Veg.itecture #31

As I mentioned, there's been a lot of activity - and now that the roots of Vegitecture have been illuminated... let's see how these buildings are dressing themselves... lots of great examples. An interesting article beyond this photo, from the NY Times article 'I’m the Designer. My Client’s the Autocrat.' which looks into the trend of starchitects working for countries with questionable human rights. Check it out, and check out the image Thom Mayne’s design for a corporate headquarters in Shanghai - build the building, save the world...


:: image via NY Times

Another from Syd Mead... a project for the Qatar Steel Corp. I had not made the connection, but via Gizmodo: "You may know "futurist" Syd Mead from his design work on geek friendly movies like Blade Runner, Tron and Aliens—but in his most recent work he envisions a future city by the name of Doha, Qatar. Naturally, his work speaks for itself, but I must admit that it stands in stark contrast to the bleak world of Blade Runner. Maybe he has become more optimistic as the years have passed."


:: image via The Design Blog

Another, via Inhabitat, is Grid House, a project in Philadelphia by Moto Designshop. A response to dense infill development, it contains a number of rooftop spaces to allow for open spaces on multiple levels.




:: images via Inhabitat

Via Bustler, Oslo Central Train Station by Norwegian architect firm, Space Group.


:: image via Bustler

A new town plan for Dubai (go figure) SMAQ (via Archinect) - a 60 hectare project named Paramount. A sustainable, mixed use village for 7000 in Dubailand (why does that sound so wrong?). Via SMAQ: "In the design, the built up area has been compressed to occupy only fifty percent of the site as a reaction to the sun condition, to achieve a compact and shaded fabric. Its structure is defined by alternating narrow pedestrian alleys and small squares, typical of Arabic towns. This urban tissue is divided in elongated islands that are orientated so to gain from the prevailing winds crossing the site. The cool breeze from the sea is channelled between the islands and through the longitudinal cuts in the urban fabric, while the hot wind from the desert is deviated above the development." More info via Cityscape Abu Dhabi.




:: images via SMAQ

Designboom featured a multi-family housing with terraced green roofs from taller13 architects.


:: image via Designboom

BDonline featured Mark Hines Architects eco-friendly community centre at Ashton-under-Lyne in Lancashire. The colorful green roof offers a sustainable top to this simple structure.


:: image via BDonline

Finally, MoCoLoco linked to ArchDaily with a series of 8 sweet green roof houses, the Finca El Retorno Eco Shelters,by G Ateliers. "The design acknowledges the natural beauty of the site to create 8 ecological shelters that care to minimize the impact on the site and achieve a delicate fusion of architecture and place. These shelters emerge from the topography and enhance the surrounding nature without competing with it. Corridors at the perimeter, traditional elements from the Colombian dwelling architecture are introduced to achieve a clear relationship between interior and exterior."






:: images via ArchDaily

Veg.itecture #29

There are a lot of new examples of Veg.itecture, spanning a variety of concepts that are really expanding the idea and breadth of Vegetated Architecture. I've also been reading a number of books from stellar Vegitect Ken Yeang, specifically Ecodesign, which is a must-read for anyone interested in holistic ecological design. Look for a review soon.

Starting off this collection is a project by Architects DSDHA in Soho, London offers a silver clad building with a slice of vegetation and a mantle of greenery on top. The positioning at the street edge offers a dynamic and functional asset to building users and the adjacent streets. Via Dezeen: "The building responds directly to the unique context of Soho and seeks to represent its idiosyncratic character by offering new focal points to the surrounding streets as well as having a spectacular glazed entrance that allows generous views into a vertical garden courtyard. This living wall and atrium provide light and natural ventilation and offers a supplementary cooling effect from the plants to minimise energy use."

:: images via Dezeen

Next up, Treehugger's backhanded compliment to a 'dumb' building, The Terry Thomas, in Seattle - by - which is a nice way of saying buildings that use natural processes - via the article: "I meant it as a compliment; we need more dumb buildings that work like buildings used to, with natural light and ventilation, and without what Donovan Rypkema calls "green thingies"- expensive new technologies when older, simpler methods are more appropriate."


:: image via Treehugger


:: concept - image via Weber Thompson

A previous story about the design mentioned this old-school approach (along with a rendering that looks remarkably like the final product): "Got sun in your face? put on sunglasses on the building to stop it before it gets in. Want fresh air? Open the window. Want light? Make it shallow, only 35 feet from window to courtyard. Want air circulation? Put a hole in the middle of the donut to create a stack effect to draw air through. Nothing to see here that wouldn't be found in a 1936 Architectural Graphic Standards." Sounds pretty smart - although it'd be interesting to see more of the vegetated screens and how they would work to dissipate some of the heat/sun/noise issues better than more traditional screens.


:: rendering - image via Treehugger

Another great project via BDonline shows the ability to nest buildings into the landscape - in this case the Giant’s Causeway in Northern Ireland by Heneghan Peng Architects. The renderings are dynamic is referencing the adjacent cliff faces, really pulling from the surrounding landscape.




:: images via BDonline

Via Eikongraphia, a few images of UN Studio's Post Rotterdam project with some tantalizing wisps of vegetation visible on the facade... as well as the climbing columns of greenery in the central courtyard space. Very similar to a previous post of a project in Miami by HdM for the Miami Art Museum - likened to the Hanging Gardens of Babylon...




:: images via Eikongraphia

In related news, a story via Reuters from Mexico City shows an agressive rooftop program for combating global warming: "Mexico City, one of the world's most polluted capitals, is planting rooftop gardens on public buildings as part of a program launched on Thursday to combat global warming. ... The smog-choked metropolis plans to replace gas tanks, clothes lines and heat-reflecting asphalt on 100,000 square feet of publicly owned roof space each year with grass and bushes that will absorb carbon dioxide. ... The city also plans to offer tax breaks for businesses or individuals who put gardens on top of their offices and apartment buildings."

Finally, Steve of The Sesquipedalist saw my reference to Michael Sorkin's 1979 article in WET magazine related to the concept to Vegitecture and kindly offered to scan the article for me... he's sent me the first page, and I will give an overview of this Vegitectural first sighting when I get the remaining pages... stay tuned.

:: image via The Sesquipedalist

prss release

Much talk lately of the changing nature of architecture blogging (sort of) and a recent reference reminded me of prss release, and inventive aggregator of sources in a PDF format... sort of quasi blog + magazine in one... Some words below from the editors:


:: image via prss release

"We are proud to announce prss release, your weekly independent paper blog aggregator. In this editorial statement we'll explain about the what, why and how of prss release...

"...Information is confined to domains. Although different mediums merge more and more, still the concept of 'cross-media' is an ideal which is rarely realized, and if attempted often unsuccessful. One of these confined domains is the blogosphere, a mystery to the most of us and even to most internet users. That is where prss release comes in. We want to disclose all the goodies that are posted in the blogosphere to an audience that doesn't keep track of blogs on a daily basis, an audience that hates reading more than a few sentences from their computer screens. We do this independently, not for profit, for fun, for all our friends who are not the nerds that we are and to bring the writing efforts of bloggers to a larger audience...

"The format of prss release is simple. Weekly we collect the ten posts of the past week that we think are cool, interesting, thought provoking, funny or which are worth publishing for any other reason we come up with (or not). We put these posts in a clean readable lay-out with the appropriate credits to those of who's content we publish. We publish it as a PDF file, which is available for download for a few weeks, we keep an archive of all issues in the form of a hyper-linked tables of content to the original posts we used in each issue of prss release."

As far as inventive forms of communication, this makes a lot of sense to me. Partially it is a personal taste - as a lover of books - I always love to read on paper and am not predisposed to reading on the screen. Honestly, I can't stand it... perhaps too many hours of staring at a screen doing CAD or writing in Word... This probably makes me somewhat of an oxymoron, touting sustainability and printing reading materials... but I just can't see a day where books are irrelevant... seen in the interest in taking blogs and making them into books.

Also, I still love the newspaper delivered every day (and it gets double duty in sheet mulching as well) - specifically the Sunday NY Times... nothing electronic will ever replace that. Plus as prss implies in their poster... it's difficult to take your laptop into the bathroom, and where else do you get that sweet feeling of multi-tasking... :)

Also, it's interesting, as I've been tracking posts via my own PDF archive of Landscape+Urbanism for the past few months - because as convenient as searching and scrolling is - after 150 or so posts it's great to have a written record to scan through - placed by my desk at work. Mostly divided into some of the main ideas (ecoplanning, vegetated architecture, and urban agriculture), it's a quick reference guide to augment the blog. Wanting to know what that cool project in Vegitecture #18 was... look it up, with a paper and digital record. Plus I've got a books worth of material already... Really, I fear someday I will accidentally do something to delete all of the content, and this gives a bit of redundancy.

So kudos to all of those out there taking a look at revising the media and the message to fit our changing tastes. Definitely check out prss release... it may be similar to the Harvard Design Reader, where you've seen some of the posts/articles previously, but compiled in an easy to carry format... re-read it again, someplace... well, um... convenient.

Arcology

A recent helpful commenter to a previous post corrected my erroneous assuption as to the roots of the word 'Arcology'. Alas, it was not from Sim City as I was previously led to believe. The concept is most commonly associated with Arcosanti builder Paolo Soleri, but has some interesting heritage and implications for some of the grand planning and design schemes being proposed recently.


:: Arcosanti, Sky Suite - image via NY Times

Not being one to back down from parsing some new (or old) component of the lexicon, I felt as if some further definition and investigation were in order. To start, via Wikipedia: "Arcology, from the words "ecology" and "architecture," is a set of architectural design principles aimed toward the design of enormous habitats (hyperstructures) of extremely high human population density. These largely hypothetical structures, which are themselves commonly referred to as "arcologies," would be self-contained, contain a variety of residential and commercial facilities, minimize individual human environmental impact, and possibly be economically self-sufficient."

Soleri is definitely the most vocal proponent of Arcology and still active in preparing visions, such as a World Trade Center ideas for NY City, as well as the Nudging Space Arcology, both of which provide visions of Arcology in action (or at least paper).


:: WTC NYC Proposal - image via Arcosanti


:: Nudging Space Arcology - image via Arcosanti

This portmanteau of architecture and ecology (really, how can resist a phrase such as that) definitely strikes a chord with my investigations of my concurrent conconcotion of vegitecture and it's all of it's related ilk. These arcologies definitely have a good amount of relation to some of the recent works of mega-towers and city-scale ecoplanning... and I guess time will tell how much is hypothesis and how much turns into reality. Some precedents recently include Foster's Masdar City and the Crystal Island in Moscow, the recent Ultima Tower and even the 1 Billion Dollar Tishman Speyer NYC development recently announced which all have elements of ecology woven into the architecture on a grand scale.


:: Tishman Speyer NYC - image via WAN

More from Soleri, via the Arcosanti website: "In nature, as an organism evolves it increases in complexity and it also becomes a more compact or miniaturized system. Similarly a city should function as a living system. Arcology, architecture and ecology as one integral process, is capable of demonstrating positive response to the many problems of urban civilization, population, pollution, energy and natural resource depletion, food scarcity and quality of life. Arcology recognizes the necessity of the radical reorganization of the sprawling urban landscape into dense, integrated, three-dimensional cities in order to support the complex activities that sustain human culture. The city is the necessary instrument for the evolution of humankind."


:: images via Arcosanti

Some further explanation via Arcosanti site:
"The Hyper Building is an Arcology. In an Arcology, architecture and ecology come together in the design of the city. Arcology is the implosion of the flat megalopolis, the modern city of today, into a dense, complex, urban environment which rises vertically. ... The concept of a one-structure system is not incidental to the organization of the city, but central to it. Such an urban structure hosts life, work, education, culture, leisure, and health in a dense, compact system which also puts the untouched open countryside at the fingertips of the residents. The compactness of an Arcology gives 90 percent more land to farming and conservation than today's urban and suburban sprawl. This compactness makes an Arcology a more workable system. ...The automobile divides a city by scattering it across the landscape. Greater attention is given to human scale in an Arcology. In it the pedestrian reigns. Distances are measured by walks and minutes. Within it the automobile is nonsensical. ...In an Arcology energy is used more efficiently than in a conventional modern city. Pollution is a direct function of wastefulness, not efficiency. The increase in efficiency and reduction of wastefulness means a reduction of pollution. ...One role of the three dimensional city is to stop the spreading out of suburbia and its pernicious effects: hyper-consumption, segregation, waste, pollution, and ecological catastrophe. Therefore we must consider not only this initial Hyper-Building: future developments in the area must be considered. All developments surrounding the Hyper-Building must be Arcological. ...For reasons of economy, to do more with less, life is always framed three-dimensionally. This imperative can be referred to as the Urban Effect. Since the Hyper-Building is emblematic of the Urban Effect, it is not just an expedient though indispensible proposition: its stands for the ontological dynamics of life itself."


:: image via Arcosanti

An interesting theoretical idea is the section on the Arcosanti site 'Arcology Theory' which journeys Soleri's theoretical expositions and the Arcological Hyper Building Design Parameters... which provides additional information from concept to execution.

:: Concept of Hyper Building - image via Arcosanti

And while I slowly dig through the literature on this site, I come back to another burning question - what is the elusive Sim-City/Arcology connection? A post in Unsought Input from 2007 'Sim City Arcologies are Becoming a Reality' mentions this same question, and also mentions the utopic and perhaps impossible Shimzu TRY 2004 Mega-City Pyramid as an example of modern hyperstructure development, at least making me feel less crazy about thinking of the prophecy of video games. Another example, more real and perhaps big but less arcologic is Burj Dubai - which in my opinion is just big phallic oneupsmanship.

:: Try2004 Hyperstructure - image via Wikipedia

I definitely buy the concept - but there are a number of Ecotopia viewpoints that sound great on paper. I wonder how (1) this is not just another utopian vision, and 2) is this an applicable and viable theoretical framework for some of the building that is going up, either in theory, paper, or in reality? One issue is that big does not nessarily equal arcological. It must include some integration between systems and buildings, back to our previous base definition, these must be: "self-contained, contain a variety of residential and commercial facilities, minimize individual human environmental impact, and possibly be economically self-sufficient."

In this case Masdar, Dongtan, Ras Al Khaimah and other eco-cities are attempting to do this by aiming at high goals for sustainable communities on a grand scale. In another case Yeang's bioclimatic skyscrapers are attempting to take these concepts to new heights and make them more integrated, thus minimizing inputs and impacts. With an addition of vertical farming, wind generation, solar, and voila, were' getting somewhere in the vicinity of tall, self-sufficient, low-impact structures.

The real question as always: Is this a utopia that people would want to live in?

Reading List: (AD) Landscape Architecture: Site/Non-Site

This fusion of magazine sized pamphlet/paperback book from Architecutural Design is entitled 'Landscape Architecture: Site/Non-Site' (Wiley, May 2007), and is a really quality investigation into some of the very themes in which I hold dear. I loaned this out and had not had an opportunity to delve into it until now and I was pleased enough to zoom through it in record time. The fact that it is well-illustrated and brief helped.


:: image via Amazon

Edited (as well as significantly authored) by Michael Spens, the topics range widely, with a good breadth of subject matter. The content was varied with inclusion of that rarity - actual landscape architects from across the globe featured together - including an interesting review of Bernard Lassus (p.60), and a continent-spanning profile of the work of Gustafson/Porter (p.66).


:: Colas Corporation Upper Terrace Sketch by Bernard Lassus - p.64

Some work that was unfamiliar to me included that of Archigram founder Peter Cook. I've heard the Archigram name before, but didn't really know any of the specifics about Cook's theoretical leanings. From p. 15:

"The new architecture celebrates the fold-over of contrived surface with grasped surface. The new sensibility is toward terrain rather than patches or pockets. There is even a search for peace without escape - difficult for one to imagine amongst the chatter of the old city. ...For me it becomes even more intriguing if we pull the vegetal towards the artificial and the fertile towards the urban but in the end ...to find the magic of a place discovered, now that's architecture." (From Spellman (ed), Re-Envisioning Landscape/Architecture, 2003).

It's pure Landscape Urbanism from the core - specifically leaning towards vegetated architecture and landscape as form generator. This is even magnifed by a more experimental and expressive graphic technique that is refreshing (imagine what he could've done with some digital tools at his disposal).


:: Mound by Peter Cook (1964) - p.15

While I'm focussing on some visuals here for the most part, the overall scholarship is notable as well. One article in particular struck me as a wonderful companion to Cook's vegitecture leanings - and elucidated the Landscape Urbanism mantra of space forming capacity of landscape. 'New Architectural Horizons' by Juhani Pallasmaa (p.17) offers an essay about how: "...the over-intellectualisation of architecture has detached it 'from its experiential, embodied and emotive ground."

A choice quote related to this is found on p.22, in a section titled 'Synthetic Landscape': "The architecture profession at large might do better if we began to think of our buildings as microcosms and synthetic landscapes instead of seeing them as aestheticised objects. Architecture in our time has been concerned with landscape merely as a formal and visual counterpoint, or a sounding board for architectural forms. Today, however, buildings are increasingly beginning to be understood as processes that unavoidably go through phases of functional, technical and cultural change as well as processes of wear and deterioration. The fundamentally time-bound dynamic and open-ended nature of landscape architecture can provide meaningful lessons for a 'weak' or 'fragile' architecture that acknowledges vulnerability instead of obsessively fighting against time and change as architecture traditionally has done."

I was struck by reading some theory applied to American context and designers. Grahame Shane's 'Recombinant Landscapes in the American City' (p.24) investigates "...the approaches to landscape that have been emerging since the mid-20th century and are set to recombine urban assemblages whether they are located in historic city centres, postindustrial waterfronts or suburban sprawl."


:: Peck Slip, East River Waterfront Study (2005) - Richard Rogers, SHoP, Ken Smith


:: Pell Mall, Vallejo Plaza (2002-03) - Stone Meek Architecture & Urban Design

There is also a well documented study of US design featuring state-side landscape professionals. In 'Urban American Landscape', Jayne Merkel (p.36) covers a range of home-grown professionals, including Balmori Associates, Ken Smith, Field Operations, Patricia Johanson, Michael Van Valkenburgh, and Margie Ruddick/WRT.


:: Balmori Associates, Green Roofs - Long Island City (2002-25) - p.40


:: Sante Fe Railyard Park (2007) - Ken Smith, Mary Miss, Frederick Schwartz

And no self-respecting theory magazine would be complete without some densely packed informational diagrams that would make Edward Tufte proud. In this case, a graphic for a piece entitled 'Operationalising Patch Dynamics' by Victoria Marshall and Brian McGrath (p.52). The graphic is a classification of "...the physical structure of land-cover patches in Baltimore's Gwynns Falls Watershed... based on possible combinations of different percentages of five land-cover types. The numerical prevalence of patch classes results in a distinctive signature."


:: urban-interface - Baltimore Ecosystem Study (2006) - p.55

This type of graphic is more common as we are challenged to show temporal change and relationships between multiple dynamic systems simultaneously. While interesting visually, the translation of these dense graphics into designs is something that is still difficult to ascertain. An essay regarding the 'Toronto Waterfront Revitalisation' (p.48) along with a number of later essays, gives some real application to theory in new ways. While encompassing some interesting subject matter, the later essays tended to be less interesting due to their focus on the over-exposed (New Orleans) and the overly dense (techno-informational space making). The AD+ section was even less interesting, enough that I may have skipped most of it.

The strongest element of 'Site/Non-Site' was a focused view across the pond, entitled ''Activating Nature': The Magical Realism of Contemporary Landscape Architecture in Europe'. The essay by Lucy Bullivant (p.76)features the likes of West 8, Gross.Max, and Mosbach Paysagistes, and how they are: "...leading the way with their highly dynamic and inventive narrative approaches to history, culture and the emergent city."

The work of these three firms speaks for itself for the most part, and is backed up with an essay that provides some of the cultural differences as to the approach of European vs. North American landscape architects. Some have to due with some conservatism of the design community, others with the contextual differences between America with it's relative youth and the dense history of European countries.


:: Garden for a Plant Collector at the House for an Art Lover (2005) - Gross.Max


:: Le Jardin Botanique de Bordeaux (2004-05) - Mosbach Paysagistes


:: Luxury Village, Moscow, Russia (2004-06) - West 8

On that note, another recent addition to my library, and an economical one at that, was the alternative hardcover version of 'Mosaics - West 8' published by Birkhauser. An alternative cover that the previous edition I've seen previously, but a bargain at 25 bucks brand new for the hardcover version and oh, so worth it - with a lot of imagery I had yet to see. More to come on this one - and I think... it's no longer available at cheap pricing.


:: image via Riba Books

Alternatively, the editor of A/D Michael Spens also authored a book I imagined was going to be great and was for the most part a disappointment aside from the wonderful cover shot of Angela Danadjieva's West Point Treatment Plant in Seattle, a project I'm definitely itching to experience. I will admit to not actually reading a word of the text, but coffee table sized books are hard to bring to bed comfortably. Either way, I was expecting some fantastic imagery in 'Modern Landscape' (Phaidon Press, 2003). Reading 'Site/Non-Site' has motivated me to at least crack this open again and give the text a chance...

:: image via Amazon