:: image via BDonline
For the Bejing Olympics - adjacent to Herzog & de Meuron's somewhat deadly Bird's Nest, is PTW Architect's glistening The Water Cube (aka the Beijing National Aquatics Center) takes liquidity to the extreme both indoors and out...
:: image via Treehugger
Finally, we all know the energy potential from hydro-electric and wave-action as well as other water-based techniques. Any movement of matter has a potential for release of energy, even rain, as Treehugger reports that Scientists have developed technology to harvest minute amounts of energy from falling rain. Sounds like a great idea, as we run into water shortages as well as energy shortages, it makes a lot of sense to look at all of our options.
:: image via Atelier Dreiseitl
Water is precious. It is also a resource that landscape architecture and urban design must protect, and celebrate with all projects. Hidden infrastructure does nothing to express the beauty and poetry of falling rain, or the flowing of water across surfaces... it's up to designers and artists, following the lead of Herbert Dreiseitl, Bill Wenk, and Buster Simpson to name a few, make sure these are expressed, beautifully - every day.
Sunday, February 3, 2008
Green Infrastructure
Green Infrastructure is one of those new terms that is compelling as a concept, but difficult to pin down regarding it's exact application in the landscape. Simply, there is a shift from 'gray' infrastructure (pipes, pavement, and mechanical systems) to softer solutions consisting of multi-functional landscapes including a number of stormwater bmps, or LID techniques. A number of recent resources have added to the validity and understanding of green infrastructure.
From Greener Buildings, from the EPA program promoting green infrastructure, including a new report 'Managing Wet Weather with Green Infrastructure', "...lists the numerous green infrastructure options available and the benefits of putting them in place. The pluses to utilizing green roofs, vegetated medians and other other approaches include cutting down stormwater runoff, reducing sewer overflows, creating urban habitats and improving air quality."
:: image via US EPA
A Green Infrastructure program by American Forests features a project analyzing urban form via satellite imagery, specifically A planimetric map of a Washington DC neighborhood shows a neighborhood’s gray infrastructure including buildings and roads (left). Classified high-resolution satellite imagery adds a green infrastructure data layer (trees and other vegetation) with its associated environmental benefits (right).
:: image via American Forests
Also, Brice Maryman from Seattle (one of the minds behind Seattle Open Space 2100) clued me into the Green Infrastructure Wiki, outlining an approach for gleaning (and more importantly organizing in a coherent pattern, green infrastructure concepts and case studies). The information is setup in: "...a framework made up of 5 interconnected systems: habitat, community, water, mobility, and energy & materials. Each system is made up of green infrastructure elements. These elements are not discrete from one another in the precise way of chemical elements. Some are irreducibly multi-functional and defy clean categorization. Others have specific purposes."
Information is organized into system groups and given a designation, similar to chemical elements. For instance:
SYSTEM 3: WATER includes:
3RG RainGarden, 3Bs Bioswale, 3SP StormwaterPlanter, 3Wp Wetpond, 3Dp Drypond, 3CW ConstructedWetland, 3GR Green Roof, 3Ci Cistern, 3FS Filter Strip, 3PP PorousPavement, 3GA GreenAlley.
The idea of a periodic table of concepts is interesting, much like a pattern language or other form for being able to both define and show relationships between items and related concepts. These provide basic information such as terminology, performance criteria, diagrams, as well as links to notable projects. 
:: image via Green Infrastructure Wiki
Green Infrastructure Supports Sustainability:
Green Infrastructure Better Uses Limited Resources:
Governments not only spend less to install and maintain most green infrastructure, green infrastructure provides a host of ancillary benefits, such as increased recreation and open space, community building opportunities and better air and water quality."
Saturday, February 2, 2008
Veg.itecture: Small(er)-Scale
This Swiss RE Office Building by BRT Arkitekten in Germany (the same company that formerly owned Foster's Gherkin Building in London) featured on this weeks eye candy... the building dates from 2001, but is stunning with an vegetated extension of the facade created via climbing vines and screen panels. I love the way there is variation in the complexity and thickness of the vegetation. I imagine when the building was designed, these screens offered consistent translucent vegetative panels wrapped around it (anyone have old pics?). In reality, the tracery of vegetation along supports and up into screens provides much a more graceful counterpoint to the facade. As more of these projects become built, it will be interesting to see the difference between representation and reality (good, bad, and surprising).
:: images via BRT Arkitekten
A similar notion is a rendering from Michelle Kaufmann's mkSolaire with a simple panel trellis and greenery winding up the larger building volume - and the signature tufted grasses on the rooftop (is that Calamagrostis?) As a huge fan of MK, and hopeful one-day owner of a fab-pre-fab of my very own, I enjoy the role landscape plays in the drawings - modern but less sparse than a typical modern 'garden' from the pages of Dwell. 
:: image via Jetson Green
A completely different concept and scale include the vegetation of objects, from the kitschy and cool, to the cozy. Working on small-scale green roofs a few years back, we talked about a couple of ideas, the eco-woof, (vegetated doghouse) and the eco-coop (keep the chickens warm and green). While designs were never realized, i've seen a few versions of these over the years, and it's just a nice, simple idea. These kitschy and artistic versions come via Sustainable Pet Design, by Conway grad Stephanie Rubin. 
:: image via Sustainable Pet Design
From the Maison & Objet show in Paris, via MoCo Loco. I know this post is about chairs, but really can you even focus on the chair with the incredibly cool large vegetated wall looming behind you. I think not.
:: image via MoCo Loco
Finally, getting to chairs of a different texture, Mindscape from Japan offers a line of vegetated "Peddy" furniture, blurring the line between site and site furnishings. I'd say kitschy, cool, and cozy just starts to describe these.
:: image via Treehugger
Shift into 'Slow' Gear
The Slow Food Movement has long been active in European countries, with it's ubiquitous snail-mascot and new vocabulary (i.e. eco-gastronomy) making us stop (almost) and enjoy the concepts of local, fair, environmentally friendly food, and the idea of reconnecting to the pleasures of eating.
:: logo via Slow Food International
The concept is terribly European, and for Americans sitting in their cars, eating fast food, and listening to NPR, this is a little harder sell. But food awareness, in the form of organics, csas, community gardens, and locavorism - is becoming more global, with Slow Food USA, amonst a variety of other organizations cropping up to meet this demand.
:: image via Adbusters
Recently, this trend has expanding to other realms, including an intriguing concept of Slow Design in a variety of forms. Envisioned as a means of emphasizing (from the NYT) '...slowness in the creation and consumption of products as a corrective to the frenetic pace of 21st-century life...' there is a natural place for this in design. A recent New York Times article 'The Slow Life Picks Up Speed', applies this to design thinking with topics ranging from fashion, product, and home design - as well as shopping, travel, or anything.
An early pioneer of the idea, Carl Honoré, authored a book 'In Praise of Slow: Challenging the Cult of Speed' and runs a popular website on the subject as well. Some groups include SlowLab, a consultancy in NYC that is focusing on 'slow' in it's many forms. Other examples expand this beyond mere 'green' (which is slower) to eschew mass-production. The article mentioned the example of Christien Meindertsma, from a Dutch company named Flocks, uses wool only from the fleece of sheep she's actually met. That... is slow. 
:: image via The New York Times
Shifting towards building, architect John Brown's site The Slow Home offers options for a "...movement devoted to bringing good design into real life." From the NYT article, Brown offers the following thought:
"A cookie cutter house in a new development is like a Big Mac and fries,” he said the other day. Not only are you undernourished by awkward spaces and huge houses, he said, but far-away developments require lots of driving, stealing your time and your health. Mr. Brown’s hope is to raise awareness “about resources and options,” he said. “If you learn about materials, think about where your house comes from, you’re going to be more involved with the culture of the house, rather than just engaging with it as a financial instrument.”
So what does this mean for landscape and urbanism? Perhaps it picks up on threads from earlier posts regarding both plantings and materials. Continuing this weeks obsession, Piet Oudolf could be considered a 'Slow' designer because of his desire to understand and know the materials and their innate life cycles, and apply this to the creation of spaces. 
:: image via GAP Photos
Often, in the day-to-day race to create billable work, meet deadlines, and provide more and innovative services, we forget that this understanding of the craft is vital. Decisions may not be thought through completely, and while the immediate goal (short-term completion) is met - the ultimate goal (long-term success) is often lost. The profession is growing, in size and visibility. This is a key time to take stock and think about how we approach design, sustainably, ethically, and with quality. Making money and sustaining business is obviously vital. But how do we do this, as well as differentiate from related disciplines, or establish the same credibility as our peers?
The answer: By doing things better. This means, perhaps taking a moment, and doing them a bit slower too.
Friday, February 1, 2008
Veg.itecture: Super Sized
The next in a continual series of Vegetated Architecture, including some large scale examples from Pittsburgh, Singapore, Moscow, and Paris.
From Inhabitat: "Architect Vincent Callebaut’s latest project balances public galleries, meeting rooms and gathering spaces over canals and abandoned railroad tracks in the 19th Parisian district. The prototype uses green technologies and techniques but is more than just an example of sustainable design. Callebaut’s ‘Anti Smog: An Innovation Centre in Sustainable Development’ is a catalyst for cleaner air."
:: images via Inhabitat
This touches of one of the main themes of Vegetated Architecture, that the plantings are not merely for decoration, but allow for specific functions, in this case smog reduction. Is that the focus? Nope. The plants are merely rooftop greening. The main hero in this story is technology: "The exterior is fitted with 250 square meters of solar photovoltaic panels and coated in titanium dioxide (TiO2). The PV system produces on-site electrical energy while the TiO2 coating works with ultraviolet radiation to interact with particulates in the air, break down organics and reduce air born pollutants and contaminants."
Second, from Architecture.MNP, the low-down on the new Pittsburgh RiverPark by Behnisch Architekten. This high-density waterfront development is aimed at infusing housing into the downtown core. A mixed-use development with a bevy of green strategies, there is actually some use of green spaces to regulate microclimates (and some very well done graphics): "The micro-climate within the RiverPark was also reimagined with the use of green roofs and landscaping and water features"
:: images via architecture.MNP
OMA has released images for a 1,000 unit apartment complex in Singapore, which consists of a massive interlocking complex of hexagonal spaces with what I imagine look like a thin icing of vegetated roof gardens on the tops. The plan is pretty interesting and seems to generate some interesting interstitial zones (under, over, and in between the buildings) but something about this rendering looks lifeless and brutal, much more than could be mitigated with any vegetation or facade articulation. Then again, it's also a concept, so not much detail to go by.
:: image via Dezeen
From late 2007, a variety of sources ran the announcement (most often paired with a 'wow' or an 'ugh') for the Crystal Island in Moscow by Foster + Partners. Dubbed the world's biggest building, it rises 450m tall, and has a floor area of over 2.5million square meters (that's 8.2 million square feet, for the metrically challenged - or around 190 acres for the LAs). Not just a big building, and it is BIG, but a big park as well:
"The building’s spiraling form emerges majestically from a newly landscaped park, rising in converse directions to form a diagonal grid. This distinctive geometry extends throughout the project into the park. The result is that the scheme is seamlessly integrated into a new park landscape, which provides a range of activities throughout the year, including cross country skiing and ice skating in the winter."
:: image via dezeen
What to conclude from the grandiose schemes? Well, most of them are just schemes, but they show ways that landscape provides a range benefits paired with buildings and larger scale plans. Whether it is providing a context, as in the parkland surrounding Crystal Island, what is assured to be a grandiose to the extreme version of excess - this mitigates the size and scope as well as immersing the project in nature. Same concept, but not as strong, is the OMA designed residential complex, but the building forms overshadow the minimal rooftop landscaping (and the surrounding landscape as well).
The functional use in building application seems to resonate in Pittsburgh, where the microclimatic use of plants on ecoroofs and site landscape is a viable strategy that also aids in form-making. In Paris, the form is extremely compelling, and plantings + smog-reduction seem a natural pairing. But why go to the trouble to intricately weave green around the structure, if it is mere decoration?
Profession on the Rise: Landscapes at Risk
There is a significant wealth of historic works of landscape architecture around the world. While the profession has a mere 150 years of 'official' standing, and based on recent Occupational Employment Statistics survey results, it is well on the rise (growth of 59% in employees). What this means, at least by extrapolation, is that more landscape architects equals more works of landscape architecture. Ok, it could mean more people looking for less jobs, but i'm thinking positively.
:: image via Archinect
The fact is, that the profession has been, and will continue to be, prolific in producing a vast quantity of notable work. As this works ages, it will continue to be potentially threatened by development or redevelopment based on the shifting sands of stylistic preference. The mantle of awareness and protection of The Cultural Landscape Foundation (TCLF) gives me faith that this issue will not be lost in the shuffle, but will get the attention it deserves.
The organization is: "...dedicated to increasing the public’s awareness of the importance and irreplaceable legacy of cultural landscapes. Through education, technical assistance, and outreach, the Cultural Landscape Foundation broadens the support and understanding for cultural landscapes nationwide in hopes of saving our priceless heritage for future generations."
There are a number of programs, including profiles and oral histories of Landscape Legends, such as Richard Haag, Carol R. Johnson, and Lawrence Halprin. Also, there are profiles of significant cultural landscapes that offer significant value to society, and encourage protection of these resources through the Cultural Landscapes as Classrooms program. Some specific notable national projects are included below:
The Donnell Garden - Thomas Church
:: image via ASLA
:: image via Bard Graduate Center
Columbus Park - Jens Jensen
:: image from TCLF
:: image from 1935 via Jens Jensen Legacy Project
Mt. Auburn Cemetery
:: images via Wikepedia
The 2008 Landslide/Landscapes of Risk call for projects is entitled 'Marvels of Modernism' shifting this to more modernist examples of culturally significant landscapes. This Dwell interview with Charles Birnbaum makes the case for preservation and protection of landscapes in the same vein as buildings. From Dwell's modern vantage point, particular works of modern landscape architecture deserve this added protection, but rightly so, this net could be cast upon any significant works.
:: image via TCLF
As we create more work, we offer more potential treasures that deserve protection... our success as a profession, and it's legacy, will depend on continuing to provide, as well as protect, our amazing cultural landscapes.
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