"dualities in repose"

We're off an running for a crazy summer of competitions/collaborations. Here's the first in a 'quadfecta' of work that will [hopefully] get pushed out this summer - with some stellar results. First on the docket, I have joined Corey Gaffer of Gaffer Photography [and amateur landscape design] in a collaborative effort to create an imaginative design for SLANT.eu, an international competition on Landscape Architecture. This is our submission to the competition:

"Sitting on the bend of a river, a plot of land

lies vacant. Overgrown and derelict, the possibility for

regeneration is palpable as an engine for change and

growth. As the river cuts, a park will connect. Industry

and culture coalesce, through creativity, innovation and

active participation sprouting a green economy and

joining communities with healthy local food and access

to art while improving the ecological health of the river.

The park softens hard edges created by urban residences to the west, large cultural complexes to the east and the river embracing the site perimeter. The resultant softening creates a multitude of new relationships and accessibility with the waterfront. Physical access to the river, access to education and information regarding river ecology and access to jobs through community gardening reengage residents with water as a resource in a full range of social and recreational activities.

Strategic planting restores and refreshes the soil on site and filters runoff before entering the river maintaining and improving the health of the river as an amenity. Embedded within the comprehensive bioremediation strategy, implied program hugs the water’s edge. Soft delineations are marked through unique relationships to the riverfront; community garden, beachhead, and art island. The passive characteristic of the river reemerges in an active dialogue with the park user.

Conceptually, the park draws from the diverse strengths and unique potentials in the surrounding context to activate new public space: a confluence of culture, economic innovation and individual repose. Strategic design emphasizes the relationships between greater natural, social, civic, and economic ecologies: where dualities exist they are reinterpreted as strengths and harnessed to emphasize the unique characteristics of the site’s surrounding context.

The north end of the park extends the museum’s impact through the introduction of an outdoor sculpture park. Set among waving grass a prairie is peppered with sculptures to be discovered, viewed, engaged, and reflected upon. To further heightening views, an island creates a new platform for viewing one’s surroundings from a vantage point encircled by a wetland marsh. The sculptures occupy an ecotone from prairie to marshland: an extended threshold. Here birds, frogs, lizards and snakes call home.

The south end contrasts the individual intellectual experience with a community based garden and market. The transition is dappled with trees opening to terraced modules creating a tapestry of gardens and ponds aiding the cultivation of local food sources. Physically engaging with earth reconnects residents to natural processes and cycles of growth strengthening community and improving health for residents across the river. Through this haptic engagement, the community gardens create a new micro-economy for residents by growing and selling healthy, local foods.

Linking both ends,a primary path wends through the site amplifying the gesture of the linear park. A thick forest hugs the path offering a visual and acoustic buffer from the urban fabric. The path creates new connections and opportunities to experience the neighborhood along and down to the waterfront as one navigates the dualities of culture and industry. The result is a park where dualities converge in an area of tranquility to experience, appreciate, reconsider, enjoy and grow.

london yields

In recent years the notion of urban agriculture has been gaining increased currency. Triggered by concerns about food prices, food miles and the environment it is also a response to the desire to live healthier, more sustainable lives. Despite good intentions, large-scale examples are hard to find however recent initiatives such as London Food promise much.




Can we reduce our reliance on imported food?
Where is the investment going to come from?
How can we change consumer spending habits and promote fresh food?
Do we need to be at the brink of catastrophe before urban agriculture is widely implemented?

two conferences are being held rather close together to begin addressing the questions above and dreaming new responses to these implications. one was held on may 27 and has a great review on bldgblog under london yields harvested and i recently stumbled upon another conference to be held on july 1 first called london's conference on urban farming that seeks to build conversation on the same topics...

here's an excerpt from london yields: urban agriculture;

In 2007 Lord Cameron of Dillington, first head of the Countryside Agency, famously remarked Britain was ‘nine meals away from anarchy.’ Our food supply is almost totally dependent on oil (95% of the food we eat is oil-dependent) and if the oil supply to Britain were suddenly cut off Lord Cameron estimated it would take just three full days before law and order broke down. We rely on a particularly vulnerable system. Britain needs to seriously invest in agriculture infrastructure if we are to avoid food crisis.

Cities are the most likely to feel the effects of any food shortages. In 2000 consultants Best Foot Forward estimated that Londoners consumed 6.9 million tonnes of food per year, of which 81% came from outside the UK. With a weakening pound importing food has become increasingly expensive. The transformation of cities from consumers of food to generators of agricultural products not only increases food security but contributes to sustainability, improved health and poverty alleviation.

This exhibition demonstrates various methods by which food production can be incorporated into the urban environment at both an industrial and domestic level. We hope to help stimulate the debate and raise public awareness of our increasingly fragile relationship with the food on which we rely on and the method of bringing it to our table.

standard architecture_ co-op canyon

stumbling upon this competition project by standard architecture for a visionary competition caught my eye for two reasons:
its design ethos; food as a tool supporting community,
and its diagrams; the clarity and style are good examples of style and content, both informative and artistic.












there sections were provocative as well... a series of terracing platforms that overlap and float among thin vertical structures. these sensibilities are something we're attempting to work into our upcoming competition.











check out the interview posted at archdaily_ standard partners - jefferey allbrook and silvia kuhle - speak on their philosophy, innovation, the role of technology in architecture, networking, and running their practice.

AD Interviews: Standard from ArchDaily on Vimeo.

receiving an honorable mention from the Re:Vision Dallas competition. its design is inspired by the cliff dwellings of the anasazi. food gardens bring the community of 1,000 residents together and provides an alternative form of income when good harvests abound.


"Standard’s radical approach focused on how the residents could potentially gain equity through participation in construction, agricultural, maintenance, education and conservation programs central to the sustenance of the community." [archdaily]





The practice was founded in 1996 by Jeffrey Allsbrook (M Arch USC, studies at the at the Städelschule in Frankurt, Germany and at the Berlage Institute in Amsterdam) and Silvia Kuhle (Architect Technische Universität Darmstadt, Germany, M Arch Columbia University).
"standard is developing an outstanding body of contemporary work that pursues an aesthetic of minimal clarity with designs that transform their settings" says the LA based architecture firm. they've completed a number of projects for a variety of clients in many places nationally and internationally. check out more of their work at standard architecture

here were a few that caught my eye after a quick cruise.

wildflower centre: i enjoyed their wildflower centre project. it reminded me of a thesis given last year at our school.
tree house: their tree house has a seductive ribbon of wood blending into a mass of concrete.
m1: m1 looks like a sleek rehab of an old warehouse space.