The Design of the Natural: A Complexity in Designed
Landscapes
By Joel Pominville
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| Homage to El Lissitzky - Lucien den Arend |
There is an incredible complexity in designing landscape that results in several solutions. All solutions maintain a manmade element, but some are able to overlook the manmade by attracting the eye with a form or design that is so seamlessly naturalistic looking. Some designs are manmade materialistically, but, in form, they push the eye into seeing a natural form. And others remain so unnatural that they begin to push away any human attraction at all.
A
perfect example of the first solution is Lucien den Arend’s Homage to El
Lissitzky. Lucien den Arend, a sculptor born in the Netherlands and raised in
California, was asked to create a land sculpture outside of the test center of
the national Road and Transport Department of the Netherlands. It would serve
not only as a sculpture, a landmark, but it would serve as a sound barrier for
the center. His solution was a mass of formed earth in a crescent shape across
the road from the test center. This is a great example of the first solution as
it is manmade, but seems as if some strange movement in the tectonic plates of
earth could have created it in that very spot. I applaud den Arend for creating
such a simple and elegant form that does not feel out of place as it serves the
needs of the clientele as well.
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| Maritime Youth Center - Bjarke Ingels Group |
One
can look to Bjarke Ingels Group for evidence of the second solution. The
Maritime Youth House in Copenhagen designed by BIG was a conceptually driven
form that began to take shape as a landscape of its own. In order to cover up a
bad area of ground on the site, they took a flat plane and created a sloping,
morphing plane that broke away from the ground using push and pull diagramming.
The slope took on materiality with many long planks of wood creating these
sloping surfaces. Where the plane “rises” up, they allowed for air-conditioned
space for the clientel. I find this project so astounding, not only
architecturally, but naturalistically as well. Although they were not asked to
design landscape, they designed an artificial landscape that addresses nature
in a formatic way, not so much materialistically.
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| Hualien Beach Resort - Bjarke Ingels Group |
Another project by BIG worth
mentioning is the Hualien Beach Resort project in the process of being
completed and juried to be constructed. This project, seen next to the Maritime
Youth House, has more of a naturalistic materiality. However, it is even more
so natural in the way the designer has decided the form. Bravo to the Bjarke
Ingels teams for designing in a way that did not hide the artificiality of the
project, but respecting the nature in which we consume with designs.
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| Villa Garden - Gabriel Guevrekian |
The
last solution left to mention is a much less appealing, and less natural
solution. It is a result of over control of the form and function of the
landscape that, in a way, destroys any kind of feeling of nature. This ties
directly into my blog post about the cubist gardens. I discovered through
analysis that there seemed to be a very cold nature to the cubist gardens by
Gabriel Guevrekian. It is a result of controlling the design solution to the
extent that it loses all original intentions and natural precedents that
existed prior to the design. In a way, this result of designing landscape is
the least desirable. There was a time in design that it was normal to create
new ideas of natural elements. But, in my opinion, the complete human control
and manipulation of landscape and disregard for the preexisting nature should
never be welcome.
Architects/Artists:
Information:
http://www.denarend.com/
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