Ross Barney Architects present their completed park project in Rogers, Arkansas: the Railyard Park. The architects have worked with the City of Rogers and the Walton Family Foundation (WalMart) over the past several years to reimagine and redesign the historic downtown area. Through the use of community engagement, the architects have involved community members in the design process through both physical and digital methods.

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With a grant from the Walton Family Foundation, the City of Rogers, Arkansas has embarked on a project to design a new downtown park that will enhance economic development, spur placemaking, and improve connectivity. Situated on the east boundary of Rogers’ historic downtown district, the new park has the potential to capitalize on recent public space investments and help to make downtown Rogers a regional destination.

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Community engagement

The project utilized a robust community outreach effort, which has helped build a sense of ownership and pride from city staff and the residents. Through a digital survey that collected over 1,000 responses and inperson charrettes the design team has helped define the park’s desired outcomes and objectives through the words of the community. This shared vision has resulted in five emerging priorities: Inviting, Memorable, Challenging, Beautiful, and Authentic.

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Railyard Park along the railroad

Rogers, as a city, has been defined both economically and physically by the railroad. The first plat of survey, completed in 1881, uses the rail to create a strong dividing line. The park’s design ignores the rail as a barrier and stitches the east and west together. The result is a series of plazas that can transform throughout the day, week, month, and year. These versatile and flexible spaces create a new and distinct rhythm that extends beyond the park into adjacent streets.

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Between the ribbons, which are formed by the adjacent city context, a “room” is created. These densely vegetated and programmed spaces help create unique experiences throughout the park and further frame this piece of downtown as the new center instead of the edge.

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Project Team:
Ross Barney Architects, Chicago, IL – Architecture and Landscape Architecture
CEI Engineering Associates, Bentonville, AR – Civil Engineering and Land Surveying
Goodfriend Magruder Structure, Chicago, IL – Structural Engineering
HP Engineering, Rogers, AR – MEP Engineering
Schuler Shook, Chicago, IL – Lighting Design
SPAN (formerly Thirst) Chicago, IL – Branding and Environmental Graphics
AFJH Architects, Fayetteville, AR – Associate Architect
Crowne Group, Fayetteville, AR – AV Consultant
Nabholz Construction, Rogers, AR -Contractor/Construction Manager

All pictures and text © by City of Rogers Department of Community Development

The Landscape Architecture Studio of NBRSARCHITECTURE has been awarded a 2020 AILA NSW Landscape Architecture award for the design of Cairnsfoot Special Needs School. The annual awards program acknowledges the role that landscape architecture plays in the health and wellbeing of the community.

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The vision for the project was to create an environment that both shelters and challenges students. Shelter being at the heart of human need for safety and challenge being key to a child’s development. By integrating these ideas into play, over time students develop the confidence and skills to reach their full potential.

Creating environments with a human focus is core value of the NBRSteam. The idea of shelter in a physical sense provides protection through the built form, which gently shapes outdoor courtyard spaces. Learning spaces create a sense of reassurance, allowing for ‘escape spaces’, where children who feel overwhelmed can find a sensory haven, yet always maintaining sight lines for teachers. Students are challenged by equipment and features such as water play, climbing hills, achievable balance beams, a bike track, ball court, in ground trampoline and climbing frames.

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The most popular space in the school is a simply designed grassy hill, which students can sit atop and observe their environment with unimpeded 360-degree views. The steeply sloped embankments of this artificially turfed hill offer challenge in ascent and descent, encouraging play. A crawl tunnel through the hill also offers shelter.

Herb and vegetable gardens allow students to be involved in horticulture and the process of growing fruit and vegetables. Students can learn the concept of paddock to plate, where they can plant, cultivate, harvest and then prepare food for their consumption.

A range of finishes and textures such as steppingstones, timber balancing logs and textured concrete with stone inlays appeal to students’ senses. The inclusion of pedestrian crossings and signage creates a strong connection to the real world.
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Image credit: Alexander Mayes Photography
Text Credit: NBRSArchitecture

How to create a cultural centre for an urban neighbourhood on a site with limited available space and subject to environmental pollution? The landscape architecture firm VSLA and its head Varna Shashidhar designed the outdoor spaces of the Bangalore International Centre in order to address these challenges to sustainable urban development in India’s third most populous city.

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Since its opening in 2019 the Bangalore International Centre (BIC) has become a vibrant public institution for sharing and discussing ideas across cultures, regions, societies and economies in Bengaluru. The city is a centre of India’s IT industry and resulting migration to the city reflects the nation’s diverse cultural heritage. The BIC is situated on a longitudinal site spanning 1 acre in a dense urban setting that is surrounded by neighbourhoods and bordered by an existing park and the Nala, the city’s stormwater channel. The community space includes indoor facilities including a 185 seat auditorium, seminar rooms, gallery, café and related spaces. The remaining open space was, therefore, limited and also affected by environmental pollution. How did the designers respond to this challenge?

Mitigating environmental pollution

The existing site left only a limited amount of open space for a community park to complement the BIC. In addition, due to its setting in a dense residential neighbourhood with some of the highest noise levels in the city, the park was situated between the community building and the stormwater drain. However, this choice also required dealing with a completely different challenge. The soil on this part of the site comprised a high degree of pollution and degradation. The constant seepage from the Nala exacerbated this situation, since the stormwater channel comprises water that is highly polluted by raw sewage and waste. During the summer months, the waste stagnates – not pretty to look at, exuding foul odours and attracting mosquitoes. The design aim was clear: to ameliorate the existing and mitigate any future environmental pollution by creating an ecological corridor that could serve as an amenity for both residents of the surrounding neighbourhood and visitors to the centre.

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Performative community landscape

VSLA created a performative landscape that contributes to and strengthens the urban ecosystem and is attractive to human and non-human occupants. Among the latter are various species of mammals and birds that are extant in the urban setting. An ulterior goal was to connect this community garden with the many other parks and open spaces in the vicinity, thus creating a riparian buffer along the Nala. The creation of this landscape therefore went beyond site constraints and design aesthetics in order to establish its function as a public amenity that enables environmental remediation. For one, visitors are encouraged to actively engage with the outdoors of the community centre. For this purpose, the centre’s open spaces were structured into a linear public garden along one side of the centre and a permeable linear greenway facing the Nala along the centre’s eastern perimeter. Both are complemented by a surrounding buffer landscape.

Ecological corridor

The linear garden begins in the front of the community centre and utilizes the limited open space available for this purpose. It comprises 1.5 metres wide linear bands of greenery that offer a whimsical landscape experience. Occupants inside the building can enjoy its view while those in the outdoors can relax here. The linear garden features longitudinal monolithic stone benches and colourful outdoor furniture for seating and waiting. The paving of this area is comprised of local granite cobblestones with subtle variations in terms of texture and colour. It is accessible to disabled and senior visitors. The buffer landscape includes a pond that provides a cooling effect, carried by breezes into the centre’s lobby, facing the pond. The planting of the buffer and pond area was designed to allow visitors in the lobby to feel its presence while shielding off the traffic from the nearby street.

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Escape within the city

The linear greenway following the Nala includes a rain garden that is intended to function as an urban ecosystem. The formerly environmentally polluted and degraded site now attracts a variety of mammal and bird species that share the urban setting with its human residents. The linear greenway also offers an escape from the urbanised environment surrounding the centre in the heart of this bustling Indian metropolis. The open space features a meandering walkway consisting of local, dry laid chappadi stones (a form of gneiss) alternating with crushed gravel paving. Visitors can take a break here from community centre activities, conferences and performances. The linear greenway is a performative landscape, a rain garden that enables biological filtration which improves stormwater quality through the exposure to dense vegetation, gravel and soil. Water is filtered through these layers and enters a perforated sub-drain, thereby reducing the degree of pollution of the Nala.

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Plants for natural filtration

The linear greenway features a selection of plants that serve to support its filtration functions and remove pollutants from stormwater, such as Cymbopogon (commonly known as West Indian lemon grass), Nerium oleander and Cyperus alternifolius (umbrella palm). The planting density and diversity further enhance filtration functions. The selected species are capable of withstanding the stress produced by the urban surroundings and require minimal maintenance. The aesthetic outcome of the design is a variety of textures and fragrances in relation to seasonal colours. Native and adapted species were used exclusively, exotic planting was omitted. The landscape design also adds a whimsical experience to the pristine architectural expression of the community centre building. Overall, the landscape architecture of the BIC offers a rich garden experience on a small site while providing environmental remediation and stormwater management, reducing urban heat island effects, buffering noise pollution and supporting biodiversity. Based on these characteristics the project was submitted for a GRIHA 5 star rating, the Green Rating for Integrated Habitat Assessment.

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Project details: Bangalore International Centre, India
Typology: Public Project
Landscape architects: VSLA
Photo Credits: Vivek M
Architects: Hundred Hands
Address: 7, 4th Main Road, Domlur II Stage, Bengaluru 560 071, India
Design and construction: 2017-2019
Completion: 2019

East Dike is located in Dapeng, a mountainous peninsula in the direct proximity of Hongkong and Shenzhen. In 2018, the typhoon Mangkhut damaged the coastline to various degrees. In 2019, KCAP+FELIXX has been selected to develop the plans, restore the coastline and raise protection standards.

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With the ‘Triple Dike strategy’, the team developed an integrated approach towards the climate adaptive reorganization of the 130 kilometer long shore. In the concept, water safety strategies are connected to eco-development and nature restoration and merged with social and economic growth. On a 500m long strip in Yangmeikeng, the performance of the proposed nature-based strategies for the sea wall are tested and materialization principles are explored and refined. The realization of this demonstration zone is the first milestone in the construction of 18 kilometers of embankment to be completed by 2021.

Strategic design projects for 6 villages

For 6 villages along the shore, all originating from fishers’ communities, the strategy is turned into strategic design projects, creating unique and site-specific realms. The ‘Triple Dike’ is composed of three development zones, carefully embedded in the local conditions and responding to the specific future needs of every village. The small-scale identity will be protected and their different characteristics reinforced.

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Village Dongshan is situated in a quiet bay, allowing the embankment to be designed as a green park, merging the mountains and the sea. Guanhu is a creative and cultural district. The dike performs as a vivid green beach boulevard, a backbone that unites existing functions with new recreational facilities. Moonbay is built on a mountainside, overlooking the sea. The embankment acts as a balcony, overlooking the bay, connecting the village to the floating fishing restaurants. Shayuyong is a gateway port, designed as a robust and rocky embankment park. For Pengcheng with its beautiful beaches and as important touristic attraction, the reinforcement of the coast is turned into an attractive beachpark. Yangmeikeng is an exposed village along the coast, within an ecological and marine protection zone.

Demonstration zone, Yangmeikeng

The three protective zones of the ‘Triple Dike’ in Yangmeikeng strengthen its exposed character, turning the village into a contemporary fortress. The design evades the introduction of a grant metropolitan scale and supports the organic village life. A rich collection of places boosts the further growth of the local culture.

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The first zone is formed by a collection of ‘rain-gardens’, as part of the communal space. The lush vegetation of trees and shrubs blends with the adjacent mountains and offers covered and shaded places. The gardens collect and infiltrate rainwater and wave overflow. The middle zone is composed of a sequence of shifting walls, with different heigths. They create a plazas and sheltered terraces on different levels, connected by a scenic walk. The third protective zone consists of ‘wave-gardens’, mitigating the impact of the flow during storms. They are planted with robust beach vegetation and rocks and offer places for picnicking and to enjoy the view on the beach. Walls and pavement blend in with the sandcolor of the beach. The materialization illustrates the characteristics of the three dike zones: more delicate materials are used for sheltered places, robust and solid elements are used for the exposed zones.

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Project Credits
Design team: KCAP + FELIXX
Location: Shenzhen, China
Client: Water Bureau of the Municipality of Shenzhen
Year: 2019 – ongoing
Area: 1.2 ha
Status: tender won, preliminary and detailed design for 6 villages in progress
Participating parties: China Resource Group (design and construction management), Hope Landscape & Architecture (landscape and construction design), China water transport planning & design institute (engineering), Deltares

Hiding in plain sight, the words that developers use to describe their projects reveal an awful lot about the kind of city they’re trying to create.

It’s a sad fact that the vast majority of contemporary architecture writing is produced by property developers. What is somewhat less sad is the reality that much of this cringeworthy drivel goes largely unnoticed by the public, even as they walk past it every day. But as it hides in plain sight, covering the hoardings that surround construction sites, this development-speak is normalising a warped representation of urban life which obscures developers’ tendency to appropriate a neighbourhood’s cultural value for the purpose of profit.

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To give an introductory example of this development-speak, there’s few better sources than Crystal Bennes’ brilliant blog Development Aesthetics. In one of her most recent posts she identifies a hoarding surrounding Fish Island Village, a development by Peabody in Hackney Wick, London, on which is written three words which are ubiquitous in development: “Authentic, Vibrant, Eclectic”. These three words each deserve unpacking.

Authenticity takes time

Authentic comes originally from the Greek word authentikos meaning “original” which is itself connected to the word authentes meaning “acting on one’s own authority” (combining autos “self” hentes “doer” i.e. “self-doer”). Used these days to describe something which is genuine, rather than fake, authenticity is a highly valuable commodity in contemporary society, because it takes a lot of work to produce something truly authentic and this authenticity is hard to replicate quickly. What’s more, possessing authenticity (or authentic things) is a useful way of displaying one’s cultural capital, which has become an increasingly important measure of a person’s worth in post-materialist society (i.e. one in which people have largely transcended basic material concerns like getting enough food to eat). Creating a place that is authentic takes time, but by repeating the word so often in reference to a place you can buy, Peabody is advancing the idea that an authentic place is not something you necessarily need to spend time developing. Instead you can buy it (interestingly, this takes the word quite some distance from its “self-doing” origins).

Vibrant, meanwhile, comes from the Latin vibrantem meaning “to sway”. However, in its modern incarnation, which developed in the 19th century, vibrant suggests colour and vigour as well as motion. This expanded meaning makes “vibrant” a particularly useful word for the developer because value, in the capitalist system, is intrinsically linked to movement and vitality. As Marx explains in Capital, the capitalist system only works in motion, when exchange values stop circulating, value disappears and the system collapses. Put in the context of the present discussion, the value of property disappears in a place which is the opposite of vibrant – bland, colourless, dead. Which is to say that developers spend such a lot of time talking up a place as vibrant, up-and-coming and happening, not because they especially appreciate these qualities, but because they connote value in motion.

Poaching Value

Finally, eclectic suggests something which draws on many sources. It comes from Greek eklektos meaning “selective”. As used by Peabody, the word is supposed to suggest that there’s a lot of variety in Fish Island Village. This, too, is valuable to the developer. The problem is that a new development can’t really be eclectic. As with authenticity, it takes time to absorb influences from many sources. Neither a newcomer nor a new development will have had the time to absorb eclectic influences on their own. Assuming Peabody are not simply making an erroneous claim, any eclecticism (or vibrancy, or authenticity) they are referring to would have had to have been poached from the surrounding neighbourhood and its residents.

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There’s much more to discuss on this topic, but for now, let’s recap the two main observations that emerge from this short analysis: firstly, the reality of Fish Island Village cannot live up to the ideas contained within the words Peabody are using to describe it; and secondly, Peabody are not prepared to acknowledge the source of the values they claim for the development (i.e. the values of authenticity, vibrancy and eclecticism), or the work that has gone into producing these values, or the people who do that work. Instead, they prefer either to claim that these values exist simply by saying they exist, or to appropriate these values from the people who already live in the neighbourhood.

Even though Russians often call Moscow the “Third Rome,” the city’s first agora appeared only in autumn 2017. Khokhlovka Square, formerly just another abandoned construction site common in Moscow and other Russian cities in the mid-1990s, was transformed into an amphitheater – the first architectural object of its kind in Moscow.

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The public space has become an all-weather space and groundbreaking open-air museum, combining contemporary design with an archeological segment of a 16th-century fortification wall. Today it is a must-see destination in the Russian capital: within a year, the number of user-submitted photographs featuring it on social media grew 15 times.

Abandoned for nearly a decade

Located on a busy part of Moscow’s historic Boulevard Ring at the intersection with Pokrovka Street, Khokhlovka Square was slated to become an underground parking lot, but work was halted in 2007 after a surprising archeological find: a segment of the 16th-century White Town fortification wall, marking the border of medieval Moscow. The site was abandoned for nearly a decade. It was also a major obstacle for pedestrians walking along the Boulevard Ring.

The space got a new lease on life when Strelka KB, Russia’s largest urban consultancy, proposed turning the site into a public space to the Moscow City Government, with an amphitheater that would showcase the White Town wall section. The project was organized as part of the Moscow Street program, a large scale initiative to create a safer, more livable Moscow through revamping streets and public spaces. The square was developed by Strelka KB in collaboration with the landscape architecture studio Djao-Rakitine and in 2018 was recognized with the Moscow Urban Forum Community Award in the Urban Design category.

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A sense of privacy and intimacy

From an architectural perspective, Khokhlovka Square descends several meters below street level to the fragment of the White Town wall. Behind the 16th-century fortification is an architectural concrete wall covered by Virginia creeper vines, serving both as a protective structural element and a contrasting background for the light stone monument. The eco-friendly water-permeable paving system used at the base of the amphitheater helps absorb rainwater, along with a system of collection grates that redirect rainwater away from the surface and strengthen the amphitheater’s foundation. Meanwhile, the base of the amphitheater offers a flexible open space, and the steps leading to it feature wood planking, allowing them to be used as seats in any weather. The steps leading down to it create an accessible approach, with a ramp suitable for users of varying levels of mobility, and together with several large trees planted around the perimeter, they give a sense of privacy and intimacy, offering shade and shelter from sun, wind, and passing cars.

Round-the-clock point of attraction

The site’s popularity after reconstruction was measured by Strelka KB’s Center for Urban Anthropology. Whereas street activity was minimal due to the abandoned construction site, in the twelve months following reconstruction the percentage of photos taken on the street increased from 28% to 45%, and data shows a wide variety of activities in the amphitheater itself, from picnics to outdoor sports. Most importantly, the area became a round-the-clock point of attraction: whereas the Pokrovka Street area was once best known for its nightlife, it is now a daytime destination as well, with the percentage of photos taken during the daylight hours nearly doubling. The increased foot traffic fostered the opening of trendy new spots, including one of the most popular pizzerias in the city.

Thoughtful preservation

Almost three years ago the German landscape architecture office “Planergruppe Oberhausen” in cooperation with B.A.S. Kopperschmidt & Moczalla realized the innovative open space project “Landscape Therapeutic Park” in the forests of the German city of Brilon. The project includes a spa park, a forest park and a therapeutic walking loop spanning an area of 4.5 hectares. We spoke with the responsible landscape architect Ute Aufmkolk (Planergruppe Oberhausen) about the importance and potential of open spaces such as these.

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Let us begin with a brief overview of the project: It is surrounded by an open, gentle meadow valley and wooded, steep forest slopes in a characteristic way. The aim of the design is to highlight precisely this contrast. The spa park (“Kurpark”) is centrally located and includes direct access to a lake. It is surrounded by flat, blooming meadowlands featuring a barefoot trail and a beekeeper’s hive. In contrast to the wide meadows, the forest park (“Waldpark”) functions as its “introvert counterpoint”.
The highlight of the forest park is the „therapeutic walking loop“. Thirteen stations are associated with human moods such as clarity, overview, openness, harmony, confusion, attentiveness, contemplation, transparency and sublimity. A landscape window (“Landschaftsfenster”) serves as a prelude to the loop. A wooden grotto bridge (“Grottensteg”) leads visitors past mystical caves and rock formations. Accompanied by the “fairy sounds” of an audio installation (“Feenklang”), the loop leads to five stances featuring a signature red paint finish. The view becomes even more impressive: the landscape architects transformed a former ski jump into a spectacular viewpoint including a swing. Passing a vitalizing re-naturalized spring, visitors reach the path-spider (“Wegespinne”). This is a place for resting or contemplating the loop’s many twists and turns. The loop continues through a dense forest, past a red shimmering fairy wreath (“Feenkranz”) and a poet’s clearing (“Dichterlichtung”), perfect for deep thought and reflection. Comfortable hammocks invite visitors to rest their tired legs at the end of an inspiring hike.

In your previous work you dedicate yourselves to different ways of making open space useable. What does open space mean to you, and how does this influence your planning and design practice?
For the Brilon project, open space certainly means something different than in the high density built environment of a city. In a city, open space means everything that isn’t covered by a building. In the case of the “Landscape Therapeutic Park” we rather have a form of landscape reaching into the city. For Brilon, landscape means the forest, the steep hills densely covered by spruce trees. For the project, the transition from the open space in the valley and the spa park with its garden-like design to the dark, shadowy forest is important. Emphasizing that contrast is central to this particular project. This matches our understanding of all our projects: to identify the parameters of each individual place that define its form and function.

What potential, what opportunity for development does the project offer?
When the project began, Brilon suffered from the impact of Cyclone Kyrill, which caused significant damages to the forests in the Sauerland region in 2007. There were numerous “memorials” consisting of felled tree trunks, upturned rootstocks and so forth, reminiscent of the cyclone’s impact. We tried to leave the destructive impact behind us and instead, revive the poetic quality of the forest. The design comprises a sensitive response to its immediate surrounding.

Which existing elements fascinated you in particular while working on this project, and how were they integrated into the design?
There was a deserted ski jump in the forest. It had already ceased operations in the 1970s. However, the forest aisle, the jump-off platform, and the referee’s building were still visible. We included the ski jump into our design in form of two separate stations within the landscape therapeutic path. At the starting position, we situated an over-sized swing that is supposed to allow visitors to experience the moment of jumping. At the jump-off area there is a small lookout platform with outward-leaning guard rails and an inscription: “fly!” In the original design, our collaboration partners B.A.S. intended to make the referee tower accessible and use it as a “library of things”. However, this beautiful idea had to be omitted from the finished project due to costs and safety concerns.

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The project subtitle is “Landscape Therapeutic Park”. In your view, what is the potential of landscape architecture to influence how people feel?
Perhaps less landscape architecture as such, and rather the experience of landscape. That was the lead that we followed in our design – how, where and in which instances can the view of a landscape touch us, emotionally? How can we create images that produce a certain feeling and appeal to our emotional well-being? We intended to achieve this by referring to the places that we found on-site and that already possessed a particular atmospheric quality. Through our landscape architectural interventions we intended to reinforce and dramatize them. As a result, I think that walking and hiking through the park and the forest, passing the various stations that produce feelings such as clarity, overview, openness, harmony, confusion, attentiveness, transparency and sublimity indeed have a positive effect on people’s well-being. The forest as such already has a therapeutic function, as science has recently proven.

Which were the greatest challenges you had to master for this project?
The greatest challenge in terms of planning was to formulate a unifying theme and create a connection between the individual objects that are distributed across the forest, far apart from each other. The technical challenge was that there was no standard, off-the-shelf solution for any of these objects. Instead, every solution is tailor-made, designed by us. For example, the “fairy ring” consists of fluorescent acrylic glass with a diameter of 5 meters that floats four meters above the hiking trail – suspended by the surrounding trees. Supervising the construction process wasn’t easy, because the stations were distributed far apart from each other in terrain that was often difficult to navigate. Each one of the thirteen stations of the “therapeutic pathway” have an individual character and are site-specific. An audible experience is provided by the “fairy sounds” installation.

What is the story behind the “forest fairy of Brilon”?
No other city in Germany is surrounded by more forest than Brilon. Since 2004 and as a tourist attraction, Brilon biannually nominates a young woman who lives in the city as “forest fairy” – similar to the wine queens typical for German wine producing towns. We think that the forest fairy is a very poetic idea and wanted her to appear at one of our stations. For this purpose, we proposed an audio installation that is supposed to symbolize the fly-by of the fairy as a mythical forest dweller. Beyond the sound of the wind rustling through the leaves of trees, visitors can hear her delicate fairy sounds.

The Figueras Polo Stables are located northwest of the City of Buenos Aires, in a rural area where the horizon always feels far away. The vastness of the existing landscape, which is that of the infinite pampas, becomes both the perfect natural scenario for the practice of polo and the very essence of the project’s design.

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The poetic horizontality of the local flatlands seems to be emulated by every aspect of the plan and by every element of the building. This is expressed by the lines of the roofs of the two building volumes, which from afar appear as one single composition, the linearity of the free-standing walls that outline private gardens in front of the social areas and, especially, the manner in which the architectural layout is adapted to the existing trees.

A broad and luxurious avenue lined by London plane trees is the point of origin for the design concept. It defines the walking circuits for horses and conditions the building’s formal articulation. Differentiated into two separate volumes which, combined, house 44 stalls plus horse grooming and training facilities, the building’s shape was designed by responding to the positions of existing trees.

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The shapes are also present, as reflections, within an expansive shimmering pool lined with locally-sourced cobblestones. Positioned exactly in front of a large living room, the pool becomes an extension of the indoor area and serves as a continuation of the many overlapping outdoor and indoor spaces.
The building’s front elevation overlooks the polo field (270 by 150 meters) and the rear elevation envelopes the groomer’s quarters and work facilities.

The concrete roofs seem like floating planes protruding from the sloped landscape and serve both as access area and as platform for watching the polo matches. The recessed second volume is shuttered from direct sunlight by a series of reddish-coloured louvers. These vertical, patinated corten steel panels also demarcate the pathways for horses and help preserve a sense of quietness and privacy.

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Tiny, but essential design details

The maintenance of the horses’ health and physical appearance is of paramount importance in this place. For this reason, the site required very careful planning and incorporated areas for resting, feeding, exercising, bathing and drinking. Even tiny, but essential design details such as the ironwork for the stall doors are custom items intended to support every-day operational aspects and to ensure a low degree of maintenance. For every set of stalls and located at opposite sides of the floor plan, there is one elevated infinite pool built of exposed concrete that horses can drink from. This architectural composition – almost sculptural – provides a sense of seclusion that is strong, yet paradoxically inviting. In a literal and definitive sculptural statement, a seductive concrete spiral staircase leads to the floating rooftop above. Entirely covered by native grass, the large horizontal roof terraces seem to blend into the environment.
The views from this elevated platform with its natural ambience are overwhelming.

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Location: Gral. Rodríguez, Buenos Aires
Architects: Estudio Ramos: Juan Ignacio Ramos & Ignacio Ramos
Total Area: 3,600 m2
Date of completion: 2017
Photography: Daniela Mc Adden

More and more flourishing rooftop farms are turning up in cities all around the world. They also can be found in densely populated Palestinian refugee camps in the Middle East. But they are more than a means of urban food production. Locally, they add to the actionability of local communities. Globally, they react to the climate change as a universal challenge. We took a closer look at two exciting projects in Jordan.

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Roads are narrow here, buildings densely packed, and the air is dusty. It’s rather hot outside and there hasn’t been rain for quite some time. The effects of climate change can be particularly drastic in dry countries like Jordan. Some men are huddling in the shade chatting and drinking tea. On the other side of the road, a few teenagers are playing football as if they were immune to the scorching heat. “Al-Husn” is one of thirteen Palestinian refugee camps in northern Jordan. Originally, these camps were built as a temporary solution to house Palestinian refugees. But by now, some of them have been in existence for seventy years and have grown into extremely dense cities. There are practically no green areas and the building structure allows for nothing more than narrow alleyways. If you look closely though, you might spot little green oases on the roofs of “Al-Husn”. Over the course of two years, the local organization “Al-Karmel club” has planned and realized a total of 43 privately or publicly owned rooftop farms where local fruits and vegetables grow all year round in custom-built greenhouses and later are cooked into delicious meals.

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Belgian NGO “Greening the Camps” takes a similar approach. As a pilot project, the young and interdisciplinary team realized the first rooftop farm on top of a cultural centre in Jordan’s capital Amman. Another rooftop farm was built on top of a vocational school in Palestinian refugee camp “Jerash”. The project does not only focus on working with the camp community but also experimenting with innovative ways of urban agriculture. This includes water-efficient irrigation systems such as hydroponics which are especially indispensable in arid countries like Jordan. As it is the case in the “Husn” camp, mostly recycled materials such as old water containers and jerrycans are used.

Despite their different local realization, both projects create a first possibility for self-supply which in turn enables the local camp communities to act autonomously. Within the extremely dense structure of Palestinian refugee camps, the roofs are finally considered a spatial resource which is only logical to be used. Not least, urban rooftop farms build awareness for a healthy diet and local food production – an awareness that globally seems to vanish more and more.

New York’s East River separates the spectacular skyline of Manhattan from Long Island City, the westernmost neighbourhood of the New York City borough of Queens. Until recently, Long Island City’s rather uninviting waterfront was an abandoned industrial area. Today, the picture is different. Eleven acres of former wasteland have now become the recently completed “Hunter’s Point South Waterfront Park” – New York City’s newest model for waterfront resiliency.

Designed by SWA/BALSLEY and WEISS/MANFREDI in collaboration with ARUP, “Hunter’s Point South Waterfront Park” achieves two things – it transforms an abandoned industrial land into a resilient infrastructure and, at the same time, provides a contemplative retreat for the neighbourhood. The park directly adjoins a currently ongoing mixed-use and affordable housing development project, the city’s largest since the 1970s.

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Connection of nature, human and urbanity

The park’s design combines infrastructure, landscape, architecture and art in order to achieve a maximum benefit for the public. Visitors enter the area with its dreamlike character via a narrow bridge. Just one glimpse later, they spot “Luminescence” – a land art installation by New York-based artist Nobuho Nagasawa. Almost two meters tall glowing sculptures depict the different phases of the moon. In her work, the artist manifests the spatial relationship between nature, the built environment and human beings. This is also the park’s overarching theme.

Narrow paths lead through sculpted grassland. Picnic promontories and wooden platforms offer space for relaxing moments. Three fitness terraces adopt the dramatic gradient of the site as a design theme. A generously designed promenade leads the visitor towards a spectacular overlook. What looks like a tremendous sculpture from a distance turns out to be a nearly ten meters tall, cantilevered platform with a unique view of Manhattan’s skyline and the East River. The overlook’s steel-clad formwork relates to the site’s industrial legacy and integrates it into the architectural design. Not only the choice of material refers to the site’s historical heritage and its unique characteristics. The use of salt-mesh as main vegetation and the multi-layered spatial arrangement of design elements anticipate the inevitable rising water levels of the East River and potential patterns of flooding.

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Integration of the past

What used to be a neglected wasteland in the past is now a dynamic public space that also offers room for deceleration. A space that doesn’t deny its past, but sensitively integrates it into its design. Especially in the context of increasingly dense urban areas such as New York, the targeted activation and densification of unused spaces is more relevant than ever. “Hunter’s Point South Waterfront Park” seems to be an answer to the question on which spatial concepts offer a new design model for urban ecology and a prototype for innovative sustainable design.