Europeans are well informed about open space design and garden art on their own continent thanks to a large number of media. But what are landscape architects in Korea, Africa or South America up to? Authors Markus Sebastian Braun and Chris van Uffelen researched this very topic for their ‘Atlas of World Landscape Architecture’. They compiled around 320 projects from all five continents and added excellent illustrations of plans and images as well as brief English texts. The result is a book of 512 pages in A4 oversize format, hardcover including slipcase, all together a weighty four kilos. The volume is colour coded into three world regions: Europe/Africa yellow, Asia/Australia green, the Americas violet, and each region listed in alphabetical order according to names of countries.
Public open spaces dominate with some ‘political’ projects such as the memorial for the victims of 11 September in New York and the landscape around the European Championships stadium in Donetsk, Ukraine, which now lies inside a war zone. As one would expect, the book also features the Olympic Park in London, Berlin’s Gleisdreieck and the Gardens by the Bay in Singapore. Most of the examples are from the USA, Australia and Canada contribute many impressive art projects, and the exotic planting concepts in Central and South America are striking. While landscape architecture has become more global in the 21st century, designs tend to have become more uniform, whereas plants, after all the core of the profession, continue to create worldwide diversity. The authors have selected projects that ‘create ecologically and socially intact habitats for people’.
The compendium is a survey of the current, a reference book and a source of inspiration. Its size and weight make it a little ‘awkward’ and the index (countries, projects) limits search options. Notwithstanding this, the book is already a classic that belongs in every landscape office.
Markus Sebastian Braun, Chris van Uffelen
Atlas of World Landscape Architecture
512 pages, English, 2000 pictures
hardcover in box, 24 x 33 cm
BRAUN Publishing AG, Salenstein (CH)
ISBN 978-3-03768-166-4
€ 78,00 | CHF 95,00
website: www.braun-publishing.ch
[ttt-gallery-image]
The residential highrise Bosco Verticale in Milan, Italy, has won the International Highrise Award (IHP) 2014 for the world’s most innovative highrise. Choosing for the Bosco Verticale designed by Boeri Studio, the IHP 2014 awarded a project that blazes the trail for greened highrises and can be considered a prototype for the cities of tomorrow. The project was featured in Topos 83 on “Plants and Design”.
[tttgallery template=”content-slider”]
This year’s winner convinced the jury at several levels: The two greened residential highrises are based on simple rectangular footprints and differ in height, the one being 19, the other 27 stories high (80 and 112 meters respectively). Each of the 113 apartments in total is equipped with at least one balcony, which resembles a small garden or a small forest: several hundred trees, along with bushes and shrubs cover the facade. The plants ensure a natural climate in the apartments and provide outstanding residential conditions. The pioneering work necessary to green a highrise façade in Europe was undertaken by Boeri Studio along with agronomist landscape consultants Laura Gatti and Emanuela Borio.
“Bosco Verticale is a marvelous project! It’s an expression of the extensive human need for green. The “wooded highrises” are a striking example of a symbiosis of architecture and nature,” pronounced the jury of experts chaired by last IHP prize winner Christoph Ingenhoven. The project represents, they continued, definitely a role model for construction in densely populated zones in other European cities.
From over 800 highrises that were commissioned worldwide over the last two years, Deutsches Architekturmuseum (DAM) nominated 26 outstanding buildings from 17 different countries. An international jury of experts consisting of architects, structural engineers and real estate specialists selected the final five for the short-list. The prize is worth worth EUR 50,000,.
The four other sort-listed projects are:
“De Rotterdam” in Rotterdam, Netherlands (151.3 meters) by Office for Metropolitan Architecture (OMA) in Rotterdam
“One Central Park” in Sydney, Australia (64.5 and 116 meters) by Ateliers Jean Nouvel, Paris
“Renaissance Barcelona Fira Hotel” in Barcelona, Spain (105 meters) by Ateliers Jean Nouvel, Paris
Sliced Porosity Block in Chengdu, China (123 meters) by Steven Holl Architects, New York
The 26 nominated projects are presented in the exhibition on “Best Highrises 2014-5 – International Highrise Award 2014” at Deutsches Architekturmuseum (DAM ) in Frankfurt until February 1, 2015
NORD Architects and Grontmij Malmö were recently named winners of the invited competition to design a new Marine Educational Centre in Malmö – a facility that strives to provide users with a deeper understanding of marine life. The team won the competition with a proposal that combines architecture and landscape, creating an engaging learning landscape. The indoor and outdoor spaces merge together under a large roof, encouraging visitors to dive into a multitude of educational activities with a principle focus on marine life.
[tttgallery template=”content-slider”]
In the learning landscape, users will find floating laboratories on small removable pontoons, teaching signs on the seabed and underwater sea binoculars to name a few. Inside the centre, guests are able to study the buildings technical installations and the role that the architecture plays as part of the area’s resource cycle. Water handling, energy consumption and ventilation are all on display and work as a key part of the learning experience. The centre is designed to be highly flexible, allowing the built organisation and allocated functions to adapt over time with the emergence of new technologies and changing needs.
“With the changing climate, rising oceans and increased severity of cloudbursts, there is a need more than ever to understand the profound influence that marine life and the oceans have on our lives”, says Johannes Molander Pedersen, partner at NORD Architects. “We have developed a learning landscape where education is everywhere. It is in the landscape, in the building and in the transition between nature and culture. The centre is open for everyone who is interested in the role we as humans play in nature’s life cycle. It allows a hands on learning experience that invites users to explore using their senses in the field, and thereafter analyse and understand their observations of the marine life”.
Facts about the project:
Client: Malmö City
Primary Advisor: NORD Architects
Secondary Advisor: Grontmij Malmö
External consultant: The Øresund Environment School, City of Copenhagen
Construction cost: 22 million SEK
Surface area: 700 square metres building area / 3,000 square metres landscape
