After a lovely stroll through the south park blocks in downtown Portland in the late fall, I decided to wander over to the Hotel Madera to snap some pictures of the lovely courtyard designed by local landscape architecture firm Lango Hansen in conjunction with Holst Architecture on the upgrade of the old Days Inn to the new boutique Hotel Modera. The location of the new courtyard replaces what used to be a lifeless parking lot.
From the sidewalk, the trellis structure indicates the entrance point into the courtyard, doubling as a subtle welcome sign. The connection between the courtyard and the streetscape works well in that the courtyard feels like it’s own space and yet is still open and inviting enough not to feel uninviting to those passing by.
A wooden screen between courtyard space and sidewalk creates a feel of enclosure while allowing for the best urban activity of all, people watching. This is especially interesting given the public bus stop right outside.
Once inside, the wood decking leads up to the hotel entrance while a low wall lines the walkway to the left surrounding an outdoor dining area while the open area off to the right is an open, public space. Moveable seating mixed with permanent seating walls invite people to sit down and relax awhile. As the furniture would indicate, the seating walls could either be used for sitting or as a table.
The public space is madeup of a grid that overlays both the horizontal and the vertical space with hardscape, furnishings and planting which create patterns that move in and out of the grid. Patches of vegetation reach out from the vertical wall into the horizontal hardscape with sharp, angular edges that give it a clean, modern feel that meshes with the identity of the hotel. This design is the part that is so intriguing about this space, instead of creating a gridded living wall that simply because of product or budget limitations, this particular living wall not only fits perfectly within the design but enhances the idea of the fluid grid.
One might say that the vegitated wall looks too regimented unlike the walls of Patrick Blanc which run seamlessly without lines. But here, such a seamless style would not make sense and instead the vegetated tiles work perfectly. They even seem to float, almost giving off the sense that the viewer could move them about as they wished by simply pushing them around.
Metal edging details the planting areas, separating them from the precast paving tiles. Some plants are clipped and manicured to remain within the square and rectangular spaces while others, like the soft grasses, are allowed to flop outside the lines.
A rough rock slab and gravel pathway move through lush, vegetated squares that bring the viewer close to the living wall amongst the ferns and grasses. Here one can touch and look closely at the vegetated tiles that make up the wall.
I believe the vegetated wall panels are the Green Wall Panels by G-Sky. These are pretty cool products that make it easy for even the vegetated architecture novice to achieve good results. The designer can select a palette of plants that fits in with their design, G-Sky will then plant the tiles for them. Pretty simple and easy. Here it looks like they are planted with a mix of dirt inside of fabric pouches and moss has filled in some gaps around some of the smaller plants. Drip irrigation is then added behind the system and here it is allowed to drip freely out the bottom and drain into the nearby planter bed.
This plaza has successfully managed to blend the feel of the richly vegetated Pacific Northwest with the clean lines of modern architecture while bringing in a cool element of new technology within landscape architecture. While this space was rather empty in these pictures, I’m certain that it’s just because it had recently rained and it was bitterly cold out. I can only imagine that on a sunny day this space would be full. I’ll make sure to visit again to capture this space on one of those days.
Designed by Kristine Jensen and winner of the 5th Rosa Barba European Landscape award, the Nicolai Kulturcenter in Kolding, Denmark is transformed from the alley-like outdoor space of the former educational center into an integrated and inviting cultural space for activities in music, cinema, literature and art.
The circular amphitheater, a signature piece in the space, is used for outdoor theater performances, cinema and concerts blends new materials with old, introducing a Cor-Ten steel wall surround.
To offset the rather industrial nature of asphalt, old buildings and steel, a bit of whimsy is introduced into the space through neon flowers decorating the side of one of the buildings and white thermoplastic detailing graphic patterns in the asphalt and surrounding trees. This detail helps to bring in an element of playfullness as this courtyard will be used for the multidiscplinary acts of play while at the same time instilling a subtle sense of order to the otherwise vast, open space.
From Bustler: “It consists of various elements that are connected to areas designated for outdoor activities: the entrance; a garden where children can play and relax on the grass; a terrace for patrons of the cinema cafés; a large circular stage used for outdoor cinema in summer and for theater performances and concerts; a shopping area; a small garden next to the music hall; and a multifunctional square. A Cor-Ten steel wall and a Cor-Ten steel stage/platform have been built along the two terraces situated on the west side. The playground’s sloping terrain is prevalent in the project, and a new blacktop has been installed, which delimits the area with thermoplastic patterns and street paint.”
On my drive back from my vacation up in British Columbia, I got stuck at the US/Canada border near this “green wall” outside the duty free store. I couldn’t see it very well at first, it just looked like pine branches sticking up behind some other vegetation. Then when I got right up to it, I noticed that it was basically giant green pipecleaners woven through a chainlink gate that opened to the service area for the store.
A New York-based architecture firm with an interesting name, Ginseng Chicken has designd a Fibonacci Spril-inspired building for the Liverpool’s National Wildflower Center. The concept for the building, which houses such activities as seed processing, plant production and education, is to create a form that would provide a seamless relationship with nature, mathematics and physics. The architects, via Arch Daily, describe it as providing “an operational hub for creative conservation, learning and innovation.”
“The spiral form is layered to divide the complex pragmatically. The lower spiral contains conference rooms, classrooms, and a community room; above, a pebbled floor provides the base for operational programs, such as the seed processing rooms, while a sustainable wildflower screen provides enclosure; the uppermost level offers a continuous circulation path along a PV paneled covered roof.”
“The wildflower screen is a self-standing sustainable skin that creates a greenhouse condition to develop an energy saving system. “The double-skinned screen enhances the building’s energy-saving performance through features such as seasonal daylight control by varying pot arrangement, water irrigation systems, and living machines,” stated the architects. The screen provides an aesthetic texture to the façade and allows users to stay connected with the exterior gardens, even while occupying the interior spaces.”
Honestly I’m not that impressed by the looks of the wall screen. It seems a bit messy and is really just pots set in hoops. Kinda boring and not at all elegant. I also don’t understand how the plants are watered or how the system is self-sustaining. An irrigation system is mentioned and shows some sort of cascading gravity system in the section but I can’t figure out how it works in reality given the other pictures and the angles.
Also, here’s an interesting product I came across recently from Loop called Biowall that kind of resembles the wall structure that held planters for the National Wildflower Center, but on a smaller scale and with a more interwoven texture that would just allow for plants to climb on. It sort of looks like artistic chicken wire in a way.
Loop describes BioWall as: “springy fiberglass rods are bowed into rings and woven into several dodecahedra that in turn are joined together. The woven fibres create a balance between the rigidity of sheet material and the flexibility of a textile. The structure is based on the principle of self-similarity enabling it to work from the nano to the macro scale. It can be seen in our natural environment in the formation of bubbles, living cells and water molecules. With plants creeping and crawling around the structure, BioWall can become an indoor, living hedge that divides space.”
I’m not entirely sure what to think about this article from Popular Science. I could argue both sides. I mean, it’s good news in one sense but one of those things where if it were to take the place of the real version it terms of people “placing” trees around the city versus planting real ones, I would certainly have an issue with it. Especially the idea of a synthetic forest, yikes!
A little on the functionality from the Popular Science article “The ‘tree’ uses plastic leaves that capture the carbon dioxide in a chamber. The carbon dioxide is then compressed into liquid form. The tree captures the carbon without the need for direct sunlight, which means that, unlike traditional trees, the synthetic trees can be stored in enclosed places such as barns, used anywhere, and transported from one site to another regardless of conditions.”
And also this interesting little bit, “the captured CO2 could be used to create fuel for jet engines and cars, the two most common carbon emitters. In other cases, the CO2 could be used to enhance current production of vegetable produce.”
Synthetic trees could be interesting for the indoor environments where there is no sun or no windows. Perhaps instead of taking place of real trees, they could instead take the place of those horrific fake plastic trees…in fake plastic earth… (cue Radiohead).
As the second Wave Deck on the Toronto Harbourfront, the Simcoe Slip has officially opened for public enjoyment! I’m absolutely in love with West 8’s super sexy form designed to emulate the natural form of waves that make up this amazing deck.
The last time I wote about this, it was still under construction. Of course, the first thing I thought when looking at the construction photos was that there’s no way it would be near as cool once they start sticking all those darn safety features on. But I was pleasantly surprised to see that the rails totally work and in fact, actually add to lovely curving form.
However, eventhough there are rails in the area of the steepest portion of the curves, the railing then dives behind the backless seating benches to allow people sit such that they can face inward towards the deck or outward towards the water for a direct engagement. Amazing! I saw several examples of waterfronts in Europe that had details like this one that I drooled over…knowing full well that we’d never get to build something like that here the US. Instead we would have benches set back and with rails between the people and the water.
With the steep slopes of the curves, it would seem an obvious question as to whether people could actually walk up and down the deck safely. One flickr member took a picture of the detail and points out that the “seemingly impossible slope at the newly opened Simcoe Street wave deck [is] easy to walk up and surprisingly safe to walk down due to the tilted hardwood boards. The whole effect is gorgeous and unexpected.”
Adriaan Geuze, landscape architect and urban designer from West 8, said that the wave deck has no specific program. West 8 wanted the deck to inspire and enourage people to step off their normal path and engage themselves with the waterfront. But I bet that no matter how they thought people would use it, they didn’t expect kids to treat it like a slide! It’s always amazing to see how the public ends up using new spaces and what kind of unexpected events begin to form.
Friday June 19th 2009, 10:49 am
Filed under: Materials
image via Lisa Town
While scoping out the Bavarian Garden Show last year in Neu Ulm, Germany, I came across the concrete pavilion that was showcasing new stuff in concrete. The best was definitely the light transmitting concrete from Litracon that is not only cool for it’s slight see-through effect but it also looks pretty neat too. The otical fibers woven into the fine concrete are quite beautiful and I personally love the imperfections that come from being hand woven (see: expensive).
While this is extremely cool and beautiful, it is not at all transparent. There needs to be a pretty good light source and the object or person needs to be practically right up against the other side of the concrete blocks in order for their shadow to show through very well. But again, it’s still beautiful and makes for a sleek “window” effect. I liked how they had the blocks hanging with cables through an opening at the exhibit.
Weburbanist recently had a post on futuristic materials available now and this concrete was part of it. There are some other interesting materials in the mix like solar shingles.
I found this video via Device Daily that covers the Design Probes project, a division of Philips Design, called Off The Grid: Sustainable Habitat 2020. As I previously wrote, the project takes a look at the future of building skins and possibilities of creating a skin that is intelligent and responsive to our changing environment. Check it out, interesting stuff!
There are a lot of interesting building forms, skin patterns and use of materials going on lately, like the AQUA tower that uses balconies to create an interesting wave pattern from any angle or the Zilverparkkade D that used concrete to create a seamless textile pattern reminiscent of branches. Here are a couple more interesting examples…
The first was designed by architect David Bravo Salva and is a skin that is used to provide interest to an existing building in order to help regenerate the urban space on the Rambla de Brazil in Barcelona. The skin design is seen as a work of urban landscape, providing a rich textural form in vertical space that changes depending on the viewers position, direction of movement and speed. The effect is different for a pedestrian versus someone in a car. The ten swelling elements are seen as representing the ten districts of Barcelona.
Saxo Bank headquarters in Copenhagen, designed by Danish architects 3XN. From 3XN via ArchDaily: “The architectural design is based on Saxo’s cutting-edge profile and branding. The lines of the building design define a sharp balance between reliability and dynamic expressivity in dialogue with the local plan. The building is shaped like two blocks with the end walls pointing towards the canal, joined together by facades that are withdrawn from the end walls. The facades are shaped like double curved glass that wave like a piece of textile.”
The Miyi Tower by Studio SHIFT is part of the master plan with SWA Group for China’s developing Sichuan Province. The tower sits resides on the edge of the Anning River, a position between the agricultural and the newly developed and terminates a cultural and sustainable public promenade featuring photovoltaic fields and wind turbines.
More about the tower from ArchDaily: “The temperate climate of the region allows the tower’s programmatic elements to be interspersed between enclosed and open spaces. Double height enclosed spaces, such as an auditorium, exhibition space and restaurants, alternate with open spaces, such as gardens, an observation deck, and event areas, around the vertical core of the tower. A porous, yet continuous skin, gives the various programs their unified form. The skin is designed as a patterning of objects that are mounted to a light frame, rather than a series of perforations. This enables the appropriate panels on the skin to be lined with photovoltaic cells.”
The Talca Hotel in Talca, Chile was designed by architects Rodrigo Duque Motta and Rafael Hevia García-Huidobro. The design of this building presented three challenges early on. The first was the multiple pieces to the program the defined the plan layout and surface areas which easily could’ve ended up looking fragmented. The second was the importance of maintaining views toward the broader context as well as the immediate vicinty. And third, the building needed to maintain maximum climate control efficiency due to the high generation of heat from the casino and large crowds.
The designers chose to create a skin that could act as a unifying element and pull the pieces together into one shape and create a better sense of order, maintain an open quality and acts as a ventilated facade to diminish direct sunlight exposure to improve thermal performance.
This unique five-story building in the Czech Republic is the Research Library designed by Projektil architekti out of Prague. It was designed like the shape of an X, cut through the middle and expanded, creating an open middle entry section allowing the public to enter the building without entering the library itself. The interior and exterior is made from in situ cast concrete with a unique hole punch-like pattern providing natural light throughout.
The first section of New York’s High Line is open. A friend and fellow Landscape Architect currently living and working in New York city recently went to check out this super cool park. She got some great shots of some of the fun details seen throughout the park. I particularly love the way in which different materials mesh with each other, how new and old details blend like the rails with the benches and things like the walls blend right into parts of seating elements. I wanted to post some of her photographs that shows this amazing attention to detail.
These are some great and apparently quite popular loungers that have some great details in how the chairs actually attach to some old rails.
Some images of the wooden benches that merge with the pulled up flooring…
