Tuesday, August 10, 2010

The Highline

The Highline, New York is a successful example of reclaiming disused industrial land for recreational purposes...especially iconic because it reclaims redundant rail tracks formerly used to transport freight above Manhattan's busy streets. Claiming this elevated land for recreational use has provided the surrounding urban area with a green strip of open space, where the development within the high density ground plane below can not be easily achieved.

Designed by Landscape Architects James Corner Field Operations and Architects Diller Scofidio + Renfro, The Highline will form a 1 & 1/2 mile linear public park when completed.

Tuesday, August 03, 2010

Tell me a story...

The ability for surfaces to tell a narrative is often used as a strong feature in landscape designs - there are endless effects to be created by inlaying or embedding objects or other materials, etching, honing or sand blasting surfaces or stenciling designs.

I have recently become interested in the potential of typographic pavements to create interpretive landscape experiences - such as Language of the Birds, located in the historical literary district of North Beach San Francisco, where literature and language forms the focus of a site specific narrative through a striking landscape intervention and art installation. Sculpted books (illuminated at night by solar power) hang suspended like a flock of birds above a concrete surface patterned by a jumble of sand blasted words and phrases from local authors. These words and phrases are inscribed and preserved in the fonts used in their original print media and are in a variety of languages.

There is no definitive message that is preached by this installation, but rather a range of thought provoking experiences and a series of clues that the individual can interpret to create their own understanding of the space and its story.

It is this potential to develop the multi-layering of information, symbolism, site narrative and interpretive elements that can create a site specific design, which is anchored to a unique sense of place, history and environment. Such commonly used surfaces as concrete should be experimented with and more often custom designed with added graphic treatments or unique textures - they shouldn't continue to be generic or unimaginative blanket ground plane treatments.

Image: Language of the Birds, San Francisco by Dorka Kheen & Brian Goggin.
See also: A Flock of Words, Morecambe, England by Why Not Associates and artist Gordon Young