Butcher’s Bridge-House

Project: Butcher’s Bridge
Archtecture: Sadar Vuga Arhitekti (Jurij Sadar, Boštjan Vuga, Nataša Mrkonjić, Bor Pungerčič, Margarida Dias, Adrian Petrucelli);
Structural engineer: Atelier One, London/Mancheste
Source: open anonymous competition
Client: City Council Ljubljana
Address/Site: The Ljubljanica river and embankments in the centre of Ljubljana, Slovenia
Site area: 5.722 m2
Building area: 722 m2
Total floor area: 7.166 m2
Storeys: ground floor + 2 storeys
Structure: cast-on-site reinforced concrete, prefab reinforced concrete
Programme: market opening, public event space, bridge

Excerpt: The new Butcher’s bridge concludes the arrangement of the Jože Plecnik’s covered market from the mid-1930s. It connects the market area on the Adamic-Lunder embankment with the new market area on the regulated Petkovšek embankment.

The proposal envisages a ‘house-bridge’ with three horizontal platforms. The lower, the upper and the canopy platforms determine two levels of covered space above the river. The dimensions of the platforms, 39×19 m, enable a continuation of both the market and the public event area on the lower and upper levels of the bridge. All three platforms are equipped with slender bell-shaped columns that alternatingly widen either downwards or upwards, tied to a homogeneous spatial structure. The columns are placed onto the platforms in two longitudinal rows, which leave open a central space on each level. The columns are set at a distance from all edges of the platforms so that the space between the fence of the platforms and the columns offers room for a three-metre passageway.

The entire bridge construction is made of concrete. The columns are of artificial stone, the paving of the platform is terrazzo. All three platforms are perforated and covered with glass floor tiles that are permeated by diffuse light.

More info:: sadarvuga.com / All images:: © 1996-2007 SVA

This entry was written by admin, posted on July 31, 2009 at 8:00 pm, filed under Competitions, Waterfronts and tagged Bridge, Ljubljana, Public space, Slovenia. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink.

Teardrop park

Landscape Architecture: Michael Van Valkenburg Associates, Inc

Location: Lower Manhattan / NYC / USA

Area: 1.8 acres, less than a hectare

Teardrop Park is a public residential park surrounded by buildings higher than park’s width. It offers places for people of all ages, especially children can enjoy playing in sand, climbing the rocks, hiding in high shrubs etc. Special feature is a stony wall with ice water-fall, which crosses the park and divides it on two different parts. The first is more grassy, classy, chill-out meadow surrounded by shrubs and small trees and a bit elevated on the edges. The other part is structured in different smaller playgrounds, very exciting for children, with many features for stimulating their minds and bodies. Design (with all it’s physical elements, materials) refers to a landscape of Hudson River Valley as a wild, stony, green, natural landscape.

All images via ASLA

This entry was written by admin, posted on July 30, 2009 at 8:08 pm, filed under Parks, Playscapes and tagged NYC, Public space, Residential Park, USA. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink.

Aerial Suburbia /Drawings

Design: Ross Racine

via People and places

Ross Racine draws fictive urban patterns, mostly suburbias, surrounded by a desert or agricultural looking environment. All artworks are produced freehand, no scans or photos are included in the process. Drawings are printed on high-end inkjet printer.

This entry was written by admin, posted on July 29, 2009 at 7:04 pm, filed under Artscapes and tagged NYC, Suburbs, USA. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink.

Plaza España

Landscape Architecture: Herzog & de Meuron
Location: Santa Cruz de Tenerife, Spain
Construction: 2008
Area: 38,080 m²
Client: Cabildo Insular de Tenerife, Santa Cruz de Tenerife
More images by Iwan Baan

Photo © Iwan Baan

Photo © Iwan Baan

Photo © Iwan Baan

Photo © Iwan Baan

Photo © Iwan Baan

Photo © Iwan Baan

Photo © Iwan Baan

Photo © Iwan Baan

Photo © Iwan Baan

Photo © Iwan Baan

Photo © Iwan Baan

Photo © Iwan Baan

Photo © Iwan Baan

Photo © Iwan Baan

Photo © Iwan Baan

Photo © Iwan Baan

Photo © Iwan Baan

Photo © Iwan Baan

This entry was written by admin, posted on July 28, 2009 at 3:16 pm, filed under Green roofs & walls, Playscapes, Squares, Waterfronts and tagged Spain, Tenerife, Water. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink.

Presbyterian Church

Westminster Presbyterian Church: Urban Columbarium and Courtyards
Landscape Architecture: Coen+Partners
Location: Minneapolis, Minnesota
Image Credits: Paul Crosby Architectural Photography
Images via: Archinect

Excerpt from designer’s website:

Westminster Presbyterian Church is a prominent institution in downtown Minneapolis with far-reaching community service and social justice programs. The Church retained Coen + Partners to complete a new design for the landscape surrounding the 110-year-old building; the firm was challenged to create a modern presence for Westminster along adjacent streets, a meaningful courtyard for receptions and ceremonies, and a new memorial columbarium for ash inurnment.

Views of the reception and columbarium spaces are obscured from the street by a patinaed copper screen, fretted with patterns abstracted from those in Westminster’s original stained glass windows. A long stone columbarium contrasts and complements the materiality of the church itself, while groundcover gardens are interspersed throughout the landscape spaces, providing seasonal color and texture. The columbarium is accessed by sloping procession from the street level. The reception and ceremony areas consists of masonry paving, a garden of honey locust trees, and a series of ipe-wood and stainless steel benches. A narrow water rill parallels the street, extending the linear form of the columbarium wall into the adjacent space.

Collaboration: Meyer, Scherer & Rockcastle Architects

Recent Awards:  2009 ASLA General Design Honor Award and MASLA Award in General Design

This entry was written by admin, posted on July 27, 2009 at 2:29 pm, filed under Gardens, Parks and tagged Minneapolis, USA. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink.

Fuji Kindergarten

Project: Montessori School Fuji Kindergarten

Design: Tezuka Architects
Constructor: Takenaka Corporation
Location: Tachikawa, Tokyo, Japan
Area: 4791.69m2

Photographs : Katsuhisa Kida
Video: 0300TV

A kindergarten in the shape of a oval with a perimeter of 183m,
made for 500 children. It is conceived as a single village.
The interior is an integrated space softly partitioned with furniture.
Projecting through the roof deck are three preserved zelkova trees 25m in height.

Read more on e-architect or visit Kindergarten’s website.

Tezuka Architects / Fuji Kindergarden from 0300TV on Vimeo.

This entry was written by admin, posted on July 26, 2009 at 7:00 pm, filed under Green roofs & walls, Playscapes and tagged Japan, Roof Playground, Tachicawa. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink.

Ponte Parodi /Green Roof

Design: UNStudio
Client: Porto Antico di Genova Spa/ ALTAREA Italia Progetti S.r.l.
Location: harbor Genoa / Italy
Building area: 76.000 m2
Program: 3 dimensional Piazza/ cruise terminal/ wellness
Status/phase: design development phase

image credits: UNStudio

The Ponte Parodi project establishes a new city attractor based on the proliferation of experience. A three dimensional plaza located on the waterfront combines a variety of programs including a cruise terminal, wellness, cultural and leisure program, all of which bring liveliness to the old harbor. With its low-slung, undulating outlines the piazza provides a park with sport fields, beaches and other public functions while emphasizing the view of Genoa and its Alpine setting.

This entry was written by admin, posted on July 24, 2009 at 6:48 pm, filed under Green roofs & walls, Waterfronts and tagged Genoa, Italy. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink.

Park Monte Laa

Landscape Architecture:
Design Concept: Marta Schwarz Inc. /USA
Final Design and construction planning: 3:0 Landschaftsarchitektur
Location: Wien / Austria
Area:  12.200 m2
Construction Period: 2003-2006
Cost: 2,1 mio €
Client: Porr solutions GmbH

Park Monte Laa is nearly everything a modern community could expect from a residential park. It consists of playgrounds for children, various benches, water features, multifunctional platforms and skate park with an area for teenagers. Park is  extremely longitudinal and different elevations divide the park on smaller, more closed areas. For more pictures visit project’s page.

©3:0 Landschaftsarchitektur

©3:0 Landschaftsarchitektur

©3:0 Landschaftsarchitektur

This entry was written by admin, posted on at 3:29 am, filed under Parks, Playscapes and tagged Austria, Wien. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink.

Natureza em Risco

Project : Natureza em Risco

Designed by: Lara Plácido /architect, Sara Bento Botelho  /sculptor

Location: Ponte de Lima / Portugal

Designer’s quotation:

“…as we walk past it, will grow a “diary” of the garden, superimposing spontaneous and arbitrary records, productively artistic through the action of the wind on the rods with markers attached to their ends which will operate like a wind printer of the intervention of viewers ready to interact with them, thus creating a drawing of their journey….”

This entry was written by admin, posted on July 23, 2009 at 3:15 am, filed under Gardens, Playscapes and tagged Ponte de Lima, Portugal. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink.

Square Depression

Design: Bruce Nauman

Location: Münster, Germany

Construction: 2007

Square depression is a project, which was originaly designed in 1977, when Burce Nauman was invited among nine other artists by Kaspar König to do a sculpture for an open space. It was built 30 years later in the campus of the university’s department of natural sciences Munster. Square depression is an inverted pyramid, ‘walk in’ sculpture made of white concrete. The aim was to create a space, where one could experience a feeling of being isolated, helpless and alone.

This entry was written by admin, posted on at 12:22 am, filed under Artscapes, Exstalations, Squares and tagged concrete, germany, Münster. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink.