Veg.itecture #45

It is time again. While these may be just pretty pictures, I feel strongly that these projects represent a new awakening of the potential meshing (not the disconnect) between the professions of architecture and landscape architecture. The project of the moment is actually one I feel a bit sheepish in saying I actually like - as it is from Daniel Libeskind... you've seen it before. I guess I can move my ire from Liebeskind to Alsop from now on. Here's a few more, with images courtesy of WAN, Inhabitat, and Designboom:


:: image via WAN

Via Inhabitat: "...the 54-story apartment building features a series of ‘sky gardens‘ cut out from its facade that provide green space and terraced balconies for residents. Terraced gardens are becoming quite popular as a means for people to have an outdoor connection, fresh air, and even a place to grow their own food."




:: image via Inhabitat




:: image via Designboom

This is one of many recent projects that provide a particular theme for Vegetated Architecture - one used by Ken Yeang with much of his work. The act of slicing through the facade of the building to allow light and provide a continuous platform of greenery is both a function and aesthetic move. Here's another. The 'Guiyang Huaxi Urban Center’ by Dieguez Fridman is found via Designboom... sort of more Liebeskind that the original.




:: images via Designboom

A short explanation: "...the structure is an apartment building with hotel services as well. the form is based on the study of the province’s topography and the numerous terraced rice patties. this inspiration takes the form of a series of gardens on the building both inside and out."




:: image via Designboom

Another one that made the rounds has an elegant slice through the height of the massing. Via The Design Blog, the Shanghai Tower, this 632 meter tower is: " Enclosed with the inner layer of the double-skin facade, the Tower is comprised of nine cylindrical buildings heaped one on the other. While the building cover or the second skin is finished with a triangular exterior layer that swivels as it gets higher. The Shanghai Tower also features nine foyer sky gardens, developed between the two facade layers."




:: images via The Design Blog

The integration of landscaping into stacked building layers is definitely necessary for high-rise 'Pearl of the Emirates' medical towers, such as this one from World Architecture News, the Um Danat Al-Emarat pwomen’s and children’s hospital by HKS. A woven facade with multi-story vegetated facade combines hospitals and hospitality.


:: image via WAN

A slightly different 'slice' is found from the 'knot house' by mass studies, which is part of the much ballyhooed 'Ordos 100' project: "...the house entwines at several points to create a form similar to three rings, each at different levels, interlaced at the center... its continuous knot configuration creates numerous courtyards that differ in size, that serve as an extension to the interior spaces."




:: images via Designboom

As I mentioned in the original post on ORDOS, the proof of concept was in the implementation - and as these design solutions are slowly trickling in, it's definitely a variety of solutions - perhaps still a Mongolian suburb - but one the the most interesting suburbs in the world. Shifting back to the urban, perhaps not even a slice - but a full on void - cut through the American Commerce Centre, Philadelphia, United States by Kohn Peterson Fox. Some renderings show stunning visuals via WAN - the more interesting the further in you get.






:: images via WAN

And shifting gears, the idea of the slice through a more horizontal landscape, the first prize winner in a competition for the Mystetskyj Arsenal Cultural-Art and Museum Complex in Kiev by Arata Isozaki & Associates from Tokyo, Japan. (via Bustler)




:: images via Bustler