landscape architecture

Shapes and forms matter. In the pattern-seeking modules of the human brain, shapes and forms communicate; what they communicate to you will be a product of the culture and territory in which you were formed. For some reason culture is particularly when shapes are combined into more complex configurations. The one exception is organic forms, especially plants. Their symbolism tends to be more universal as they are seen to be pleasing and comforting by all. To us, a plant's asymmetry conveys spontaneity. The history of plants being used in the sculptural forms and motifs of many traditions goes back eons. These motifs were seen as a way of expressing everything from long life, healing, renewal, to fertility, strength and longevity. Perhaps for their medicinal as well as poisonous characteristic––life giving and life ending––plants supernatural project supernatural qualities in traditional art like magic, prophecy, and all seeing also charge traditional plant symbolisms in art.

Organic forms can also have a transformative role in the context of a design. As in the Sebastian Errazuriz Tree Table below, the mix of the organic with the industrial in the material and shape of the branch table base has the effect of softening the industrial-ness of glass.

Korean designer Chul An Kwak's eschews the static. He found inspiration in the movement of a running horse but knew he wouldn't get there with straight planar legs and right angles. Through his use of sculpted wood, the designer wanted to convey not just dynamic motion but dynamic emotion. The table have feeling of unresolved tension, as if it trying to escape from the room,  a horse galloping to freedom.

Below, another Korean, artist MyeongBeom Kim takes the concept to the extreme, in the case of the carved out chair from the tree he plays with industrializing the chair's organic source material, and in the urinal piece below that, nature beautifully blooms from the abundance of human waste. Below Kim's work, nature—either as a single element or as a faux jungle—projects a sense of vigor and hope into a stark hardscape or an otherwise barren vista.

Below, Kim may be commenting on the diminishing natural environment, our profligate use of water, and unsustainable production of waste.

Above, the accidental forest; below, the domestic micro-jungle; and below next, an integration of the urban with what it replaced.

A forest appears to be grow from the model's head like Athena out of the forehead of Zeus. Below, nature manipulated by nature as if they were bespoke creations made to order. At bottom: The building's glass gives back some of the sky.

Traditionally, the mash up of plants and buildings was an exercise in poetic symbolism. To wit: At the Princeton Ivy Club the mortared walls are well rooted for posterity–literally–with clinging ivy and the shelter of trees.

In the contemporary version, there's a new urgency: Faced not only with the necessity of making the most of our diminishing space and resources, how can we create more public greenspace as our potential undeveloped lands are disappearing?

Here are some ideas for making the most of our finite leftovers.

Besides visually expanding greenspace, plantings on building walls and roofs offer other advantages. Plants act as insulation against heat and cold, absorb rainwater, create wildlife habitat, and on a larger scale help lower urban temperatures and mitigate the heat island effect (a phenomenon of hardscaped cities creating more heat than the surrounding rural space). Plus, the ability of living plants to act as carbon storage batteries in an era of global climate change may be vital.

Interiors can be green integrated too.

The potential of green building is on display in this shop of Belgian designer Ann Demeulemeester in the Gangham district of Seoul. The architect was Korean architect Minsuuk Cho of the firm Mass Studies. The building features include a planted façade and a moss-lined internal stairway. For a more detailed vision of the project, see here.

Photos by Yong-Kwan Kim

This building, the brainchild of Vietnamese architect Vo Trong Nghia, has been touted for its innovative integration of plants and architecture in a location especially known for its high temperatures, heavy rain, and sometimes day-long power shortages. The plants provide privacy while allowing for ventilation and natural daylighting.

More on this house here.

Below, more Vo Trong Nghia and his work in Viet Nam.

Here, Vo Trong's Wind and Water Bar: Not exactly a construction of living material but material that is only recently departed.

This planted façade is from a mixed-use building in Odawara, Japan.

And this, a banana plantation–or the modern urban equivalent–in the middle of Paris:

The urban forest in Tokyo: Quite possibly the future everywhere.

It's been called living sculpture, a giant stylized artichoke, the cousin to the aloe, new world native, and a vital component to both tequila and didgeridoos: The agave.

It thrives on neglect, needs no fertilizer, very little water, and can tolerate a variety of soils as long they're well drained. The perfect addition to the California garden.

Agave makes an excellent candidate for potting as it produces  sparse roots and tolerates crowding. It's also a good companion to the pool as it produces litter sparingly.

The agave's natural structure makes it an excellent sculptural accompaniment to soft grasses, wispy wildflowers, tufty salvias, and other fine-leafed gatherings. It not only provides the masculine element, it makes the feminine appear even more so.

It also makes for a striking emotional impact, its visual severity along with its spines and dagger-like projections can add drama to a any garden or country road.

Agaves are available in many color, sizes, and varieties including spineless.

Below, the sentries of the Sunnyland Gardens in Rancho Mirage, CA:

Beneath the pergola one agave stands like both king and jester at the terminus of this visual corridor: The general-in-arms and a floppy and spiky armed clown. If great gardens are like kaleidoscopic mixtures of beautiful contrasts then the agave, as one designer said, "is a great design opportunity."

At first glance the buildings of Venetian architect Carlo Scarpa appear severe and nearly monolithic, a kind of Brutalism meets Deco by way of Japan with a few splices of Russian Constructivism and Italian sensuousness.

Only upon closer study are the delicacy and detail of his buildings revealed. It's those meticulous watchmaker-like details that draw us in.

For his Brion Tomb the Japanese Ensō intersects the long plane of a poured stone wall: Under Scarpa's delicate hand they are like two bullet holes of zen enlightenment artfully blasted into a military bunker.

The stroke of the chisel above and the caress of the sandpaper below.

Below, a riff on the Fibonacci sequence: Curves, spirals, and triangles mingle with the quadrilinear while neutrals and colors converge with wood and stone.

What is now a dying art was once the artist's telescoped message to the observer of the designer's mysterious process: Another unfortunate artifact in the age of computers, Scarpa's drawings are as distinguishable to the master's work as were Frank Lloyd Wright's to his own.

Below, Scarpa's drawings for Olivetti Design Camp competition, 1956.

Below, studies for the Gavina store mosaic, 1961-63:

Below, drawings for a holy-water stoup (left) and constructional details for a candelabrum:

Images and quotes below taken from the book Carlo Scarpa: The Complete Works by Francesco Dal Co & Guisseppe Mazzariol.

Scarpa's work is made up of fragments without being fragmentary. Vittorio Gregotti

... these fragments are both the remains of a completed construction and the uncompleted and unplaced elements of a construction yet to be built. But they are not fragments of history, nor are they splinters of the future. These fragnemts are the remains of a solitude, that of a master who had the courage not to desire pupils. Franco Purini

Built-in seating (table optional) can give a project a more formal, architectural look. It can also provide an architectural point of interest for luring guests outside. The orderliness and permanence of it contrasts nicely with plantings and other organic materials surrounding it.

Sean has designed and built seating fixtures for various Knibb Design projects over the years, some of which can be seen in this newsletters, here and here.)

Note the rough natural edge to the underside of both the table and the bench:

Constructions can offer a zen-like appearance to a garden as well, with their resolute lines, boundaries, and geometry. A built planter can also achieve this to a degree but seating adds the human component. By inviting us in it makes us another aspect of the garden of the garden itself.

For want of a garden a new view helps:

Originally designed most likely as a way to extend the use of precious timber, pergolas—going back at least as long as the Egyptians, say 3000 years give or take—were in their earliest forms coverings with spaced slats. Over these slats were grown vines or fruit trees. These covered seating areas would used in the more temperate regions as a cool respite for the sedentary pursuit of watching the wildlife from your back porch, de rigueur for the noble class of 17th century England.

Here, paradise and cocktails under the logs:

If their design began as a practical matter we've so long ago grown enamored by their sheer object beauty of the things that their essential function hardly matters anymore. We just love to look at them. Most of the great gardens have at least one if not more.

A stone cold rush of rustic with a mixer of Mediterranean:

Wine and pyramids under the shady green:

Detached from the natural garden and incorporated into the paved one, pergolas are often used as a poolside shelter.

The word pergola, originally from the Latin, literally refered to a "covered eave." It is part of a tradition that traveled the world. Moroccan style, below:

It's been argued that it was the Italians during the Renaissance who first  incorporated the shelters as free standing elements in their formal gardens. In Italian pergola means "a close walk of boughs."

Here, a constructed forest featuring roses and waterlilies.

As interpreted by Andrea Cochran:

Cloth will work nicely, too.

A more finished rendition from architect Daniel J. Lieberman:

Small is also good.

The room without walls:

The entry is the first impression. It prepares the viewer and guides them into the experience that follows.

(Photo below by David Lauer:)

As an architectural experience the entry can also effect those who may only ever pass by. It's the most important opportunity for establishing a home's brand.

Below, trees behind the house establish a setting while two smaller ornamentals in front create the illusion of the home being in a deep forest.

An Eero Saarinen house:

A UCLA study of Los Angeles middle class home culture found that the only leisure time residents spent in their yards, especially the fronts, tended to be involved in yard work. Yards tend not to fulfill their intended purpose in the stressed working lives of many. (They also found that few people park their cars in their garage, instead they use the space for storage of items they most likely will never use.)

Proof of how important maintaining the illusion is to us.

Orange welcomes among the cacti, heat, and rocks of Palm Springs.

Topiary, the art of clipping and training plants into desired shapes, has origins dating back to Roman times. The first records of topiary come from the Greeks but the word itself is from the Latin (topiarius). Romans displayed topiary in tomb paintings and there may've been some Persian influences as well. It's also likely that something similar was going on contemporaneously in China. The Japanese borrowed forms from China and started a tradition of their own.

We tend to think of topiary as plants shaped into whimsical forms, like animals and such, but this occupies only a small part of a long tradition. It was a Roman, poet Cneus Matius, who is credited with bringing topiary to the attention of Caesar Augustus. (Roman emperors have a history of having their predilections make epic impressions on world culture—think Constantine and Christianity.)

Once characteristic of the grandest European gardens, interest in topiary would wane, partly by vandalism and partly religious oppression: The great Roman gardens would be destroyed by the invading barbarian hordes in their zeal to destroy the Empire. The Dark Ages would have a profound effect on garden aesthetics, as pleasure gardens were repurposed as places to consider to contemplate God's power and not human vanities. Interest in pleasure gardens would return during the Renaissance in great part due to cultivation of herbs, flowers, and shrubs in monastery gardens throughout Europe. Geometric shapes were most prevalent, simple cubes, orbs, cones, and obelisks. The Victorian era would see another resurgence.

Traditional grandeur, above and below, at the gardens of Château-de-Villandry, France:

A hedge is a simpler, functional form of topiary intended to create boundaries, walls, or screens.

Below, hedges form an extension of the manor's heroic architecture.

Or a castle hall:

And more modern treatments:

The severe serenity of the well ordered Japanese garden:

Two view of the gardens at the Trentham estate, Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire:

The title is from this Langston Hughes poem.

Grasses are sensual. You can smell them and hear them and watch them move. Meadows are sexy, just like lovers they never stop changing, never ceasing to surprise.

John Greenlee

That sensuousness can be seen in the way grass moves in the breeze. How it blooms robust with color in the spring and goes dormant brown in the winter: As Greenlee might say, they're the essence of sex and death.

Grass is dynamic. It gives texture and balance, it can be sharp or fluffly. It's an ensemble player, a backgrounder, accompanist, or virtuoso soloist if need be. Its culturally polyglot: It's Asia, Africa, the Mediterranean, and the American heartland. It's tropical, jungle, desert, lush, dry, sparse, and dense.

Below, the work of Washington D.C. based James Van Sweden:

Layers:

Meadows:

In contemporary gardens, it is the quintessential modern material.

More James Van Sweden:

It works in the meadow; it works in a pot:

Piet Oudolf's Trenthan Gardens: