Comments on: Permaculture as an approach to planting design for landscape architects

By: Christine

Christine — Sat, 26 Feb 2011 06:37:24 +0000

How about if we changed the idea of ‘natural’ [ http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_osrVjnPbdEM/SobW3GxVZ7I/AAAAAAAAGps/N6Khs5BMvxc/s400/Dangerous_Bridges_17.jpg ] (the world’s longest canopy walkway in Malaysia) to ‘minimalist’?
[ http://farm1.static.flickr.com/72/203668965_86718bb95b.jpg ] Also [ http://www.flickr.com/photos/7351588@N06/3008122860/ ]

Continuing the theme is the Sackler Crossing in Kew Gardens.
[ http://happypontist.blogspot.com/2010/06/london-bridges-4-sackler-crossing.html ]

And here is one that is definitely not minimalist – but I rather like conceptually (for ambition, context and bridging complexity) which is said to be the world’s longest bridge – The Qingdao Hiawan Bridge.
[ http://freshome.com/2011/01/13/worlds-longest-sea-bridge-in-china-the-qingdao-haiwan-bridge-video/ ]

While the SR520 bridge in Seattle is the worlds longest floating bridge.
[ http://www.flickr.com/photos/rampix/2984189962/ ]

Or there is disappearing bridge/tunnel connecting denmark and sweden.
[ http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4014/4679065119_bf99e75d3b.jpg ]

None of which you would want to be your ‘final’ bridge design but all of which might trigger that spark of inspiration, rather than ego, in a brilliant mind like Calatrava.

By: Tom Turner

Tom Turner — Sat, 26 Feb 2011 06:05:11 +0000

I am sure the designers knew that the Skye landscape was important but fear this set them to thinking about the type of bridge one might find in a gentleman’s park – and perhaps even of the bridge at Stourhead http://www.flickr.com/photos/johnadwillis/2209015257/ This was to make it part of a humanised landscape, which may even be what the residents of Skye wanted. But for those who paid for the bridge (ie not the residents of Skye) the island is a part of wild nature and should not be humanised.
Maybe Calatrava could have done the job if properly briefed on this point, because he is certainly a brilliant designer, but I think his ego might have got in the way. There is an old remark about a landscape designer never succeeding so well as when you cannot tell that he has been involved – because the scene looks so ‘natural’.

By: Christine

Christine — Sat, 26 Feb 2011 03:52:59 +0000

Tom you are right. Some landscape contexts should be acknowledged as natural heritage contexts requiring the same design sensitivity as important architectural cultural heritage contexts.

So for Calatrava, it is not so much that he might not be adept at (ego-free) bridge design, so much as it might be important that the brief he receives reflect the importance of the location as natural heritage.

Perhaps Tom, Calatrava might even incorporate your suggestions about the appropriate ephemeral, temporal and tranistional qualities of the bridge and produce some of his best work yet?

By: Tom Turner

Tom Turner — Fri, 25 Feb 2011 13:24:52 +0000

One could make a good case for Calatrava designing almost anything. BUT maybe not a bridge to Skye. It needed an ego-free design and I doubt if he is the man for this.
What about a floating bridge which opened for a few hours morning and afternoon to let boats through? It could have been made of rough timber with a lifetime of no more than a century.

By: Benz

Benz — Fri, 25 Feb 2011 11:16:54 +0000

There are bridge designers and then there are bridge designers. The problem is not with engineers but the client. Have a look at Santiago Calatrava’s web site – I am keen on on his Brancusi-esque sculptures much like his bridges and architecture but not on his drawings which seem ‘shmaltzy’ – but his ceramics are rather wonderful.

http://www.calatrava.com/#/Selected%20works/Art?mode=english

I kind of agree re more islands and I want one of my own.

By: Tom Turner

Tom Turner — Fri, 25 Feb 2011 11:12:05 +0000

I agree: the world needs bridges. But the ‘Isle of Mists and Legends’ (Skye)is something special and landscape planning should always respod the Genii of the Places. A bridge to Sheppy is essential (to let the people get away!) but IF anything had to be done to connect Skye to the mainland then the project should have been initiated by imaginative designers and not by structural engineers with pattern books in their back pockets.
With regard to the world needing more islands, I think a train journey from Berlin to Moscow would help you come round to my point of view!

By: Tom Turner

Tom Turner — Fri, 25 Feb 2011 10:58:56 +0000

I agree: the world needs bridges. But the ‘Isle of Mists and Legends’ (Skye)is something special and landscape planning should always respod the Genius of the Place. A bridge to Sheppy is essential (to let the people get away!) but IF anything is to be done to connect Skye to the mainland then the project should have been initiated by imaginative designers and not by structural engineers with pattern books in their back pockets.
With regard to the world needing more islands, I think a train journey from Berlin to Moscow would help you come round to my point of view!

By: Benz

Benz — Fri, 25 Feb 2011 09:52:16 +0000

Whilst I am all for context sensitive design, I do not think the logic stacks up that because there is a channel of water that we need to obey God’s purported purpose and not build anything to cross it. Should we not build bridges across rivers and gorges and link islands…? Perhaps only boats and ships are the answer, but boats and ships require docks and jetties, they pollute and affect aquatic habitats… The logic about having more islands is not quite right either. Yes we love islands and for that matter water bodies and lakes. Canada has over 3 million lakes. Does this mean we should have more in Canada.

London yesterday was a beautiful spring day and I planted my grape vines. In the potting mixture I put in limestone chippings and mycorrhizal fungus. I am now looking forward to a hot, sunny summer.

By: Tom Turner

Tom Turner — Fri, 25 Feb 2011 08:08:52 +0000

The problem with the Skye bridge is more than financial (1) the designers came out with a load of rubbish about it being sympathetically designed with regard to the local context. It looks more as though it had been lifted from a bridge designers’ Pattern Book (2) many people thought it diminished the romance of Skye. I am sympathetic to this. If God had were to enroll for one of our landscape architecture courses we would advise him to make more islands for his next billion worlds. And if Scotland’s road planners enrolled, we would advise them that islands are wonderful and should remain islands. If God had wanted a land bridge to the mainland then he would have made it.

By: Christine

Christine — Thu, 24 Feb 2011 06:45:15 +0000

Is this what they argued? [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skye_Bridge ]