Landscape Architecture | Tag (page 23)

Montreal’s LEED Platinum Bibliothèque du Boisé Wins RAIC's Green Building Award

April 15, 2017

The Royal Architectural Institute of Canada (RAIC) and the Canada Green Building Council (CaGBC) have awarded Montreal’s Bibliothèque du Boisé with the annual Green Building Award for 2017. Designed by the trio of Consortium Labonté Marcil, Cardinal Hardy and Eric Pelletier architectes, the library is situated in the city’s Saint-Laurent district, and received the distinction as an example of “buildings that are environmentally responsible and promote the health and wellbeing of users.”

"The library offers a variety of beautifully lit and welcoming spaces throughout, maximizing daylight and views and the use of natural elements, such as wood, to create an environment that contributes to health and wellbeing,” said the jury. “Their approach to high-performance building through whole systems design and strategy has resulted in an impressive achievement.”

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Healing Through Design - HENN and C.F. Møller's Competition-Winning Hospital for RWTH Aachen

April 08, 2017

HENN and C.F. Møller Architects, of Berlin and Aarhus respectively, have jointly won an international competition to extend the iconic University Hospital RWTH Aachen in Germany. The winning entry, chosen amongst twelve others, responds to RWTH Aachen's existing listed 1970’s hospital with a partially-underground extension embedded in the landscape, seeking to minimize visual impact whilst creating lush green parkland for patients, staff, and the public.

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Parkorman / Dror

March 28, 2017

In Istanbul, a city with few existing green spaces, studio DROR is proposing something radical – a park filled with innovative interventions as a way to encourage collective experience and gathering. Envisioned as “a love story between people and nature,” the Parkorman forest park will give people a chance to swing through the forest, play in giant ball pits, relax by reflecting pools, and even bounce several stories above the ground on canopy-level trampolines.

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Topio7's Competition-Winning Eco-Corridor to Transform Greek Coal Mines

March 21, 2017

Greek architecture firm topio7 has released image of their competition-winning proposal to create an eco-corridor across former lignite mines in the Western Macedonia region of Greece. Despite its past coal mining activity, the 180,000 Ha region has retained its natural beauty, partly due to the site's inaccessibility and fragmentation. Topio7’s winning proposal, through a measured, sensitive approach, seeks to enhance the area’s natural beauty whilst creating a variety of nodes and eco-corridors to enable public interaction.

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Reflective Ranch-Style House Captures the American West in New Installation

March 17, 2017

Marrying the great expanses of the American west with a series of mirrored faces, MIRAGE is an installation situated in the Southern California desert and the work of Doug Aitken, an American artist, and filmmaker. An experimental adaptation of the traditional suburban ranch-style house, the sculpture hones in on architecture’s relationship with its landscape, manifesting itself as a life-sized kaleidoscope.

The California Ranch Style house was first designed by a small collective of architects in the 1920s and 30s, inspired by the spatial fluidity of Frank Lloyd Wright’s work and melded with the local single storey homes that belonged to ranchers. Following the Second World War, the simplicity of this housing typology resulted in its quick rise in popularity, adopted by commercial builders to match the rapid urbanization of the American countryside.

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Ideas Competition: What Would a 24-Hour City of the Future Look Like?

March 14, 2017

The Built Environment Trust along with the Greater London Authority are seeking ideas that could help the nightlife of cities work better – be culturally, socially, economically beneficial.

Architects, landscape architects, planners, environmentalists, material scientists, economists, product designers, acoustic experts and other interested parties are invited to submit ideas for better 24 hour cities. The brief is broad: we want big visions and detailed specific thoughts… all can be contenders for the exhibition, publication and prizes on offer.

Penghu Qingwan Cactus Park / CCL Architects & Planners + Co-Forest Environment Design Association

March 04, 2017

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Architects: CCL Architects & Planners, Co-Forest Environment Design Association
Year: 2015

6 Low-Cost Techniques to Activate Underused Urban Space

Subscriber Access | February 23, 2017

“Public space is the new backyard,” says Hamish Dounan, Associate Director of CONTEXT Landscape architects. “Great landscape architecture projects can actually get people out of their apartments and going for walks. It can get them engaging in a social way,” adds Shahana Mackenzie, CEO of the Australian Institute of Landscape Architects (AILA). Trends to activate public spaces are increasing in popularity around the world; urban parks and gardens, vibrant street places, wider pedestrian walkways, cafes with outdoor seating. So during the 2016 International Festival of Landscape Architecture held in Canberra during October 2016, Street Furniture Australia launched a pop-up park in the underused urban space of Garema Place, in collaboration with AILA, the ACT Government and In The City Canberra. The aim of the pop-up park was to create a small social experiment, “to test the theory that the fastest and most cost-effective way to attract people is to provide more places to sit.” In addition to moveable furniture, the design by CONTEXT Landscape architects included bright colors, additional lighting, a lawn, free Wi-Fi and bookshelves as techniques to make Garema Place more inviting.

The process and results of the pop-up park were documented in a report by Street Furniture Australia, with some impressive results: before the #BackyardExperiment, 97% of people were observed to just pass through Garema Place without stopping, and 98% of the people who did stop in the space were adults. During the 8 days of the experiment, the number of passersby increased by 190% as people chose to walk through Garema Place instead of taking other routes. In addition to this, 247% more people stayed at the place to sit and enjoy the pop-up park and surrounding area. There was an incredible 631% increase in children at the park, double the number of groups of friends, close to a 400% increase in the number of couples and almost 5 times the amount of families. With the numbers as evidence for the success of the #BackyardExperiment, here is a summary of the elements used to evoke such a positive response. Simple, cost-effective and relatively easy to implement, these interventions are an attractive “cocktail” for any underused urban space.

Exhibition Examining Cesare Leonardi To Open in Genoa

February 16, 2017

The Villa Croce Museum of Contemporary Art presents the first monographic exhibition on the work of Cesare Leonardi (Italian, b. 1935). In the course of a career spanning more than four decades Leonardi, an architect and photographer, has continuously challenged the boundary between design and artistic practice. In spite of the recognition gained by his early furniture design, most of Leonardi’s oeuvre has remained little known, even within Italy. Cesare Leonardi: Strutture, organised in close cooperation with Leonardi’s archive, sheds light on an intimate yet multifaceted body of work.

Eleven Practices to Complete $2 Billion Waterfront Development in Washington D.C.

February 11, 2017

Eleven of the United States’ most prestigious architects have been selected by developers Hoffman-Madison Waterfront (HMW), to commence Phase 2 of The Wharf, a $2 billion neighborhood situated on the southwest waterfront of Washington D.C. The development is adjacent to the National Mall, spanning 24 acres of land and 50 acres of water.

“We have selected a diverse group of locally, nationally, and internationally renowned designers, knowing they will bring their talent and expertise to The Wharf, building a waterfront neighborhood that is an integral part of the city,” said Shawn Seaman, principal and Senior VP of Development at PN Hoffman.

Call for Entry: Ground Water Research Project - International School Khalifa Heritage and Environment Park

February 08, 2017

The International School seeks interdisciplinary-minded students and young professionals to work collaboratively to develop innovative design solutions for a proposed Heritage and Environment Park. The park will occupy a critically important site at the southern gateway to Khalifa neighborhood and overlooking the 13th-century al-Ashraf Khalil and Fatima Khatun Domes, monuments of great heritage significance.

Design proposals will address goals of enhancing public open space, empowering community, fostering environmental awareness, celebrating heritage, stimulating economic activity, and improving accessibility and climate. Teams will examine techniques for converting groundwater present on the site from a liability to an asset that will provide functional and aesthetic benefits to the park and neighborhood.

Open Call: LA+ IMAGINATION Design Ideas Competition

February 04, 2017

Paradisiacal, utopian, dystopian, heterotopian – islands hold an especially enigmatic and beguiling place in our geographical imagination. Existing in juxtaposition to what’s around them, islands are figures of otherness and difference. Differentiated from their contexts and as much myth as reality, islands have their own rules, their own stories, their own characters, their own ecologies, their own functions, and their own forms.

The LA+ IMAGINATION design ideas competition asks you to design a new island. You can locate it anywhere in the world, program it any way you want, and give it any form and purpose you can imagine.

Taikoo Place / Gustafson Porter + Bowman

January 29, 2017

Gustafson Porter + Bowman has unveiled plans for Taikoo Place, a new public space for Hong Kong that will include lush native vegetation and sculptural water features. Encompassing 69,000 square feet, the landscape project will feature a variety of spaces, from small, intimate areas for conversation, to larger open areas suitable for special events like concerts and outdoor markets.

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Brooks + Scarpa Reveal Alternate Proposal for New $12 Million Park in Downtown Los Angeles

January 29, 2017

Los Angeles-based practice Brooks + Scarpa has revealed their proposed design for the FAB Park competition, which sought schemes for a new $12 million public park situated at First and Broadway in Downtown LA.

The FAB (First and Broadway) Civic Center Park aims to capitalize on the city’s diverse character and encourages strong communal activity among members of the public, through the inclusion of unique spaces for food, art and socializing.

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AGi Wins Competition to Transform Galician Roman Ruins into Sensory Museum

January 28, 2017

AGi Architects has won a competition to transform 18 ancient Roman sites into a natural museum in Pontevedra, Galicia, Spain. The winning proposal, entitled In Natura Veritas, was selected from 26 submissions in a competition organized by the Spanish Ministry of Public Works. The AGi scheme, due to be realized in the coming months, aims to preserve the memory of the natural environment chosen as a living place by the Roman settlers hundreds of years ago and to treat the visitor to a multi-sensory journey through the 18 sites across the Pontevedra landscape.

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Call for Entries: Tamayouz International Award 2017

January 19, 2017

Tamayouz Excellence Award is delighted to invite students of Architecture / Urban / Architecture Technology / Landscape Design worldwide to register and submit their Graduation Projects. An independent international jury will review all entries and will select the winners of Tamayouz International Award 2017. Prizes include: An MSc Scholarship for 2 Years at the Polytechnic University of Milan, 2 scholarships for the Stadslab (European Urban Design Laboratory) master classes, Medals for 7 Honorable Mentions, supervisor the Year Medal, University of the Year Medallion. All the selected winners making the Top 10 list, the supervisor of the year and the university of the Year will be invited to attend our annual Tamayouz Excellence Award ceremony (Travel Expenses covered by the organisers of the Award).

Call for Submissions: LA+ TIME

January 16, 2017

Time is ticking. That’s what it does. Or at least that’s how we represent what we don’t understand. For physics, time is a byproduct of so called space-time, elastic goo created at the very moment that something came from nothing; the moment eternity stopped and the universe began. For geology, time is 4.5 billion years of compression and catastrophe. For biology time is 3.5 billion years of diversification and now the urgency of the sixth extinction. For anthropology time is 150 thousand years since mitochondrial Eve walked out of the rift valley in Ethiopia.

Mecanoo Unveils Design for Experimental Garden and Palace Restoration in The Netherlands

January 10, 2017

Mecanoo has unveiled its design to transform The Soestdijk Estate into Eden Soestdijk, “an experimental garden for a sustainable society and a paradise destination for all” in The Netherlands. In an effort to become an educational tool for environmental awareness, the project aims to make a significant contribution to meeting the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals.

“The world is facing pressure from increasingly larger and more complex problems when it comes to water, food, climate and energy,” said Anton Valk, chairman of the Eden Soestdijk foundation. “Eden Soestdijk wants to tackle these problems and contribute to a more sustainable society by stimulating and inspiring visitors to change their behaviour in a positive way.”

An architectural greenhouse behind the palace gardens will be the centerpiece of the project, and will house an interactive exhibition focusing on topics like circularity, ecological balance, and social aspects of sustainability.

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