The Design of the Natural: A Complexity in Designed Landscapes

The Design of the Natural: A Complexity in Designed Landscapes

By Joel Pominville

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.
            

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. 

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.
            

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.

Pictures:
https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2ajFW12nYMlgjtLsMi_LphWHcSMbbnF3EY3Y_U1b7ABb7wbgxR7OI7qeeveAtIb4FLDJltY3NEi3NKnVkV85J04PuBe7EKl9CCDwLuYTM6Ov4ANzua_uV-vZ55HJFZJ0rzF1Ocrrs8tA/s400/homage_to_el_lissitzky04.jpg

http://www.big.dk/#projects-mar

http://www.big.dk/#projects-hua

Architects/Artists:

http://www.big.dk/

http://www.denarend.com/

Information:

http://www.denarend.com/works/environmental/homage_el_lissitzky/index.htm

http://www.denarend.com/

Is There a Limit to What Should be Manipulated?

By Francisco G. Zambrano

     Last post was about how people like to use monumental architecture in order to manipulate people and their feelings. In this post, I would like to reflect on how we have come to want to control nature in order to manipulate the feelings and actions of others. This behavior can be witnessed in any kind of landscape ranging from a small backyard private garden to public urban parks.



Fig.1: Seed bombing the Raytheon Plant,
Santa Barbara, CA, 1992

 

     The first example that comes to mind, is the seed bomb project by Katherine Miller (Fig. 1). Even though her projects were not enclosed gardens or parks within a defined space, she was able to manipulate the way people felt when "interacting" with her gardens. By allowing people to simply purchase a little mud ball with seeds and throw it where ever their liking, it allowed the people to feel empowered about being able to make a change in their community and surroundings. Then, as time went by and the seeds bloomed, the people then could see their effect on the land and feel accomplished. It is interesting how even though the people can't always walk through the flowers that they "planted," simply the sight of them growing in the most unexpected places puts a smile on even the people who simply walk by. This example was one that is somewhat less manipulative than others. I would even say that it doesn't even manipulate people's feelings necessarily, but rather their actions and how they interact.
    

Fig.2: Serpentine Gallery Pavilion 2011,
designed by Peter Zumthor.
Photo by Walter Herfst

     The previous project has no definitive space yet does manipulate at a small level. Now when we look at the 2011 Serpentine Pavilion in London by Peter Zumthor and Piet Oudolf, this is a manipulation that is strong in the physical aspect and emotional as well. You walk along a path in an open grassy area and then you come across this simple black rectangle that has no face nor an understanding of an entrance, simply three paths that lead to three random openings on the buildings' side. Then you enter a dark narrow corridor (Fig. 2), which gives you a feeling of confusion and pressure, but then see openings where light comes through on the opposite side from where you enter. You exit this dark corridor and enter the center space which is open with a garden of wild plants in the middle and nothing else. This calm and quiet site gives you relief from the busy surroundings of the pavilion. As stated by Arch Daily on June 27, 2011,  "(this is a)design that ‘aims to help its audience take the time to relax, to observe and then, perhaps, start to talk again – maybe not’, the materials are significant in aiding the design which emphasizes the role the senses and emotions play in our experience." The architects have manipulated the experience of the area with containing a simple wild flower garden within the dark structure. The manipulation, or experience, was achieved in a very simple way but was able to achieve its purpose in a very deep successful manner.

Fig. 3: My personal sketch of the Cubist Garden
by Gabriel Guevrekian.

    

     In these past examples, the manipulation of the passersbys was more of their emotions and actions that is achieved through an experience. In Gabriel Guevrekians' Cubist Garden in southern France, he has taken full control of the architecture and nature in order to manipulate the visitors emotions and experience. He has taken control of the type of vegetation, the growth style, the placement, basically every aspect, in order to achieve what he wants the visitors to experience. The manipulation of nature in this example, is very different in comparison to the last two, where nature was allowed to manipulate or rather effect the visitors naturally.
    

     These were just a very few examples of "gardens" that have been manipulated in order to manipulate the feelings and way of interaction of the visitors. It amazes me that we have been able to achieve something so complex as human emotions with the use of something so complex as nature. But I do believe there is a limit, where nature should be left as it wants to be, rather than manipulated to fit human desires.

Architectural Form and the Garden

 by Arif Javed

            One of the first misconceptions about the nature of architecture that was shattered when I began my architectural education was that architects primarily shape buildings. Over the course of studying architecture it has become apparent to me that what architects really deal with is space. Space is both the material an architect sculpts with as well as what he creates. By the same token, architects also primarily deal with form; the form an architect imagines is what defines the spaces that are created.  It is easy to think about the architectural form of a building and how that form shapes the spaces in and around the building. However, a perhaps less obvious yet just as important and fascinating use of architectural forms is when they are used to shape urban garden spaces. Gabriel Gueverkian’s cubist garden at Villa Noailles in France and Bernard Tsuchmi’s Parc La Villette are both excellent case studies for the use of architectural forms in landscape.

            Gabriel Gueverkian was the designer of three “Cubist” gardens, which were highly modern gardens designed in the Art Deco style, taking influences from Cubist paintings. One park was a hortus conclusus style private garden designed for a French family that was living in Villa Noailles. This park is triangular in plan and is enclosed on two sides by walls that recede in perspective to the tip of the triangle. The architectural nature of the design of the garden comes across with great clarity due to the way Gueverkian used strongly defined geometric forms to divide the space. It seems clear that the architect viewed the design as a composition of forms within space. Gueverkian’s careful placement of greenery, selection of geometry, and changes of elevation all contribute to the way the garden is experienced.

              Another highly modern garden that embodies the way that architecture can be used to shape space is Bernard Tschumi’s Parc la Villette in Paris, which came about 50 years after Gueverkian’s work. Tschumi’s Parc was done as an experiment in deconstructivism. I think Tschumi’s essential thesis for this project was an examination of using architectural form to shape an urban green space and in turn shaping the experience of the occupants of the park as they move along. He wanted to challenge the way parks conventionally function: as places for ordered, static relaxation. To do this he imposed a grid system of 35 structures called follies on the park that provide points of reference to people walking through the massive 100+ acre green space. This ordered grid of structures is the counterpoint to a free and unsystematic collection of paths that manipulate the circulation through the space. The follies are architectural forms that evenly divide the space and thus form visual landmarks for someone moving through the vast park, but the lines of the path almost force the occupants to get lost trying to find their way to those landmarks. This achieves Tschumi’s goal of turning the park into something that promotes activity, interaction, and movement.

            While these two projects are clearly completely different in terms of design and overall experience of the space they are interesting to examine in conjunction because they both in a way show the range of methods by which architects have used theories of form and space to shape experiences in an open public area rather than something that is more traditionally considered architecture.  Thus, they are a true testament to the ideal that architects are both figuratively and literally sculptors of space. 

Cubist garden

Parc la Villette design diagrams

Parc la Villette

Modern Domestication of Nature

By Tyler Silvers

As cities become more and more dense with man-made constructions, the demand for creative allocation green spaces has risen substantially. Landscape architects are challenged to form space that speaks toward both the natural beauty of the site and cater to the human need for order and structure. In the process, however, modern urban landscapes seem to have lost much of what makes nature in itself a space that overflows with an unmatched splendor through the slow but steady domestication of nature in form.

Although beautiful, modern urban landscapes, such as Gabriel Guevrekian’s cubist garden at Villa Noailles, tend to cater more to the human need for structure rather than turning their focus on the natural forms and processes particular to the site before human occupation. With his cubist garden, Guevrekian seeks to form an elegant oasis for the occupants – with much success in this aspect. His use of formed concrete and subtle terraces lead the eye toward a central node while the triangular shape of the space plays on the perspective of the eye.  The design of the garden allows occupants to enjoy the elegance of the architect’s interpretation of the landscaped area. The garden focuses the viewer attention on just that – a highly domesticated space. Rather than enjoying the natural, native beauty in itself, occupants are enthralled with a diluted, stylized version of the architect’s vision for the site. On a grander scale, the effect designing more and more controlled environments creates an inaccurate representation of how “nature” truly defines itself; the interdependent ecosystems making up nature are lost in the folds of modern urban garden design.

Image Courtesy of stylepark.com

In order to reform the correct representation of nature in the minds of the general populace, designers have begun to look back to a time before the rise of urbanization. Alan Sonfist’s Time Landscape, for example, offers a new form of urban landscape that takes root deep in the history of the particular site – Manhattan, New York. Sonfist’s green space is designed around the idea of bringing back the landscape that was once prominent in the area before the arrival of Dutch settlers in the 17^th century. As noted by the New York Government Park Services, Sonfist conducted “extensive research” on the “botany, geology, and history” of the community and utilized native trees, shrubs, rocks, soil, and flowers to create a living memorial to the natural landscape that once dominated the area. The simple idea of the Time Landscape seems to have been well received in the surrounding community as people gathered to assist in the construction of and subsequent maintenance for the park. With his seemingly simple design, Sonfist provides an effective manner by which to reintroduce nature (in its true sense) into the context of the modern city.

Time Landscape: Past, Present, and Future

Painting by Paul Rodgers

As urbanization continues to rise and cities continue to advance, nature, in its true form, will continue to be diluted of purity. Perhaps one of the most effective manners by which to truly preserve natural form is to realize the loads of history below our feet.

The Inhumane Garden: An Analysis of the work of Gabriel Guevrekian

By Joel Pominville

Is cubism relatable to the human? Is there a certain disconnect from human emotion and cubist art? Maybe more importantly so, is there a disconnect from the human figure and cubist and modern gardens designed for human habitation? These are questions I asked myself as we discussed the cubist gardens by Gabriel Guevrekian. The answer can be found in an in depth comparison between cubist art, cubist architecture, and human emotion.

Cubism was originally crafted by artists Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque in Paris between 1907 and 1914. Cubist artists wanted to turn away from how nature is really seen. They strove to take the geometrical forms of nature, and reduce them to a scale and depth that represented the canvas on which they were painted. This was a notion that partly gave way to modern architecture, also stemming from movements such as minimalism and primitivism. In cubism, however, there is a fault in the simplicity of the geometry presented: the loss of human connection to the nature in which it represents. To observe this, one can look to artist Robert Delaunay and his painting Homage to Bleriot. When most viewers see a piece of artwork, there is normally a starting point or a point that draws attention to itself. With cubism, there is not a point in which to begin viewing. The viewer must see it, try to understand, and interpret it him or herself. In this flattening of dimension, the depth of nature is stripped away, leaving the viewer in a state lacking human relation to the painting.

This lack of connection is not necessarily needed in a painting, as it is not something the viewer can fully sense. By this, I mean it is not a place in which the viewer can feel, experience, and inhabit. However, in architecture, it is more important to keep a connection to the human. This leads the conversation to the cubist gardens designed by Gabriel Guevrekian. The first garden designed by Guevrekian in a cubist manner is the Jardin d’eau et de Lumiere. Although this garden was meant to be viewed and not traversed, I believe it still lacks a connection to the human element that most gardens. As one can see in the picture, the fragmentation of the garden leads the viewer to believe that they are an entity outside of the garden, not a part of it. In this case, there is a focal point, but even still, the fragmented sections block the viewer from experiencing the centerpiece, as I believe they should be allowed to.

The second garden, and Guevrekian’s most famous cubist garden, is the Garden of the Villa Noailles. This garden is considered one of the most influential modern gardens, especially in France. Although it does not draw quite as much from cubism, it still faces the same problems previously discussed. In the same way as cubist art, this garden has no true start or end. There are two points of entry, but the circulation throughout the space is a continuous loop, with no place to pause, reflect, or rest. Also, the center of the garden seems completely uninhabitable. This makes for quite an emotional disconnect from what most garden offer. Most people experience gardens in a way that they reflect upon different spaces, but also identify the overarching path of circulation in order to move between these spaces. Guevrekian’s Garden of the Villa Noailles allows for only one action: continuous movement around the uninhabitable centerpiece. Overall, the gardens are beautiful works of art. They just do not seem like works of architecture that allow for human relation and interaction.

Info about architect

http://www.vitruvius.com.br/revistas/read/drops/08.020/1734

Info about cubist art
http://artyfactory.com/art_appreciation/art_movements/cubism.htm

http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/cube/hd_cube.htm

Pictures

http://www.photographersdirect.com/buyers/stockphoto.asp?imageid=2720011

http://paisajimopueblosyjardines.blogspot.it/2010/11/cubismo-y-arquitectura-paisajista.html

http://www.artchive.com/artchive/d/delaunay/homage_to_bleriot.jpg.html