Lovely leaf

Image: Natura y Arte

Inspired by traditional paper cutting techniques art project Natura y Arte creates pieces like this.

Landschaftspark Duisberg-Nord

Image: Wikipedia (altered)

Today I read in the outdoor life magazine 365 about the Duisberg-Nord landscape park in the german Ruhr area which has been created around an old ironworks. Apparently you can climb a 70 m tall platform and dive in an old gasometer. If you want to. This whole place is a good example of incorporating the old into the new.

Oh, now I realize I've been to this site. On a field trip a long time ago. I thought I recognized that chimney!

Save the date: january 26 Livet i staden 2012

Illustration: Nils-Petter Ekwall. Via Movium

This winter's conference arranged by Movium will go by the name of Livet i staden 2012 (Life in the city 2012). This time the conference will address the idea of the city as an association of people who have gathered in a number of communities and the landscapes surrounding these people.

There will be a number of inspiring lecturers including the following:

Helga Fassbinder, Foundation Biotope City, Amsterdam, Holland

Mattias Litström, Utopia Arkitekter AB, Stockholm

Gregory Trefry, Come Out & Play Festival, New York City, USA

Piet Oudolf, Hummelo, Holland 

The conference will take place at SLU Alnarp, one of the locations of the university educating landscape architects in Sweden.

The magic of labyrinths

Pattern of the labyrinth at Grace Cathedral. Image: Labyrinthos

Some years ago I walked the terrazzo stone labyrinth at Grace Cathedral in San Francisco. The idea of labyrinths always fascinated me and I think their shape and function transform perfectly into the created outdoor environments, with or without the spiritual meaning.

"The labyrinth is an archetype, a divine imprint, found in all religious traditions in various forms around the world. By walking a replica of the Chartres labyrinth, laid in the floor of Chartres Cathedral in France around 1220, we are rediscovering a long-forgotten mystical tradition.

The labyrinth has only one path so there are no tricks to it and no dead ends. The path winds throughout and becomes a mirror for where we are in our lives. It touches our sorrows and releases our joys. Walk it with an open mind and an open heart."

Quote from the Grace Cathedral website.

A walk through the garden

Picked out project: Red Ribbon Park

Photo: Kongjian Yu, Cao Yang

Photo: Kongjian Yu, Cao Yang

Photo: Kongjian Yu, Cao Yang

I so appreciate projects like this where you only need to see one picture to know what it's all about. The award winning Red Ribbon Tanghe River Park in Qinhuangdao City, China is an explicit and very functional answer to questions of preserving natural habitats as well as creating new recreational values in this quickly developing area. The ribbon structure is 500 meters long and combines functions as seating, lighting and orientation. By Turenscape and Peking University Graduate School of Landscape Architecture in Beijing, China.

Save the date: september 5-7 2012 IFLA world congress

Ten months from now the next IFLA world congress called LANDSCAPES IN TRANSITION will take place in Cape Town, South Africa. The subject up for discourse is the social and environmental challenges facing us while moving towards a sustainable future. September is springtime in South Africa!

Read more at the IFLA web site.

Mild weather

Viburnum flowers at the square. In the end of november.

Cherry trees

Images: www.dezeen.com

British designer Tom Price exhibited a lovely cherry grove, created by plastic tubing and cable ties, at the Industry Gallery in Washingtin D.C. last month. Via Dezeen.

Hinken

image: www.nola.se

Hinken (the bucket) by Nola was also shown on the Architecture Fair a few weeks ago. Available in any RAL or NCS color.

Save the date: november 9-21 4th Landscape Architecture Exhibition

Right this moment the Serbian Association of Landscape Architecture is hosting the 4th Landscape Architecture Exhibition at the Gallery of Science and Technology of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts, in Belgrade. Professionals as well as students have been invited to submit plans, designs, studies and publications proposed or realized during the last three years, to be evaluated by a commission and selected for the exhibition.

Tiles with history

As a tribute to genius architect Antoní Gaudí the city of Barcelona has paved the street of Passeig de Gràcia with a paver regenerated from an original hexagonal mosaic tile designed by Gaudí in 1904.

Kotte

image:www.signerat.se

Screen printed on organic cotton by swedish design duo jollygoodfellow, Kotten (the pine cone) is looking good! Availabe at swedish webshop Signerat and international webshop Supermarket.

Super white

images:www.steriks.se

At Lindholmen Science Park in Gothenburg, Sweden there is a very graphic pattern in the main square created with the S:t Eriks product Superplattan in color Super White.

Picked out project: Gary Comer Youth Center Roof Garden

images: www.asla.org

In a not very fancy part of Chicago there is the Gary Comer Youth Centre designed by John Ronan Architects and on top of the building is a garden producing organic fruits and vegetables and providing the center's café with fresh produce.

Places like this make me happy! I think we need to grow our food closer to where we live given the post peak oil times facing us.

Driving by the lakes

The lakes were misty, dark and dreamlike when I drove by the other day.

I want to be a landscape architect

Me too! Via Forum Landskap.

Picked out project: Courtyard in Classensgade

image:http://www.1til1landskab.dk

This tile carpet by 1:1 landskab is great. Rolled out in a courtyard in Copenhagen, Denmark. Via Landezine.

Smedjan preschool

This last weekend I went to Sätila and Smedjan preeschool. In 2008, working for a former employer, I got the very exciting assignment of creating an entirely new outdoor environment for a new built preschool called Smedjan. The building, which is great by the way, with creative indoor spaces and solar panels on the roof, was made by Wahlström & Steijner Architects. As the outdoor area was quite limited I wanted to create many different environments and spaces inspired by the surrounding landscape in concentrated form. I really do hope the children spending their days at this place are happy and inspired, I think it turned out pretty well. I'm not going to put sand next to blue rubber asphalt any time soon again though. I see now that nobody is ever going to come out and sweep of the sand!

Seascape

image:www.abigailedwards.com

Isn't this wallpaper by Abigail Edwards just perfect? The sketchiness and the vivid movement of the water. It's called Seascape.

I see: Urbanized (or I wish I could)

image:urbanizedfilm.com

In september the movie Urbanized had its world premier at Toronto Film Festival. The movie has been produced and directed by Gary Hustwit as part of a triology including Helvetica, discussing graphic design and visual culture, and Objectified about industrial design. Urbanized is now on a screening tour through the US but a few stops in the UK and one in Copenhagen are also on the agenda.

"Who is allowed to shape our cities, and how do they do it? Unlike many other fields of design, cities aren’t created by any one specialist or expert. There are many contributors to urban change, including ordinary citizens who can have a great impact improving the cities in which they live. By exploring a diverse range of urban design projects around the world, Urbanized frames a global discussion on the future of cities. "

The quote above is from the Urbanizedfilm blog, where you can find reviews of the movie, screenings and more. Below is the trailer.

Picked out project: Südlische Lohmühleninsel

image: www.landezine.com

I like this painted contour lines detail from the project Südlische Lohmühleninsel by Rehwaldt Landscape Architects. The park which this project is part of is located along the border between East and West Berlin in Germany. Read more about the project here.

Decapitated mountains

image via: www.ecosphericblog.com

In today's Svenska Dagbladet, a Stockholm based daily newspaper, there is an article on mountaintop removal mining in the Appalachians, West Virginia, US. In short this is a cheaper faster way to extract coal than traditional mining and it involves blowing up mountaintops, buying off house owners in the area to be able to legally dump the waste down the slopes of the mountains and into the valleys, burying water streams and disturbing or destroying wildlife in vast areas.

This seems to be a very undignified way to treat a 480 million years old mountain.

I read: Sing it!

images from the book Sjung den!

Original title: Sjung den!

Author: Sara Hallström

Illustrator: Vanja Larberg

Why I read it: Because the idea of an architect (Vanja Larberg) spending one day per week just painting and making art, and now the illustrations for this book, inspired me a lot.

What I loved about it: That it's a very poetic book for children taking place in an urban setting and how the watercolor illustrations come to live as they swirl over the pages. And the postman's letters!

What I learned: That art in its many forms bring a lot of joy to the ones performing it as well as the ones experiencing it. I want to paint things!

Here you can read a review of this book if you want to. And here is another one. Both in swedish.

Save the date: 11-11-11 invigning Kungsgatan

On the numerologically important day of 11-11-11 (november 11, 2011) the occasion of the year allegedly will take place on and around the street of Kungsgatan in central Gothenburg. For example at 11:11 am 11 couples will get married in nearby church of  Domkyrkan, there will be music, fashion shows, exhibitions and a very long (600 m) cake.

Somewhere in this there will be a reopening of the very central street of Kungsgatan which recently has gone through a total makeover. This is part of a project including the inner city streets and aiming to reinforce the street life and making the city centre more vivid and walkable. The company I work for has been responsible for the detail planning of most of these streets, including Kungsgatan.

I make: Recycled paper flowers

Party party. And for the tables I made some flowers using an old magazine and following these instructions. And this is where I got inspired.

Picked out project: Windstalk

image: atelierdna.com

When swaying like grass in the wind these tall carbon fiber reinforced resin poles cleverly generate electricity. As well as creating a landscape of displaced proportions. The project Windstalk by Atelier DNA entered the Land Art Generator Competition in 2010 and came in second. Via Forum Landskap.

Graphic concrete

images: www.graphicconcrete.com

One of the things showing at the exhibitions of the Architecture Fair last week was samples of concrete surfaces processed in diffferent ways to create patterns and structures, by company Graphic Concrete. Note to self: there are endless possibilities in the wonderful world of concrete!

Oh, by the way, quite some years ago I noticed the metro station Stadshagen in Stockholm, it has some graphic work on concrete made by this guy.