Author Archives: Christine

Living with green and blue

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What is the future of water architecture? [  http://wiki.provisionslibrary.org/blog/index.php/2008/02/06/water-architecture-a-floating-alternative-for-the-future/ ] Surely it is zen. http://www.whatsonyourplate.msstate.edu/architecture/water.html Or…. http://www.cmoa.org/exhibitions/popup/diller.html

Corbusier’s influence continues to inspire and to produce some of the most evocative architecture sensitive to its landscape setting. The building does not dominate the landscape, rather the landscape is both shield and platform. Garden is both formal and informal. http://www.archdaily.com/374/os-house-nolaster/

living-with-green-and-blue1cliffside

Death of modernism: the human story

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pruitt-igoe-demolition-color1a2The Demolition of Pruitt-Igoe in St Louis is identified (following Charles Jencks) as the moment when Modernism in architecture died.  Architects are the bad guys in this story.[ http://affordablehousinginstitute.org/blogs/us/2009/07/big-bad-blocks-part-1-blame-the-architects.html ]

And viewing the following sequence  of the Pruitt-Igoe demolition in the film Koyaanisqatsi it is not difficult to follow the popular sentiment.[ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ZF1e24FPpo ] Music by Philip Glass.

However, the world we sometimes do acknowledge, is a complex place…

Christine Wonoseputro contextualises the ‘moment’ in theoretical terms within the history of architecture as art.

[ http://transmaterialasia.wordpress.com/2006/11/01/hadids-metaphors-reading-her-biography-from-the-way-of-thinking/ ]

Yet the memoirs of a medical student and his wife a nurse “in a 9 story large reddish-tan brick building in the Pruitt-Igoe city housing at 1300 S. 14th” presents quite another picture of the development as it was when first completed and occupied (and imagined). In Urban Design: a typology by Jon T Lang (2005) Pruitt-Igoe is described as the first racially integrated public housing development in St Louis. (p181)

Not the slum – it was to become  – usually associated with the legend.[ http://gagronert.com/chapter6.htm ]

It is said that the residential mix of the development “overwhelmingly welfare dependent single mothers” (p182) was not the household mix that had been expected when the complex was designed.

The couple in question occupied their flat for only a year. I assume this was the duration he was working at the St Louis hospital? From a landscape persepctive it is worth asking – what happened to the rivers of trees?

The architect is said to have lamented “I never thought people were that destructive.”

[ http://reference.findtarget.com/search/Pruitt-Igoe/ ]

Context: Skyrise, highrise and surprise

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gold-coast-skyrise-q11Increasingly there is a trend towards the design of skyrise buildings in the inevitable push skywards which is the fascination of architects [and city fathers] worldwide: why? Because we can.

Beyond the temptations of exploiting the limits of technological possibility are a number of very real concerns about context which architects should be mindful of.

Each building contributes to the visual amenity and character of the urban fabric….and in the case of cities, located as Surfers Paradise, is on the edge of a spectacular coastline….to the landscape setting and ecology.

Each building’s context is unique. So there are no hard and fast principles applicable in all circumstances. [Truly great designers delight in confounding principles…so with some risk I say] Some general principles do apply in relation to the general impact of the height of a building on its context.

For example, a generous open landscape setting such as is present on the Gold Coast in Australia, visually permits a correspondingly generous height of built form. And a predominantly vertical city fabric is little impacted by an additional vertical built form – even if it breaks the previous skyline limits. However, this is only to say something of the visual impact of such developments. And of course there are many other considerations, not least being the impact of shadows etc on the useability of both the surrounding buildings and the surrounding streetscape and landscape.

Source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/benderish/127955038/in/photostream/

Creating a new gardening tradition

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mawarra-nsw

Edna Walling grew up in Devonshire England, but was destined for renown as a landscape architect in a very different landscape and climate from her native home.

Her family migrated to New Zealand when she was fourteen and three years later to Australia.

Following the tradition of Gertrude Jekyll who was influenced by the design philosophies or the Arts and Crafts Movement, Walling sought to unify the garden with architecture.

Her design approach is said to be based a set of design ethics;

* Work with existing landscapes and existing features such as slopes, rocks and trees

* Begin by sculpting the surface of the land, preferably not levelling it

* Create a unity between the house and garden

* Use architectural principles to structure the garden and soften with dense planting

* Individually design for each house and garden and the needs of the client

* Keep garden maintenance to a minimum

To read more http://www.abc.net.au/walling/designer/default.htm

Source:  Garden at MAWARRA  http://www.geocities.com/harridan99/hols/edna-walling-mawarrapics.htm

From little things big things grow

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las_vegas-strip

When Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown first released their text Learning From Las Vegas in 1972 the idea of the importance of  unity or disunity of vision created within the visual environment by urban patterning and built form had been greatly neglected.

Perhaps, the shock of the everyday assisted in alerting the design professions to the importance of the prosaic nature (common v heroic) of the constructed urban environment even where hyper-reality is the norm.

The text is credited with re-humanising the built environment through its influence in promoting and disseminating the tenets of the emerging Postmodern movement.

Learning from Las Vegas continues to  influence in surprising and controversial ways the thinking of designers including landscape designers and multi-media designers through its insightful analysis of the visual environment.

Viewing the original photographs of Denise Scott Brown is a revelation in perception and an eye for beauty in the ordinary.

Source: http://www.stuffintheair.com/weather-underground-vegas.html

Scott Brown Photographs [http://www.architectsjournal.co.uk/1996064.article]

Landscape [http://landscapeandurbanism.blogspot.com/2009/08/reading-list-learning-from-las-vegas.html]


Greening the garden sculpture

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jeff-koons-bilbao-garden-sculptureHow about combining your garden and your sculpture investment and commissioning a piece of art (topiary) from Jeff Koons? The artist is responsible for this imaginative 43 foot high ‘vertical garden’ at the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao in the mid-1990s. http://www.environmentalgraffiti.com/ecology/15-living-walls-vertical-gardens-sky-farms/1202/2

For fire, water, air and earth see also http://firefeatures.com/index.htm the environmental sculpture of Elena Columbo.