Landscape Architecture: The Latest Architecture and News

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By all accounts 2014 has been a great year for landscape architecture, and not just because of the completion of the final phase of the High Line by Diller Scofidio + Renfro and James Corner Field Operations. Previously published by the Huffington Post as "2014's Notable Developments in Landscape Architecture," this roundup of the year by the President of The Cultural Landscape Foundation Charles A Birnbaum finds plenty of promising developments, marred only slightly by some more backward-looking descisions.

This year there was a cultural shift that saw landscape architecture and its practitioners achieve an unprecedented level of visibility and influence.

This year the single most notable development came courtesy of the New York Times architecture critic Michael Kimmelman who wrote: "Great public places and works of landscape architecture deserve to be treated like great buildings."

Landscape architecture and architecture on equal footing. Let that sink in.

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SCAPE / Landscape Architecture and Rogers Partners have envisioned a new public gateway for the Mississippi River’s “one true waterfall” - St. Anthony Falls in downtown Minneapolis. Named after being the city’s original site for its 19th-century water supply and fire-fighting pumping stations, “Water Works” is designed to “weave” together heritage ruins, local ecology, and recreational systems into a “coherent civic space” on four-acres of Central Riverfront.

To address issues surrounding Asia’s aging population and food scarcity, SPARK has unveiled a conceptual project the blends affordable retirement housing with urban farming. The proposal, titled "Home Farm," integrates vertical aquaponic farming and rooftop soil planting with high-density housing designed for seniors that provides residents with a desirable garden environment and opportunities for post-retirement employment.

"We designed this concept for Singapore," says SPARK Director Stephen Pimbley, "but there is the potential for it to be applied in any location that would support the growth of leafy green vegetables on building facades and rooftops." He continues, "We are keen to see this project materialise at some point in the future. The concept is a realizable solution to real and pressing problems faced by many of the world’s growing cities."

Read on to learn more about the concept.

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Weddle Gilmore black rock studio, West 8 and Colwell Shelor Landscape Architecture have been selected to transform 19 acres surrounding Arizona's Mesa City Hall into a unique civic space that will “capture and enhance the urbanizing momentum of Mesa’s downtown core.” Unanimously selected by the City of Mesa, over finalists Woods Bagot + Surface Design and Otak + Mayer Reed, the winning scheme plans to activate the public space with a series of flexible plazas and garden spaces centered around a distinct cooper shade structure.

More about the design and competition, after the break.

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Damian Rogers Architecture is hoping to “bring surf to the city” by proposing a $8 million AUD artificial beach and wave pool for the Victoria Harbor in Melbourne. Capable of simulating “surfable” 1.5-meter-high waves, the heated salt-water pool is envisioned as an extension of Central Pier in the Docklands. If built, the pool would be complimented by a beach, encompassing boardwalk, and grass-covered recreation and retail facility.

The Busan Port Authority (BPA) has named the SYNWHA Consortium winners of an international competition for the Busan North Port Redevelopment in South Korea. The winning proposal is an "Interactive Pier" slated to transform the original port into a cultural center that celebrates the marriage of mountains, river, and sea, while crafting dynamic connections between the city of Busan and its seaside.

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The Decorators, an interdisciplinary group of practitioners working with space in London, recently transformed the terrace overlooking the city at Alexandra Palace by installing a mobile Italian garden. As a "landscape of scattered objects" which geometrically piece together to resemble a formal garden, the designers describe the project as somewhere between "grotto and folly, garden and landscape, stage and amphitheater," all the while drawing from the historical character of the surrounding context. The scheme ultimately "breaks the monumental proportions of the main building to meet visitors with a more intimate scale on their first encounter" with the palace.

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Rogers Partners (formally known as Rogers Marvel Architects) and PWP Landscape Architecture’s redesign for the National Mall’s neglected Constitution Gardens has received unanimous approval from the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts and The National Capital Planning Commission (NCPC). The 50-acre project, which was originally won through a competition in 2012, will now move forward with its first phase.

OSPA Architecture and Urbanism has won a national competition for the new UFCSPA (Federal University of Health Sciences of Porto Alegre) Campus Igara in Canoas, Brazil. The goal of the sports campus is to integrate itself within the community so it may serve as both a public institution and a public space. You can learn more about the winning scheme, after the break.

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Tulane City Center and a team of Tulane architecture students worked together with the Lousiana Outdoor Outreach Program to design a shade structure made from traffic yield signs for a challenge course in City Park. Drawing inspiration from the surrounding tree canopy and the structure of the ropes course, the design team crafted a faceted, curving aluminum canopy suspended by steel cables with an earthen berm for seating below. More about the pavilion, after the break.

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