Since 1986 a large strip of land was left with only the bones of what was to be the Lima, Peru’s railway for an electric train. The space remained unchanged, a ghostly construction site for the train that never happened, until the Spanish collective Basurama came up with a way to turn the abondoned concrete collumns and once forgotten urban space into an amenity for the people. And then earlier this year, the Ghost Train Amusement Park was born.
Basurama, from the word basura meaning trash, has been working with trash for over a decade throughout Latin America and describes themselves as “a forum for discussion and reflection on trash, waste and reuse in all its formats and possible meanings. Our aim is to study those phenomena inherent in the massive production of real and virtual trash in the consumer society, providing points of view on the subject that might generate new thoughts and attitudes. We find gaps in these processes of production and consume that not only raise questions about the way we manage our resources but also about the way we think, we work, we perceive reality.”
The bright and colorful park features recycled tires transformed into multi-person swinging contraptions and climbing structures along with lines of swings and a canopy line for kids to zip along from the unfinished structure through the color-wrapped concrete collumns.
As fall sets in, so does the Seattle rain. It is a good time to check out the Thornton Creek Water Quality Channel, the urban park-like water quality facility designed to mimick a natural stream bed and riparian zone would handle the varying levels of water flowing through the system. Nate Cormier of SvR Design snapped some great photos in late September and early October. Looks like it’s performing as planned and looking quite lush.
With the passing of Lawrence Halprin on October 25th, I’d planned to write about Portland’s Keller Fountain in my previous post but could not find my photographs. But now I’ve found some of them. These particular photos were all taken over two separate trips in April and July of 2004. I still remember my first visit to the fountain when I was young, thinking it was the coolest fountain ever and running around, exploring every nook and cranny, climbing up the watery stairs, running behind the water and walking through the upper streams.
I had another awe inspiring experience after getting out from a play at the Keller Auditorium at night and stopping, along with many others, shortly after exiting the doors at the grandeur of the fountain. This was a completely different experience because it was neither warm nor daytime and no one was in the space, but it had this amazing grabbing power of surprise upon seeing suddenly after having been sitting for a couple hours. I could even feel a mist on my face from the water, all the way from the other side of the street.
The magic of Ira Keller Fountain is not only in it’s dramatic design but in it’s highly varied spaces and ability to interact with the water in many different ways. And even with the power of the high volumes of water gushing from the fountain or the depth of the water, people are invited to touch, wade, soak, climb, explore and swim.
One of the things people seem to enjoy the most is jumping into the upper pool at the top of the falls. These are not small pools either, they are actually fairly deep and I’ve seen kids do cannon balls in them. You can see from the picture below just how deep it is.
The amazing part is, for those who visit this fountain in person for the first time always remark, there is quite a height to these falls and there is nothing between the upper pools and the edge of the falls and down to the lower pool. It could seem so easy for someone to fall over the side and yet, to the best of my knowledge, no one has. As it turns out, people can in fact look out for their own safety and exercise some common sense.
The water steps that come cascading down one side of the space are fun to climb up, while other prefer to lounge on the side. Another fun thing is on the opposite side, an area to walk under and behind the cascading water.
images (c) Lisa Town
And for more regarding Lawrence Halprin, there is a great article in the NY Times as well as several videos posted on Design Intelligence.
Last Friday the 18th was the annual PARK(ing) Day event where people from all corners of the globe take over parking spaces and turn them into temporary public parks for the day. This is an especially fun event because it’s not limited to designers, but includes anyone who’s willing to take the day off from work and put together a park to hang out in including local businesses, magazines, food vendors, community groups, artists, musicians, etc. It’s a great way to bring the community together in public spaces to interact, engage and play.
This year I had the opportunity to get together with two friends and fellow landscape architects, Brett Milligan and Jason King, to have a little fun up in Seattle while supporting some fabulous urban void activation headed up by Keith Harris on the People’s Parking Lot in Capitol Hill. A full list of the participating groups can be found here. Here’s just a few of the highlights…
In the middle of the whole event, the Capitol Hill Community Council and Unpaving Paradise, sponsors of the event, teamed up for a lush, tent-covered park. The park become a welcome place to relax since the site was bathed in hot sun for most of the day.
The Seattle Arts and Lectures park titled “Words Matter” featured a table of cookies, tea and inspiring books along with a board that encouraged people to paint, draw and incorporate inspiring phrases in a community art piece. One book on their table that particularly caught my attention was “Wake Up In Brightness”, a book they published that features poetry and prose from students. It was mpressive to see entries from students as young as early grade school years craft such beautiful words.
Brite Collective, an extension of JOIN, provides fun lectures and events aimed at uniting Seattleites through design and igniting inspiration to take part in their creative community. For PARK(ing) Day, Brite held an event called “Negative Space: A Biographical Field Sketch” which included a 1 hour interpretive walk to explore the identity of space, discuss cognitive mapping and sketch in a provided journal.
Hollow Earth Radio, a community-run online radio station, had a tent on-site where they were taking the urban confessions of anyone who was interested in talking. These will then appear on their website at a later date.
Flash Volunteer was there with some green space in support of their pretty cool project that helps bring events and volunteers together in an organized fashion.
This park called “Air Stream” was created by a group of designers who called themselves Signal to Noise. The intention was that the plastic rods along the edge would wave in the wind but unfortunately or fortunately, it was sunny and not at all windy that day.
Our neighboring park by the Seattle-based multidisciplinary firm SvR Design was complimentary to ours with a rec room outfitted with a couch, comfy chairs, a table full of games and a popular ping pong table.
One of our personal favorites was the sweet tunes 12 Hour Notice was pumping out from his pimped out ride. Seriously, the shopping cart was pretty cool, pictures don’t do it justice. He was there in his spot for most of the day, hardly moving. I’m not even sure he ate anything all day. When I went over to tell him how much we appreciated having him on the lot, I also found out that he was incredibly nice.
The only thing that got the mobile dj to sit down was the hour long performance from Toy Box Trio towards the end of the day. They brought with them a concertina, toy piano and tuba that mixed together for an interesting sound with a carnival flair. At one point they even introduced the sounds of an old fashioned typewriter.
Our park titled “4-Play” was split into quadrants of two areas of game play and two areas of vegetated seating, displaying that a park isn’t just made up of recreation or green space but instead consists of a good mix of both.
The games in the park consisted of a much longer twister game made of soft carpet and an oversized connect four game that became the highlight of the park and brought out the kid as well as the competitiveness in many people that stopped by to play a game or two.
In our green space, we had grassing seating “booths” that featured retro carpet dots covering one side for a soft surface to lean against and a poster board on the other side filled with planter pockets of bright yellow in both the national and Seattle PARK(ing) Day posters.
images (c) Lisa Town
At the end of the day an awards ceremony was held that included all parks within the Seattle metro area. Our park won the award for “Most Playful” park and we left Seattle with a prize of some park-based games from two local game shops. It was a fun event and we met lots of wonderful people and it was great to be a part of the local community for a day. Thanks to everyone on Capitol Hill that was involved and to Keith Harris for organizing the memorable event. I’m already looking forward to PARK(ing) Day 2010!
Tuesday August 18th 2009, 9:45 am
Filed under: Activism, Parks
One thing I’ve been pondering lately is how to bring the community into the world of open space design because afterall, it is their space. It’s the people that know what they want but maybe just not exactly how they want it. And it’s our job as designers to help facilitate that process and bring those desires and needs forward, not just to come up with some idea that is placed in the space with no context. So if we are essentially working for the people, we should work with the people.
An initiative in New York City called “People Make Parks” will create a collaborative partnership between communities and the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation for captial parks projects. The concept here is to encourage the sharing of ideas between the people who use the park spaces and those that help create them for what will hopefully be a stronger design process ultimately ending in a product that the community can be proud of and feel that they were truly a part of the creation process.
This year I think Park(ing) Day is going to be very exciting as it seems that people from all around the world are getting into it even more than ever with heightened enthusiasm, online social sites about the event, more cities taking part and even trying to find ways in how they can push the boundaries of the event.
In New York City, they are adding an extra layer to the event that they are calling POP.Park which challenges the Park(ing) Day participants to make not just a park for a day but a pre-fabricated, transportable park that could be taken anywhere and used any time and would essentially be able to just pop up quickly and assume it’s duty as a temporary park space, just as easy as one my pop out a folding chair.
From the website: “POP.Park prototypes should create a relaxing, safe and visually compelling environment for people. POP.Parks must provide physical delineation from traffic and be contextual to the city street environment. Physically, POP.Parks must fold into a box (or reusable bag or tote) that one person can carry while walking or riding public transportation. When assembled, POP.Parks should be no larger than 8′x15′ – the size of a regular car parking spot. The cost of building a POP.Park must not exceed $20.00.”
So as of today, the September 18 event is only a month away so it should be a lot of fun to see what everyone creates, especially since I will be participating this year as well!
And what about the lovely poster of the overgrown car designed to promote this years Park(ing) Day event? I like it. But perhaps that’s because it reminds me of a beautiful screen printed poster I have on my wall from the 2006 album release show of one of my favorite bands, The Long Winters.
Monday August 17th 2009, 10:43 am
Filed under: Parks, Projects
Superkilen is a park about diversity, conceived by BIG and Topotek1 in Nørrebro, Denmark. The project is intended to celebrate the neighborhood’s diversity that reaches all corners of the world and bring everyone together into one global neighborhood. The primary concept is to fill the park space with objects and plantings from all around the world so you could theoretically sit on a Turkish bench under a Japanese cherry tree while looking at a Moroccon fountain. The designers even want the help of the community to pick out items from their country. Will this look like a mixture of things that don’t fit or will it all fit together in harmony and work with its differences?
The park will posess all that typically makes up a modern park with trails for pedestrian and bike, connections to local transport and outdoor recreation spaces along with a market space, areas for games and a community gathering plaza. The space also focuses on increasing the green, adding plenty of vegetation broken down into groups of species from various regions of the world and flowering times.
In the Green Park, the area would be primarily used for sporting events where people from all parts of the world could play games together. Games are something that seems to disolve borders, bringing people together into a common set of understood rules for a time of fun, no matter where you come from or what language you speak. Anyone can learn to play the game.
The red area is seen as the cultural center of the project, the Red Square, and is viewed as an outdoor extension of the new Nørrebro Hall, a cultural and sporting center. Some sort of red paving material would flow from the foyer of the hall to the outdoor space. The area could also offer an urban market with the hopes of drawing visitors out from Copenhangen to explore the outer areas.
Thursday July 23rd 2009, 11:57 pm
Filed under: Parks
A fellow-landscape architect and resident of New York City, Socorro Alatorre, sent me some thoughts and photographs from several of her visits to the cities newest green addition. For her, seeing the park just 2 days after the opening, there was little surprising as the park looked exactly like the design renderings had sprung to life. The paving was exactly as it was expected. However, what did capture her attention was the execution and the high quality and detailing of all the elements.
Socorro was happy to see that the plant material looked to have established itself and made a huge difference in softening the park. It’s an unusual palette, especially for an urban space, full of perrenials and grass but one that was ‘native’ to the ruins of the High Line.
It’s interesting to have such a contrast between the meadow-like park with the industrial surrounding and history. Socorro points out that some people have referred to it as a “prairie” park and do not appreciate this unique palette nor understand it’s heritage. It is definitely an interesting look at what people expect of an urban park in terms of its greenery.
An interesting thing she pointed out and something that I hadn’t even thought about is that there are no evergreens in the park. What is going to happen in the winter? There were no evergreens in the ‘native’ palette but are people going to understand that when walking a plant-less park in the winter? It will be interesting to see what kind of reactions that park receives after the fall season.
I love edges that find away to blend with the surrounding vegetation but especially when it’s in a way that remains architectural in the form and elegance. The edge treatments on the High Line with the fingers that reach out in the vegetation from the main path are just that. However, many comments heard by Socorro was that the bumps and inlets of the edge treament has caused problems with some visitors to the High Line.
The bumps at the beginning of the fingers seem awkward and to not make sense, especially when “wheels” like strollers and such, are not allowed up there. The inlets themselves were seen as a tripping hazard because, and this is something I never would have thought of, Socorro points out that typically New Yorkers don’t look where they walk.
Comments were also made about the economic development that has occurred around the park and how this elevated greenway has really opened this industrial area up and raised property values. This park is a huge asset to the neighborhood and provides outdoor, relaxing space to an area very much in need.
Another detail of the park is the public art that can be seen throughout. One of these is a stained glass window which has about 52 different tones of blue’s and green’s and which represent all the different tones of the Hudson River. Socorro says that the best time to see this window is at mid-day where the sun hits it and then you can really appreciate every single tone. Another piece is a lighting piece underneath of the buildings. While Socorro hasn’t yet seen, she said that she is told that the purple color created a very nice effect at night.
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.
I’ve noticed some anti-love floating around Twitter about the new High Line, like the Design Observer (oddly enough based out of New York) links to Oobject.com’s “9 Reasons Why The High Line Sucks” with the comment “Finally, after all the endless love”.
What’s wrong with a little love for a park?
This article is pretty funny actually. It’s obvious that this person hasn’t even been to the High Line and is just pulling arguments out of thin air with no foundation. The article starts out by saying: “The Highline is fashionable in every sense. A park inspired by one in Paris, a combination of Euro chic, treehugging sanctity and hipster industrial grunge.”
image via Lisa Town
It also seems that perhaps the writer has not visited the Promenade Plantee and Viaduc de Artes in Paris. I have walked the converted viaduct in Paris and it acts as a model because it is successful and it works and not at all because it is simply fashionable or chic. It allows for uninterupted green space, saves and revives a piece of history and has helped to spur economic development and provide much needed space for small businesses. It also provides some really nice views out from the park and multiple levels of luscious vegetation from the street.
While I don’t feel the article has any grounds whatsoever, I find it actually ends up working in the parks favor because it shows that there are no relevant arguments to be had. The arguments in this particular article often don’t even seem geared towards the High Line and instead make general comments like “There is often an initial phase where spaces underneath look good, but after a while these places tend to become depressing or fall into disrepair” and they accompany this argument with an image of a graffiti-filled underside of a bridge in Tampere, Finland with garbage and not at all a city streetscape. At least if they are going to try to make arguments, they should be specific with the points and cite relevant examples like Granville Island in Vancouver, an area under a massive bridge converted from industrial to commercial.
Again, the writer has obviously not seen the High Line and has no grounds to criticize it. But the feeble attempt just goes to show that the High Line IS worth the hype. Instead, check out these great pictures my friend took from her own personal visit to the park.
