Big + Cool: Balmori's Mammoth Endeavor

A recent bit of information from the NY AIA awards, announcing one of the winning entries for 2008. The 'World Mammoth and Permafrost Museum' in Yakutsk, Siberia, which was a first-prize winner in a 2007 competition, is a project that definitely posed some challenges in site and program. The result ended up with an interesting folded form and strikingly subtle landscape. It is really compelling in site design for melding into one of the most delicate microclimates on earth. Add while I do love a good architectural award - the landscape and building interaction on this project is pretty amazing in this example.


:: image via Balmori Associates

Designed by Balmori Associates (and L+U favorite), with Leeser Architecture, and a team including Arup, Atelier 10, RWDI, and Tillett Lighting Design - the project was awarded a AIA New York Chapter Design Award Project Honor in 2008. From Balmori's press release: "We developed a permafrost landscape to respond to its context. This integration of nature and structure provided the twist that ultimately helped to tell one story by landscape and building."


:: Site Context - image via Balmori Associates


:: Site Plan - image via Balmori Associates

I love the graphics on the existing site and site plan - which are appropriate and evocative of the steppe landscape... abstracting but capturing perfectly the nuance of the terrain. This cellular form continues in Leeser's building and seems to fit as well, but it's difficult to see exactly the specific material in these renderings, which are definitely site-centric.


:: image via Balmori Associates

Some additional info on the project, via Core.form-ULA: "The Museum, its Scientific Research Center and Laboratory were established to study not only Siberian mammoths, but also Yakutsk’s Permafrost layer: a condition that makes the ground surface prone frost heave. With each freezing and thawing cycle, soil and stones shift into self organizing patterns and creates a unique condition known only to that region. Balmori Associates developed the plan of making a permafrost landscape, and letting this respond and be derived from its context. This integration of interface between structure and nature, the trademark of Balmori Associates, provided the twist that ultimately helped the project to win."


:: - image via Balmori Associates

The interior and exterior views frame and complement the semi-barren Siberia landscape and require subtle interventions, and can be strongly accentuated with the lightest touch. The image above shows some simple paving with minimal articulation from multi-trunked aspens and a waving ground plane of grasses and simple wildflowers. Similar to a tallgrass prairie, there is simplicity in overall form, with broad brushstrokes of color, but when viewed up close, opens up with subtle and vibrant colors and textures. To capture this is hard. To design with this is near impossible.


:: Interior Landscape View - image via Balmori Associates

There is some more space in the interiors for a bit of stylistic flourish (who says science can't be beautiful?) Again, via Core.form-ULA: "The interior of the museum is covered with gardens that cascade down a sloped surface and help to create an healthy indoor climate. Lush mats of moss and lichen, the natural insulators of permafrost ground grow between latticework of pathways. Each moss and lichen requires different growing substrates (stone, wood, gravel, etc.) which present an opportunity for sculptural design. Based on patterned ground formations that occur above permafrost, the landscape design is both aesthetically and ecologically reminiscent of the local natural patterns.. All plants chosen are native to Eastern Siberia and are showcased as well in the extensive outdoor gardens."




:: Typologies and Plant Materials - images via Balmori Associates

A bit of digging found some more architectural shots from building interiors, which frankly seem a bit clinical (oh, it's the non-fun part of science, right?). The subtlety of the landscape may seem more vibrant when interiors are spare and devoid of color - as the outdoors are glimpsed through corridors at a distance. Perhaps the beauty of contrast.

:: image via Dezeen

All in all a great project and some fine site/building integration. Too bad the mammoths aren't around to enjoy this place that has been created for them, although there is, according to Dezeen: "The centre will contain an intact mammoth discovered nearby and provide access to underground galleries from which the permafrost can be viewed."

I've been a fan of Balmori Associates since my first glimpse of the green roofs in Long Island (recently included in a review of Site/Non-site) and the appreciation of their work in the urban landscape. This project reinforces this idea, with a delicate site design that is as appropriate to a difficult and amazing context. A short bio, gives some more info as to why they fit the idea of Landscape+Urbanism - perhaps a future profile in Veg.itect series is imminent.

Via Core.form-ULA: "Balmori Associates, founded in 1990, is a design firm recognized for its work in integrating architecture, urban planning and landscape architecture into complex urban projects. The firm seeks to incorporate innovative sustainable systems and patterns of use within an overarching sense of place. Balmori Associates combines a high level of artistic design with a deep understanding of ecological principles."

Thanks to Monica and Christina from Balmori for the tip and photos!

Bat-Yam = Landscape Urbanism

A recent reference reminded me to post something about the Bat-Yam International Biennale of Landscape Urbanism, beginning April 13th, 2008. A summary via Archinect: "This international event will present 30 outdoor rooms in the public domain. All sites will be open to the public and introduce innovative ways for using urban open spaces, integrating community projects and students proposals together with designs by artists, architects and landscape architects."


:: Historic Bat-Yam - image via Bat-Yam Biennale

Further explanation from the Bat-Yam website: "The biennale will focus on aspects of hospitality in daily life that generally take place in the privacy of the home. As part of the exhibition "Hosting - 2008", the public space will replace the domestic living room. A series of “Outdoor Rooms” located in open sites around the city will act as points of contact and creativity for hosts and guests. Top-level international and local artists as well as architects and landscape architects have been invited to design each outdoor room as an extension of the home. Architecture and design schools will be integrated into the urban activities. Input will also come from local residents’ organizations and community centers. Planning will be based on ecological thinking, on mixing the natural with the synthetic, and on the use of indigenous vegetation and recycled materials."

A mix of Israeli & International Designers are working on the outdoor rooms. A few notable ideas with some imagery from Israeli designers are found here:

A Piece of Paradise - Zvi & Kerem Halbrecht
"A Piece of Paradise presents a model for ecological home-farming in an urban setting. We have constructed a neighborhood agricultural facility, with areas allocated for growing seedlings, for training and gathering, and for garden-beds for edible plants in a communal garden, adjacent to several Bat-Yam apartment buildings. Our objective is to enable the local community to grow a substantial part of the food it consumes, by employing its under-utilized resources, namely available land and recyclable greywater. The project proposes expanding the apartment building into a partially self-sufficient system."




:: images via Bat-Yam Biennale

City Mix - Irbool Group
"The “City Mix” offers an opportunity for participants to try their hand at creating a “place in the city”: project “residents” are invited to build life size buildings using construction blocks, with virtually no limitations or guiding instructions. While filling the lot with “private” buildings, project “residents” must also acquaint themselves with the concept of shared public space."


:: image via Bat-Yam Biennale

And the International Designers offer some interesting ideas - as well as some of the LU rock stars, including Chris Reed from Stoss.

Mediterranean Improv - Chris Reed, Stoss Landscape Urbanism

"A reconfigurable dune-garden for an improvised beach-life. ...We start with native dune-scapes, most of which have been erased from the region. We excavate and dump big piles of sand to form a field of constructed dunes, behind two remnant dunes on the beachfront, at a scale and height that will resonate in this city-scape of high-rises. The dune-field creates two openings, two rooms that invite occupation and use. The northern void, at the edge of the city, is entirely sand but otherwise empty—a provocative contrast to the bustling street. It is a place to lie on your back, nestled into the sand, and to watch the passing clouds, the stars, and to dream. ...wild dune ecologies + deployable mat / fence systems + trained vegetal surfaces + explicit infrastructure = Mediterranean Improv."






:: images via Bat-Yam Biennale

GREEN ISLAND Art/Nature/Society - aMAZElac Milano
"'Garden' is a word, a work, a value, a process, something in between. GREEN ISLAND stimulates citizens to “act as a gardener – to be part of a process”. They are working on redefining and improving public spaces in an urban environment, trying to develop even minimal interventions for the creation of gardens, hortus, green oasis, places of communication and interaction."

:: images via Bat-Yam Biennale

There is also a forum for Young Designers to show of their LU chops. The following project is one example found in this category on the site.

Boulevard Locales - Asafsuf
"Public places generate community ties through the opportunities they offer for social interaction. It is this benefit we wish to reinforce and increase by intervening at several locations along an existing boulevard and offering the public a choice of activities. The idea is not to create new places, but to offer interpretations of existing ones, with a focus on the sites characteristics and qualities.. Emphasis will be placed on social and community relationships, taking into account underlying cultural layers of the public realm."




:: images via Bat-Yam Biennale

There is much more on the site - so if you can't hop on a plane - at least visit it virtually for some thought-provoking ideas and interesting graphics.

ADDED: 04.08.08

Thanks to Yael Caron for the info on this event as well... today he sent me a flyer and an update for the opening as well... "On sunday we had the pleasure of Charles Waldheim speaking on the subject of Landscape Urbanism to a mixed audience (academics, city hall people and other locals) - he gave a very comprehensive and encouraging lecture. ...We're getting geared up for it next week - can't believe it's actually time...!" Good luck!

Take a Seat

Continuing a more focused look at some landscape elements - there were a bunch of interesting seating concepts that have emerged lately - from the grand, to the contextual, to the bovine. Similar to the discussions regarding texture and materiality, furnishings are something we tend to have a hard time evolving as a stylistic component. Part of this has to do with budgets that warrant off-the-shelf solutions. Part of it has to do with our lack of creativity in pushing design to include not just spaces but the items that augment and define these spaces.

Below is an example from San Francisco of Mint Plaza by CMG Landscape Architects of a pretty typical urban furnishing palette for an urban open space that offers a combination of fixed seating with wood caps and movable, brightly colored, durable chairs for adaptability. I'm not criticizing here, as I like the space and use of furnishings - but just using this as a good illustration of the typical treatment, well done. (There's plenty of examples of the same done very, very poorly). Read a full overview of this project on Brand Avenue.




:: images via Brand Avenue

A couple of recent projects envisioned some pretty inventive ways of providing new models of seating for parks, as well a providing organic natural forms. The first, via gardenhistorygirl, is an entry for a contest which "aims at encouraging designers to imagine and create innovative urban furniture to be placed in the Jardins du Fleuriste park in Brussels..." The following is one of the winners by "...Anika Perez and Brice Genre, this winning entry is designed to look like the shadows cast by the canopy of a tree."




:: images via gardenhistorygirl

Be sure to check out the rest of the competition entries here as there are a number of great ideas. Another recent example of nature informing the shape and style of furnishings. Klein Dytham architecture uses cherry blossoms as the concept for outdoor party furniture Tokyo. From Dezeen: "Large cherry blossom benches float down on to the lawn. Simply sculpted from blocks of polystyrene the seats and tables are coated with a urethane surface which spreads the pressure and stops people in kimonos from puncturing the polystyrene with their chop sticks!"




:: images via Dezeen

This level of integration and customization can lead to significant forms, either derivative or formalistic, not only for the seating itself but to tie a design together. A well-publicized award-winning example of this is the Red Ribbon project, found in the Tanghe River Park, Qinhuangdao City in China (via Coolboom). The overall form of this contrasting form literally knits it's way through the fabric of the site.


:: images via Coolboom

On a more specific scale the ribbons are used for lounging, and have some variation due to planting pockets in the top surface, as well as integrated lighting that provides a mood and illumination during the evenings.




:: images via Coolboom

An example of some integrated customization, via BDonline, is found in a new design for Nottingham's Castle College, marrying wood + gabions in a pretty interesting wall/bench combinations. Although I have to speculate if the gabions would be comfy seating as well - but if the point is to keep people off - it's pretty skateboard proof and nobody likes a jagged hook of steel poking them, well...


:: image via BDonline

Finally, for ultimate customization, perhaps you're doing a project in a faux Western streetscape, or want something ironically evocative of a gritty urban areas meat-packing district roots. My guess is LandscapeForms just isn't going to cut it - and you may need something custom. And by custom, I mean headless cow benches by Julia Lohmann (via Atelier A+D). Classic. Take a seat - see if you can hold on.




:: images via Atelier A+D

And if these custom jobs don't strike your needs, head over to MyUGDG for a comprehensive list of primo outdoor landscape furnishings from a range of designers. Either way, take a seat, and see if you can get it by the contractor...