Stefano Boeri has unveiled the design of a circular elevated walkway that will be built below Renzo Piano's replacement for the collapsed Morandi Bridge in Genoa, Italy.

Developed by his eponymous studio Stefano Boeri Architetti, working with Metrogramma and Inside Outside, the walkway forms part of the Polcevera Park and The Red Circle masterplan, which has been designed to "breathe new life" into the landscape that is recovering from the Morandi Bridge collapse in 2018.

The masterplan will overhaul the site below Piano's replacement structure, with a circular red walkway elevated above biodiverse parkland and a "sustainable innovation" zone.

"The Polcevera Park and The Red Circle has been thought out as a system of parks with different ecologies and infrastructures," explained Stefano Boeri Architetti.

"For sustainable mobility and smart buildings for R&D, and manufacturing with the aim of reversing the current image of the Polcevera valley from a complex and tragically devastated place to a territory of sustainable innovation for the rejuvenation of Genoa itself."

At the heart of the Polcevera Park and The Red Circle, the giant walkway will create a circular "corridor" for bikes and pedestrians to move easily between the parks and buildings.

It will measure 1,570 metres in length with a radius of 250 metres, and will be built from steel as a reference to the "powerful local tradition of blast furnaces, cranes, and overhead cranes".

The walkway will be marked in the city by a 120-metre-high wind tower, which will be used to generate green energy that will be distributed to the buildings in the area.

Below it will be the Polcevera park, which will be divided up into a number "linear fields" that will align with the bridge's support columns.

These fields will vary from 7 to 20 metres in length and each contain a different combination of plants and tree species to increase biodiversity in the area. They will also be developed to absorb and collect rainwater for irrigation.

It is hoped that this parkland will also provide the city with a variety of spaces animals as well as social and recreational activities for locals. A zigzagging ramp running perpendicular to the fields will connect them to the circular walkway.

At the heart of the Polcevera park the studio's are also incorporating a forest-like installation named Genova in the Wood by artist Luca Vitone, which will feature 43 trees in memory of the victims of the bridge collapse.

This will also incorporate a number of benches with "peculiar shapes", such as wheels and crosses, designed to double as peaceful reading nooks amongst the trees.

The Polcevera Park and The Red Circle masterplan will be complete with clusters of industrial buildings around the edges of the park, which are being designed by Metrogramma Milano.

These buildings are hoped to form a sustainable innovation hub for the city.

Each building will cater for a variety of different functions and will be directly connected to its neighbours via the red elevated walkway that will run through each structure.

Metrogramma Milano said all new building will be blue as a reference to the Mediterranean Sea, and will be built with sustainable materials with large flat roofs to accommodate solar panels and other renewable energy sources.

The development of the masterplan will run alongside the construction of the new motorway bridge designed by Italian architect Piano, which he revealed just four months after the collapse of Morandi bridge.

Described by Piano as "a very Genoese bridge," his replacement will take the form of a minimalist white beam supported at regular intervals by tall piers.

Elsewhere in Italy, OMA is working with Laboratorio Permanente to develop the Agenti Climatici masterplan in Milan, which will see two abandoned goods yards transformed into public parks to filter the city's air and water pollution.

Images courtesy of Stefano Boeri Architetti, Metrogramma Milano and Inside Outside.

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MVRDV has revealed visuals of The Hague with its 17th-century canals reopened and refilled to demonstrate how their restoration could help revive the city's centre.

Developed in collaboration with local neighbourhood organisations, MVRDV's vision imagines the Dutch city's historic canals, which once ran through its centre, restored as waterways for swimming, canoeing, pleasure boats, and a koi carp habitat.

The aim of the project is to show how the waterway's revival could regenerate parts of the city and in turn boost its economy, biodiversity and traffic and water management.

"All over the world, neighbourhoods like the old centre of The Hague form the backbone of tourism and provide an identity to a city, but in The Hague somehow this ancient and incredibly charming area was forgotten," says Winy Maas, architect and co-founder of MVRDV.

"The area offers the unique chance for an urban regeneration that will improve the local economy and make a leap forward in the city’s energy transition."

As a city founded as a government centre –  and housing one of the world's most important courts – The Hague has had little dependence on its canal system in comparison to other Dutch cities, which historically relied on them for trade.

Consequently, much of its water network was filled between 1910 and 1970 to create space for tram lines and buildings – despite a local grassroots movement to preserve it.

Recent years have seen a revival in this movement as part of the community's Spinoza Power 2.0 project.

Spinoza Power 2.0 is calling on the local authorities to remove and repurpose the red light district, and create a market hall in place of an underperforming parking garage.

Building on this vision, MVRDV has developed a deliberately "simple and realistic" masterplan to reopen a number of its canals, rejoining those that run around its edges.

"Based on a study of the historical canals by local firm BAU architects, MVRDV envisions the restoration of the main canals, and has drawn up plans for the minor canals which are either dead-ends or lost due to underground works or buildings," explained the studio.

"Each of these canal stubs needs to function as an urban activator."

The visuals imagine the reopened canals used as routes for swimming, canoeing, and surfing to support The Hague's ambition of becoming a sports-focused city, as well as pedalos and gondola-style vessels.

MVRDV says they have also proposed for the restored waterway to provide space for koi carp – a species of carp that are usually kept for decorative purposes in outdoor koi ponds or water gardens.

MVRDV is an architecture studio based in Rotterdam, founded in 1991 by Winy Maas, Jacob van Rijs and Nathalie de Vries.

Elsewhere in the Hague, MVRDV is developing a pair of mixed-use towers that will feature natural stone facades that stagger into wooden outdoor spaces on top.

Visuals courtesy of MVRDV.

Project credits:

Architect: MVRDV
Partner in charge: Winy Maas, Jan Knikker
Design team: Lisa Ulbrich, Gustavo van Staveren, Emilie Koch, Fedor Bron, Elien Deceuninck Visualisations: Kirill Emelianov
Strategy and development: Amanda Rooseboom, Miruna Dunu
Advisor: Shireen Poyck
Neighbourhood organisations: Grachten Open / Buurtplatform Oude Centrum eo (Bob Willem van Hooft, Chris Schram, Jan Elsinga, Shireen Poyck); Wijkorganisatie Oude Centrum / Spinozakracht (Karlijne Scholts, Marieke de Jong, Jan van den Brink)

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Plants will be used to greenwash developments until landscape architecture is given a bigger role in urban planning says French landscape architect Céline Baumann.

Baumann, whose work is one of 40 visions for the future of architecture currently on display at the Royal Academy of Arts in London, warned that plants on buildings are often a distraction from a development's less eco-friendly qualities.

"Greenery is unfortunately too often used as an alibi for new developments, by wrapping buildings in green as sole legitimisation of an otherwise unsustainable project," Baumann told Dezeen.

"Green surfaces such as walls and roofs are often very high maintenance and demands a lot of water and chemicals to thrive."

Commodifying nature can lead to higher pollution

Many new developments are incorporating vertical forests, green roofs, urban farms and living walls. But unless these are deployed properly and sensitively, she said, they give little benefit – or are even actively harmful.

"Greenery is not per se ecological, and the commodification of nature can lead in fact to reduced biodiversity and higher pollution levels," said Baumann.

Ten years ago a London council was accused of wasting £100,000 on the UK's first living wall when all the plants died. The structure was designed to replace the parkland that was lost when a children's centre was built on the site, but within three years it was brown and withered.

Since then may new developments have featured green walls and roofs, as cities strive to address high levels of pollution and risks of flooding with sustainable architecture.

This trend for plant-covered buildings is ultimately positive, said Baumann.

"There's a greater awareness today on the positive impact of plants in our urban environment in term of improving air quality, reducing pollution, creating cooling island, promoting biodiversity and fostering citizen's physical and mental health," she said. "This is very encouraging."

Landscape architects must be given a bigger role

To make sure greenery is used in the right way, planting experts need to be involved in a much more significant way, not just as window dressing.

"Landscape architects today can be radical only if they are given a bigger role in city planning and new developments," said Baumann. "Their understanding of open spaces as well as of natural processes is crucial to allow the creation of more inclusive, liveable, and truly sustainable cities."

Baumann's peice exploring the queer lives of plants and their potential for imagining a post-anthropocene landscape is part of an exhibition at the Royal Academy of Arts, called What is radical today?

Curated by Gonzalo Herrero Delicado, it is a display of 40 radical projects from architects including Peter Cook, Denise Scott Brown and Dezeen columnist Sam Jacob.

Parliament of Plants is Baumann's adaption of the 18th century painting by Karl Anton Hickel, which depicts a cast of white male politicians sitting in the UK House of Commons. Instead of people, each portrait has been replaced by a plant.

"It was painted at a time when imperial powers sponsored colonial expeditions that supported scientific exploration, imperial conquests, and global trade," said Baumann.

"Palms, bamboos, arums, rubber trees, and cactuses ranked prominently among the motivations for voyages of discovery, together with costly spices, medicinal herbs, and cash crops."

Plants offer new ways of thinking

Her piece asks how the world could have been different if "the vegetable world had taken power" at this point in history.

"Would they be better at tackling issues of races, gender, normativity, inclusivity, ecology and climate change than we are?" Baumann asked.

Plants offer a radical alternative vision for living in the future, argues the landscape architect, because they are inherently queer – in the sexual and gender minority sense.

"Some plants are unisexual and possess either male or female attributes on a single tree, like the yew or the gingko. Others contain both male and female inflorescences on the same plant: the spruce or the birch tree for example," said Baumann.

"Others are multi-gendered: the wild carrot is both male and hermaphroditic. Some specimens are transitionally transgender: going from one sex to the other, like in the case of the field maple. Such a range of possibilities can be framed as queer."

"We are suffering from plant blindness"

It is these queer attributes that make plants uniquely adaptable to different soils and climates, or able to foil would-be predators.

Humanity needs to open their eyes to the alternative modes of being to plan for ways of living once we have moved beyond the anthropocene, suggested Baumann. For the first time in history, humans have become the major force impacting the planet's climate and environment.

"We are suffering from plant blindness," she said.

"We don't really see nature around us, having lost touch with the plant world within our urban environment. Trees, shrubs, flowers, and herbs can though be a great source of inspiration, by providing alternatives to the way we design and act. In a post-anthropocene era, flora would be given a voice and be respected."

Main image is by Projekt_Kaffeebart via Pixabay.

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Architecture studio Muf has built an open-air playground, featuring a geometrical climbing structure and a stage for performances.

Muf designed the area for residents and children to gather, play and perform on the Golden Lane Estate – a 1950s council housing complex in the City of London – to compensate for the space constraints that come with inner city living.

The play area replaces a sunken, elliptical-shaped pit for ball games at the heritage listed estate, which is set beside the Barbican. It is widely considered one of the most important post-world war two developments.

The architecture studio worked closely with local residents and children from the nearby Prior Western primary school to create a safe and more enjoyable space to socialise and play.

"Simply expanding a client's brief to include those who will use it, brings accuracy to a design which in turn gives longevity," explained the studio.

"Golden Lane is listed and the City corporation take their role as landlords and guardians very seriously and consult residents at all stages," they told Dezeen.

Children from the local school were heavily involved in the process and invited to partake in a design workshop, which included drawing, model-making and observation exercises.

"Rather than saying what do you want, we involved older children as researchers to observe how young children played. They seemed to enjoy being the experts and brought a greater precision to our observations," said Muf.

"Some of the children actually live on the estate as the school is next door, so there were resident children who then play in the outcome of their involvement."

Built from natural stone and reclaimed timber, Muf deigned the playground from materials that contrast to the surrounding architecture.

"The material palette combines self-coloured masonry with more strongly coloured aluminium framing and glass infills," explained the studio.

"While the stone and timber are a conscious departure from materials found in the surrounding architecture, some other areas mirror nearby buildings, for example with tiling."

Muf is a London-based collaborative of artists and architects established by Katherine Clarke, Liza Fior, Juliet Bidgood, Kath Shonfield in 1994. The studio previously designed an interactive gallery at London's Science Museum with playground slides.

Other examples of children's playgrounds include a huge colourful playground in Madrid by Aberrant Architecture and a sculptural outdoor playground by Olivier Vadrot.

Photography is by Lewis Ronald.

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Karen Blixens Plads in Copenhagen is an undulating plaza with sheltered parking for over 2,000 bicycles designed by Danish architecture firm COBE.

The 20,000-square-metre public park is situated between the University of Copenhagen and Amager Common, an area of wetlands, fields and lakes just outside of the city.

Named for noted 19th-century Danish author Karen Blixen, the square is one of the largest in the city.

The domed structures are cast concrete shells, clad with hand-laid tiles in neutral colours that match the exteriors of the surrounding buildings.

Mimicking the surrounding undulating terrain, these hollow concrete hills break up the the square and provide shelters for bicycle parking.

In total Karen Blixens Plads provides parking for more than 2,000 bicycles for the university’s students and staff.

Alongside Amsterdam, the Danish capital is considered one of the most bike-friendly cities in the world, with more than 40 per cent of its population commuting to work on bicycles.

"Copenhagen is one of the world’s leading bicycle cities. That requires a new and flexible approach to bicycle parking," explained Dan Stubbergaard, architect and founder of COBE.

"In previous projects we have developed innovative bicycle parking solutions that form a natural element in the environment. By Nørreport Station, for example, we created the so called bicycle beds," he added.

"Here, at Karen Blixen Plads, the solution is bicycle hills."

Steps cut into the sides of the larger hummocks allow the space to double as an outdoor auditorium, which can be used for concerts, performances and public events with capacity for up to 1,000 people.

"The almost cathedral-like form of the bicycle hills further offers an aesthetic experience in its own right, both when people park their bikes and when they meet at the hills for lectures, group work, concerts or Friday afternoon socialising," said Stubbergaard.

As well as providing a facility for sustainable transport, Karen Blixens Plad has planted beds to encourage biodiversity.

These areas of planting help rainwater to evaporate and, in case of heavy rainfall, supplements the nearby canal. This ability to handle stormwater should mean the square can manage in a changing climate.

COBE used simple and durable materials, with lighting and furnishings kept minimal and low maintenance.

The project was supported by the private foundation A.P Møller Fonden, which was established by Danish businessman Arnold Peter Møller, the founder of the A.P. Moller-Maersk Group.

COBE is an architectural firm founded in 2006 by architect Dan Stubbergaard. The studio has also designed a high school in an abandoned factory and the extension to Danish Red Cross headquarters.

Currently the largest underground bicycle park in the world is in Utrecht in the Netherlands. Ector Hoogstad Architecten built a three-storey bike park under the train station with room for 12,656 bicycles.

Photography is by Rasmus Hjortshøj.

Project credits:

Client: Danish Building and Property Agency
Private donation: grant from the private foundation A.P. Møller og Hustru Chastine Mc-Kinney Møllers Fond til almene Formaal
Architect: COBE
Full-service consultant: EKJ Consulting Engineers
Additional engineers: CN3, Vind-Vind
Contractors: M. J. Eriksson (construction contract), NCC Denmark (concrete contract)

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A grand gateway and a hillside belvedere are among a series of structures that Reiulf Ramstad Arkitekter has built in eastern France, to direct tourists towards a historic quarry.

The Oslo-based studio, led by architect Reiulf Ramstad, created the landscape interventions along the Chemin des Carrières, an 11-kilometre trail through the rural villages and landscape of Rosheim, on the outskirts of Strasbourg.

The path follows the route of the Rosheim-St Nabor railway, which was opened in 1902 to serve the quarries of Saint-Nabor, but which ultimately closed in 2002.

Reiulf Ramstad Arkitekter worked with landscape studio Parenthèse Paysage to create designs for all five of the old station stops, each responding to the peculiarities of its location. Some offer shelters, while others offer visitors new or interesting viewpoints.

"Along the 11-kilometre path goes a story, which the stops split into five chapters of different sequences of landscapes, offering varied universes and highlighting remarkable sites," explained the studio.

"Unusual elements punctuate the way, aiming at awakening the visitor's senses, and water is encountered repeatedly."

At St Nabor, the stop closest to the former quarries, a belvedere – a structure positioned to take advantage of a scenic view – is installed into the hillside.

Formed of Corten steel, its undulating surfaces create a platform divided up into circular segments.

The platform is raised up on stilts, to negotiate the slope of the landscape. It is accessed via a long staircase that extends up from the base of the hill.

"From this viewpoint inspired by a four-leaf clover, the visitor will feel lucky to enjoy the view of such a beautiful territory," said Reiulf Ramstad Arkitekter.

Ottrott is the next stop along the route. There are various new additions here, including a bridge, concrete landscaping and a sheltered seating booth, along with some heritage elements.

At Leonardsau, two angular plates of Corten create a sculptural gateway between the forest and the open landscape, while Boersch features a seating area at the edge of the river.

The furthest stop from the quarries, where most people begin the walk, is Rosheim.

This space features curving walls of Corten steel that frame seating areas, imagined as spaces for quiet reflection.

"The pavilion has a labyrinthine character and play with an irregular concave and convex interior," said the design team.

"Openings are created to open or close the sculpture to chosen views of the surrounding landscape."

Reiulf Ramstad Arkitekter won a competition to design the Chemin des Carrières installations. The firm has previously worked on several impressive landscape projects, include the Trollstigen and Havøysund tourist routes in Norway.

The project was completed for €4 million.

Photography is by Florent Michel/11h45.

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A community of nuns have donated their convent in New Orleans to create the Mirabeau Water Garden wetlands and improve the city's system for flood prevention.

The transformation of the 25-acre Catholic convent is being developed by Waggonner & Ball and Carbo Landscape Architects to reduce pressure on the low-lying coastal city's existing drainage system, as climate change makes flooding an increasing threat.

Once complete, the Mirabeau Water Garden will become "one of largest urban wetlands" in the USA, according to Waggonner & Ball, with the capacity to naturally absorb and store approximately 6.5 million gallons of floodwater.

The convent, which belongs to the Congregation of St Joseph, remains in a state of disrepair following destruction during Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

Rather than opting to rebuild the convent or sell the site to developers, its community of nuns decided to donate the land to create wetlands as a changing climate and rising seas is making the threat of flooding more prevalent in the city, which is largely positioned below sea level.

"The land was donated to the City of New Orleans by the Congregation of St Joseph on the condition that it be used to enhance and protect the neighbourhood," said Waggonner & Ball.

"This vision was embraced by the Sisters of St Joseph as one that, in their own words, 'would manifest the holiness and the beauty of this land...and evoke a huge systemic shift in the way humans relate with water and land.'"

The Mirabeau Water Garden forms part of the city's wider Greater New Orleans Urban Water Plan, which is working to improve the city's ability to withstand flooding.

Waggonner & Ball and Carbo Landscape Architects' proposal will see the site covered in "robust rapidly spreading, native meadow grasses" that will absorb stormwater runoff and remove pollutants through filtration.

This will be teamed with a system of bioswales – a simple landscaping feature used to slow and collect stormwater – positioned around the perimeter of the site.

While improving the safety of local people, the Mirabeau Water Garden development is also hoped to increase property values in New Orleans and offer the community recreational space and educational facilities.

The studio hopes it will set a precedent for other open spaces and institutional sites throughout the city and region.

"The Mirabeau Water Garden will become a public asset, destination, and environmental classroom," Waggonner & Ball added.

"The community will be able to see and learn, through interactive features, how the site functions and is part of an integrated water management system that benefits the surrounding area by taking flood waters away from streets and homes and storing them in the landscape."

Hurricane Katrina was a category 5 level hurricane that hit Florida and Louisiana in August 2005, and left areas of New Orleans particularly devastated. In response, actor Brad Pitt, American designer William McDonough and firm Graft Architects established housing charity Make it Right to construct 150 sustainable and affordable houses in the affected areas.

The projects include a Gehry-designed staggered duplex, a "floating house" by American studio Morphosis, an elevated property by Los Angeles' Atelier Hitoshi Abe and a residence with a faceted roof by Pugh + Scarpa.

The Mirabeau Water Garden is among a number of flood-prevention projects and proposals developed in the wake of the climate crises. Other examples include Zaha Hadid Architects' sculptural flood protection barrier in Hamburg, CF Møller's proposal for hybrid flood defences that will form a nature park in Denmark and McGregor Coxall's design of a wetland sanctuary in northern China.

Visuals are courtesy of Waggonner & Ball.

Project credits

Project creation and lead designer: Waggonner & Ball Architecture/Environment
Landscape: Carbo Landscape Architecture
Engineering: Batture Engineering

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Architecture studio Cooking Sections and engineer AKT II have created an experimental landscape in Sharjah to demonstrate how desert plants could be used as an alternative to water-hungry greenery in arid cities.

Named Becoming Xerophile, the installation was built alongside the Al-Qasimiyah School as part of the Sharjah Architecture Triennial in the city of Sharjah.

Cooking Sections and AKT II created it to prove the concept of creating waterless, ornamental gardens in urban areas like the emirate of Sharjah and other Middle Eastern cities.

"The installation explores ways of appreciating desert landscapes," explained Cooking Sections co-founders Daniel Fernández Pascual and Alon Schwabe. "It shows how to incorporate desert plants in the urban environment."

The installation consists of nine sand bowls of different shapes and sizes that were constructed using soil and rubble from the conversion of the school into the Sharjah Architecture Triennial's permanent headquarters.

Each of the bowls, which are planted with plants that can grow in very dry environments (called xerophile), are shaped so that they should not need to be watered.

"It consists of a new experimental landscape with nine microclimates to 'water without water' and to 'water with stones'," Fernández Pascual and Schwabe told Dezeen.

"It's a technique that societies have developed over time in many places in the world to live in arid climates or places with no or scarce water sources."

"By using earth mounds or dry stone constructions, these typologies control wind, humidity and heat variations to reduce water stress of the trees planted inside or make water condense naturally," they continued.

The plants will grow and be monitored, until the next triennial takes place in 2022, to determine which of the nine microenvironments performs best, so that it can be replicated in other locations.

"The garden is equipped with a suite of sensors that measure the small microclimates generated by the earth-mound structures," AKT II's Adiam Sertzu explained.

"The sensors measure rainfall, solar radiation, wind speed and direction, air temperature and relative humidity, soil moisture and leaf wetness."

"Through their materiality, shading, depth, and positioning, the structures optimise both air humidity and moisture drawn from the water table," she continued.

"The condition of the plants inside and outside the earth mounds is monitored at 15-minute intervals and data will be gathered for the next three years."

Cooking Sections and AKT II said the experimental project was "urgent and extremely relevant" in the attempt to provide solutions to environmental issues in desert areas.

"While not all the experiments lead to perfect outcomes, they always provide valuable insights for future and more developed applications," continued Sertzu.

"With this region facing environmental challenges in which high temperatures and infrequent precipitation contribute to water scarcity, pilot projects that embed adaptive research into design such as Becoming Xerophile are urgent and extremely relevant."

The first Sharjah Architecture Triennial took place between 9 November 2019 and 8 February 2020, with the Al-Qasimiyah School being the main venue. It is one of several 1970s and 80s buildings in the emirate that have been restored by the triennial and partner organisation the Sharjah Art Foundation.

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The remnants of a shopping centre evoke concrete follies at Tainan Spring, a sunken park and public pool by MVRDV in southern Taiwan.

Described by MVRDV as a "lush lagoon", the project replaces the vacant China-Town Mall close to Tainan's canal network and forms part of a wider masterplan to rejuvenate the area.

It has been surrounded by local plants that will "develop into a lush jungle" overtime, offering the city greener public spaces that mimic natural landscapes found elsewhere on the island.

"In Tainan Spring, people can bathe in the overgrown remains of a shopping mall," said Winy Maas, founding partner of MVRDV. "Children will soon be swimming in the ruins of the past – how fantastic is that?"

"Inspired by the history of the city, both the original jungle and the water were important sources of inspiration," he continued.

"Tainan is a very grey city," he continued. "With the reintroduction of the jungle to every place that was possible, the city is reintegrating into the surrounding landscape."

Tainan Spring replaces the China-Town Mall that was built over the city's old harbour in 1983, beside the canal. According to the studio, the shopping centre had since become a "drain on the vitality" of the city.

MVRDV hopes the overhaul will demonstrate how unused shopping facilities can be turned into more beneficial public spaces, as online shopping becomes increasingly popular.

"Tainan Spring shows what solutions are possible for unused shopping malls now that online shopping is supplanting physical stores," explained the studio.

The Tainan Spring lagoon is embedded into the shopping centre's former underground parking zone, positioned down below street level.

This is surrounded by plants, playgrounds, gathering spaces, and arcades made from the shopping centre's foundations.

According to MVRDV, the pool is designed to offer a gathering space suitable for all seasons.

The water level change in response to the rainy and dry seasons, and in summer months water vapour mist will be sprayed to lower temperatures – rather than depending on air conditioning.

Preserving elements of the shopping centre as part of Tainan Spring was important to MVRDV as the studio wanted it to serve as a reminder of the "the historical decision to close a port in favour of a mall".

The studio decided to retain the foundations as follies, which will be transformed into spaces for shops or kiosks in the future.

Tainan Spring was commissioned by the Urban Development Bureau of the Tainan City Government to create public space, but also to help improve pedestrian pathways and reduce traffic in the city.

As part of the scheme, a number of local plants have been introduced around the site on Haian Road to help further the amount of greenery in the area. The studio expect for the site to reach its desired appearance of a lush garden in two to three years.

MVRDV is a Rotterdam architecture studio founded in 1991 by Maas with Nathalie de Vries and Jacob van Rijs.

Tainan Spring was first revealed in 2015 under the name of Tainan Axis, and featured in Dezeen's roundup of architecture projects to look forward to in 2020. It is the first of two MVRDV projects slated for completion this year in Tainan, with the food market with undulating rooftop farm terraces in the final stages of construction.

Elsewhere, the studio is developing a residential development in the Netherlands that will have a facade of plant pots, and collaborating with Airbus on an investigation into how vertiports can be introduced into cities.

Photography is by Daria Scagliola.

Project credits:

Architect: MVRDV
Principal in charge: Winy Maas
Partner: Wenchian Shi, Jeroen Zuidgeest
Project coordinator: Hui-Hsin Liao
Design team: Hui-Hsin Liao, Angel Sanchez Navarro, Stephan Boon, Xiaoting Chen, Andrea Anselmo, Yi Chien Liao, Zuliandi Azli, Olivier Sobels, Dong Min Lee, Chi Yi Liao
Visualisation: Antonio Luca Coco, Costanza Cuccato, Davide Calabro, Paolo Mossa Idra
Local architects: LLJ Architects,
Sustainability, landscape and urban designers: The Urbanists Collaborative
Structural engineers consultant: Evergreat Associates , SE
Transport planners: THI Consultants Inc
Lighting designer: LHLD Lighting Design
MEP engineers: Frontier Tech Institute
General contractor: Yong-Ji Construction co. Ltd.

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Austria-based studio Precht has designed a maze-like park divided by high hedges that would allow people to be outdoors while maintaining social distance during the coronavirus pandemic.

Chris Precht, founder of studio Precht, designed the Parc de la Distance following numerous public, outdoor spaces around the world closing due to the coronavirus outbreak.

"The project started with a couple of questions regarding this pandemic," he told Dezeen.

"What would a park look like and how would it function if it takes the rules of social distancing as a design guideline. And what can we learn from a space like this that still has value after the pandemic."

The park would have numerous routes divided by 90-centimetre-wide hedges to maintain a safe physical distance between its visitors. Arranging the paths in a finger print-shaped swirl pattern creates many routes that can be used simultaneously.

Each of the red-granite gravel paths through the park would be around 600 metres long and circulate visitors from the edge of the park to the centre, where fountains would be located, and back round.

Gates on the entrances and exits to each of the routes, which would take around 20 minutes to walk, would indicate if a route is occupied.

"I see the origin of the design in French baroque gardens," said Precht. "A strong order of plants. Hedges that create geometrical shapes."

"But there is also an inspiration drawn in Japanese Zen-gardens. Circular movements. Raking of gravels that centre around corner stones," he continued.

The park is proposed for a vacant plot in Vienna, where the famous Schönbrunn and Belvedere parks are currently closed.

Although Precht designed the park in response to the current coronavirus outbreak he believes that a social-distance park would be a beneficial environment for cities after the pandemic.

"For now, the park is designed to create a safe physical distance between its visitors," he explained.

"After the pandemic, the park is used to escape the noise and bustle of the city and be alone for some time. I lived in many cities, but I think I have never been alone in public. I think that's a rare quality."

Precht believes that following the pandemic people will appreciate outdoor spaces and seek escapism from the bustle of cities more than before.

"But I think this pandemic has taught us that we need more places to get away," he explained.

"City centres should not be defined by their real-estate, but rather by their real escape. By possibilities that allow us to escape to nature," he continued.

"Instead of banks, traffic and office blocks, city centres should be redesigned by parks, wilderness and plants. The lack of nature is an issue of many urban areas and I hope that the Parc de la Distance can offer an escape."

Precht is an Austria-based architecture studio established by Chris and Fei Tang Precht in 2017. The pair were two of the co-founders of Penda in China in 2013.

Precht has recently designed a modular housing system that could support vertical farms and a modular treehouse that looks like a cartoon character.

The post Precht designs Parc de la Distance for outdoor social distancing appeared first on Dezeen.

This school show by Edinburgh School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture features 10 student projects, including a hub for upcycling low-value materials and a proposal that reimagines the purpose of Times Square.

The projects were all completed by students enrolled on one of the four architecture- and landscape architecture-focused courses at the Scottish school, which forms part of the Edinburgh College of Art and the University of Edinburgh.

Edinburgh School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture (ESALA)

School: ESALA, University of Edinburgh
Courses: Architecture BA/MA (ARB/RIBA Part 1), Architecture MArch (ARB/RIBA Part 2), Landscape Architecture MA, Landscape Architecture MLA

School statement:

"ESALA is one of the very few schools, internationally, to connect research and practice in Architecture and Landscape Architecture. Benefitting from being part of both Edinburgh College of Art (ECA) and the University of Edinburgh, ESALA offers a rich range of undergraduate and postgraduate programmes that include those professionally accredited by the Royal Institute of Architects (RIBA), Architects Registration (ARB) and the Landscape Institute.

"A series of detailed ESALA Catalogues have been produced to showcase both the extraordinary student work and the creative pedagogic approaches of the professional programmes and studios. They accompany the ECA digital exhibition Summer 2020."

Errol Community Pottery and Weaving Centre by Katie-May Munro

"Culture and community are brought together in a hybrid design of living and working environments. The design explores a regenerative approach for small Scottish towns, investigating place-making, attitudes of privacy, interaction and communality through internal and external gathering spaces.

"The building is rooted by its earthen materials of timber and brick. Errol's quirky local typologies are explored and developed: kiln tower, rural home and vernacular structure. Successional outdoor rooms encourage a wider appreciation of landscape and nature. The thematic strands of sculpting, weaving and joining are integrated within the structural design, the permanence of the architecture and the fluid landscaping approach."

Name: Katie-May Munro
Project: Errol Community Pottery and Weaving Centre
Course: Architecture MA (Hons), (ARB/RIBA Part 1)
Unit: Looking North Design Studio
Tutors: Andrea Faed and Jack Green
Portfolio: degreeshow.eca.ed.ac.uk/2020/katie-may-munro
Email: s1626252@ed.ac.uk

Urban Ca[r]talyser by Sonakshi Pandit

"The project degrows Edinburgh's Craigleith Retail Park into a hub for upcycling low-value materials into architectural components. Hacking the site's retail infrastructure, the proposal reintroduces public space and pedestrians to the site. Finding value in existing elements on-site, the project upcycles 950 shopping carts found on-site into 'gabion-carts,' utilising their affordances to construct transformable structural walls that can be climbed, seated on, played with and used to store goods.

"The invention of a gabion-cart trombe wall-system passively heats the building. The ability to grow gabion-carts with rubble from demolition works weaves the tectonic system into Edinburgh's material networks, prototyping the diversion of low-value material streams, whilst promoting reuse and upcycling as degrowth methodologies for architecture."

Name: Sonakshi Pandit
Project: Urban Ca[r]talyser
Course: Architecture MA (Hons), (ARB/RIBA Part 1)
Unit: Edinburgh Material Library
Tutors: Moa Carlsson and Simone Ferracina
Portfolio: issuu.com/sonakshipandit/docs/urban_ca_r_talyser_-_a_reconsideration_of_value_re
Email: sonakshipandit5@gmail.com

The Sitopian City by Qamelliah Nassir

"The Sitopian City is a sustainable community that bases the philosophy of food sustainability and equality to the life that occurs within the complex, helping those who enter find nourishment in their day and in their life.

"It stems from the belief that food is not a luxury item, but an essential part of life that deserves a central role in society. Sitopia focuses on the rituals of food growing and transformation consumption and takes on a hybrid nature as dwellers, growers and gastronomists are able to be a part of every aspect of food production, transformation, consumption and distribution."

Name: Qamelliah Nassir
Project: The Sitopian City
Course: Architecture MA (Hons), (ARB/RIBA Part 1)
Unit: Productive City
Tutors: Giorgio Ponzo and Ana Miret Garcia
Portfolio: degreeshow.eca.ed.ac.uk/2020/qamelliah-nassir
Email: s1613321@sms.ed.ac.uk

Harrison's Workshop (ii) by Rishabh Shah

"Harrison's Workshop (ii) is a landscape and architectural proposal that addresses the intricate political, social and environmental challenges attending upon a turbulent political climate, where the relevance of the United Nations in the 21st century has been called into question.

"Named Pangaea, the last supercontinent, the thesis offers a landscape of a multifaceted, critical and highly charged neighbour, housing laboratories of change beside the existing UN campus today. In this case, the term laboratories refers to more than a scientific research room. Instead, it alludes to a testing ground for social and environmental concerns that have been marginalised by United Nations."

Name: Rishabh Shah
Project: Harrison's Workshop (ii)
Course: Architecture MArch (ARB/RIBA Part 2)
Unit: Island Territories VI: Manhattan Scapeland, Estrangement/Displacement
Tutors: Adrian Hawker and Victoria Clare Bernie
Portfolio: rishabhshah.myportfolio.com
Email: rish.shah2011@gmail.com

Re-Dressing an Illuminated Spectacle by Eireann Iannetta-Mackay

"This project articulates a landscape that reconfigures Times Square's iconic digital signage through a redressing that spaces the digital language away from the existing facades to allow another world of inhabiting to happen between the thicknesses.

"With the iconic Statue of Liberty watching over the city as the Mother of Exile, this proposal also smuggles architectures into the shells of the square's existing buildings, giving houses for performers and creatives who are exiled from their own. An archipelago of performance spaces reinterpreting the notion of an illuminated spectacle given over to the pleasure of consumption and the consumption of pleasure."

Name: Eireann Iannetta-Mackay
Project: Re-Dressing an Illuminated Spectacle
Course: Architecture MArch (ARB/RIBA Part 2)
Unit: Island Territories VI: Manhattan Scapeland, Estrangement/Displacement
Tutors: Adrian Hawker and Victoria Clare Bernie
Portfolio: eiannettamackay.myportfolio.com
Email: s1434417@sms.ed.ac.uk

(Un)doing Thresholds by Joseph Coulter, Eirini Makarouni, Katerina Saranti and Katy Sidwell

"(Un)doing Thresholds explores the temporalities and architectonic specificities of porous conditions of Naples, where undoing is presented through Andrew Benjamin as a productive conception of urbanity; one in which porous architectures are undone, drawn through one another, in a constructive overwriting founded in the immediacy of the city.

"Exploring architectures of ruin, labyrinth and theatre, be they programmatically labyrinthine or theatrical, or materially or spatially so, the thesis considers their interpenetration: each space becomes a threshold to another space. It promotes the expression of presence in the city, gathered in collectivity, that takes possession of space as a protagonist in constructing an experience of Naples that goes beyond the control of fixed political and historical representations of the city."

Name: Joseph Coulter, Eirini Makarouni, Katerina Saranti and Katy Sidwell
Project: (Un)doing Thresholds; Door / Ways to New Neapolitan Practice(s)
Course: Architecture MArch (ARB/RIBA Part 2)
Unit: City Fragments: Neapolitan Porosities
Tutors: Chris French + Maria Mitsoula
Portfolio: issuu.com/josephcoulter
Email: josephcoulter@mail.com

7 Gates by William Maddinson and Murray Livingston

"Our research, initiated through the making of a Camiño map-book, brings to light the disparate relationship between Santiago's city centre and its landscape. The project seeks to give agency to the productive landscape, to place it in the present moment, mobilised by sedimentation of Santiago's history and an eye to the future.

"Using water as a connective principle, 7 Gates proposes a publication assemblage along a new 7th route into the city for the production of Camiño para-books. More specifically, the photographer's studio and gallery and bookbinder's workshop are sited within existing structures of the old town and therefore speak to sensitive, locational specificity, while the Timber Mill forms a new material threshold on the city's outskirts (the canopy of a Eucalyptus forest).

"These buildings, therefore, play out a tension between ecstatic expansion and contraction across scales within the larger productive landscape – each building is an architecture of ecstasy, re-mobilising the wet-scape of Santiago."

Name: William Maddinson and Murray Livingston
Project: 7 Gates: Routes, Rituals & Architecture of Ecstatic Wet-Scapes
Course: Architecture MArch (ARB/RIBA Part 2)
Unit: Ecstatic Objects, Santiago de Compostela
Tutors: Mark Dorrian and Ana Bonet Miro
Portfolio: thebluehour.co.uk and futureestate.co.uk
Email: williammaddinson@yahoo.co.uk and murray.n.livingston@gmail.com

Reimagining Urban Landmarks by Yanqin Pan

"This landscape architecture design project seeks to embody a change in attitude towards future urban development by embracing the concept of degrowth and exploring the implications of this approach for the discipline of Landscape Architecture.

"The project seeks to redefine the relationship between landmarks and the urban environment by shifting impetus from the landmark as a demonstration of power, wealth and status towards new forms of spatial and compositional typologies that can meaningfully contribute to enhanced socio-environmental development in the city of Oslo. The design explores a renewed experiential relationship between the physical elements of this stretch of urban coastline."

Name: Yanqin Pan
Project: Reimagining Urban Landmarks - The Akersnes Peninsula
Course: MLA Landscape Portfolio 4
Unit: Oslo Studio: Specificities of time specificities of place
Tutors: Lisa Mackenzie and Christopher Gray
Portfolio: degreeshow.eca.ed.ac.uk/2020/yanqin-pan
Email: panyanqin@pppesign.com

Future Croft by Anna Reid

"This project considers how the human occupation of landscapes and more-than-human actions can be brought into dialogue in the context of landscape stewardship and landscape design in the Scottish Highlands. This project investigates the future of crofting communities within the context of pressing contemporary local, national and global scale challenges.

"Initial exploratory work considers the intrinsic links between humans and non-humans before imagining how the consideration of more-than-human relationships underpinned by socio-ecological values might shape the landscape through future small scale agriculture and land tenure practices. Together the project highlights the importance of a community who socially and ecologically collaborate to sustain the land for future generations."

Name: Anna Reid
Project: Future Croft
Course: MLA Landscape Portfolio 4
Unit: North Coast Landscapes: Actants and assemblages of an Atlantic coast
Tutors: Elinor Scarth and Anaïs Chanon
Portfolio: degreeshow.eca.ed.ac.uk/2020/anna-wallace-reid
Email: anna_wallace_reid@aol.co.uk

The City's Wet Plate by Jennifer Fauster

"Situated at the threshold of Manhattan's geologic, aqueous, and ecologic intersection – the neighbourhood of Canal Street – a 'scapeland' emerges. This speaks of an attempt to compress the wider landscape memory of the hydrological flooding events and ecological entities, into a hybrid landscape that provides favourable conditions for the re-emergence of island-like communalised open spaces.

"Empowered by a temporal cartographic method of flooding, fixing, photographing and exposing, it not only lays bare the city's ecological, hydrological and cultural dysfunctions but offers these new island conditions – a scapeland of measure and exposure where Manhattan's discrepancies transform into reservoirs, perforating the ground and issuing forth a new aqueous city reality, a place of register and containment operating in positive co-existence."

Name: Jennifer Fauster
Project: The City's Wet Plate - A reconfiguration of a landscape's double memory
Course: MSc Landscape Architecture, Year 5
Unit: Island Territories VI: Manhattan Scapeland, Estrangement/Displacement
Tutors: Adrian Hawker, Victoria Clare Bernie, Lisa Mackenzie and Tiago Torres-Campos
Portfolio: cargocollective.com/jenniferfauster
Email: s1449858@ed.ac.uk

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Designer Iñaki Alday and landscape architect Kate Orff will reflect on how their practices respond to the climate crisis in this live conversation produced by Dezeen for Exhibit Columbus. Watch here from 7:00pm UK time on 29 September 2020.

The discussion, called New Middles: Resiliency and Climate Adaptation, will be the second instalment in a series of talks broadcast on Dezeen as part of Exhibit Columbus' New Middles symposium.

Running throughout September and October, the symposium focuses on the designed future of mid-sized cities situated within the Mississippi Watershed – a central US region defined by the Mississippi river's drainage basin.

"This conversation stems from the question: how is the Mississippi Watershed and the plains ecosystems and habitat impacted by the changing climate?" said the curators.

Moderated by Exhibit Columbus curator Iker Gil, the discussion will examine how landscape design can help cities adapt to public health crises such as the coronavirus pandemic.

"The COVID-19 pandemic raises issues of how might middle city landscapes address global health challenges?" the curators added. "What future-oriented ecological strategies will serve middle city landscapes and communities moving forward?"

Gil is a Chicago-based architect, editor and curator. He is the director of MAS Studio, a collaborative architecture and design firm, as well as the founder and editor-in-chief of the studio's eponymous design journal MAS Context.

Alongside his design practice, Gil also teaches architecture at the School of Art Institute of Chicago. Since 2019, he has been the executive director of the SOM Foundation, which seeks to advance the design profession's ability to address current key issues.

Iñaki Alday is the co-founder of Aldayjover Architecture and Landscape, a multidisciplinary research-based practice with offices in New Orleans and Barcelona, which he established in 1996 with Margarita Jover.

In 2018, Alday was appointed dean of Tulane School of Architecture in New Orleans. Before this, he was the chair of the University of Virginia's architecture department, where he has co-directed the Yamuna River Project since 2016.

The Yamuna River Project is an interdisciplinary research programme that aims to revitalise the Yamuna River in India and reconnect it with the city of New Delhi.

Kate Orff is the founder of US landscape architecture studio, Scape, which she set up in 2007.

She is also the director of Urban Design and co-director of the Centre for Resilient Cities and Landscapes at Columbia Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation.

Orff's work focuses on recalibrating landscape architecture in relation to climate change and creating spaces to foster social life.

This conversation will be produced by Dezeen in collaboration with Exhibit Columbus as part of its New Middles online symposium, which takes place from 15 September until 29 October 2020.

It follows the first talk in the series, called New Middles: Futures and Technologies, which explored the role of strategic foresight and storytelling in design.

The talk, which featured futurists Dan Hill and Radha Mistry in conversation with Dezeen's founder and editor-in-chief Marcus Fairs, looked at bringing mobility and manufacturing into the cities of the future.

Find out more about the symposium and view the schedule ›

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Biotecture is spotlighting its portfolio of green walls that "integrate natural features into urban spaces" during the Dezeen x Planted collaboration for London Design Festival.

Green infrastructure company Biotecture describes itself as the UK's leading provider of living wall design, installation and maintenance.

Its designs are intended to contribute to cleaner air in public spaces through the absorption of gases like carbon dioxide, which can in turn help to mitigate pollution and improve people's health.

The living walls are also intended to reconnect people with nature, which is believed to boost comfort and productivity levels when occupying a space.

Within its portfolio, a stand-out project is its wall at the Big Screen at the No 1 Court at the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club in Wimbledon.

This was awarded the Living Walls Installations Award from the British Association of Landscape Industries.

Elsewhere, it installed the UK's first living wall on a highway, taking the form of ten freestanding structures by Millbrook Roundabout – one of Southampton's busiest roundabouts.

While helping to reduce air pollution in the city, it was designed to soften the visual impact of the concrete flyover.

During the expansion to McArthurGlen's Designer Outlet in Ashford, Biotecture created one of the world's largest living walls – measuring over 2,000-square-metres and incorporating 120,000 plants.

More recently, it created a living backdrop for the Planted Unplugged stage at London Design Festival, which will be host to a three-part talks programme addressing how cities can be reconnected with nature.

Dezeen x Planted

Exhibitor: Biotecture
Website: www.biotecture.uk.com

Planted is a contemporary design event that aims to reconnect cities with nature, which will make its physical debut as part of London Design Festival alongside an online trailer for next year's main event.

The Planted x Dezeen collaboration presents a series of projects by international designs that align with the ideals of the Planted design event.

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In the first in a series of daily videos about London buildings and spaces during Open House London, architecture historian and skateboarding fan Iain Borden sheds light on the design of Crystal Palace Skatepark.

The short movie, made by Jim Stephenson of Stephenson/BishopFilms, is one of a series of movies about overlooked and unusual places in the city commissioned by the festival as part of its 2020 programme.

The films are part of the festival's move to diversify its programme and make it more accessible in the light of the coronavirus pandemic, which has impacted the number of buildings able to throw their doors open to the public.

As media partner for Open House London, Dezeen is publishing a different movie every day during the festival, which runs from 19 to 27 September.

Located in south-east London, the concrete Crystal Palace Skatepark was designed by Canvas in 2018 as a free facility for the community.

It was the result of a petition raised by local skaters four years earlier, sparked by a flurry of open-access skateparks being built across the UK by local councils.

In the video, Borden sheds light on the design that comprises three unique sections. This includes a deep clover-shaped bowl, a central medium-depth L-shaped bowl and shallow "street course" with various flat and raised banks.

According to Borden, this layout is unique and makes the park a well-regarded venue within the UK.

Its most notable feature is the deepest bowl, which has stone coping and tiling. It is modelled on the curved swimming pools typical of suburban housing in California from the 1970s.

However, the design of these residential Californian pools is an evolution of the world's first kidney-shaped swimming pool, which Finnish architect Alvar Aalto conceived for Villa Mairea in Noormarkku, Finland. The skatepark is therefore in effect "a copy of an Aalto original".

Crystal Palace had been a popular location for skateboarding since the 1970s when the sport boomed in the UK.

It was the location of the first UK National skateboard championships, held in 1977, and was home to a world-famous half-pipe in the 1980s.

While many advanced and commercialised skateparks were built around the UK, Crystal Palace maintained its reputation as a hub for the sport.

Borden, professor of architecture and urban culture at The Bartlett architecture school in London, is known for his academic writing about everyday activities. He has written two books about skateboarding: Skateboarding and the City: a Complete History; and Skateboarding, Space and the City: Architecture and the Body.

He explains in the video that it is important to understand that skateparks like in Crystal Palace are "not sports facilities" but instead are vital community spaces that can unite people of all ages and backgrounds.

"In my mind, they're one of the world's great kinds of public space," he concluded.

Open House London takes place at venues across London and online from 19 to 27 September. Videos will be published on Dezeen each day during the festival. See Dezeen Events Guide for details of more architecture and design events.

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This video tour published as part of our collaboration with Open House London explores Dalston Curve Garden, a community green space hidden within one of London's most built-up boroughs.

The short movie, made by Jim Stephenson of Stephenson/BishopFilms, is one of a series of video tours of overlooked and unusual places in the city commissioned by the festival as part of its 2020 programme.

Dalston Curve Garden was built in 2010 as a free-to-enter neighbourhood oasis on the old Eastern Curve railway line in Hackney, which had been disused since the 1950s.

It was designed by architect Muf and landscape architect J&L Gibbons in collaboration with Hackney Council, local residents and community groups in response to a lack of green space in the Dalston area.

In this video, Dalston Curve Gardens' director Marie Murray compares the experience of entering the gardens to setting foot in a "different world" – offering respite from its busy, concrete surroundings.

The planting design is developed by an in-house team, including volunteers, and offers a mix of trees, shrubs and perennials, herbs and salads that ensure greenery all year round while boosting biodiversity.

As Murray tells the story of the gardens, the film features shots of the shelters that nestle amongst its greenery. This includes a timber gable-roofed pavilion built by the architectural collective Exyzt to house the garden's cafe, pizza oven and seating areas.

There is also the Pineapple House conservatory, which is used as a winter shelter and space for the creative classes, and a stage for the garden's outdoor performances built by Morag Myerscough as part of a community workshop.

According to Murray, the value of the gardens is evident in the way people's "shoulders, which have been at their ears with tension, just completely relax" when visiting.

"That's really the number one purpose of coming to a space like this," she explained. "Just to be able to step away from that concrete and chill out, relax, but also quite often, to take part in activities that the green space makes it easier to participate in."

As media partner for Open House London, Dezeen is publishing a different movie every day during the festival, which runs from 19 to 27 September.

The films are part of the festival's move to diversify its programme and make it more accessible in the light of the coronavirus pandemic, which has impacted the number of buildings able to throw their doors open to the public.

Open House London takes place at venues across London and online from 19 to 27 September. Videos will be published on Dezeen each day during the festival. See Dezeen Events Guide for details of more architecture and design events.

Project credits:

Guide: Marie Murray
Producers: Nyima Murry and Ella McCarron
Videographer: Jim Stephenson of Stephenson/BishopFilms

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Feilden Fowles and J & L Gibbons have unveiled plans to overhaul the gardens at London's Natural History Museum to create a hub for education and biodiversity called the Urban Nature Project.

The Urban Nature Project will involve the redesign of two hectares of land around the iconic 19th-century building by Alfred Waterhouse, alongside the construction of two low-lying, stone-clad pavilions.

Feilden Fowles and J & L Gibbons' aim is to maximise the biodiversity and accessibility of the museum's grounds and, in turn, invite people living in and visiting the capital to re-engage with nature.

"The Urban Nature Project is a dream commission, embodying so many of our team's social and environmental values," said Edmund Fowles, director of Feilden Fowles.

"Never has the need to re-engage with nature and understand our impact on biodiversity been more urgent," he explained.

"Together with the transformation of the museum's five-acre gardens, two new pavilions embedded within the landscape will provide much-needed facilities to broaden access and engagement with the vital messages of the project."

The Urban Nature Project is slated for completion in 2023 and forms a part of the Natural History Museum's wider ambition to protect nature in urban areas and make cities more sustainable places to live.

The proposal replaces another design for the site by Niall McLaughlin Architects and Kim Wilkie that imagined an upgrade to the museum's entrance areas, but was never realised.

The scheme is divided into two gardens, positioned to the east and west of the museum's entrance, which will be landscaped to offer a brief overview of natural history and encourage local biodiversity.

In the east-side garden, this will include plants, fossils and exhibits that echo different geological eras ranging from the Cambrian period 540 million years ago to the present day.

The east garden will also feature a replica of Dippy, the Natural History Museum's famous dinosaur skeleton that once occupied its main hall, and incorporate the first of the two pavilions by Feilden Fowles.

This pavilion, named the Garden Building, is modelled on Victorian orangeries and contains a cafe, seasonal storage and a display of the exotic plants.

Urban Nature Project's west garden will be designed by the studios as a model urban landscape, giving insight into biodiversity that can be found in cities in the UK.

Nestled within it will be the scheme's second pavilion, the Learning Centre, which will be used for scientific projects, educational activities, and as space for the volunteers that maintain the museum's gardens.

According to Feilden Fowles, both pavilions will be clad in stone and are being developed with a "low-tech" approach to ensure they have a low carbon footprint.

"[The pavilions] embody our practice's low-tech design approach, providing buildings with exceptionally low energy use to meet the project's net-zero carbon target," explained Fowles.

The west garden will end at the museum's existing Darwin Centre courtyard, which will be redesigned to address the future of biodiversity on Earth.

It will showcase pioneer species – types of organisms that are the first to colonise barren environments – and encourage visitors to help preserve nature by highlighting approaches to climate adaptation and ways to improve biodiversity.

The scheme will be complete with a bronze sign at the end of a ramp leading to the museum's entrance featuring a quote by David Attenborough, reading: "the future of the natural world, on which we all depend, is in your hands".

Attenborough, a British broadcaster and natural historian, has welcomed the proposal and said it will help "the next generation develop the strong connection with nature that is needed to protect it."

Feilden Fowles is a British architecture studio founded in 2009 by Fergus Feilden and Edmund Fowles. In 2019, it was shortlisted for the Stirling Prize for its design of The Weston visitor centre and gallery at Yorkshire Sculpture Park.

Other recent projects by the studio include a red brick school building in Somerset and a showroom and office for Uniform Wares that offers visitors a glimpse of the watchmaking process.

Visuals are by Feilden Fowles and J & L Gibbons.

Project credits:

Architect: Feilden Fowles
Landscape architect: J&L Gibbons
Project management: Mace
Quantity surveyor: Mace
Sustainability: Mace
Planning consultant: Deloitte
Heritage consultant: Purcell
3D design: Gitta Gschwendtner
Structural engineers: engineersHRW
M&E, lighting and acoustic engineers: MaxFordham
Civil engineering: Infrastruct CS
Pedestrian flow access: Buro Happold
Specialist planting consultants: Fossil Plants
Access consultants: Earnescliffe

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Phase Shifts Park in Taichung, Taiwan, has been designed by French landscape architects Mosbach Paysagistes and combines nature and technology to create a refuge from the heat and pollution of the city.

The park, built on the site of Taichung's old airport, includes undulating surfaces that channel rainwater, as well as outdoor play areas for families and sports facilities, all connected by winding pathways.

Mosbach Paysagistes collaborated with Philippe Rahm Architectes and Ricky Liu & Associates Architects + Planners for the project, which is also known as Jade Eco Park.

The project has been shortlisted for Dezeen Awards 2020 in the landscape project category.

Taiwan has a humid subtropical climate, warmed by the Kuroshio ocean current. The park is designed to create pockets of fresher, cleaner air through landscaping and technology.

The design team began by producing a series of maps using data from three computational fluid dynamics simulations. One map covers heat distribution across the site, another humidity and the third air quality.

Cooling technologies used in Phase Shifts Park include misting devices that release clouds of water vapour, and underground heat exchangers that blow cool air at people as they walk through the park.

Drying devices use silica gel to absorb water from the air before circulating it, while air filters remove pollutants such as particulate matter from vehicle emissions.

Mosquito-repelling devices emit an ultrasound that's too high for human ears to detect but mimics the frequency of a dragonfly's wings, scaring the bothersome insects away.

These technologies, as well as the park's street lighting, are powered by solar panels on the north and south side of the 70-hectare site.

Mosbach Paysagistes planted trees with wide, waxy leaves or white flowers to act as a natural cooling device by creating shade or reflecting sunlight.

These trees also provide shelter from rain showers and absorb some of the moisture from the air through aerial roots, reducing humidity.

Roads have been partially buried, with tunnels underneath hummocks that provide hills for people to walk over and cut down on traffic pollution.

Mosbach Paysagistes designed different gardens around Phase Shifts Park, each with different native plants to encourage certain local insects and wildlife.

The few structures around the park, such as a maintenance shelter and some educational pavilions, are realised in an unobtrusive pale grey colour to match the street furniture.

At night, the public toilet pavilion lights up to helpfully guide visitors to the restroom facilities.

Mosbach Paysagistes was founded by Catherine Mosbach in 1987. Previous projects include the landscaping around an outpost of the Louvre in northern France.

Other landscape architecture project shortlisted for Dezeen include a playground formed of folds and tunnels in Changzhou and an underground bike parking place in Copenhagen.

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Barcelona's city council has announced its plans to transform one in three streets in its Eixample district into green, car-free public spaces to tackle air pollution.

Under the scheme, 21 streets and 21 road junctions will be converted into small parks and public squares – creating 33.4 hectares of land "where the pedestrian and the clean air are protagonists" according to Barcelona City Council.

The transformation, which is expected to take 10 years, is an attempt to curb excessive pollution in the Catalan capital and make it a healthier, safer and more sustainable place to live.

Plans focus on central Eixample district

Barcelona City Council's masterplan focuses on the streets of Eixample, the grid of streets that surrounds the medieval heart of Barcelona that were laid out when the city needed to extend beyond its walled centre.

Eixample, with its characteristic octagonal blocks separated by wide boulevards, was developed by urban planner Ildefons Cerdà in the 19th century, but has since become choked with cars.

According to the council, this area is being prioritised for the transformation as it "has a very high potential impact on the rest of the city due to population density and high levels of traffic and pollution".

"The Cerdà plan … was designed to modernise Barcelona at the end of the 19th century and achieve better public health conditions," Barcelona City Council explained.

"In the current context, this large area of ​​the city is once again an excellent opportunity to recover this spirit of urban transformation and update the Cerdà plan in the 21st century."

Scheme part of wider Superillas masterplan

The scheme is an extension of the city council's existing Superillas masterplan that was established in 2016.

Superillas, or Superblocks, are designated areas in Barcelona designed to reduce traffic and maximise public space – tackling the city's chronic pollution problem.

So far there are six Superillas, which the council claims have resulted in as much as a 33 per cent reduction in harmful nitrogen dioxide levels – a gas that forms from emissions from cars.

In 2019, Barcelona recorded that nitrogen dioxide levels exceeded both the EU and World Health Organisation's limits throughout the city. The same report stated that Eixample had the highest pollutions levels of all districts and was responsible for 23 per cent of deaths in the area.

One in three streets will be transformed

The goal for Eixample is to convert one in three of its streets into small parks. Alongside the 21 new plazas that will be made at road junctions, this will provide all locals with safe outdoor space within 200 metres of their homes.

To compensate for the reduction in road access, the council has said access to public transport "will be guaranteed" throughout the area.

Work on the scheme is expected to start in 2022, beginning with the transformation of eight sites.

The site's landscape design will be decided through an open competition. The council's criteria invite entries that cater to pedestrians, offer shaded spaces in summer and facilitate spontaneous children's play.

Proposals should also offer space for bar and restaurant terraces, alongside flexible space to accommodate various public events like fairs and concerts.

Growing number of cities creating low-traffic spaces

Barcelona City Council's plan is the latest in a string of initiatives in cities around the world to tackle car hegemony and maximise green space. Many of these are new pedestrian-friendly streets developed in response to the coronavirus pandemic to support social distancing.

In 2019, Paris revealed plans for an "urban forest" planting scheme, which will see trees and gardens introduced beside four historic sites. The goal is to improve air quality in the French capital and address climate change.

More recently, the local council in Hackney, London, introduced initiatives to reduce car usage in an attempt to become net-zero emissions by 2040 – though the scheme has proven controversial.

Local councillor Jon Burke told Dezeen that planters and bollards that have been installed to support the scheme by alleviating rat-running – cut-through driving to avoid traffic – in residential streets have been subject to protests, graffiti and vandalism.

Elsewhere in Barcelona, ON-A recently imagined enveloping Nou Camp football stadium with a 26-hectare park to demonstrate how large areas of parkland could be introduced into cities.

Main photo is by Logan Armstrong via Unsplash.

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London's mayor Sadiq Khan has announced plans for a public garden in the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park that will honour victims of the coronavirus pandemic in the UK capital.

The memorial garden in Stratford will feature a ring of 33 blossom trees as its centrepiece, representing the impact of Covid-19 across the capital's 32 boroughs and the City of London.

It is being designed by The Edible Bus Stop, Davies White and the Rosetta Arts organisation, and will be planted in collaboration with the UK's National Trust charity.

Garden will be a "permanent reminder" 

Revealing the plans, Khan said the memorial will invite Londoners to reflect on the pandemic, which has seen thousands of people lose their lives and "changed our capital forever".

He also hopes it will memorialise the positive ways in which the capital's citizens have come together in support of each other and key workers during the crisis.

"Covid-19 has had a devastating impact on our city and our country, and while we continue to battle the virus we are creating a lasting, living memorial to commemorate those who have lost their lives, pay tribute to the amazing work of our key workers and create a space for all Londoners to reflect on the experience of the pandemic," said Khan.

"This public garden of blossom trees will be a permanent reminder of the lives that have been lost, a tribute to every single key worker, and a symbol of how Londoners have stood together to help one another."

Project to be realised in one of London's worst-hit boroughs

Blossoming trees are to be used for the garden's centrepiece because this year's blossom season coincided with the start of the UK's first national lockdown.

Eight different species of trees will be used, planted together in three rings. The largest circle will have 17 trees, while the others will have nine and seven.

Local artist Junior Phipps is currently also developing a path and public benches to surround the site. Funding for the project will be provided by Bloomberg.

The London memorial garden is set to be planted in Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park in early 2021.

The site, which was originally built for the 2012 Summer Olympics, was chosen as it is in Newham – one of the capital's boroughs that was worst-hit by the pandemic.

Newham is also home to the BDP-designed NHS Nightingale Hospital, which was built in April within the ExCeL exhibition centre. The hospital is among several temporary healthcare facilities around the world that were built to help increase intensive-care capacity during the pandemic.

Memorial garden is part of scheme to bring nature to cities

The memorial garden forms the first part of a wider campaign being carried out by the National Trust over the next few years to give more people in the UK access to nature.

This follows a sharp rise in awareness of the need for nature in our lives, prompted by the pandemic and people having to quarantine without access to the outside.

"This space will thrive and become more beautiful as the trees grow and become part of their surroundings," said Nicola Briggs, a director at the National Trust.

"We want to work hard to ensure that together we design something that is appropriate for the neighbouring communities; somewhere that becomes a space for reflection as well as bringing nature and beauty to more people."

Ukranian architect Sergey Makhno has commented on this experience, saying that the pandemic will encourage a rise in urban farming. Architect Cristina Monteiro said it should "inspire us to rewild cities to better support our children".

Garden latest in string of memorial proposals

Khan's announcement for the memorial garden is the latest in a string of proposals being developed to honour those that have lost their lives during the coronavirus pandemic.

These include the nature-focused proposal by Italian architect Angelo Renna, which imagines 35,000 cypress trees being planted in Milan's San Siro stadium.

Latin American architecture firm Gómez Platero recently unveiled a design for a circular monument named the World Memorial to the Pandemic, which would take the form of a large sculpture installed on water off the coast of Uruguay.

Main photo of the Olympic Park is by Tom Wheatley via Unsplash.

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Architecture studio Sasaki has created an expansive linear park on the site of the runway for the former Longhua Airport in the Xuhui riverfront area of Shanghai.

The 1,830-metre-long park was built on the site of the runway of Longhua Airport, which was Shanghai's only civilian airport until 1949 and closed in 2011.

"Xuhui Runway Park is an innovative urban revitalization project that breathes new life into a unique piece of Shanghai's history," said Dou Zhang, senior associate director of Sasaki's Shanghai office.

"With the recent redevelopment of the Xuhui riverfront area into a mixed-use district, the historic runway is embracing its new life," Zhang told Dezeen.

"Master-planned as a public street and linear park side-by-side, this project serves as a runway of modern life, offering a space of recreation for nearby communities as well as a respite from the high-density redevelopment around."

The runway site has been transformed into a linear park that contains pedestrian walkways and cycle paths alongside a new road, while six rows of deciduous trees run the length of the park.

It has been divided into a series of smaller gardens and planted areas that are connected by concrete pathways.

"The unusual linear and monolithic shape of the existing runway offered us unlimited inspiration," said Zhang.

"To reflect the site's previous history, our design mimics the motion of a runway, creating diverse linear spaces for vehicles, bicycles, and pedestrians by organizing the park and street into one interconnected sequence at a runway scale," she continued.

"While the spaces are linear in form, diverse spatial experiences are created by applying different materials, scales, topography, and programs."

Sasaki wanted to include parts of the historic concrete runway, which had been covered by a temporary pavement following the airport's closure, within the park to reflect the site's history. After revealing the runway, the studio identified several elements that could be incorporated within the park.

The main pedestrian path through the park is formed from a 3.6-metre-wide section of the runway that still has its original direction markings preserved, while demolished pieces were used alongside the pathway.

"The amazing scale and unique character of the extensive concrete pavement often left us puzzled as to how we could both preserve the historic runway and construct a lush urban park," explained Zhang.

"When the design scheme was initiated, it was unclear whether the historic concrete was intact or not under the temporary pavement," she added. "After careful testing, the contractor was able to peel off the top layers of asphalt and concrete, stripping it down to the concrete  runway."

The park was designed to collect runoff rainwater from the surrounding area with a large rain garden created at the north end of the park and a collection basin built under the wetland to the south.

Polluted stormwater from the surrounding developments and streets is stored and cleaned within the park to allow it to be used within its water features and for watering.

"Surface water quality is a big issue of concern in the city of Shanghai," said Zhang.

"The Runway Park project offered us an unpreceded opportunity to use state-of-the-art technology to offset the negative impact from street runoff while designing the park and the street simultaneously."

Now the park, which was shortlisted for landscape project of the year at Dezeen Awards 2020, is complete, Zhang hopes it will become an asset to the emerging neighbourhood.

"The park inherits the site's history while bringing modern comfort and diverse programs to nearby neighbourhoods, students, and office workers," she said.

"It is open to all ages and groups and mostly free of charge. I hope people will feel energized, engaged, relaxed, immersed, and equally respected in the park."

Xuhui Runway Park was shortlisted alongside projects including a cantilevered viewing platform made from weathering steel in Austria and a folded playground in China. Architecture studio Cobe won the award for its undulating public plaza with sheltered parking for bicycles in Copenhagen.

Photography is by Insaw Photography.

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